Amanda Peet and Sarah Paulson in a ‘Cagney & Lacey’ reboot? Please make this happen
Amanda Peet and her BFF Sarah Paulson have a common vision when it comes to choosing parts — if the alarm rings at 4:45 in the morning and you’re not feeling stoked to be getting out of bed, then the role’s not for you.
Peet hasn’t had such a part since the premature death of her beloved HBO series “Togetherness†a couple of years ago. But she found one this season on IFC’s dark, crude and often tender new comedy, “Brockmire,†in which she plays the owner of a minor league baseball team who gives Hank Azaria’s title character a last chance at broadcasting fame.
If Peet had her way, though, there’d be another part that would ring her bell at the crack of dawn — a reboot of the ’80s TV series “Cagney & Lacey†costarring … you guessed it … the one and only Sarah Paulson.
“We’d have really strong New York accents,†Peet says, capably demonstrating. “We’d both get in shape, which, like how could that happen? Are we too old already? That’s the other question. We might be. When you hit middle age, it’s really hard to determine how old people are in relation to you. Suddenly you’re in this weird dead zone. I don’t know how old Cagney and Lacey were.â€
For the record: Tyne Daly was 36 when the series started in 1982; costar Sharon Gless was 39 when she joined a few months later. The series ran seven seasons. Peet’s 45. Pauslon is 42. The math works.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. On the strength of “Brockmire’s†reception, IFC has already renewed it for a second season, which maybe means Peet will understand baseball a bit better, though probably not. (Ken Burns and Doris Kearns Goodwin couldn’t even help, she explains.) And it probably means Peet will need to find another way to keep from laughing and ruining take after take while Azaria does Brockmire’s play-by-play narration during the show’s love scenes.
Sounds like the kind of thing that would make a 4:45 wake-up call more than worthwhile.
You can watch the whole interview here:
The star, who plays white-wine-with-ice-drinking team owner Jules James, says of the “weirdly ... complicated†show, it’s “pretty easy to talk about America if you’re going to talk about baseball.â€
See the most-read stories this hour »
Twitter: @glennwhipp
From the Oscars to the Emmys.
Get the Envelope newsletter for exclusive awards season coverage, behind-the-scenes stories from the Envelope podcast and columnist Glenn Whipp’s must-read analysis.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
