Extended Family Cast and Creator Discuss the Sitcom and the Boston Celtics

The nuclear family is dead. Long live the modern family. NBC’s freshman comedy Extended Family gives audiences a humorous look at a new kind of family, one that may not look like the so-called “ideal” family, but features love and laughter all the same. Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men) stars alongside Abigail Spencer (Suits), and Donald Faison (Scrubs) in this adaptation of the true story behind the family of co-executive producers George Geyer, Emilia Fazzalari, and Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck.

When Jim (Cryer) and Julia (Spencer) divorced, they said it was the best thing that ever happened to them. Choosing a new way to co-parent, the pair kept their children in the family home where they took turns living and raising their kids. All seems to be going smoothly, until Julia gets engaged to Trey (Faison), who just happens to be the owner of Jim’s favorite sports team, the Boston Celtics. Like a classic sitcom, Extended Family follows this new kind of family as they navigate a rapidly changing world and their own unique dynamic.

Cryer, Spencer, and Faison were joined by showrunner Mike O’Malley during an Extended Family panel at this year’s TCA Winter Tour to discuss introducing the audience to a new family dynamic, hitting the right sitcom beats, and the role of the Boston Celtics.

Question: Mike, I wonder if you can reflect a little bit. You have a premise here that’s set up for this […] initial conflict. They have to keep living with this as you go. Has it surprised you at all, the kind of stories that you’ve been telling that maybe you didn’t realize you’d be telling when you set up this premise, and kind of surprised you about the characters and their dynamic?

Mike O’Malley: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, one of the things I think that we are always looking for in terms of breaking stories is you’re looking for the conflict within the family, antagonistic. But what we found in working through the episodes of the show, it’s more about finding maybe some situations that happened outside of the family and how the family comes together and solves that problem together.

“So I think that there’s a lot of dramatic tension and comedic tension that you can have from two people arguing over whether or not they’re raising their kid one way or not. Should we let the kid stay out past his curfew, play video games or not, etc. But I think that we found that these guys are also likable that when we have them teaming up together to go against something rather than have this internal conflict, that’s something we found in the later episodes that I think is working quite well.”

Question: For Miss Spencer, you’ve done a couple of shows with Rectify and Timeless where your characters had pretty fraught family relationships. Is it easier or harder to have a character here who has fraught family dynamics, but not quite so heavy?

Abigail Spencer: Well, there’s more ease because we can move into the laughter and the fun and the joy of it, but I think the delicate dance of any storytelling is that it’s rooted in something real, and family dynamics are very real. But what I love about what Mike has created is that there’s a joy and a knowing that we want to do it together. We’re on the same team. Whereas some of my other shows, it was not that. So I’m grateful to work in this medium, but what I love about what you’re saying is that you feel the family, that you feel that this is still about a family and that’s shining through, and that makes me very happy.

Question: Even on those shows, you were still funny.

Abigail Spender: Well, thank you for noticing. Not everyone did, by the way. So thank you.

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Question: And you’ve done comedies before, but the two men sitting on either side of you have done literally –-

Abigail Spencer: Are geniuses! Are titans! Yes!

Question: — hundreds and hundreds of sitcom episodes between them. So how do you balance learning from these people who have done this as long and as well as they have, but also keeping whatever is naturally funny about your own —-

Donald Faison: I’ll answer that question for her.

Abigail Spencer: Thank you. Thank you, guys. They’ll take it from here.

Jon Cryer: Allow us to make a point.

Abigail Spencer: Oh, you weren’t!

Jon Cryer: No, I was joking.

Abigail Spencer: Well, thanks for noticing. Look, it starts with the writing. Mike O’Malley is a genius writer. I get to learn from these guys every day. I feel like they just welcomed me into the club. I mean, I’d always wanted to do [a] sitcom. I mean, this is my dream, and a lot of the shows -– Mad Men was written with a sitcom rhythm. Rectify was as well. People don’t know that. So just thanks for noticing that I was bringing comedy to that space. And I think part of it is that we’re bringing the drama to this stage.

Donald Faison: She came prepared also. It’s not like Abigail came -– like you said, she was funny on those other shows. For her, maybe it’s a pleasant surprise that she is thriving as well as she is. You know, she’s killing it if you ask me. And so maybe that’s –-

Abigail Spencer: Let’s ask everyone else.

Jon Cryer: Poll everybody individually.

Abigail Spencer: No, I’m learning a lot and I love this medium. It’s challenging and a joy, and I think it also injects into culture things that need to be talked about in a very digestible way, and I love being a part of that.

Question: In many ways, I think we look at multi-cam as this sort of evergreen genre. It doesn’t really change. But, obviously, you’re coming back to this after a long break, in a creative capacity for the first time. What do you think has changed about it from your perspective, from your time on Yes, Dear to now that you find yourself sort of thinking about the modernity of a genre that has such a long history?

Mike O’Malley: Yeah. I do think about that. It’s a really good question. I think one of the things, technically, that I didn’t realize until we started doing this again is that there was, believe it or not, a certain elegance to some of the camera shots. It’s more difficult now. On Yes, Dear, we had four cameras, all of which were on a dolly. So, you had dolly grips, you had focus pullers, and you had the cameraperson. So, there [were] 12 people shooting that. Now, you have four individuals on peds who have to do the focus, move the camera themselves, and frame.

Jon Cryer: Peds are those mounts that you see — you probably know this already but the camera’s mounted on a ped that gives them great mobility, but it means that the cameraperson has to do the focus pulling and the movement which adds a huge amount to the difficulty.

Donald Faison: I don’t know if this is the right answer, but it feels like network television is defining itself again. You know what I mean? Because of everything that’s going on with streaming and stuff like that, what is network television? So, for me, what’s changed quite a bit, I remember when you needed to have 20 million people watch your show for it to be considered a huge success. And that’s not the case anymore. I remember running to the — I still do this, they’ll tell you, I still do this — but running in and checking out the overnights, and seeing what we did last night, and what the [numbers were]? And that’s not as big of a component anymore. And so that’s changed a bit, and so the anxiety is less until the end of the month, when you find out the real numbers.

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Question: We were over at Warner Bros. yesterday, and John Larroquette was talking about this thing that happens in front of a live audience where, you know, it changes your performance, because you have to wait for the laughs to die down. And you’ve got to be doing something while that’s happening. It’s different from being on a one-camera where there’s not an audience. And I’m just curious, all three of you have different levels of experience in front of audiences. Jon, obviously, you have the most. But what is that component, and how does that sort of change the way you actually [act] when the laughter’s happening?

Jon Cryer: Well, thank you, that’s actually a terrific question. Generally, what you try to do as an actor is have business that you’re in the middle of while you’re giving the joke, so that it doesn’t look like you have nothing to do but just stand there. But if you do have to just stand there, I just marinate in the humiliation. Usually, that’s because I’m the butt of the joke. But that’s another thing, by the way, your editors always have to have a very live amount of reactions, a live reaction to things, because editors always need something to cut to. It requires this incredible engagement. I mean, it takes a lot of work as an actor to just be incredibly engaged with everything. But again, that’s part of the joy of it, is that it’s actually fun. It feels really alive.

Abigail Spencer: It becomes the rhythm of the scene, like, the rhythm of the scene shifts, because the audience is now part of the rhythm. They become part of it. We have an episode coming up, the yoga episode, and Jon and I have a scene together in front of the audience, and he said something and it killed. I mean it felt like the laughter went on for 12 minutes. I had the next line. And just to stand there and look at him while that laughter just kept pouring in, and to then catch the next moment of when to come in. Because it also got a laugh, the next one, you know?

Abigail Spencer: So, it’s been a fascinating journey for me to learn this, and these two, they’re so patient with me, and so generous of spirit. The first episode that we shot when that happened, I didn’t know something was going to be funny, and they laughed. I went, ‘What the — I am still in the middle of the scene!’

Jon Cryer: Yes, she was, she was absolutely startled.

Abigail Spencer: I was so startled by it. So, it’s been a journey with that.

Mike O’Malley: It really does affect it. It’s that staying connected, that’s what we’re looking for. When we see in the editing the other character staying connected, letting that laugh die down, and then coming in just at the right time when it’s done beautifully well, that’s what makes what we’re talking about earlier. You’re anticipating, you see this, you get to know the characters a little bit better, you’re anticipating what they’re going to say. And then hopefully they deliver a variation on that. So, it’s very unique, what you’re talking about.

Donald Faison: The one thing that does also shift is that Larroquette brought up his performance. It’s not just because of the laugh track. It’s also because the audience gives you so much energy, you just can’t help it. It’s like you’re performing in front of […] pretty much the crew for the first part of the week. Then they bring in about as many people that are […] in this room right now. You want to make every one of those people laugh just as much as you made the crew laugh. So sometimes you get really big. And it’s great to have someone like Mike who can recognize that and say, calm that sh*t down.

Mike O’Malley: I don’t say that to him. Dial it down.

Donald Faison: You have, now, come on, bro. Mike, I love you to death, man. I love you to death. But you know what you said.

Abigail Spencer: We were talking about making people laugh as well, but if you can move them, too, when they start to feel empathy, or when the audience is like, ‘I got hit with something real,’ I think that’s the beautiful thing. It’s laugh, laugh, and then something really real happens. That’s been really interesting to share with the audience as well. Because with a single camera, it is, you know, at home, people at home and privacy. To open up the work, it’s been very vulnerable. People are coming to our office and watching us figure things out in front of people. It takes a lot of courage, I feel like.

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Playing with the Boston Celtics

Question: Why the Boston Celtics? Do they have —

Jon Cryer: Because they’re awesome.

Question: But, I mean, do they have input and veto power and —

Donald Faison: So it’s actually based on the owner of the Boston Celtics’ actual real life. Rick — how do you say his last name?

Jon Cryer: Grousbeck.

Donald Faison: Grousbeck married into a family that’s very much like this show. The two people, Emilia and George, they divorced, and their two kids live in a house, an apartment in New York City […] that they call the Nest, and they come in —

Jon Cryer: Yes, and the parents go back and forth.

Donald Faison: — weekly. And so the Boston Celtics aspect of it is because he actually is a part of an extended family like you see on television.

Mike O’Malley: So they had this idea. They were just like, ‘Our life is a sitcom,’ and they came to Tom Werner — who I had worked with on “Survivor’s Remorse” — and Tom Werner said, ‘Hey, what do you think of this? These guys think that their lives is the premise for a television show.’ And what happened was Abigail’s character starts dating the owner of the Celtics, and this guy, George Geyer, is the biggest Celtics fan you’ve ever met. I mean he’s had a piece of the parquet floor from the old Garden in his house. And, so, it was like, ‘Couldn’t you be dating anyone other than the owner of the Boston Celtics?’ Nope.

Jon Cryer: Nope.

Abigail Spencer: Sure can’t.

Mike O’Malley: So, that’s why.

Jon Cryer: And George is in the writer’s room, by the way. He has been on location, helping us out. It’s been great to have him.

Question: Sorry, just following up again on the Boston Celtics. (Laughter.) Do they have veto power? I mean, like, can the Boston Celtics lose a game in “Extended Family?”

Donald Faison: They just went on an 18-game losing streak.

Jon Cryer: No, yeah. In our universe, they’re having a rough year. It’s like science fiction.

Donald Faison: In real life, they’re the number one team in the NBA. On our show, they suck. I wonder why…

Mike O’Malley: Yeah, I mean, they’ve been great. But they understand that we’re trying to create scenarios where there’s disappointment and conflict. So the losing streak, that played into a big episode that we had last night. We had a player in the episode last night who Jon is trying to get to come out to a meet and greet, and he’s very disappointed with himself. He’s a very religious person who thinks he’s let down God. Jon tells him, ‘Well, it’s God’s fault, it’s not yours.’ Then the kid mimics what he says, and then we get into a lot of trouble with that. So, they’ve been great partners to us, and they understand we’re trying to show people who are flawed.

Extended Family airs Tuesdays at 8:30PM on NBC. You can watch Extended Family on Peacock below:

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