My Favorite Room: In actress Eliza Coupe’s living room, something comfy this way comes
Actress-comedian Eliza Coupe plays a visitor from the year 2162 in the hyper-modern, sci-fi world of Hulu’s “Future Man.” In the comfort of her Brentwood living room, however, she travels back 500 years to unearth an Old World acting tradition.
On a cushy couch laden with pillows and surrounded by an ornate, Baroque-inspired mural on the wall, Coupe hosts Shakespearean play readings with fellow thespians, including her “Future Man” co-star Derek Wilson, a Macbeth veteran who “knows his way around an iambic pentameter.”
“It’s dorky-dork Elizabethan fest meets weird Renaissance Faire,” said Coupe, 37. “We have the fire going and vegan cheese, grapes and kombucha, ’cause that’s the type of people we are.”
Her parents joined the reading of Macbeth during their recent visit, with Coupe channeling the ruthless and fiery Lady Macbeth, “which came very natural, by the way.” She credits her affinity for “old English kind of things” to her upbringing in New Hampshire, and “a very New England mother having everything old and antique-y.”
Coupe’s 1,650-square-foot Spanish-style home serves as the perfect stage for such gatherings, the stucco walls and high, arched ceilings reminiscent of a medieval cathedral.
As for the purpose of these cozy readings?
“We’re not doing it for anyone, we’re doing it for us. It’s nice to not have a camera and get back to the real stuff. This is where it all came from,” Coupe said.
The actress-comedian favors shabby chic meets New England with Spanish accents.
Why is this room so special to you?
Being from New England, we did not have houses like this. The whole Spanish, stucco style. We had colonial boxes, that’s what I grew up with, so I’m very drawn to this.
What about this pond hockey book?
I grew up playing ice hockey and my younger brother Tom got me this book because we wrote a movie based around pond hockey. We played when I just went back. Growing up, my dad would flood the side lawn and make a rink every winter. He’d have us doing drills at 5 a.m. in 2-degree weather.
This is such a cozy fireplace.
The thing about a fireplace is you stand in front of it to get warm, and then you walk away and you’re colder because you don’t have the fireplace anymore. So I walk around with heating pads on my body. It’s a cute look.
Favorite memory in here?
My family likes to sing and play guitar. When they were in town for Thanksgiving, we had a really fun sing-along here. Derek was over; he plays the guitar quite well. I do a really weird Bob Dylan impression that I don’t think I had ever done for anybody, so I just started doing it and it became a whole thing. They said it was as if Bob Dylan was 125 years old, and the face that goes with it is not an attractive look at all, akin to the heating pads.
You seem to have an affinity for pillows.
I like to feel like I’m in a blanket all the time, hence the millions of pillows. I was obsessed with “I Dream of Jeannie,” and the inside of her genie bottle is everything I ever wanted, but a Shabby Chic, New England kind of bottle with a Spanish flair and some hockey thrown in. And a little Macbeth.
