Emmy-award winner Greg Garcia’s (“My Name Is Earl”) latest comedy, “Raising Hope” (Tuesdays, 9pm on FOX) has been picked up for a full season on FOX.
RAISING HOPE is a new single-camera family comedy from Emmy Award winner Greg Garcia (“My Name Is Earl”) that follows the Chance family as they find themselves adding an unexpected new member into their already terribly flawed household.
At 23 years old, JIMMY CHANCE (Lucas Neff, “The Beast”) is going nowhere in life. He skims pools for a living, parties every night and still lives at home with his family, including his MAW MAW (guest star Academy Award and Emmy Award winner Cloris Leachman); his mother, VIRGINIA (Martha Plimpton, “How to Make It in America”); his father, BURT (Garret Dillahunt, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” “Damages”); and his cousin, MIKE (Skyler Stone, “The Mentalist,” “Dollhouse”).
Jimmy’s life takes a drastic turn when a chance romantic encounter with LUCY (guest star Bijou Phillips, “Choke,” “Almost Famous”) goes awry once he discovers she is a wanted felon. Months later, when Jimmy pays a visit to the local prison, he discovers Lucy gave birth to their baby, who he is now charged with raising.
At home with his new daughter, Jimmy’s family is less than enthusiastic about a new addition to the household. His parents, who had him when they were 15, never knew anything about raising a child and have no interest in trying again. If Jimmy can work up the nerve to ask her out on a date, he might get some help from SABRINA (Shannon Woodward, “The Riches,” “ER”), a sardonic checkout clerk he met at the supermarket. Cousin Mike is only concerned about how the baby is going to affect their social life, and out-of-touch Maw Maw is no help either. But Jimmy is determined to take care of his baby – whom Virginia thinks they should name HOPE.
With very few useful skills but their hearts in the right place, will the Chance family be successful when they step into the unpredictable and immensely challenging world of parenting?
RAISING HOPE is produced by Amigos de Garcia Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television. The pilot was written by Greg Garcia and directed by Michael Fresco (“Better Off Ted,” “The Deep End”). Garcia serves as executive producer on the series.
Prior to the one-hour Halloween special, I caught up with Executive Producer/Writer Greg Garcia and Martha Plimpton.
JIMMY IS BATMAN TO SABRINA’S ROBIN AND THE CHANCES RECEIVE ANOTHER SPECIAL DELIVERY ON AN ALL-NEW “RAISING HOPE”
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, ON FOX
When Sabrina’s boyfriend can’t make it to the deli guy’s Halloween party, Jimmy offers to put on his costume and go in his place. Virginia takes Maw Maw, who is dressed as a cat, trick-or-treating while Burt plots ways to play tricks on Jimmy. Meanwhile, when a box containing videos of Hope’s mother arrives from prison, Jimmy must decide whether or not to let Hope see them. Virginia explains that children need to be protected from the truth, leading Jimmy to question what exactly his parents have been keeping from him in the all-new, one-hour “Happy Halloween/Family Secrets” episode of RAISING HOPE airing Tuesday, Oct. 26 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Premier Guide Miami: From the theatre/stage to television, why have you decided to do television? Do you find it more rewarding than the theatre?
M. Plimpton: No, they’re so completely different. One can’t be more rewarding than the other because it’s just totally different worlds. But I think the reason why I like doing television and theatre is because it’s where the fun work is for an actor like me. In the theatre and on television I can play a variety of characters that are available to a character actress. Certainly, the lifestyles and the schedules and the pay grades are completely different in both areas. They both have their rewards and they both have their difficulties, but for me it feels like a natural progression. I’m an actor first. I’ll go where I think I’m going to have fun regardless of the medium.
Premier Guide Miami: What do you find most exciting about Raising Hope?
M. Plimpton: Well, the thing I’m enjoying the most is working with these really awesome actors on this really funny, smart material. That’s the most exciting part for me that we have an opportunity to work together, people who obviously, clearly like each other. We have really good chemistry together as a company of actors. Then, we get this awesome material that’s hilarious. When we get together every week to read through it we just crack up. It’s not just that it’s funny. It feels very well rooted in who these people are. They feel like people, actual people. That’s really great.
Premier Guide Miami: Greg, some of your previous works are family themed. Was it by chance or was it strategic?
G. Garcia: Of the shows I’ve created, one was a domestic comedy and then this one. Yes, I’ve worked on certain different family sitcoms. I don’t think it’s strategic at all as much as I think there’s a lot of stories to be told with a domestic comedy. I think when you’re creating a series you don’t have to really invent a lot of reasons for people to root for certain things emotionally when you’re watching. Everybody has a family. Everybody at the end of the day wants the family to get along. I think if you have an office placed comedy it’s a little harder to get people to become emotionally invested in the characters and what exactly you’re rooting for and so you develop a love relationship or something like that to do that. I think there’s just a certain amount of warmth in a domestic comedy that’s a little easier to achieve. I enjoy writing that stuff.
_Daedrian McNaughton
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Now, in the upcoming Halloween episode it says that Jimmy must decide whether to let Hope see those videos from her mom, or not. Virginia explains that children need to be protected from the truth. Martha, how do you feel about that in real life?
M. Plimpton: Well, the truth in the case of the Chance family is kind of extreme. The extreme reality is that her mother was executed in the electric chair. Virginia’s not sure that that’s something you want to just come right out with. So she’s sort of doing her best to figure out what it is—
We want our kids to look at us in a certain way, in a way, I think, maybe. Greg would be able to answer this better than I can because he’s, obviously, he’s the writer but he also has kids and I don’t. But we want to be able to have our kids depend on us, lean on us or at least listen to us when we try to tell them what to do and it’s maybe a little risky to lose credibility that early on in their lives. Virginia’s got her own secrets that she wants to keep from Jimmy. So she might be doing a little bit of projecting there as well.
Greg, since you’re a writer on the show, how much of your own life experiences do you try to work into the episodes?
G. Garcia: I think everything kind of bleeds in. There hasn’t been any like direct, like this happened to me so we’re going to do this kind of thing but I have three kids and so I’ve been through different things with them as they were growing up and were babies. So you use your experiences as you write. As always, people you meet, people you see, everything kind of bleeds in but there hasn’t been anything completely, directly from my life that we’ve used yet but I think everything is influenced.
Can you give us a hint what guest stars we might see in future episodes?
G. Garcia: We’re keeping a lot of stories to our main people because it’s a show about raising a baby and because of that we stick around the house a lot. We do have Jason Lee in an episode we’re shooting next week in a fun role. There’s a character of a cousin of Martha’s character that she’s going to butt heads with. Unfortunately the deal is not completely finished so I can’t say who it is, but I’m very excited about who it’s going to be. It’s somebody I’ve worked with before and I’m a huge fan of. Hopefully that gets done today or Monday and then we can announce who that’s going to be.
Your character’s kind of enjoyed by any of us who have had to kind of make-up parenting as we go along instead of spending a lot of time obsessing on books and so forth. Tell us, what do you recall from your own mother as far as being raised? We’re you raised by a strict by-the-book thing or were you raised closer to the way we see here?
M. Plimpton: My mom just basically popped me out and let me figure it out on my own. No, my mom was a young mom, just like Virginia, not quite as young as Virginia, but young. It was the ‘70s, it was 1970 and she was a hippy. She was a single mom and she definitely had to make stuff up as she went along. That was the only way to go. They didn’t have mommy blogs back then. She definitely was an improviser, no question about it.
You seem to have turned out well from it all and one of the interesting thing is you seem to have a real work ethic, which some people are always afraid, “Oh, if we don’t raise our kids real strict they won’t have a work ethic.” How do you think your childhood shaped you into who you are?
M. Plimpton: Well, it didn’t hurt that I was around theatres and actors from basically the time— I mean when I was gestating, my mom was on stage with me in her belly so I had that around me constantly from the time I was brand new to today. I guess I just watched other people do it and figured out how to do it and how not to. I don’t know that I have the greatest work ethic in the world. I’m not a huge fan of waking up really early in the morning, it’s not my favorite thing in the world to do, but the fact that my job is so fun definitely makes it easier.
I know we’ve seen you a lot as guest stars on TV shows but we’re you looking to become a series regular? How did this come about for you?
M. Plimpton: Well, it happened sort of organically in the way it usually happens I think for people. I hadn’t been looking particularly for a series regular gig but I also wasn’t not looking for one. I was shooting a movie in Toronto. I got a call that there was this pilot script that would be coming towards me and I should give it a read. They said it was from Greg Garcia and I knew about him for a long time and was a big fan so I thought, “Great.”
Then when I read it I just loved it. It was hilarious. It actually made me laugh and I thought, “Well, this never happens, ever, so I better get on this.” The character just seemed, I don’t want to sound too mystical, but the character just seemed perfect. I just identified with her right away. I loved her sense of humor and I love the way she was written. I talked to Greg on the phone. He gave me the rundown on what the plan was. I flew out to L.A. to audition and went through the whole process like every other actor would do and luckily it worked out.
How are you liking being on a regular series? Does it feel different as someone who you’ve gotten to do a lot of different things and now you’re probably just focused on this for the short term anyways? How are you liking that experience?
M. Plimpton: I’m actually really liking it. I’m liking it particularly because the writing is so good. Every week the scripts just seem to get tighter and funnier. I’m really liking being able to see this character, all of the characters actually, develop and become more themselves. That’s really cool. I’m really enjoying that. I like the ensemble. I like working with an ensemble of actors and learning each others rhythms and figuring each other out and that’s really exciting for me.
You’re not someone who I think of necessarily as a comic actress. I think of you, I guess, the more dramatically sometimes but were you someone who was always funny growing up, because you’re so funny in this. I don’t know if
I always thought of you as being so funny, but you’re hilarious so I just didn’t know it that’s something that’s always been part of you or is this, for you, does it seem different to be playing a role that is this funny?
M. Plimpton: Well, I don’t know.
G. Garcia: She’s funny. She’s funny. She’s a very funny person. Whatever she’s—whatever in the past—she’s hysterical.
M. Plimpton: Thanks, Greg.
G. Garcia: Well, you’re funny.
M. Plimpton: I’ll tell you, what is really nice is to have somebody who knows funny tell you that you’re funny. That’s really great. That’s really awesome.
Greg, I wanted to know—the baby mishaps, where are those ideas coming from? They just get funnier and funnier. Are you pulling them from the stories you’re getting from the writers or the actors? Can you talk about that a little bit?
G. Garcia: Yes, we just sit around and pitch the stories. The writers, basically, are just coming up with this stuff and nothing really from real life yet, just trying to think of some absurd situations we can get the baby in. I guess those things stick out to people because I can’t think of— I know in the pilot we flipped the baby in the car seat, which came from an idea I had. I wanted to put that in the show a long time ago because I think one time—more than one time I think—I’ve probably put the car seat in the car and then driven somewhere and realized that it wasn’t strapped in and thought, “Well, this could have been awful,” or it could have been hilarious if it just flipped one time and the baby was fine. Then stuff like getting the baby stuck in the garage with the clutter and all that stuff that just came from an idea that Martha was a hoarder and then we just went from there. We’ve just been trying to find some fun situations for the baby.
Martha, you we’re talking about your character a little bit, are you seeing more of you coming through the character when you’re getting the scripts?
M. Plimpton: Geez, I want to pretend that the answer to that question is, “No.” I want to pretend that that’s the case, but I also know that Greg and the team of writers seem to be particularly good at working on our strengths.
My first question, Martha, is for you. One of the things I love about as the episodes go on is seeing the individual quirks and neurosis come out about the characters. I’m wondering what some of your favorite discovery is about Virginia has been so far.
M. Plimpton: Well, so far, I think one of the things I take the most pleasure in is Virginia’s sort of soft and chewy core. She’s kind of tough. She kind of says what’s on her mind. She kind of doesn’t take any crap, but at the same time she’s got a really gooey, chewy, soft center. She’s kind of a sucker for love. Playing around with that has been really, really fun as well as—I’ll only hint at the sort of things that you guys haven’t seen yet but that you will—her sort of Lucy-esque desire to be in the spotlight. Her aspirations are very cool and exciting to me. The fact that she has aspirations is great. I feel like we’re going to be seeing more of that as the season progresses.
For both of you, how did it feel to have Halloween be the first Chance holiday you guys got to shoot for the family? Is there anymore that we can look forward to as the season goes on, maybe Thanksgiving, maybe Christmas?
G. Garcia: I’m sorry, can you repeat that for a second?
I was wondering how it felt have Halloween your first major holiday to tackle as the Chance family?
G. Garcia: Well, it was fun. I think that it was fun because we had a good story. Any episode is going to be more fun when you feel that the story is good. We felt like it wasn’t just people dressing up but it was a nice story that actually uncovered some stuff between Lucas’ character and Garret’s character. Whenever you do a domestic sitcom the holidays are usually provide for good episodes. We just shot a Thanksgiving one in which the serial killers parents come for Thanksgiving and we’re shooting our Christmas one this week. Hopefully everybody likes our holiday stuff.
Tell me what it’s like working with somebody who’s brand new in the business compared to working with Cloris who’s been around forever.
M. Plimpton: I’ll start by talking about Lucas. It’s actually really fun watching somebody who hasn’t experienced this stuff before and let’s be honest, none of us really has. I certainly have never been a regular on a TV series so it’s new to me, too. Of course, we’re all new to the show so we’re all in it together, sort of figuring it all out as we go along as well, in life and on the show, which is a fortunate parallel.
It’s great because obviously Lucas coming from Chicago, he’s an incredibly proud and excited actor as most actors from Chicago are. He comes to it with a really ensemble minded attitude, which is great and that’s also a very Chicago thing. It’s been awesome watching him get his sea legs out there and get more confident in his performance, which is great. So that’s been really fun.
G. Garcia: He’s also really easy to mess with.
M. Plimpton: He’s really easy to tease. He has got the biggest bull’s-eye on his forehead. That is the best part of the job. As far as Cloris Leachman is concerned, babies are a breeze. Cloris is the one who gets the leash. This is a woman who can find 15 jokes in one-half a joke. She is fearless, totally and is really basically willing to do anything for a gag and then some.
Greg, is there anything you asked Cloris to do that she said, “No,” because you’ve asked her to do a lot I’ve seen.
G. Garcia: Yes, I’ve asked her to stop licking me and she said, “No,” to that. I’ve asked her to stop jumping on top of me, she said, “No,” to that. Yes, there are a lot of things that I’ve asked her to do that she says, “No.”
Martha, are we going to see you back at Steppenwolf sometime?
M. Plimpton: I certainly hope so. I’m in touch with them a lot and I’ll be out there in March. They’re doing a thing for women in the arts and I’ll be out there to help them celebrate that. I go there every year, obviously, for the big gala and I try to see as much stuff going on there as I can, but this year, obviously, it’s impossible but maybe, hopefully during hiatus, we’ll see.
Greg, can you tell us a little bit more about the casting? Martha and Garret, they both came up with some really good dramatic roles. Garret in particularly off The Terminator and off Burn Notice. What made this cast right for this comedy?
G. Garcia: I think everybody just feels real. That’s just a credit to them as actors. Nobody really has to push real hard and become—and you see them trying. Everybody can just be natural and get the laughs off subtle smaller things. I got lucky. I got really lucky. It’s funny, too, because I hear Martha mention that we spoke on the phone and then she comes and she goes through the auditions process. To me, pretty much with everybody on this thing, the audition process was such just an exercise in keeping the studio and network involved, but I knew I wanted Martha to play this role. As soon as I saw Garret do it I knew he was the guy and the same with Lucas. I just got incredibly lucky that I have all the people that would be best for these roles playing these roles. But I think for me it does come down to that at the end of the day that everybody just feels like these characters. You don’t see anybody on screen trying, they’re just doing it great.
Martha, you and Garret, the two of you together on screen is just fantastic. It’s hilarious. It’s a lot of fun for me to watch every week. Tell us a little bit about your relationship with him on and off screen.
M. Plimpton: Garret and I have known each other, or known about each other, for many years. I’ve wanted to work with him a lot of times before but the opportunity just never presented itself. We have a lot of mutual friends and I’ve always admired him. He’s one of the best there is, honestly. I think he’s one of the best actors we’ve got. It’s an entirely pleasurable experience working with him because, as Greg said, Garret is the—he’s the perfect example of the understated choice. Everything he does just kind of sneaks up on you.
It’s all about behavior with him, which I love because it gives you something to work with. You’re working with a character instead of just a situation. That’s really great. When I’m working with Garret I feel like I’m getting better at my job, so that’s great. He’s also just a hilarious person. You’d never know from the more visible things he’s done that have been evil and horrible—like murderers—you’d never know that he is truly and honestly one of the funniest people around. He’s hilarious.
I was wondering—maybe you and Greg can comment on this—how does it feel to get picked up for a full season?
M. Plimpton: I’ll let Greg answer that, too, but it feels awesome. It feels really good that FOX is behind the show and likes what we’re making because we’re having a really good time doing it. Sometimes, from what I understand, there can be a disconnect there. The people making the show are having an awesome time but the people airing it are like, “Nah,” so it’s really nice that they’re enjoying it as much as we are. It makes me feel really good.
G. Garcia: Oh, yes. I’m having a lot of fun with this cast and crew. Everybody’s working really hard so it’s great to be able to keep doing it. I’m exhausted but other than that I’m thrilled.
Martha, what has been one of your most memorable moments you’ve had from filming this season?
M. Plimpton: Oh my goodness! We’ll, they all involve Cloris Leachman. Seeing her dressed as a kitty cat for Halloween was pretty hilarious. I’d be hard-pressed to tell anyone— I mean it’s really hard to describe to anyone who isn’t there exactly how insane it gets.
G. Garcia: I think one of my favorite moments that Martha and Cloris were involved in, which people at home won’t ever really understand how funny it actually was, was there’s a scene where Martha is shaving Cloris’ legs and Garret is cleaning Cloris’ ears with a Q-tip. They’re using real shaving cream. At a certain point they hide because she wakes up and then Cloris takes it upon herself to reach down and take the whipped cream off of her legs—
M. Plimpton: The shaving cream.
G. Garcia: The shaving cream, that’s right, I’m sorry, shaving cream, it was real shaving cream and takes it off of her legs and just starts eating it. She eats handfuls and handfuls of it. Now, it makes complete sense for the character to be crazy and doing this and it’s very funny but I’m sure people at home will think, “Oh, that’s funny but I’m sure that’s whipped cream,” but it not, it’s shaving cream. No one told her to eat it but they started laughing so she kept eating more and more. It was completely fantastic but the people at home may not know how great that moment actually was.
Lucas said his favorite moment was rubbing her feet and having the whole cast laugh at him the entire time.
G. Garcia: Yes that was fun for us.
M. Plimpton: Yes.
I’m really a big fan of the show and think the cast is made up of individuals who really get to play up their unique talents. I was so excited knowing that you, Martha, are a fantastic singer that in the pilot episode that you sang that beautiful cover of Danny’s Song. I was wondering if we can look forward to more of your singing on the show.
G. Garcia: Well, we had some singing last night, didn’t we?
M. Plimpton: Yes, we did.
G. Garcia: Yes, I think we have fun doing some musical stuff so I think you can look forward to more singing as we go along.
I know that music kind of plays a strong—there’s a connection with the family. What’s the relationship between—the family’s relationship to music?
G. Garcia: Actually we’re doing an episode next week, that we’re shooting it next week, that Jason Lee’s in where there’s a whole musical component about Garret’s character and the fact that he plays the guitar and he has some unfulfilled dreams with that. I think that music is a very cheap way for these people to have a creative outlet and feel good. I think we’ve had some fun with a guest character who plays the ukulele and some fun songs. Certainly in the pilot we had them singing to the baby. I think we end our Thanksgiving episode with them sitting around the porch and singing. I just think its something that this family is good at and uses it as an outlet.