ift.tt/1wJemn1 In the show-within-the-show. A BuzzFeed News exclusive! Seth Rogen and Lisa Kudrow on the set of The Comeback. Colleen Hayes / HBO In the first season of HBOs The Comeback, the daily duties of life, such as remembering colleagues names and avoiding humiliation, were difficult for Lisa Kudrows Valerie Cherish. A sitcom actress of intermediate fame, Valerie was cast in Room and Bored, a hacky network comedy, and was simultaneously followed by cameras for a reality show about her comeback. Both situations were fraught with peril. But beyond Valeries own self-sabotage, she also had a terrible antagonist in Paulie G. (Lance Barber), the co-creator of Room and Bored, who irrationally loathed her. The rebooted Comeback finds Valerie nine years later, desperate, again, to be back in the public eye. Without giving away the steps that lead her there, she soon lands a high-profile role: playing herself — or, rather, playing Mallory Church — in Seeing Red, an HBO dramedy written by Paulie G. about his time as a heroin-addicted comedy writer (and the additional torments dealt to him, as he sees it, by a difficult aging actress). If The Comeback in 2005 was layered with references to the entertainment business, its resurrected version (premiering on HBO on Nov. 9) has become a Russian nesting doll of them. So in order to reflect the increasingly porous barrier between film and (quality) television, The Comebacks show-within-the-show will feature Seth Rogen — stay with me for this — playing himself playing Mitch, the fictional Paulie G. (as well as Barber as the real Paulie G.). Rogen will appear in two of the shows eight episodes. Michael Patrick King, who co-created The Comeback with Kudrow, told BuzzFeed News they knew they needed a movie star to be the lead of Seeing Red, both to represent HBOs reality, and to explain why Valerie would do something as self-destructive as reuniting with Paulie G. — a higher echelon of star to play opposite Valerie, as part of her own heroin as to why she does the show, King said in a telephone interview. That was the trickiest thing, because we always knew we didnt want to create a Dash Riprock, or some, like, fake star, and hire an unknown, King said. We didnt even want to hire a star to play a fictional star. We wanted a star to play a star. That was really important — the same way we want Lisa Vanderpump to play Lisa Vanderpump. (Yes, that happens too. Along with other cameos.) Michael Patrick King, Lance Barber and Kudrow. Colleen Hayes / HBO In the original Comeback, Barbers Paulie G. is physically imposing and angry-eyed, but represents a certain type of successful comedy slob who also has a measure of charm. Describing their casting thought process, King said: The Holy Grail would be to get Seth Rogen. Hes the right everything. Hes, first of all, ungettable. Hes genuinely a superstar of movies. And hes a perfect translation, type-wise. And the other big trick is, Seth himself feels so real; it would feel real within a fictional situation, which is what we try to do with everybody we cast on The Comeback. He continued: All roads led to Seth. But we didnt know what those roads were going to be. Through a combination of connections — Kudrow had been in Rogens Neighbors, and Rogens manager had represented King during his acting years — The Comeback was able to get him. The key, though, was that, according to King, Rogen liked the first show, so he got a kick out of playing Paulie G. Yet Rogen is a busy person. Did he just happen to be free during The Comebacks sped-up production early in the summer? No, no, no, no, no, no! said King. No. No. No. He dissolved in laughter. We prayed and worked and scheduled and shifted and looked for openings, King said. And then finally got a moment when he could come and do this. He signed on without seeing the script. Even sober, Paulie G. represents someone who, King says, is not safe for Valerie. And Rogen plays him in Seeing Red in all his disgusting glory. As for the fictional version of the real Rogen who is, King says, lovely, you will have to watch The Comeback. The physical resemblance is real enough. King described the first time Rogen saw Barber on the set. Lance came walking by, and they had never met, King said. Seth looks at me, and looks at Lance as Paulie, and goes, I get it. I see it. View Entire List ›
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 20:39:39 +0000
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