“All I Want to Do Is a Sitcom”: Jamie Lee Curtis, Téa Leoni and Tim Daly Say “I Do” to NBC’s “Newlyweds”

NBC’s later-in-life romantic comedy Newlyweds stars Téa Leoni as Jeanie, a free spirit, and Tim Daly as James, a buttoned-up professor, who marry after a whirlwind courtship. James then learns that loving Jeanie means loving her large, eccentric circle of friends and family, and they have to learn to love him too. Jamie Lee Curtis co-created the series and stars alongside Bill O’Neill, Emma Meisel and Ignacio Diaz-Silverio. During NBCUniversal’s Backlot Press Day, the cast led a live table read for a room full of reporters before answering questions about the new sitcom.

Leoni and Daly spent six seasons as husband and wife on Madam Secretary, and they have been married in real life for years. Leoni admitted they were looking for another project to do together, partly because of the times. “The world got darker, and we wanted to get lighter,” she said.

Daly said he was happy to play her husband again. “We spent six years pretending to be married on TV,” he explained, “but we actually are married. It’s a miracle.” 

Their history together pays off on stage too. Leoni said that during the table read she could tell where Daly was going with a line, just as she can at home. “It’s really fun to act with someone that you know so well because we are a little ahead with each other,” she explained. She also said James’s kitchen skills come from real life, and that Daly really is an amazing cook.

For Curtis, Newlyweds is the result of a career-long wish. She looked back on Anything But Love, the ABC sitcom she made with Richard Lewis. It started as a pilot that wasn’t picked up, then revived after A Fish Called Wanda became a hit. She called it the favorite job of her life. Since then, she said, she has asked her agents for the same thing year after year: “All I want to do is a sitcom.” Eventually, she decided to create the job herself, which led her to Gail Lerner, with whom she co-created the series.

The story closely mirrors Curtis’ own life. She married her husband, Christopher Guest, after seeing his picture in a magazine, and they had never spent more than 72 hours together before the wedding. Forty-two years later, she said, that sense of two opposites figuring each other out is at the heart of the show. “There’s something really delicious about watching people figure out life,” she said, especially when their lives are already full of other people.

There are very few multicamera sitcoms on television now, and the panel spent much of the conversation explaining why they think the format deserves a comeback. Daly, who called himself a theater kid at heart, said he values the live audience most. “It’s like coming home,” he said. Leoni recalled the airsickness bags that hung behind the sets of Flying Blind and The Naked Truth. She used to throw up before going on stage. Now, she said, the format is pure fun.

Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, who called himself “the resident Make-A-Wish kid in the cast,” spoke for younger viewers. “The fact that the medium feels old school is, I think, a big plus,” he said, adding that it “feels nostalgic in the most positive of ways.” Daly agreed. He said young fans often tell him they discovered Wings, usually because a parent made them watch it.

Lerner’s first real writing job was on Will & Grace. She argued that a good sitcom’s basic tools haven’t changed: relatable characters, real surprises and strong jokes. “The old tricks and the new tricks are the same,” she said. 

NBC wanted a companion show about love and friendship because of Happy's Place's success, to build a Friday-night comedy block. Curtis added that network TV is free to watch at a time when many viewers are watching their spending. She ended her pitch with a request to the room: “If the audiences support a sitcom, there will be more sitcoms.”

Lerner called Bill O’Neill, who plays Arvid, “the kindest character I’ve ever written,” and she and Curtis agreed early on that the part would be a great opportunity for an unknown actor. Lerner found him late one night at a comedy show, after Curtis had gone to bed, while O’Neill was performing a five-minute set. She called Curtis the next morning as soon as she woke up. “I said, ‘I found him. Oh, my God, I found him,’” Lerner recalled, praising O’Neill’s “physical virtuosity” and “constant invention.”

O’Neill described his path to the show as an unlikely jump. “The audition that I had before this show was for Malnourished Guy No. 2,” he said. “A crime drama, and I got really close on that one.” Curtis compared Arvid to TV’s long tradition of innocent, eccentric characters who become audience favorites.

Emma Meisel and Diaz-Silverio round out the ensemble as Jeanie’s teenaged kids, and both described a steep but welcoming learning curve. “For me, I feel like it’s just been a master class,” said Meisel. She had never done a multicam before and grew up watching Friends, Will & Grace and Reba. Daly interrupted to add Wings to the list, and she quickly said she should have named it first.

Diaz-Silverio said the experience has been eye-opening, since few young actors get to work in front of a live studio audience. He joked about his co-stars: “I wish I could tell you that they are jerks, but they are not.”

In the end, Lerner said, the goal is simple. The series is about two people who are open to change at an age when most people believe they’re done changing, and she hopes viewers will take that home with them. “I want everyone to watch this show and look at the spouse you have not really looked at in quite a while and be, like, ‘Hello,’” she said.

Newlyweds premieres tonight at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.