The TV interviews for the RTÉ Guide and TEN began with a visit to the ‘Cougar Town’ set at The Culver Studios yesterday, where Courtney Cox insisted that no more Friends' stars will guest on the show.
Although some distance from Hollywood, Culver City is where the original MGM studios were based and many classic movies were filmed there, including ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Citizen Kane’ and ‘Grease’.
Culver Studios was where ‘Gone With the Wind’ was shot, while in more recent times it has been home to popular TV shows such as ‘Lassie’ and ‘Batman’. Of the current crop, ‘Cougar Town’ is one of its most successful productions.
Getting behind the scenes is part of the fun on press trips, and wandering through the set of ‘Cougar Town’ was no different. It's amazing how unrealistic such sets are to the naked eye - but that's part of the magic of showbiz.
Sitting outside the office of Jules Cobb's real estate business, the cast were brought out in three stages: Ian Gomez and Christa Miller, who play husband and wife Andy and Ellie; Josh Hopkins (Grayson), Brian Van Holt (Bobby) and Busy Philipps (Laurie); and finally, Dan Byrd (Travis) and Courtney Cox (Jules).
For Courtney Cox, tone of the big moments in the second season - starting soon on RTÉ Two - was having pal and fellow former Friends' star Jennifer Aniston guesting on the show, as a therapist. "It was amazing and fun, and everything about it was fantastic," she recalls. "I'm so glad that it happened." And as for Aniston playing a therapist? "We wanted something that was kooky and fun and just right for us," she says.
Fans may recall that another Friends' cast member, Lisa Kudrow, appeared in season one, but Cox feels that there will be no more Central Perk heads appearing on Cougar Town. "They're all too busy," she insists.
After the Cougar Town interviews were completed, the next destination was CBS Studio Center in Studio City, where a new comedy called ‘Melissa & Joey’ is being shot.
Starring Melissa Joan Hart - best known for playing ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ - as a local politician who employs a bankrupt businessman to help look after her sister's two teenagers.
Hart, who looks exactly the same as she did in Sabrina, is now a 36-year-old mother of two, and is delighted to be back in a hit show once more, eight years after Sabrina ended.
"The thing about this business," she admits," is that's it's very easy to fall down the ladder. The really difficult thing is to get back up the ladder. I feel very lucky to be in this show."
Full interviews with the casts of both ‘Cougar Town’ and ‘Melissa & Joey’ will appear in future editions of the RTÉ Guide and here at TEN.
Tomorrow's cast interviews include the hugely popular ‘Criminal Minds’ and the new drama, ‘No Ordinary Family’, which stars Michael Chiklis (‘The Shield’) and Julie Benz (‘Dexter’) as parents of a family that gains superpowers after their plane crashes in the Brazilian jungle.
John Byrne
