I was like, “Why is this happening right now?” But I was like I’ll take it. My lawyers were still calling me about the divorce and I was shooting this scene. When I had done that scene I had been divorced for a year. When you see something’s really real, then you can see all the layers.
What do I have to relate to this?” It’s hard for me to watch actors when they’re just putting it on. I’m going into this really dark place.” It’s like, “OK. But I do go full-on with everything that I’m doing and whatever it takes to get there I use. Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t say that I’m method by any stretch of the imagination. But how much of your own life could you channel for Nina’s breakdown in that opening scene? I would gather that in real life you weren’t throwing glasses at your co-workers and shattering a vase given to your boss by Elton John when the divorce came to pass. I know that you were recently divorced before you started shooting it. I look like a weird homeless homecoming queen. The rest is me in Uggs with the dress wrapped around my knees. There’s only a few full-body shots of me in that episode. My ankle-I never got to fix it, because I still had to walk on it in heels. In episode two you’re at a charity dinner in a gorgeous gown and high heels. I’m in this nice lawyer clothing and then I’m wearing booties underneath. In every shot that’s not below my knees I’m like in a cast or some ice is wrapped around my foot or just my Uggs or something. If you pay attention in some of the first episodes of the season my ankle is the size of a softball and they have to try not to show my feet. The stairs to my office are marble, so they’re not very forgiving. I did just a quick tumble down the stairs. I did it seriously like days before we started shooting. And the whole time I had broken ankle, when we filmed the whole series. And except for the bigger stuff, I did most of my own things. There’s so much physical comedy, too, which I feel like it must be hard for a female actor to find a role with such great physical comedy in it. I was like, “I’m so overwhelmed, oh my god.” By the end, I remember going home and just walked into the door and collapsed in my boyfriend’s arms. I’m going to have a freak out now.” We shot that all day. It was like, “Hey, everybody, nice to meet you. Maybe it’s because she’s from New England, like I am, and there’s that weird, sardonic sense of humor. I wasn’t worry about it, because for some reason I just jumped into this character so easily. I’m so glad it came out as well as it did. This opening breakdown scene is a great opening scene. I was like, ‘Why is this happening right now?’”īut with a new boyfriend and a brand new show to headline, we chatted with Coupe about her special knack for playing Type A so well, why it’s so different from how she is in her first life, and how weathering a divorce and a sitcom cancellation is leading to a new Happy Ending.
“My lawyers were still calling me about the divorce and I was shooting this scene. “When I had done that scene I had been divorced for a year,” she says. Just two months after ABC canceled Happy Endings in 2013, the actress was hit with divorce papers by her husband, Randall Whittinghill, after six years of marriage and 13 years together.
It was more than just dialogue that made the Benched pilot a bit of an art-imitating-life situation for Coupe, though. “But then I kept reading and it was like was just taking thoughts and the words I would speak just right out of my head.” She remembers, of course, being tantalized by the tantalizing opening breakdown scene. Why isn’t every female actress on the planet vying for this job?’ They just want to give this to me?’” she says. When the dust settles and shards of broken vase-glass are picked up, the only job Nina can get is a poorly paying one as a public defender.īecause she so brilliantly nailed the part of Jane on Happy Endings, managing to make an obsessive compulsive endearing and escaping all the clichés that tempt such a character, Coupe was flat-out offered Nina in Benched, no audition necessary. When we meet Nina, her cheeks are streaked with tear-stained mascara and her tightly-wound personality is exploding in violent fashion: she begins throwing dishware at her bosses and shattering the firm’s expensive decorations, including a vase gifted from Elton John (which becomes a killer running joke throughout the series’ first few episodes).
0 kommentar(er)
