There's the fact that in the premiere of the Fox comedy about the twisted travails of the hard-luck Chance family, she planted a big wet one on her great-grandson, mistaking him for her dead husband.
And then there's the issue that her character, the marbles-missing Maw Maw, has a tendency to totter around topless. On last week's episode, the leopard-print-loving matriarch attempted to breast-feed her great-great-granddaughter; 7.1 million viewers got a gander.
Maw Maw "comes in and does exactly the opposite of what's expected," says Leachman, 84 and a great-grandmother herself. "She marches to her own drummer."
The same, of course, could be said for comedy legend Leachman, who has been making 'em laugh since well before Hope creator Greg Garcia was born.
Compared with Maw Maw, "Cloris is a more contained crazy," says Garcia, the man behind the similarly irreverent Yes, Dear and My Name Is Earl. "She's very aware of what she's doing at all times." For example, when the script calls for her to remove her shirt for the cameras: If anything, "it's hard to get her to put it back on," Garcia jokes. "She knows comedy, so if something's funny, she doesn't question it. She goes for it."
Raising Hope's premise — Maw Maw's great-great-granddaughter, Hope, happens upon the household by means of her great-grandson's one-night stand with a murderer — is "hysterical," Leachman says. "It's just the most wonderful opportunity: fresh, funny, beautifully cast."
And among the cast, Leachman is "just out of her mind enough to be willing to try anything," says co-star Martha Plimpton (Maw Maw's granddaughter Virginia), who has been a fan since Leachman's Mary Tyler Moore days. "We're insanely lucky to have her."
Garcia dismisses the idea that Leachman's latest success, along with that of her MTM (and You Again) castmate Betty White, is a notable moment for octogenarian actors. "They've both been doing really good stuff," says Garcia, from White's guest spots on Yes, Dear and Earl to Leachman's Emmy-winning work on Malcolm in the Middle. "It's not like either of them went away."
Likewise, don't expect Maw Maw to be going away on Hope. As the episodes tick along, "we do see a little more of her in a lot of ways," Garcia says, in terms of screen time — and skin time.
Entertainment Plaza - TV, Movies, Sports, Music
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99
Babe Of The Month
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonth.html
Hunk Of The Month
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonthman.html
No comments:
Post a Comment