Rachael Harris – Notes From The Underbelly

Q.  What are some of the recent projects that you’ve been working on?

A.  “Notes from the Underbelly” is on ABC and it’s written by Stacy Traub; who is one of the executive producers along with Barry Sonnenfeld and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum.  I think you probably know that Eric and Kim are also the executive producers for the show “Two and a Half Men.”  The show is great, I like it for really narcissistic, personal reasons.  I love the character that I’m playing on the show completely because shes’ really fun.  The show revolves around a couple, played by Jennifer Westfeldt and Peter Cambor, who start off in the pilot being a little ambivalent.  They are not sure if they want to have a baby or not and Jennifer’s character ends up getting pregnant.  It’s kind of how it effects their friendship and relationships around them.  I play Cooper, one of Jennifer’s best friends, and she is very aggressively single.  She’s also very promiscuous and certainly not interested in children or marriage.  So, she’s someone that Jennifer Westfeldt’s character has done a lot of single girl things with.  Even when she was married she could still go out with her girlfriends and have drinks and things like that.  But, it’s like once the baby comes into the mix, she can’t go out and drink the same way she used to just for fun.  She certainly can’t go out and dance and the clothes she is starting to buy are changing.  They are being very candid about how you take the good with the bad when you have a pregnancy.  They’re not trying to be black and white with it, what I like about the show is that it talks about the mixed feelings that you have when you go into having a child.  It’s a very realistic view, I think from my point of view, I don’t have children but having friends who have gone through it, the difficulty in it as well as the joy in it.  It’s not just black and white division and all of sudden you’re like, “We’re having a baby, this is great!”  It’s more like, “Wow, we’re having a baby and woah things are changing.”

Q.  This sounds like the show is very real and true to those who experience those situations and people of all demographics can relate.

A.  I think it will appeal to singles, I think it will appeal to couples that are married that are really struggling.  Because, they really go through these things that are very hard when you first have a baby or you are first pregnant.  We have a couple who just had a baby, and a couple who is about to have a baby and then there is Michael Weaver and I who are single and how we’re dealing with our lives.  So, there is an A story and a B story and I think it’s very good and I think aesthetically to watch it, Barry Sonnenfeld has such a different cinematic view.  He didn’t want it to look like a typical single camera comedy.  He wanted it to feel more like a film and so he shot it and it’s really interesting.  The camera, the way the shots are set up, is very funny.  It’s not even that we’re necessarily doing anything that funny, it’s just that the camera is another character in the show; which I really love. 

Q.  Seems like there is a lot of balance with the show, a lot of people think shows should revolve around two central characters because a lot of trouble lies in a big ensemble cast.

A.  From what I think I believe it’s a great balance because we’re all connected.  It’s not like all of our stories are interwoven so it’s not like I’m dealing with a plumber while Lauren’s dealing with being nauseous.  We all come together and are effected by one main issue, so it doesn’t feel like we’re weaving in all of these different stories.  Everybody is connected, so it’s not like people that don’t know each other are having a B story to the main characters.  I do feel like it does feel more like an ensemble, we’re in every episode, it’s not like I’m only in eight of the thirteen episodes.  Melanie Paxton, myself, Michael Weaver, Peter and Jennifer are in every single episode.  It does have an ensemble feel but Jennifer and Peter in my opinion would be the two leads of the show.

Q.  Do you have a really memorable moment from filming the show?

A.  I think my favorite episode is the one where Melanie Paxton is having a baby.  My character gets roped into visiting her at the hospital and I really don’t want to.  Her husband is out of town and they can’t find any friends to come with her.  I just really don’t enjoy being there and I’m hideous at trying to help her; my bedside manner is terrible! 

Q.  What about the role of Cooper has been challenging for you?

A.  The part that is hard is that she’s really going to do the least she has to do to get by.  She really loves her friends but she’s really not interested in all the baby stuff.  She just is unbelievably dry, for me, the challenge was to not let her get too one note.  Just keep my reactions interesting; that was challenging for me.  That was what I was most afraid of, just being too stereotypically the dry one.  But, it plays well the neurosis of Jennifer and Peter’s characters, I think that was the challenge for me.

Q.  Has comedic timing something that’s always come naturally to you or is it something you continue to work at?

A.  I think without sounding really arrogant or conceded, I do think it’s sometimes that is naturally inherent.  I started off in The Groundlings, that was the place that my confidence came up.  Going through the school and being in the main company; that made me feel good.  I think especially with scripts, comedy is harder then drama, in the fact that you do have to have the right timing down.  It’s like music in my opinion, someone has to come up with the right delivery as a line and you have to punch and hit it at the right speed and appropriate pause.  I think it’s a nice combination of both, I think you have to have it innately and then also I think you really have to work at it too when you’re working on a script.  You have to read the script and get a feel for what’s happening and what the stakes are in the scene and that has to match it appropriately.

Q.  What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

A.  I have two dogs and I love my pups.  In my spare time I really enjoy having friends over for dinner and just hanging out with friends and having a good meal.  Laughing about whatever is going on, and I love movies, but I haven’t had time lately to see anything.  My husband and I love to go to the Hollywood Bowl and I have a lot of friends who just had babies.  We really like to go over and watch “Americas Next Top Model” or “The Amazing Race.”  We do watch “The Daily Show” a lot as well. 

Q.  Do you have a latest obsession?  Are you into any particular book, sport, music group or activity?

A.  We just did twelve weeks straight on the show, and then I did another Quaker Rice Snacks commercial this past weekend.  So, really the main thing I want to do right now is just relax and the thing that I’m passionate about right now is we’re doing a big landscaping remodel of our house.  We’re redoing the back and that’s been requiring a lot of time to go over all the plants.  I love the fact that we’re getting to look at all the different plants and flowers and trees that will be a little bit more indigenous to California.  So, we won’t have to continue to water them like crazy so we’re not wasting a lot of water.  But, we’re having a really great time doing that remodel and that’s really fun.  That’s been requiring a lot of time.

Q.  What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A.  That’s a lovely question!  Just, I’m grateful that you would even ask what I would like to say to all of my fans and supporters.  That’s lovely to have that at all, I’m so grateful to have people that appreciate and enjoy what I do.  That’s the whole point, to make people laugh, there is nothing more satisfying then hearing a really good belly laugh.  Somebody laughing at something that you did, I’m just humbled and grateful for the people that like to see what I do and support it.  I think that would be it!