Whitney Cummings on NBC's Whitney: "We're Doing Our Version of Love, Not Society's Version"

Whitney Cummings said it plainly: "Tiger Woods, David Letterman, Jesse James — like every guy was cheating on his wife and it was just like, what? Sandra B…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

Whitney Cummings is the title star and executive producer of the NBC multi-camera comedy Whitney , airing Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. Her character is a smart, free-thinking photographer who, as a product of divorce, is happily unmarried to her longtime boyfriend, Alex. Cummings also co-created Two Broke Girls for CBS. Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton spoke with Cummings ahead of the premiere.

Describe your relationship with Chris on the show.

Chris and I's relationship is like a lion and I'm a little Chihuahua just biting his heel. I'm this Chihuahua that circles around him and he's amused by it. Something we talk about a lot in the writers room is how Alex is amused by my crazy instead of actually threatened or actually hurt. For lack of a better comparison, it's more of a Lucy and Desi vibe — because a lot of TV show relationships, the woman is the boss and the guy is scared of her. That doesn't feel real to me and it feels like hokey sitcom. It was really important that I felt Chris, my boyfriend on the show, was the boss and could absorb me. That to me is much more interesting and has more stake to the conflict.

Whitney is part of the Fall Premiere Madness. What will be the draw for your show?

Chris D'Elia, right? That's why people would want to watch it. We're going to change the show to Chris next season. I'm kidding. I think when we sit down and work on the show, Chris and I don't really think about that. We're both standup comedians. I have spent a really long time working on the material we're talking about on the show and have toured hundreds of cities working on this material — and now we're putting it into a narrative form. The best thing about being a comedian and then having a sitcom is that you know the stuff you're talking about works and is funny because you've toured and seen people laugh at it. So I just have that evidence to go on.

Are you comfortable with the multi-camera format?

For sure. I think multi-camera is kind of making a comeback. There's something really fresh and energized and cool about it, and it's definitely very different — especially for what NBC does. I am really proud of it. And Chris is as funny as they come. Whenever we're working on the episodes I'm like, I would totally watch this — but that's just me.

Is taping generally fun for you?

It's funny because for some weird reason there's this alchemy where we're all actually friends, so the tapings are just kind of like a party. When you watch the episodes you really feel it — it just looks like a bunch of friends goofing off, not a bunch of actors saying lines. We're really proud of that intangible dynamic. It isn't just that the writing is great, the acting is great, the sets are beautiful, the live audience is electric — there's this intangible quality about the show that I'm really proud of.

Can you share any fun moments from what you have taped so far?

I think our outtakes are almost as good as things that actually make it into the show. I'm not a very suave person — it just never ends. One of my new favorite moments happened last night. I had this dress on with a zipper all the way in the back — literally from the top to the bottom, you can just zip it all the way off. I asked Chris to unzip it for me a little bit and he unzipped the entire thing and saw my entire butt. You could just unzip it a little bit! But it's funny because Chris and I are often in very sexual situations and I'm not going to lie, I have not managed to give him an erection yet. But maybe this season. I'm working on it.

You are pretty and funny. If you were in a trash-talking competition with Joan Rivers, Lisa Lampanelli, and Kathy Griffin, who do you think would emerge the victor and why?

I would definitely lose — even if it wasn't Lisa Lampanelli and Joan Rivers and those amazing women. I would actually definitely lose. Joan Rivers, Lisa Lampanelli, and Kathy Griffin in whatever competition we were in, they would probably win.

Based on your background as a producer and a writer, how different is this project from your previous work and how involved are you with it?

It's very different — it's like nothing else I have ever done. The biggest difference is that I've written movies and TV, but now I'm starring in it. Writing for myself is great because it's much easier than having to write for other people. And I get to write for all these amazing actors and have Chris D'Elia — a longtime friend who I admire and know really well — be in it. To write for him instead of some random actor is really fun. I have a team of ten writers and an amazing show runner and amazing producers helping me. And I actually get to come up with an idea and execute it — I get to say "and then we're in this beautiful rose garden and there's a swan" and then we go to set and sure enough there is a swan. The scale that I'm doing it on, and the fact that the things I envision actually get to come true — that's totally surreal and amazing.

Do you feel that having a prior relationship with Chris makes it easier for both of you to work together?

Yes. Doing shows about couples that have been together for years can be really tricky because you have to pull off that you've been in a relationship for three years without actually knowing someone — and a lot of times that can feel false. We're really lucky that Chris and I have had a preexisting relationship, so when we started shooting you could kind of feel our history. That's something that is really hard to do with just throwing two actors in a room together who have never met.

How similar is the on-screen Whitney going to be to the off-screen Whitney?

There really is no difference — it doesn't make any sense for me to do a TV show where I'm not playing myself, because then I'm just an actor. I'm a comedian and I've worked really hard to develop my ideas and my point of view and my voice. I've worked really hard to figure out what that is on the road doing standup. To depart from that after knowing what works and what I believe — and then all of a sudden get a show and be someone else — doesn't make a lot of sense. Also I'm lazy and have a really hard time remembering lines, so if it's something I would actually say, that makes the work a lot easier. The goal is to be really honest and be the same person in the show as I am outside of it. The on-air Whitney has much better lighting and makeup and hair and clothes, but otherwise she's the same.

Are the characters based on people you have had a relationship with?

Yes. I wrote every character on the show based on somebody I know. I don't know if that's a lack of creativity or just the easy way out, but I wrote with Chris in mind so it was so much easier to write his role — just imagining what he would do or think or say. All the other characters I wrote based on friends of mine. I don't want to sit around and imagine some character; I try to start from real and go from there. It's interesting in the writers room because we spend a lot of time holding a mirror up to who I actually am. A lot of times I'll say "yes and then I do this" and they'll say "that's not really how you are." I sometimes have a skewed perception of who I am, so the writers constantly remind me about myself. I'm doing a lot of learning about myself in a very short, intense period of time.

Any tips from other comedians?

Something so amazing about being a comedian is that we all work in clubs, and comedians at every level work in clubs — you can be shoulder to shoulder with your heroes on any given night. I remember when I was an open miker at The Comedy Store, I'd be standing in the hallway waiting to go on and Chris Rock would come by. It's an amazing community where you get to meet your heroes at every stage and every level. There's not a caste system where the big ones only hang out with the big ones. I've been lucky to have a lot of great advice and mentors. We also have a lot of experienced writers on the show — we have a guy who worked on Roseanne for a long time, and advice from him is just as valuable as advice from someone who's been through it.

How hard do you think it is for people to have a relationship on their own terms, free from expectation?

It doesn't seem like there's a lot of purity in relationships. A lot of it has to do with the culture we live in — we grow up watching romantic movies where you fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Our generation grew up with a lot of divorce. We grew up seeing relationships fail and be optional. And knowing that half of all marriages end — the media tells us happily ever after and you two should get married. So there are just a lot of conflicting messages and pressures while trying to just have a good thing and live day by day. That's what this show is about — trying to have a good relationship despite your damage, despite social pressures, despite expectations and rules. It's about customizing your relationship. Chris and I's relationship in the show is doing our version of love, not society's version of it. Our thing is: I want us to stay together so bad that I don't want us to get married, because that seems to be when everything falls apart.

Have your comedy routines shaped the direction and content of the show, and do any of your cast mates deliver your jokes better than you do?

Yes. The show is 100% my standup and 100% what I've been developing — and also a big part of Chris, who I wrote the show with in mind. When we sit down to write I think about what in my standup has worked, what I'm still really passionate about and want to talk about, what's provocative and interesting and worth exploring. And then having Chris D'Elia as my boyfriend on the show — what's a great intersection between that and what his point of view would be. That's how we come up with stories. And yes, Roxanne who plays the divorced single woman and Dan O'Brien who plays Mark — the eternal cerebral bachelor — tend to have a lot of my standup point of view. And yes, they are much funnier at it than I am.

What are the big challenges working with so many people on a television show in the creative process versus your standup?

As a comedian, you write it, you perform it, you edit it, you perform it again, you hone it yourself, and you have a long time to develop something. Before I did my hour special I got to perform it 100 times over a year and keep sharpening it — you just have proof that it's good. A joke got a laugh 100 times, it's going to get a laugh the 101st time. Whereas in a sitcom you have three days basically to make something before you put it on TV. You write the script, you table read it, you do a producer run-through, you do a network run-through, and then you shoot it. That's a different part of the creative process that I'm not used to — it just moves so fast. Thankfully the part that matters the most — the performing of it — is in front of a live studio audience, which is standup. So once we're actually performing it, it all starts to feel really comfortable.

What is your reaction to the recent Hollywood cheating and divorce scandals?

Tiger Woods, David Letterman, Jesse James — like every guy was cheating on his wife and it was just like, what? Sandra Bullock got cheated on, so it was like, what does that mean for the rest of us? This year it was Eva Longoria — people in the public eye that it was just taking a communal toll on our faith a little bit. So the show isn't anti-commitment or anti-anything. We're committed, and I think our point is we're just as married as any married couple, if not more so. We're not afraid of commitment on the show. It's exploring some of these traditions that seem to cause us a lot of stress and playing around with them.

What have you discovered about yourself doing this show?

Every day is a huge learning process. Writing a show like this or even being a standup, you're forced to figure out what your opinions are about things and who the hell you are. If I have learned anything, it's that I am not as tough as I think I am. I'm a lot more sensitive and emotional than I would like to think. Doing a show like this is the ultimate being private and public and being vulnerable. This isn't my standup of me as a single person — this is me in a relationship, putting a really honest look at what happens when it's just you and your guy talking about things that hurt your feelings. Through this TV relationship with Chris I'm starting to have faith in commitment and monogamy and in relationships. I'm starting to believe that relationships can work — which might be insane and I'm going to end up institutionalized soon. But it's weirdly really happening.

Will you push the envelope on this show?

Beyond the envelope is where I start laughing — that's what I think is funny. I'm not sitting around going, what is America going to think is funny? I know this from being a standup: what has made people laugh in the past is what I'm going to keep talking about. It makes no sense for me to have worked so hard to develop material that I know is funny and then get on TV and start from scratch and do something totally different. I think when you start worrying about what other people like, whether you're going to offend people, whether this is going to be too far — you get into dangerous territory and start making bad, unspecific, safe, boring TV. And especially TV now is competing with the Internet. We're competing with videos of pandas eating babies. That's horrible, but I just think TV ought to step it up a little bit.

Are you staying to the script or do you find yourself improvising a lot?

We happen to have a lot of actors who are just really amazing, so sometimes we're a little more flexible. But the science of sitcom is that you try something out, if it doesn't work you improve it, you add jokes, you change it — so it's kind of always evolving.

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