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By Suzanne

Interview with Paul Reiser and Jennifer Grey of "Red Oaks" on Amazon 10/20/16

This is a great show, and I'm so glad that it's back for a second season and that I got to interview the stars! They were all very nice. Paul Reiser (Doug Getty) was clearly in a hurry, as you can tell from the audio recording. They did call very late, so I guess the interviews put them behind. I'm such a fan of both of these actors. I didn't realize until later that Jennifer Grey (Judy) is married to Clark Gregg of "Avengers," "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." et al. or I would have asked about him as well, since she mentioned him a few times.   Sounds like she mostly stays at home with the children and does the occasional job like this (for which we're very grateful!).  Most people probably know her from "Dirty Dancing," but she's been in many other movies and series as well. Reiser is most famous for "Mad About You," which I really loved, but he's kept busy with many other projects since, including writing some books. He's always a likable guy, but he plays such a jerk on this series (but a likable one). They were both so funny on this call! If I'd had more time, I would have liked to have asked her about being an 80's icon and now playing someone from back in that decade.

"Red Oaks" returns for its second season November 11, 2016. You can watch Season One
 here.

Here's a recording of our interview. Here's a brief transcription of the relevant parts of the interview by Gisele.

1.  Suzanne: I was trying to remember if your characters have ever actually met?

Reiser: Never. We were talking about that. This is the most time we've spent together. We have a great time at these publicity events, but our characters have never -- we were never even on set the same day.

Grey: We've barely seen each other leaving, like one person leaving the set while the other one's getting make-up.

Reiser: I was in a movie recently and Mary Steenburgen was there, and I was telling her about this movie I'd just done, and she's looking at me, and I say, "What?" And she goes, "I was in that movie. I was in that ?? with you." And I said, "Oh, right." But it's very tough when you don't even shoot on the same day, so she shot one time, and we never actually met. But Jennifer and I have never actually been on camera at the same time. We were just talking about that. It was kind of interesting about last year they sort of shuffled the deck up so the pairings have been different. Then last year I had a lot of scenes on the court with Ennis Esmer as Nash and that was a lot of fun. I didn't get to do much at all with ?? I will a little bit this year. I was much more with Gina Gershon, who was great fun, too; but they do shuffle it up, so I'll be curious to see where they take it next year.

2. Suzanne: It seems like the first season was mostly about David and friends, and the second season expanded on the other roles more, like the parents.

Reiser: Yeah, it seems, yeah! So I'm not sure where they're going with it, but they take it one year at a time, and they had a lot of plates spinning in the air for the first season. So they wanted to follow up on my court trials and Jennifer and Richard Kind's divorce and how that affected David and Skye's relationship, certainly, was front and center this season.

3.  Suzanne: What made you decide to take these roles?

Reiser: You know what? It always starts with a good script and, I speak for myself, I'm sure this is for Jennifer, too, I had the script and thought it was really well done. It had a very interesting role which wasn't fully there, but they worked on it. So it had a lot of things going for it. It was a really good script, and it was a really great group of people, you know, from Steven Soderbergh down to Greg Jacobs and Joe Gangemi who created the show. And the cast, you know, you look at the call sheet and you go, "Ooh, I get to go play with Jennifer Grey and Richard Kind and all these wonderful people. I didn't know I actually wouldn't get to play with Jennifer Grey. It was bait and switch, but, you know, it had a lot of appeal and Jennifer wanted to work with me.

Grey: It's all about you. Always about you. Meantime, I will tell you that because I'd been a mom, and one kid and I always wanted to be a mom and have a family, it's been really hard for me to take a job that would be out of town to take me from my daughter, so this job shoots when my husband is on hiatus, because I really never wanted my daughter to be brought up by a nanny, and I think kids need you home, so for me, it was like around three years ago when they came to me, and at one point, she was in 6th grade / 7th grade, and I thought, you know what? If I can do this in the summer, not take her out of school, not be apart too long, and my husband would be off in those months, I can do it. And the truth is I've been very lucky that I've been able to say no to working, because my husband is supporting us. It's an incredible luxury, and I get to be a stay-at-home mom, and then I get a script written by these fantastic writers with this incredible cast, and I really feel like the pedigree of the piece. I mean, David Gordon Green is one of my favorite filmmakers. He's an executive producer. David Soderbergh is a god, as far as I'm concerned, and Greg Jacobs and Joe Gangemi wrote this beautiful script, and to add to this insane cornucopia of bliss, they're all really nice people, with the exception of one.

Reiser: Yeah, and you know what? That's why she won't work with me. "Cornucopia of Bliss" was actually my wresting name, and I did not do well. It's funny you said about shooting in summer, I didn't know this in advance that it shoots in summer, and it's in a country club [Edgewood Country Club, River Vale, NJ], and it kind of felt at first like I'm going to summer camp. You're just going away for a couple of months. Well, my parents came to visit, so that really made it feel like summer camp. No, that's not true. I made that part up.

Grey: Did you cry when they left?

Reiser: I did, but they brought me comic books.

4.  Suzanne: What was your favorite episode or moment of the second season?

Grey: I liked the one where I kissed a girl, and I liked it. But the fun part of it was that I actually made a friend. She's a really talented actress and stand-up called Beth Stelling, and she is somebody who is very funny. I just love funny.

Reiser: Everybody but Jennifer here got to go to Paris. What was really nice was when Amazon gave us all a million dollars and a boat. Oh, you didn't get that, so I can't talk about it.

5.  Suzanne: Is there anything about this show that particularly reminds you of living back in the 80's?

Reiser: Yeah, no! I wish I could help you there.

6.  Suzanne: Jennifer, had you ever kissed a woman before?

Grey: You know, I have. Yeah, I think that any self-respecting woman should have at least tried it. I think most have.

Reiser: I have. I kissed a girl.

Grey: Did you like it?

Reiser: Not that much. I was hoping nobody would get that.

Grey: The weirdest thing when you kiss a girl is that their lips can go way up above where there's no beard.

Reiser: Yeah, I'm used to that.

Grey: Oh, from kissing a boy?

Reiser: No, because my wife's a girl, so she had automatically --

Grey: No, I'm actually a pretty hard-core hetero --

Reiser: And hard core, by the way, that's just going by the literature in her bag: hard-core hetero.

Grey: I'm a hard-core hetero. I'm a big fan of the men, but I really find that any time that you can shake it up with anything, especially when you're working, it's just like pretty good.

7.  Suzanne: Paul, any real life person that you may have based your role on or look at for inspiration?

Reiser: No, I didn't have to dig too far to find my inner nasty guy. I'm secretly quite abrasive, and the secret is now out. So it was very fun to let that out finally. I let my true self out.

8.  Suzanne: Do you think there'll be a third season?

Reiser: I think there might. I think there might.

Grey: Do you want one?

Suzanne: Oh, yeah, definitely. I've got to find out what happens.

Grey: What would you like to happen?

Suzanne: I don't know. I'm not a good writer. I just want to be entertained. I loved it. More great writing and characters.

Reiser: We will get on it right away, so we can fill your entertainment needs.

Suzanne: Thank you. That sounds good.

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