Finding new balance on ‘Old Christine’
THE cast of CBS’ “The New Adventures of Old Christine” has just finished the first scene of the show’s second-season finale. The studio audience has laughed big eight times in 12 pages of script, making the warm-up guy’s smile just as big.
But this, apparently, is not enough. The writers and producers huddle quickly behind the video monitors while the actors hang loose. Creator Kari Lizer is especially focused on a couple of moments she thinks slowed the pace -- lines in which Christine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is describing girlie problems to her brother, Matthew (Hamish Linklater).
Christine: “I’m exhausted, my boobs are really tender. I’m also feeling nauseous. Or is it nauseated?” Matthew: “I’m feeling both.” Pretty funny, right?
The writers throw out one-liners in the hopes of making it funnier. Jeff Astrof, who co-wrote the script, tosses: “Do you have any idea what my boobs feel like?”
Lizer’s eyes light up. Yes! But now they need a better counter for Matthew. They agree on “I wish I could say no,” which they know the actor can deliver with the right blend of surrender and hilarity.
Done! Lizer marches over to the cast to give them the revisions. Pointing to scribbles on the pages, she offers new lines and directions to almost every actor in the scene.
The whole process takes just a couple of minutes, a reflection of Lizer’s focused chaos control and the finely tuned ear of her veteran staff, which hails from such hits as “Friends” and “Will & Grace.”
The writers ask Alex Kapp Horner, who plays one of two Meanie Moms, to linger a little longer with her Phon-John joke, a scene in which she hysterically screams “Phon!” to a pharmacist, thinking it’s his name, and he corrects her, yelling back, “John!” The exchange becomes verbal pingpong: “Phon.” “John.” “Phon.” “John.” “Phon.” “John.” “That’s brilliant,” Kapp Horner says to Lizer.
Then Louis-Dreyfus hears her shortened breast pain joke and cracks up, which is all the confirmation Lizer needs. Walking back to her seat next to director Andy Ackerman, Lizer says: “The miraculous part of this is that the actors can actually digest all of that.”
Indeed, the actors flawlessly perform the scene again with their new lines and nuances, and it all draws hearty laughter.
“Unlearning lines is harder than learning them,” says Clark Gregg, who plays Christine’s ex, Richard. “But it’s fun. If it wasn’t really fun to do the changes, you wouldn’t remember it as well.”
For an actor, there is no cushier job in the television business than a multicamera sitcom. Actors work three out of four weeks a month, and except for tape night, the days are short and breezy.
The writers’ room, typically, is a different story. Sitcom staffs tend to be large (15 or so writers), and they’re legendary for their late nights, as writers get paid to one-up one another’s one-liners over and over again. But on some shows, such as “Everybody Loves Raymond,” they manage to have personal lives, because, as creator Phil Rosenthal always said, if he didn’t go home and fight with his wife he would never have any story ideas.
“Old Christine” evolved from Lizer’s life as a divorced mother of three children who attend a posh private school in Los Angeles. And like the “Raymond” writers, Lizer and her tiny staff of six are always home for dinner and are off on weekends.
“I’ve worked on way too many shows, and the hours on this show are so spectacularly short,” says Astrof, who wrote for “Friends,” “Veronica’s Closet” and “Grounded for Life.” “Some days I feel that I should donate my salary to charity, like I may lose my Writers Guild health insurance if I don’t write enough hours.”
Certainly the writers’ experience level helps keep their hours from spiraling out of control, as does Louis-Dreyfus’ enthusiasm. But the driving force is Lizer, who makes family time a priority.
“I’m pretty organized and pretty busy in my head,” Lizer says. “I’m kind of a goody two shoes at my job. I’m 15 minutes early everywhere I go, and it’s a good personality trait, probably, for this job because I need to have all my work done. It’s not an option for me not to see my kids. It’s not an option for me to work on weekends.”
Lizer, who previously wrote for “Will & Grace,” says the key to staying sane while juggling the production of 22 episodes is to get a head start. She and the writers outline stories and write about 10 scripts during the hiatus so that when production begins, they are ahead of the game. It’s the only way Lizer is able to devote as much time as she does to her 11-year-old twins, 9-year-old son, two dogs, two cats, four chickens and a rabbit and rat.
“If you do that, then it’s a manageable job,” Lizer says. “If you don’t, it’s a really crazy job.” Having a mom in charge makes a world of difference, she adds. “I’ve been up since 5:30 a.m. so I don’t roll into work and have my coffee. I’ve been up for five hours. I’ve been on some shows where you played a little air hockey, read the paper and don’t start writing until 2 p.m.”
Lizer would never attribute the show’s success solely to her time-management skills, though. “Old Christine” is averaging 11 million viewers and is the third-most-watched sitcom on television.
“If I didn’t have veteran writers working with me, if we had an actor that didn’t work, the wheels would come off,” Lizer says. “It’s really that every piece of it is functional, starting with Julia, who is so on her game and so professional and the hardest-working woman.”
Astrof says the synergy of Lizer and Louis-Dreyfus, who have become best friends, makes the writers’ job easy.
“Kari has this amazing laser-beam focus on what doesn’t work,” he says. “That’s not to say she doesn’t solicit opinions, but we’ve all been doing this so long. We’ve done it for, like, 300 years combined, and we kind of have a sense of story. If it doesn’t work on Julia, that means it doesn’t work.”
Louis-Dreyfus, who won an Emmy for the role last year, helps the writers improve their jokes during rehearsals and tapings.
“I’ll always pitch a joke in the hopes that it might be better than the last one and sometimes it isn’t,” she says. “And maybe sometimes it is. This process is like polishing a car. It’s strange and fantastic, and it’s very exciting. I love this format so much. It is so exhilarating.”
In short order, it’s a wrap
EVEN this tape night -- which feels like the last day of school -- goes remarkably fast. Just before the last scene, Gregg gives everyone beanies with Spanish phrases stitched on the front. Lizer’s reads “La Reina” or “The Queen.” Earlier in the day, Louis-Dreyfus gave all the writers shiny red bicycles with name-engraved plates.
In three hours and 20 minutes, the episode, which will air May 7, is done and Louis-Dreyfus breaks out the bubbly and gives a sweet, emotional speech.
It’s only 8:20 p.m. on a Wednesday (“Friends” rarely finished before midnight), and to Lizer (and coincidentally to Louis-Dreyfus) that means only one thing: “I have to go home and watch ‘Idol,’ ” Lizer says. “It’s all about priorities. You make time for the things that are important to you.”
She pauses for a beat and shakes her head: “It’s sad.”
maria.elena.fernandez @latimes.com