‘The Millers’: Beau Bridges says comedic roles are tougher than drama

By Laura Kane, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Beau Bridges can currently be seen on TV as a closeted gay academic in drama “Masters of Sex” and a doofus dad in sitcom “The Millers.”

So which role does he find more difficult?

“I think making people laugh is probably one of the most difficult things to pull off. Comedy is tough. I think it’s even harder than drama,” he said in a summer interview.

“The Millers” returns for a second season Thursday on CTV. Bridges plays Tom, the bumbling father of local news reporter Nathan Miller (Will Arnett). When Nathan announces he’s getting divorced, Tom and his wife Carol (Margo Martindale) decide to split up too.

The light half-hour comedy from showrunner Greg Garcia (“My Name is Earl”) sees Carol move in with her son and Tom impose himself on their daughter Debbie (Jayma Mays) and her family. While the kids try to cope with their infuriating parents, Tom and Carol venture into the dating world after 43 years of marriage.

“I think because it’s a family show there’s a lot to relate to for everybody,” said Bridges. “The Millers, we’re like everybody else, dealing with our own particular quirks and trying to get by.”

He said he found “The Millers” challenging at first because he didn’t have much experience filming a multi-camera sitcom in front of a studio audience. But he quickly embraced the live experience.

“The great thing about it is you get the immediate comeback to see how you’re doing,” he said. “What’s difficult is putting on a new play every week and always changing things up all the time. You rehearse it for the writers every day, they come in with new stuff the next day, then even when we’re performing it, if a joke doesn’t work, they’ll write another one and slip it to you right there on the spot.

“That made me real nervous in the beginning, but I found out quickly that the audience enjoys it more when you’re making a mistake. They laugh and that helps me kind of relax and say, ‘Oh, OK, I get it. So I don’t have to worry about that.'”

Bridges, 72-year-old brother to actor Jeff Bridges, has won multiple Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award during his storied career. In Showtime’s “Masters of Sex,” about pioneering sexuality researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson, he plays Provost Barton Scully, who is gay but has been in a decades-long marriage to Margaret (Allison Janney).

“Allison Janney, who plays my wife in ‘Masters of Sex,’ she and Margo Martindale are friends. They know each other. So you know they’re probably talking about me all the time behind my back,” he said. “But Allison is great as well. Our scenes are very dramatic, very different from what I have with Margo, which is all hysterically funny.”

When it comes to switching back and forth between a comedy and a drama, Bridges said he relies on the script.

“I’ve always felt that the most important element in any show is the script itself. Like Shakespeare said a long time ago, the play’s the thing. I think that’s still true. And in those instances, ‘The Millers’ and ‘Masters of Sex,’ they’re, I think, beautifully written, both of them, for what they are,” he said.

When “The Millers” premiered last year, its flatulence-heavy pilot gave it an early reputation as “the fart joke show.” Garcia had to defend the gassy humour to reporters, stating, “People laugh at these things… fart jokes are funny.”

Bridges agreed, saying he didn’t understand what the stink was about.

“It’s so funny because we all break wind every once in a while. It’s kind of a natural phenomenon. I didn’t know what the big deal was about that,” he said. “Some people, I guess, they freak out when that happens. But worse things could happen.”

He readily admitted his character Tom was a bit of a moron, who “bumps into walls every once in a while.” But viewers found out toward the end of the first season that Tom was an engineer before he retired, so he’s a little smarter than everyone thought, Bridges pointed out.

After having his first make-out scene last season, Bridges said that may be a portent of things to come when the show returns Thursday. But he also believes that, deep down, Tom and Carol love each other.

“My wife, in the last episode, talked about moving out. So who knows,” he said. “So she goes off to get an apartment. Maybe I’ll sneak over there once in a while. We wouldn’t want the kids to know.”

A married father of five adult children himself, Bridges swore he would never move in with one of his kids.

“First of all, I can’t imagine doing that right now. I think that would make them nuts,” he said. “And it does. The Millers’ kids are driven crazy by that fact. But basically we love each other as a family, so we make it work.”

– Follow @ellekane on Twitter.

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