HBO“B level” TV star Valerie Cherish was a pioneer of reality television. Now, it’s ten years later – there’s more TV than ever and the onetime sitcom star wants back in.
Emmy winner Lisa Kudrow stars as the embattled Valerie Cherish, a fading TV “It Girl” who was once so desperate to stay in the spotlight that she allowed cameras to follow her every move as she appeared on a new sitcom, with disastrous results.
When the HBO comedy series THE COMEBACK returns for eight episodes starting SUNDAY, NOV. 9 at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT), Valerie thinks she has it all figured out this time. She doesn’t.
Executive Producer/Co-creator Michael Patrick King the mind behind ‘Sex and the City’ spoke to HBO about the returning sitcom.
Q: How did the original version of THE COMEBACK come about?
MPK: “It was after I had finished “Sex and the City” and Lisa had just finished “Friends.” We’d known each other over the years, but only seen each other occasionally at events. Neither of us had any interest in doing another television series right then.
But we had lunch and Lisa started doing this character she had in her mind, which is an actress character who’s very self-serving, very Valerie. Lisa’s hilarious doing it. And then I thought, “Yes, but you can’t just do a show about an actress. What would be interesting about an actress right now? She would probably be looking for work, probably on reality shows.
Within three hours we had gone from, “Of course we’re not going to do television,” to, “This would be interesting.” And we left that lunch knowing that we had the idea of something called THE COMEBACK. We had always wanted to work together and this was a big way to work together.”
Q: How is Valerie Cherish the same, and how is she different?
MPK: “I think she’s a very exciting character because even though she evolved a little bit in the first season, in the very last moment of the first season she forgot everything she learned. As soon as she was offered success on the Jay Leno show when the audience applauded her, she immediately went back to the heat-seeking missile that she is.
For the second coming of THE COMEBACK, we wanted to further explore what happens after somebody has a failure. Years later, they think they’ve evolved past that, but when they are put in a similar explosive situation you see how far they’ve really evolved. The eventual hope for us is to get Valerie to think less about the cameras and more about her life.”
Q: What can we expect this time around?
MPK: “People now know that Valerie is pretty strong. She is relentless in how much she wants something. We really tried to tell a new story and reach for a big arc in these episodes. There will be a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns. But no matter how dark it gets, you will be led out into the light. I have no interest in leaving everybody in the woods or a haunted house, but it is really fun to be in a haunted house some times.”