Actors Melissa Rauch & John Larroquette talk to The Inside Reel about approach, perspective, legacy and heart in regards to the 2nd season of the reboot/continuation of their show "Night Court" on NBC.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - With these two characters,
00:20 there's so much emotional intelligence,
00:22 but there's also an interesting idea of empathy
00:26 and who they are as people.
00:28 Could you talk about that?
00:29 Obviously, Dan, over the years, has transformed,
00:33 but Abby herself has transformed
00:36 because what happened with her father and her addiction.
00:38 Can you talk sort of about that psychological element
00:41 and how that helps the comedy progress through?
00:44 - Sure, thank you so much.
00:47 That's such a great question.
00:48 Watching the original,
00:51 it's something that really always drew me to it,
00:54 even before I even realized exactly what I was feeling
00:58 and what was happening.
01:00 There was just something very special about the original
01:02 in that it had this very heightened, broad comedy,
01:05 but then these very heartfelt, emotional pockets.
01:08 And when you look at some of the episodes,
01:12 some of my favorite in particular,
01:14 there's these beautiful, beautiful moments of heart.
01:19 John had an episode that we actually spoke about
01:22 during the pitch for the show,
01:23 which was Dan Fielding talking about
01:27 how with all the women he's been with,
01:29 the thing that none of these women have ever said,
01:32 "I love you,"
01:32 and you see just the heart of this character.
01:35 And John is such an incredible actor
01:38 that in all the years of playing Dan Fielding,
01:42 for all the broad sort of Babylon comedy,
01:44 you really see the humanity of this character
01:47 in a look and a glance
01:48 or any of those beautifully written scenes
01:51 where we really see the humanity of Dan Fielding.
01:56 And I think our showrunner, Dan Rubin,
01:58 has done a beautiful job in this incarnation
02:01 of revisiting moments like that.
02:04 And they're some of my favorite ones to do on the show,
02:07 especially getting to do them opposite John.
02:10 And I think having them really gives us a North Star
02:14 and sort of a touchstone to come back to
02:16 amidst all the great comedy.
02:19 But, and part of that is having Harry Stone
02:22 be that character that connects the two of us
02:26 and enables us to go back to
02:29 as the grounding force of our relationship.
02:32 - They are the koalas of the sea.
02:34 (audience laughing)
02:35 - Being a judge stinks.
02:37 It's all this listening, very little arguing.
02:39 Nobody gets to see my fabulous suit
02:41 'cause I'm covered by this black robe
02:42 that does absolutely nothing for me.
02:44 (audience laughing)
02:47 - Mm-hmm.
02:48 No more follow-ups on my end.
02:52 (audience laughing)
02:54 - And it's lonely.
02:55 Everyone I knew is gone, scattered to the winds.
02:59 Some literally.
03:00 (audience laughing)
03:03 I mean, I love New Orleans,
03:04 but I mean, that place just isn't home anymore.
03:06 - 'Cause home is...
03:09 - I am not going to say here.
03:11 - Ah, you said it!
03:12 (audience laughing)
03:14 - Okay, okay, okay, okay.
03:16 And John, could you talk about that,
03:18 Ben also being the protector,
03:19 he watches over Abby, even though she is helping him,
03:22 but seeing that balance or that weighing of the pendulum
03:26 with Fielding as a character,
03:29 knowing him before, but knowing him now,
03:31 can you talk a little bit about that?
03:32 - Yes, hopefully people change as they get older
03:35 and more experienced in life,
03:36 and Fielding has certainly gone through that.
03:39 And the fact that he's now a widower
03:41 and sort of lives a very reclusive life
03:43 and is on the surface saying,
03:46 "Oh, that's all I need, that's all I want."
03:48 And then this young lady knocks on his door
03:50 and when he realizes that she is indeed
03:52 the offspring of Harry Stone,
03:54 who he had a contentious but truly sincere
03:58 and empathetic relationship with
04:01 all the years they worked together,
04:03 it becomes obvious to him that in order to
04:06 feel some sort of life in him,
04:08 that he's gonna be forced out of his cocoon,
04:10 and she does a good job of pulling him out of that,
04:13 and he becomes protective of her almost immediately.
04:16 And I think that any great comedy,
04:19 at the center of it has to have
04:21 a great deal of humanity as well,
04:24 and I think this show does that.
04:25 - Welcome back, counselor.
04:27 We should go out and celebrate.
04:28 Not tonight, I'm taking me out for our one week anniversary.
04:30 (audience laughing)
04:31 - Now that I've got my job back,
04:32 there's someone you need to get rid of.
04:34 That nut job you're dating.
04:36 (audience laughing)
04:37 - Done.
04:38 I've been trying to end it for a while.
04:40 Turns out I'm a lot.
04:41 (audience laughing)
04:43 You know, you're lucky I'm even letting you come back.
04:45 This team was really starting to gel.
04:47 - Good night, Blanche.
04:49 (audience laughing)
04:52 - Believe it or not, he's getting closer.
04:53 (audience laughing)
04:56 - But it also has to have a great sense of timing,
04:58 and of course, you know, playing off of Melissa,
05:00 obviously Harry Anderson and how he played the role,
05:04 but then also John knowing, you know,
05:07 'cause timing now is a little bit,
05:08 would you say it's different now
05:10 than it was in the '80s just because of context
05:13 in terms of comedic timing and what is needed?
05:15 - No, I think timing is universal.
05:18 Subject matter is different.
05:20 Humor has to evolve to be sort of representative
05:24 of the time in which it is created.
05:27 But when we're here sitting in front of 150 or 200 people,
05:32 the timing of a joke, the timing of humor is all,
05:35 that's universal.
05:35 That's never going to change,
05:37 particularly in a four-camera world that we live in,
05:40 because you are doing a play in essence,
05:42 and there is an audience,
05:43 and the audience has a lot of influence
05:45 on the timing of your comedy.
05:47 And so you have to learn how to do that,
05:49 and I think that that never changes.
05:52 I mean, you go back to W.C. Fields or Jackie Gleason,
05:56 the timing is the same, the setup is the same,
05:59 the amount of time you wait in order to bring the audience
06:02 with you on the journey of the joke,
06:04 all of that is universal.
06:06 The content may change, but not the context.
06:09 - And for you, Melissa, just quickly.
06:12 - Yeah, I couldn't agree with John more.
06:14 It really does feel like a dance with the audience
06:18 and or very much them being the conductor
06:23 with the orchestra that we're doing on the stage.
06:27 And you really, you're very much informed by that laughter.
06:32 It's one of the greatest joys of doing this format
06:35 is having them sort of almost as a focus group
06:38 for whatever the comedy is that we're performing up here.
06:42 - To a postscript on that, they influence it incredibly
06:45 because if you have a laugh line,
06:49 you can't speak through the laughter, so you have to pause.
06:54 And I've often said that in this show anyway,
06:57 in the original incarnation of it,
07:00 much of some very good comedy came out of that vacuum
07:04 that was necessary to wait for the laugh to ebb
07:07 so that you could continue.
07:09 You can't just stand there and wait for the laugh to end.
07:11 You have to keep alive in the scene.
07:13 And so some of the, what I could,
07:15 I don't, I don't, not pat myself on the back,
07:18 but some of the better physical comedy
07:19 that I think that I did during that original
07:22 was waiting for them to stop laughing.
07:25 - You mean the looks, the sort of sideways glance?
07:27 - Yeah, and the physical, whatever physical action
07:29 we were taking at the time that you embellish on that.
07:32 You have to keep embroidering that
07:34 until you can say the next line.
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07:42 (dramatic music)
07:44 (upbeat music)
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