By Christina Radish

Jason Lee stars as Earl

Show star Jason Lee, along with creator/executive producer Greg Garcia, spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about returning to work after the writer’s strike, and what fans of the show can expect for the remainder of the season.

MediaBlvd Magazine> What was it like to get back to work, after the break?

Greg Garcia> It was very hectic for us. The writer’s strike ended on a Wednesday, and the following Tuesday we had a table read. So, we basically hit the ground running when we got back. We had some ideas of what we wanted to do, but we had to really put it in overdrive and get the scripts ready. In order to do nine episodes, coming back, we’ve had to continue to keep up that pace. And, hopefully, the quality of the show doesn’t suffer. So far, I’m real happy with the things we’ve been doing.

MediaBlvd> Jason, how did you spend the time off?

Jason Lee> Wondering when I’d be back to work because there’s a lot of speculation, when there’s something like a strike happening. Some people said it would pass in a couple of months. Some people said a year. So, a lot of that was up in the air. I was happy to get back to work. I enjoyed the break. It was a nice little break, but then I was told that we were going to do nine episodes, possibly consecutively, which would have been nerve-wracking because the most we’ve ever done consecutively was seven. We ended up doing three, with a week off, and now we’re doing six in a row. So, we’ve crammed a lot in to finish Season 3, for the audience.

MediaBlvd> What was the atmosphere like on the set, that first day back?

Jason> It was literally just like a weekend had passed, and we were all back to work. We benefit from having a very loose, fun, high-energy, friendly set, and it was just very familiar. And, everybody was relieved to have jobs again.

MediaBlvd> What was it like to have Alyssa Milano and Paris Hilton on the show?

Greg> Paris just came in for one day and did a quick little thing with us. She really had a great sense of humor about herself, and played herself. I’m looking forward to the audience seeing her quick little cameo. We’ve worked with Alyssa so much now that she just feels like one of the gang. We don’t even introduce her at table reads as a guest actor anymore because she’s there a lot, and we actually found some really fun things to do with her in these nine episodes, coming back after the strike.

Jason> Having had a huge childhood crush on Alyssa Milano, it was very surreal, meeting her and getting to work with her. I was pretty fascinated with how short she is. She said she’s 5’3,” on a good day. I thought she was very cute, and she definitely fulfilled the vision I had, as a kid of what it would be like to meet her, one day.

Greg> I actually had a childhood crush on Paris Hilton. So, I’m trying to arrange a double date with the four of us to go out, but Paris is not interested, and my wife’s not interested.

Jason> Paris Hilton was like, “Oh, I love the show.” I guarantee you, she’s never seen an episode.

MediaBlvd> What was Paris Hilton really like to work with?

Jason> She was on set for 15 minutes, and she was playing herself and doing her thing. She was a trooper. She knew what it was all about, and that she would be playing herself, and she just went along with it.

Greg> She was really nice. She wasn’t here that long, and so, we don’t have a lot of dirt on her, or anything like that. But, she came in, she knew what to do and she was very professional, very sweet, and nice to everybody. There were a couple people on set that knew her from before. I believe Ethan knew her, and Jaime seemed to have known her. It was just a nice little friendly hour.

MediaBlvd> Jason, you have great on screen chemistry with Ethan Suplee and Jaime Pressly. How has that developed, over the years?

Jason> I just think Greg Garcia was smart, in terms of casting who he cast. It was one of those things that you just knew was going to work. Ethan and I have been friends for many years. And, I knew I wanted Ethan, from the very beginning, because he has a sweetness and a likability. We’re all just approachable, accessible people that like our jobs, and we’re not afraid to embarrass ourselves on film. There’s nothing fancy about what we’re doing. And, luckily, Jaime is not vain. She likes to make fun of herself and she doesn’t care how ridiculous she looks with some of those hairdos. So, we’re all just regular folks, having a good time.

MediaBlvd> Greg, how did the casting process for this work? Did you hire Jason first and then the other actors, or did you put them together in an ensemble to see how they played off each other?

Greg> The main goal was to find Earl. We were cast contingent on that. I don’t even think we had the green light to start casting the other roles, until we had Earl cast. And, it was a process of going out to Jason, very early, and trying to get him interested in doing a TV show, and hearing he wasn’t interested, and then, spending two months reading different people, and knowing in the back of your mind that Jason would still be the best person for this role. And then, we got him a copy of the script, and he liked it and had a meeting with us. So, once we got Jason on board, then it was a matter of, “Okay, let’s fill out the rest of this ensemble.” From there, like Jason had mentioned, he’d had been friends with Ethan for a long time and actually had suggested that he come in and read, on the same day that I was already having him come in and read because I had seen Ethan in some stuff and was a fan. We thought that was just fate that we both thought of it, right around the same time. And so, Ethan came in and nailed it. And, Jaime came in and, basically, got the role with one line. She just completely nailed it. It was just a combination of working with our casting director, and me throwing out names of people I was familiar with. She found Nadine and brought her to me, and I had no idea who she was. It was just a collaborative process, with the casting. It continues to be so, as we do the guest casting. A lot of times, we’ll have ideas of people, right off the bat, that we want to try to get. But, more times than not, our casting director will have some people we’ve never heard of, and bring in some great folks.

MediaBlvd> Jason, is there somebody that you would love to have guest on your show that hasn’t yet?

Jason> We had Burt Reynolds, which was great. We’ve been trying to get Steve Buscemi, but I guess he’s never around. I’d like to get John C. Reilly on the show. I’d like to get Harry Dean Stanton on the show. I’d like to get Jeff Bridges because his brother, Beau, plays my father on the show. Anything goes with Earl. All the great film character actors would be so well-suited for a show like ours, as would all the people that I’ve always admired -- the left of center actors, like John C. Reilly, Buscemi and Harry Dean Stanton. I’d love to get Tom Waits on the show. Because of the world that we’ve created, even though it’s network television, it’s our own world. Greg’s created this bizarre thing that somehow fits on television, where we can really afford to do whatever we want because we’ve got the fans and it’s really grounded in enough reality to where we can really afford to play and go out on a limb. Those are the kinds of actors I’d like to have on the show. But, unfortunately, a lot of actors of that caliber aren’t interested in television, as much as they are in film. We’ll keep trying. In the meantime, we’ll settle for Giovanni Ribisi.

Greg> We’ve had some really good people on the show. As we keep going, and we get more and more people to come on and have a great time, more and more actors, who are sometimes reluctant to do TV, say, “Oh, wow, look at Giovanni Ribisi on there. He’s doing a great job and he gets to go in there and have fun. Maybe I will do the show.” We got Ben Foster, in the beginning of the year, who was fantastic. And, we’ve got Michael Pena doing a role for us. The more people, that you don’t necessarily see on TV, that we can get in here to come play with us for a week, we always welcome the opportunity.

MediaBlvd> Greg, what’s the key to writing a successful television comedy?

Greg> The trick is luck. You write a script and, obviously, you need a script to get the ball rolling, but then, it’s luck based, off of that. Sure, you can write a script that people want to come and do, but the right actors need to be available and interested, to come in and do it. And then, you’ve got to find the right director to come in and create a vision, off of this thing, that is a visual template that we work off of, which is a huge part of what Earl is. Then, you’ve got to surround yourself with very talented people who can keep the thing going. We’ve been very lucky around here. We’ve got a lot of hard-working people. Unfortunately, there is no trick or formula, or you’d see everybody doing it. Lightning just has to strike.

MediaBlvd> How did the strike affect the rhythms of the show? Did having the break interrupt all that, or did it give you an opportunity to reset where you were going?

Greg> From a writing standpoint, it ultimately helped us. We kind of knew where we were going with the season, for the most part. But, towards the end, it kind of felt, story arc wise, like we were going to be petering out a little bit. By having this break, it forced me to have a little, abbreviated season. We were going to do 26 episodes, and now we’re going to do 22, which is still a full season, and we’re happy that we’re able to get to that number, but it did make it a little shorter, and I got to rethink things and throw a whole new wrinkle into the second half of our season that we weren’t going to have. By doing so, we got a lot of fun stories out of it. It gave some of our characters the opportunity to do things with Earl’s list that they would never have gotten the opportunity to do before. So, ultimately, that little break worked out as a plus for us, creatively.

MediaBlvd> Has it been hard to get away from using the list as a weekly part of the show, or is that still an essential part of the show?

Greg Garcia, Executive Producer/Creator  "My Name Is Earl" NBC Photo: Chris Haston

MediaBlvd> Jason, you’re involved with this show that is non-traditional, in terms of how you approach a 30-minute comedy. Why did that appeal to you, more so than the traditional comedies that we see on Monday nights on CBS?

Jason> I’ve just never had much of a traditional approach. I knew I didn’t want to do television, to begin with. I just wasn’t interested. That’s why it was such a tough decision to, ultimately, decide to do My Name is Earl. But, I just kept going back to how good the script was, and how different it was. My concern, as I’d voiced to Greg at the very beginning, was how much we could do, being that it is on a mainstream network television station, like NBC. But, they gave us the freedom, and Greg ran with this crazy idea. And, lo and behold, the fans came on board and we created our own little thing, amidst this very corporate, well-oiled machine. I’m perfectly comfortable being on a show like this, where it’s got just enough respect. It’s got the fans, and they’re very die-hard fans. It’s a good balance, and I have to credit Greg with that. At the end of the day, as goofy and out there as the show can be, the characters are all likeable, and there really is a message and a heart, at the core of it. I think that’s what keeps people coming back to watch it.

MediaBlvd> What are the restrictions of a traditional sitcom? Is it content, or is it the fact that there’s some places you can’t go?

Jason> You have to wait for the audience to stop laughing, before you can say your next line. I’ve never done a sitcom. We’re out on location. It feels like we’re shooting a film, with the physical comedy, the stunts and the special effects we get to do. It’s like shooting a little movie, every week. We all look forward to the next script. It’s always, “What crazy, bruise-causing things are we going to get to do this week?” And, you just can’t do that when you’re on a stage, in front of an audience.

Greg> There are a lot of shows that lend themselves to being a four-camera show. Two and a Half Men is a great four-camera show. Everybody Loves Raymond was a great four-camera show. Yes, Dear was possibly the best four-camera show, ever to come around. But, a show like ours, where he’s got this list and he’s running around, crossing things off, you could never do as a four-camera show. You couldn’t tell the stories you want to tell with those kind of restraints, set wise. And, also, the way our characters are, if you put them in a four-camera world, it’s just not going to feel subtle, in places. You end up playing to the audience, and I think everybody would feel a lot less real than they do.

MediaBlvd> Do people tell you that they identify with the characters so much that they have made their own lists, like Earl?

Jason> Not in those exact words. I haven’t experienced that myself, but I do hear stories. A friend of mine heard a DJ on a radio station talking about karma, and how they’ve started their own lists. It started getting popular. The word karma is being used a lot more. Greg’s whole point, at the very beginning, was to talk about karma. We’re talking about redemption. We’re talking about a low-life dude, trying to turn his life around. Why not make it mean something? If that’s, ultimately, what happens, great. We’d never pretend that that’s not important. It’s not just about the jokes and the characters and the moustache. There can be something to take from it, without being too preachy, because the show is very accessible. The characters are very likeable, and you find yourself wanting to root for Earl. People have really grown to like the show a lot and, if it makes them feel good, that’s a bonus, for sure.

Greg> I’ve read a couple things online about people making their own lists, but I’ve never had anyone actually come up to me and say that they have. I’ve had people clip out things and bring them to me, or come to me and say they were at church and the guy giving the sermon was talking about an episode of Earl. That certainly wasn’t my number one intention of doing the show. We’re making people laugh. And, we don’t take ourselves too seriously at all. But, if they want to use an example of something we did in a sermon, that’s pretty cool. If people are going to watch it and think, “I did something to somebody, and maybe I will go make that up to them,” that’s fantastic. But, our first goal is to make you laugh.

MediaBlvd> Did you believe in karma, before doing the show?

Jason> I’ve always believed in it, in different forms. Common sense says that, if you’re doing good things, then obviously you’re working hard. We work very hard at this show, and everyone treats everybody with respect. We treat each other like family. That’s a good example of karma.

MediaBlvd> What can you say about what is coming up for the last nine episodes of the season?

Greg> It’s the most exciting television you’ve ever seen in your entire life, just to sum it up. It will go down in history. I always get into trouble when I try to talk about it because I’m like, “Oh, I don’t want to say that.” I’m so bad because, when I watch shows, I don’t want to know what’s coming up next. I won’t watch previews of movies. It just ruins it for me. Everybody gets so saturated with what’s going to be on, that it always bothers me. But, one fun thing that we’re doing is going into this alternate universe, for a little bit, which we’ve never done on our show. It’s an opportunity to actually show a version of our show in a four-camera, sitcom world. That’ll be in the first episode, and we had a lot of fun with that. Earl is in some jeopardy, and his friends are going to do everything they can to save him. 

MediaBlvd> Do readers and fans ever impact what happens on the show? Do you read message boards to get an idea of what’s working and what’s not?

Greg> Yeah. We’ve actually done some stuff where we’ve planted fake people on Televison Without Pity, and then had them be characters on our show, which blew everybody’s mind on the blog. I go on there because it’s like having instant feedback. It’s hard not to. Sometimes, I’ll say, “I’m not even going to look and see what they thought of the episode last night.” But then, it’s just right there. You do this to entertain people, so you want to know how they liked it. I try not to let anything they say influence directions in which we’re going. Usually, story wise, we’re pretty far ahead of things, so even if they have a comment of what they’d like to see happen, we usually already have a direction we’re going in, anyway. I do remember reading something on there, one time, and thinking, “Oh, man, that’s a good idea.” And then, in the writer’s room, I was really hesitant to do it because I felt like I was cheating. It was just some small little thing that someone mentioned. And then, I was like, “Screw it! It’s not cheating. It’s funny.” So, I think we ended up doing it, but I don’t remember the specifics of it.

 MediaBlvd> How have you have been able to sustain the show for the past several seasons, both in keeping it funny and fresh, but also in continuing to evolve and grow with the characters?

Jason> At the end of Season 1, we started saying, “Maybe we should start branching out and doing more with the other characters.” And so, we started serializing the show a bit more, going into Season Two. We had Joy’s whole storyline about court, her getting in trouble, her three strikes, and that whole thing. And then, we had some stuff going on with Randy and Catalina. The list is always the driving force, but it seemed like, when we started branching out and making it more about following stories that were happening with all the characters, instead of just Earl and one list item, it made things exciting and opened a lot of doors, in terms of possibilities.

Greg> We’ve taken some bigger swings with stuff, which certainly opened doors. It was a big swing, to send our main character to prison in Season 2, and keep him there for half a season. We didn’t know, going into it, how many episodes we’d be able to get out of that. We just sat down and figured them out, and then figured we’d had enough and we’d get him out, at a certain time. We hope people enjoyed going into that world. The audience knew we were not going to stay in prison forever. The series didn’t change. It was just a new venue to go to, and it certainly kept things fresh for us, with stories and stuff. So, we’ll continue to take swings like that. And, what we’re doing for the second half of the season is pretty different, with the predicament that we have Earl in. It’s a combination of that, and how we tell stories. Even just telling the list stories each week, if you find different ways to tell them, it just keeps things fresh. We’ve done episodes where we have somebody else narrate, and we do it with their version of the story, kind of like a puzzle piece episode. We did a story last week where we did the whole thing backwards, and flashed back. Using interesting storytelling devices keeps things fresh.

Jason> We have the trust of the fans, and we have very dedicated fans, which is absolutely fantastic. They want to see us surprise them and go out of our way to do something really funny and different. It affords us the opportunity to really play and get silly. I don’t think it’s a thing where the real fans would ever really question it, or be thrown by it. What we’ve given them already is much different than you normally see on television, so I feel it’s actually kind of encouraged.

Greg> It keeps things fresh, for both the writers and the actors. There’s a comfort level, of just getting to the point where two characters are looking at each other and you don’t even really have to write the lines. But, at the same time, it’s nice to continually learn things about characters. We’ve created these people that are very diverse. The writers have found great ways to really build on everybody’s characters.

MediaBlvd> Greg, how much of the setting is based on your experiences in Maryland?

Greg> Whatever you write is influenced by where you’ve lived. I do a lot of Maryland references just because I have a fondness for the Virginia/Maryland area, and I’m just lazy to think up fake names. But, I’ve always thought that Earl could be in Waldorf, Maryland. It was a place I thought of when I was first writing it. In fact, at one point, there were some actual references to Waldorf, Maryland, in the pilot script. But then, you shoot it in L.A., and there’s palm trees all over the place. So, we’ve done everything we can to just keep it as a fictional world that they live in.

MediaBlvd> Jason, with such a hilarious cast on the show, how do you keep it together on the set, and are there ever times where you cannot get through takes because you’re just laughing so hard?

Jason> We probably have a combined 45 minutes of outtakes, on both the first and second season DVDs. We’re all friends. Fortunately, everybody gets along. Everybody likes to poke fun, and it’s never a serious matter, when we bust up laughing and can’t keep it together. Unless, of course, it’s 20 minutes of it and we’re wasting everybody’s time. I think it’s a bad thing, when you can’t do that on a set.

Greg> We’ve lost time before. It was late at night, and we were in this motel set, and Jason and Ethan had just had enough and they were dying, laughing. They couldn’t get through it, and we were all crying from laughing, and enjoying it. Sometimes, you’ll lose a little time. Jason and I have said, a number of times, “Keep us here an extra hour, once in a while, if you need to, so that we can have this light, fun atmosphere on the set.” It’s better to do that than get out a little earlier and have people pissed off because you can’t get through a line, due to laughing.                                                                                         

MediaBlvd> What do you both like to watch on TV, when you get some down time?

Jason> I don’t watch much TV, but I do watch Dexter. I’ve seen every episode and I’m just waiting for the new season. I’m a big fan.

Greg> I watch a lot more TV than Jason does because that’s all I’ve ever done. I don’t watch a ton of comedies. I watch some. I watch 30 Rock and The Office. I watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Reno 911. Those are comedies that I enjoy. They’re very funny. And then, I watch a ton of dramas because, if you just do comedy all day long, it’s like you’re working in a donut factory. Donuts are great, but if you come home, you probably don’t want to eat donuts. So, I watch a lot of dramas. I watch anything on HBO. I’m saddened that The Wire is now over.  That was probably my favorite show on TV. It’s fantastic. And, I watch Dexter, too. I also watch reality shows. I’ve never missed an episode of Survivor. I watch whatever I can watch. I get home at night and have to go to bed because I have to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, the next day, to go to work. I have to drug myself with an Ambien, which gives you amnesia. So, I’ll watch the same show every night for a week, and my wife keeps coming in the room to tell me, “You watched that last night.” But, I don’t have any memory of it.