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Midway through “The Comeback’s” remarkable third season, Jimmy the Director (aka James Burrows) informs Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) he won’t be working on her show anymore. Sure, the pilot for “How’s That?!” turned out OK, but OK is also the ceiling for a sitcom written by AI.
“Good, but never gonna be great,” Jimmy says. “The machine is fast and cooperative, I’ll give it that. But I saw every one of those jokes coming, and so did you. Surprising only comes from a group of writers, huddled in a corner, beating themselves up to beat out a better joke. It’s the chubby guy who’s a secret alcoholic. It’s the gay guy who, despite all the work he’s done, still hates himself a little. Or the funny woman who’s been invisible for way too long. They turn all that pain into a joke. Val, those broken, beautiful souls are what make something great. And you didn’t see it coming.”
His words, written by Kudrow and Michael Patrick King, are delivered with a frankness born from unsurpassed experience; experience “The Comeback” has relied upon for three seasons across three decades to deliver the truth to Valerie and viewers alike. After all, Jimmy the Director, as Burrows refers to his character in the HBO comedy, conveys an outsized authority — for Valerie as well as the audience watching at home — thanks primarily to the non-actor playing the part.
A paragon of television, listing Burrows’ accolades — co-creator of “Cheers,” director of “Friends,” “Will & Grace,” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” 11 Emmy wins and 47 nominations — doesn’t begin to relate his impact on the TV industry and culture at large. Simply seeing his name in the credits elevates the creative potential of the series lucky enough to snag him.
So when Jimmy the Director makes a statement in “The Comeback,” it matters that much more because Burrows is saying it, too.
“What Michael said is what I believe,” Burrows told IndieWire about his character’s big speech about AI. “You can’t write a show from the heart when you have no heart. That’s what I feel.”
Below, Burrows unpacks the considerable work that went into the biggest role of his career (“I don’t think I ever [became an actor], but I maybe became an A-C-T without the O-R.”), what makes “The Comeback” a series special enough to return to, again and again (“I really appreciate the skill Lisa has for creating characters and Michael’s unbelievable ability to write shit that nobody else would write”), as well as his unfiltered thoughts on AI and how it plays into Hollywood’s future:
“Unfortunately, I think that the world is going that way,” Burrows said. “I know sitcoms have gone the way of imitation for a long time. There’s no more innovation left.”
The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
IndieWire: When you were first approached about acting in “The Comeback,” the part was written for you, but why did you agree to do it? What appealed to you about acting?
James Burrows: Nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing except the fact that MPK, Michael Patrick King, and Lisa [Kudrow] wanted me to do it. If you look at my career, I was never an actor. I played a couple of parts: I was a telephone man on “Phyllis,” a maintenance man on “Newhart,” and I was a literary agent on “Rhoda.” I was just playing myself. Then they wrote this part for me because I had worked on “Friends” and Lisa knew me, and Michael knew me from “Will & Grace.” So I had no aspirations to be an actor, nor do I consider myself an actor. And I have the utmost respect for all the actors I ever worked with.
So it was just those personal relationships that made you say, “OK, I’ll do it for you guys because you say you need it”?
Yes, exactly.
In the end, did any of it appeal to you?
No. There was no drive [in me] that an actor needs to survive in this world. It was just, “I thought this would be an interesting idea. And if Michael thinks I can do it and Lisa to thinks I can do it, then why not give it a shot?”
I read that acting made you nervous. Did that dissipate at all as you kept coming back season after season?
Yeah, because I was in a strange world. You know the old joke about an actor learning his lines? He says his line, and then he goes, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, now my line.” I’m not trained as an actor, and so listening is the most difficult thing I had to learn how to do — at least I tried. I don’t know if I ever got there.
Lisa was on “Cheers” just when Woody [Harrelson] came on the show, like the fourth or fifth year, so I knew her from way back then. Now, she was not Phoebe anymore. She was [Valerie Cherish] — this lunatic that I had to deal with. So it was very difficult in the first and second seasons having to deal with a woman I thought I knew. Eventually — I think when I made that speech to her about, “You’re not it anymore” — it finally clicked in my head that, “Oh yeah, she’s my daughter.” I have four daughters, and I said, “OK, I know how to deal with her.” I don’t know if that makes me an actor or just a lucky guy. But it was scary in the beginning. And at the end, it was scary because I had this big speech.
It’s such an important monologue, and it means so much more because it’s coming from this character, a version of you. How did you prepare for that moment?
Well, after strangling Michael Patrick King for writing it for me, I learned it by rote. I kept doing it over and over and over again. I drove my wife crazy. But what I didn’t know how to do was make it seem like it’s the first time I’ve ever said it. I did it five or six times with Lisa in the scene. Each time Michael would come up to me and say, “Make it more natural” — because I had learned it without emotion. So Michael, he was a great help to me.
No offense, but that’s some very blunt direction. How did it help you to settle into the words?
He was doing my work as an actor. If you had an actor playing Jimmy the Director, Michael would never give that note because the actor playing me would know what that is — he would know the subtleties of being an actor; how to modulate the speech, how to make it seem natural. I have no skill that way. I had none. So Michael guided me that way and it was a blessing.
I was a little concerned, so I did watch myself [on playback]. I think I’m in three episodes, but none more difficult than the last one I did. And I even moved myself. I have no idea why, but I looked at myself on that screen, and I said, “Who is that fucking guy up there? Who is that guy?” I mean, that’s what Michael did. He literally helped me to become an actor.
James Burrows and Lisa Kudrow in ‘The Comeback’Courtesy of Erin Simkin / HBOSo after all that, did you forgive him for making you learn the speech?
From the day he asked me to do it, I was eternally grateful. It was so interesting for me to be in it, because they came to me initially and they said, “Read the script.” I thought they wanted me to direct it. And I went back to Michael and I said, “I don’t do this kind of show.” He said, “No, no, I want you to play Jimmy the Director.” So once he said that to me, I started my journey to try and become an actor. I don’t think I ever did, but I maybe became an A-C-T without the O-R.
I went from being scared of Valerie Cherish — because she’s so daunting — to really appreciating who she was and the skill that Lisa has of creating characters and Michael’s unbelievable ability to write shit that nobody else would write.
Is there something to you that always remains true about a Lisa Kudrow project?
It’s going to be different. She doesn’t do the same character twice. She hasn’t done Phoebe in a long time, nor will she. She’s too smart for that, but whatever she does, it’s going to be intense, and you have to play on her terms. You have to cherish the time that you get to work with Valerie Cherish. That’s her skill, and she never drops that — well, she’s not crazy. It’s not like Daniel Day-Lewis, who you had to call Mr. Lincoln, but she’s in that character and then out of that character. She’s amazing.
What was your reaction to finding out that Season 3 was going to be so focused on AI?
I thought it was a great idea. I have no idea if there are sitcoms now made totally by AI, but I thought it was just a brilliant, brilliant idea.
Did you have any concern over a character with your image and your name directing the first AI TV show, even within the context of this fictional world?
No, because I redeem myself with that speech. If I was the director for all the subsequent episodes [after the “How’s That?!” pilot], I probably would’ve talked to Michael about that. I would not do that. I’m too proud of what I do and what I did, and since we are playing me as Jimmy the Director, Jimmy the Director would not pursue this.
At the start, the story necessitates him getting on board, just so we can see what making a show with AI would look like. Did it feel real as you were making it? Did it feel like the future in some way?
No, it never did.
OK, good.
It was so bad. It was so bad — and Michael wrote it that way. Michael wrote that whole thing — including the cold open that doesn’t work, just one hokey joke after the other — so that’s Michael’s opinion of it, which is the right opinion because, as I say in my speech, with actual people, you don’t see the joke coming, but with AI, you see every joke coming.
Have you seen the rest of the season?
I saw the episode after the one I did, and I haven’t seen the rest of it. Look, I’m an actor. I only watch what I’m in.
Then you earned the full title: You’re an actor, not just an act.
My wife finally convinced me to write a book about my life, and the one thing I didn’t put in it was an index because I knew every fucking actor would go to the back of the book and look for their name and just read that part. But I never got that way with “The Comeback.” I never said, “Why am I not in it more?” I just committed to do what Michael wanted me to do.
James Burrows and Lisa Kudrow in ‘The Comeback’Courtesy of Erin Simkin / HBODid you and Michael have discussions about the threat AI poses and how you feel about it? Did you want to say something about AI with your role in show?
No, because what Michael said is what I believe. You can’t write a show from the heart when you have no heart. That’s what I feel. Unfortunately, I think that the world is going that way. I know sitcoms have gone the way of imitation for a long time. There’s no more innovation left.
A lot of it has to do with the writers. I don’t mean to lecture or anything like that, but when I started in the business with the Charles brothers and Jim Brooks and Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels, everybody was raised on books, and now everybody’s raised on television. And it’s derivative television. There are very few shows that have new ideas because the people who trained in the new world of television have not been trained to be innovative, and they’re not helped by networks that want to do shows that are imitations of the shows they have on.
We keep running backward, toward the same things.
That’s all they know. And then they get a hit — they got “Ghosts,” and there were a hundred different versions of “Ghosts” the next pilot season.
To a degree, that’s always been the case, but it just seems like it’s compounded every year as we go forward.
Well, it was not the case in the beginning because in the beginning, the networks hired the writers and left them alone. On “Cheers,” we learned from Grant Tinker, who ran MTM, that if you have a note, you give it to Grant, and Grant will pass it on. Grant never passed a note on. Never. Never. He never did. That’s all changed with the power of the networks. They think they know what they’re doing, and what they know how to do is imitate. How many “CSI’s” can there be?
But even then, with “Cheers,” wouldn’t they tell you, “Can’t we have another show like this?“
Well, yeah, they tried. There were a couple of bar shows after that. I mean, they let us do another show. We did a show called “All Is Forgiven.” It was pretty good. It was about a soap opera. And we did “The Tortellis,” unfortunately.
So it’s also the creatives. We thought, “Oh, this is so fucking easy.” It’s not. It’s hard. It’s hard to get people in a room, and it’s hard to get magic like you got magic between Ted [Danson] and Shelley [Long]. It’s hard. You’ve got to be lucky. You’ve got to be lucky that they put you in the right timeslot, that you’re on the right network. Brandon Tartikoff was running NBC when we did “Cheers” and he fucking left us alone. He was smart enough to know, “These guys, I think, know what they’re doing.” It’s so hard. But when they’re great, they’re great, and when they’re no good, they’re awful.
So I don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t know what the answer is in television comedy, but it’s hard.
I will say that one of my favorite things about “The Comeback” this season is that they put so much emphasis on how difficult it is to make a show and how many people you need to make a show well.
It is difficult. It’s a strange conundrum the world of television has found itself in. We rely now on reality television. [groans] I always thought that would die — that’ll tell you how much I know. It’s just crazy what’s happened. There’s something in the system that’s broken because it’s cheaper to do a sitcom than it is to do a one-camera show. So I’m not sure what goes on. For the last 20 years, I tried to figure out what it was, and I can’t put my finger on it. I have no idea what the fuck happened.
“The Comeback” Season 3 is available on HBO and HBO Max. All episodes are available now.
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