Dan Bucatinsky and Tim Meadows – Marry Me

By starrymag | December 3, 2014

Q) Was there anything you guys added to your roles as Kevins that wasn’t originally scripted for you?

Dan: Good question.

Tim: Yes.

Dan: It’s a very collaborative and playful environment to work on the shows — and the scripts are so tight — but there’s always room for us to sort of throw in a riff and we adlib a lot. So I think over the episodes we’ve done a couple of things either from our life, or just funny details have worked their way in. I’m wondering if any actual…

Tim: Like character stuff?

Dan: Character, you know, biographical stuff has worked its way in.

Tim: No, I don’t – well, no. Nothing that we improvised from. I mean there’s been talk about figuring out what we do for a living. But that – because we were so wealthy. But we don’t have any explanation for how wealthy we are.

Dan: Together we own a stationary store. But who knows if we – that may be many – a chain of them is what’s in my mind. We’ve also all talked a lot about how given our ages, we probably met in high school and had Casey early on — which in the 80s I think there was a line of dialog about how hard it was in the 80s to be two guys raising a daughter on our own. So I think we’ve made references to the fact that we were probably among the pioneers of two guys in the 80s raising a kid.

Tim: Raising a kid.

Q) Well, you both are a part of social media. Are you enjoying that instant fan feedback you receive when the episodes premiere?

Dan: Yes, it’s been really fun. I mean because it’s both coasts. So it’s kind of fun to talk to people on the East Coast and then talk to people on the West Coast later. I don’t know. I mean I’ve never done this before where it’s like Tweeting while you’re watching your own show.

Tim: I was new to it until Scandal. And Scandal of course was a huge social media experience and responsibility. It was fun, but we really cast-wise live Tweets on both coasts became sort of standard. And it became a way of really interacting with an audience that honestly when I was growing up, if you even sent a letter to one of your stars and asked for a picture back you’d wait six months and maybe you’d get it. And now you’re watching the show live with your favorite actors and getting to talk to them directly — which I think is an amazing – it’s an amazing reason for people to watch and keep appointment television.

Q) It took Jake a while to figure out that they have the same emotions just like him. And he figured out why one of the Kevins was afraid to commit to a marriage. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of seeing the characters as real people?

Dan: Well, I don’t know. I guess I approach it – any kind of acting job is sort of like trying to find out – or what’s real with that person no matter how crazy the storyline is. And I thought it was really cool that they wrote that scene that way where my character wasn’t even aware that he was afraid of being – afraid of making a commitment, or having to sign and become married and make it all legal. I think he was he just liked everything the way it was, and didn’t want to ruin it.And that’s like a real thing that people go through. I remember – sure, I was married. I know I had second thoughts about it before I did it, and then after I did it.

Tim: Well, I think it’s always a balance. It’s always a fine line between, especially in a comedy where the responsibility is really to deliver funny in a constant way. It’s been kind of fun to see how — the writers are amazing on the show — but also the impulse to create these opportunities — just the notion of an opportunity for their future son-in-law to get to know the two dads better — and then that becomes a way into finding out a fear that one of them has, and then another fear that the other one has. And that’s the way life is. It’s like one opportunity to talk to someone that’s going to become family with you opens up a door, and we realize how similar we all are to each other — which I think is ultimately what makes people want to relate to characters on a show — so I think that balance of the funny and the outrageous, and the primary colors and all, and rooting it all in sort of real people. I also think they’re wanting to – things we were trying to do with the last episode was to connect these characters together. Because as soon as we did the pilot I think the actors, we were all getting – have gotten to know each other a little bit better, and we’ve all got – our timing with each other is a little bit better. And so I think part of the thing they were trying to do with that script was having us connect with each other as it would be in real life.

Q) Did you guys spend some time filming in Chicago? Were you shot in Chicago or in other places?

Tim: No. Everything we’ve done has been here in L.A. I would hope that if we do continue to do this show we would be able to do some exterior things in Chicago. That would be great.

Dan: I’ve only been once in my life, so I would love to go. But no, it’s all here.

Q) And with the last episode, you’re seeing some differences with the characters. I know they seem very similar to each other — the two Kevins. It’s not like an opposites attract kind of thing. They seem kind of similar. Is that’s what’s going on in the future? Are you guys going to see the differences between them and how they’re different?

Tim: Yes. Well, like, for the pilot one of the things that we – I was told was that – David Caspe said that the characters are like twins basically. And when they met – they found that, like, they were very happy that they found each other because they’re exactly alike. And then as we started doing these episodes, Dan and I both – I think our personalities have definitely affected the way they write the characters. Dan’s character is much more emotionally similar I would say, right?

Dan: To me.

Tim: To Casey, and to you. And I think the writers kind of start playing on that more.

Dan: Yes, I think that as time went on we – I think you’re right. And I think at the beginning we were much more kind of interchangeable in terms of, like insert gay dad here, in a way. But I think that now we really are emerging as two very different characters. Even in the last episode, just the notion of Kevin — him — longing for his motorcycle days, and my Kevin being more the worrier, more of the anxious, nervous. And for lack of a better phrase, I think you’re going to see us emerge more a real maternal side to the Kevin, too — my character — which is kind of true of me in life, too. But I do think that we’re starting to find our differences. And it’s been really fun to play those differences as well as the similarities.

Q) Dan, I just read an article. It was actually a transcript of a speech you gave in September about coming out, and about when you used to be a gay actor playing a straight actor playing straight characters. And I was wondering, when you talk about the differences between the two Kevins and how you’re sort of emerging as different, is that have anything to do with one of you being a straight person playing a gay person, and one of you being a gay person playing a gay person?

Dan: That’s a really good question. Part of what I was talking about in that speech was how if you really – I think as you become a better and better actor — I’m not just talking about – I’m just talking in general, I’m not talking about myself necessarily — but I certainly feel like the more authentic and the more honest I was with the kind of person I am in life, in my roles, the better I was as an actor. So I feel like at a certain point, regardless of who you are — and of course I feel like certainly straight actors can play gay roles, and gay actors can play straight roles, and we have for years, and years, and years — but there is something about the essence of who you are that you cannot possibly extricate from the roles you’re playing. So in a kind of delightful way, I think Tim’s straightness maybe has worked its way into the kind of gay character that he is, and my gayness has worked into the gay character that I’m playing. And I don’t know, it kind of compliments, I think, each other. And I found that – we’ve never met even before doing the show, and I feel like we instantly fell into a kind of chemistry that is one of those things that you can’t really predict or count on, but it just happens. And I can’t say for sure that that has anything to do with our true sexualities, but I don’t think you can really extricate any of those things from who you are. Just like I’m a white Jewish guy from New York, and Tim is black and from Detroit — like, these are all parts of who we are, and they all work into playing sort of funny, authentic characters. So I don’t know if that answers it, but I do think the more authentic you are as a person, and you bring that to your role, the better it winds up playing.

Tim: I agree. That’s a good question, and it’s hard for me to answer. I’ll do my best. I sort of just – I don’t really – I don’t know. When I took this part, I mean I never even thought of – I didn’t think about this guy, he’s a gay character and he is this lifestyle, and it’s different from what I do or live my life. But the things that I thought was, like, well, what things do I have in common with this guy? And I thought, well, I’m a father, I have kids, I know what that’s like. I know what it’s like to be in love with somebody, I know what it’s like to live with somebody, and I know what it’s like to really share your life with somebody. And so I figured if I use those things as, like, the – as sort of a ground, foundation for who my character is, then it wouldn’t matter if he was gay or straight or black or white or whatever. I would just be playing a relationship basically by a relationship with two people who are – two people who are in love, and so much in love that they have, like, gone through a lot of obvious problems in their lives, because they were gay at a young age, and they adopted a kid at a young age. So I kind of sort of just take stuff from my own life, and just try to make it, adapt it to who this character is.

Dan: But I think as funny as this show is, like, it’s kind of ground breaking. This is the first time there’s been a show, A, where three of the seven main characters are gay, B, where two of them are a married couple with a grown child, and it’s an interracial couple, and it treats it like – as well it should in 2015 — just two people who share their lives with each other. And we’re not playing our attraction for the male form every week. We’re playing being parents, and being funny, and Thanksgiving, and engagements, and weddings, and marriage. And I think you’ll see in tomorrow’s episode — which is a bride war situation — aspects of our relationship, and the upcoming engagement that are sort of unique to a gay couple, and ones that are absolutely relatable to anybody who has a kid getting married.

Q) How does it feel to work with two of the funniest stars on network TV — Casey Wilson from Happy Endings, and Ken Marino?

Dan: It’s great. I mean, listen, I’m a huge fan of David Caspe and his writing, but I’m also a huge fan of Casey Wilson and her unique, creative, comedic improvisational – like, she is one of the great, unique comedies – comediennes — female comedians — and I love working with her. I love watching her work. Ken Marino and I were in acting class together 20 years ago, and it’s been so lovely to — A, to become friends with him again — but to watch his brain working all the time. Casey is a screenwriter and a writer, and Tim’s a writer and an actor, and I’m a writer and an actor, and Ken is too, and I learn so much watching the two of them constantly trying to up their game. And I feel like you’re only as good as your co-stars, and they always make us better. So I love working with people who are that good.

Tim: Yes. I agree. I agree totally. And one of the things that I love about working on this show is that I’ve been in jobs in the past where I was the hardest working person on the set. And on this show, I’m probably the least hardest working person on the set. Like everybody works really hard here. It’s one things I really admire about Ken and Casey is that they both have – they carry a lot of the work on this show. They have a lot of scenes and it’s a lot of dialog, and they both do extremely well. And I agree with Dan too, is like I enjoy watching them work because it’s a different, it’s just fun to watch. Because I’ve seen the product before. Like, I’ve seen Ken’s show. I actually did a show with Ken called Leap of Faith years ago, and I did – and I’ve done improv with Casey at Upright Citizens Brigade. And so I’ve got to work with them both, but I’ve never got to work with them like this where you see the whole machinery.

Dan: And we all help each other too. Like, everybody being comedic writers — at least in our brains — and some of us are actually writers, if you come up with a line – it’s like in this show everybody believes that funny wins regardless of who has the line. So I’ll pitch a funny line to Ken, Ken will pitch a funny line to me, I’ll pitch a line to Kevin – to Tim all the time, and vice versa. It really feels like a group of people that we all – we’ve become good friends, but good collaborators.

Tim: And even today, like, we were working and Dan gave me a very funny line that we were trying to think of something, and he gave me a line. And at one point earlier I gave Ken and Casey a joke. And like most of the time you work with people it’s like they come up with jokes for themselves. They’re not going to give you any comedy. But in this show it’s like people are generous, and like you said, funny is the number one thing — whatever is the funniest.

 

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*