NBC did some method casting on its comedy pilot Newlyweds earlier this year, with Tèa Leoni and Tim Daly, who had tied the knot just months prior, tapped as the titular leads in the multi-camera comedy. It marked an on-screen reunion of the duo who also played a husband and wife on the 2014 CBS drama series Madam Secretary.
The joint casting was not an accident.
“We were kind of sniffing around to play together again,” Leoni said at an NBCUniversal event Monday ahead of Newlyweds’ series debut this fall. “We had a lot of fun on Madam Secretary. The world got darker, and we wanted to get lighter. We thought we’ve done this particular medium, and loved it, and we wanted to spend our days together.”
Added Daly, “Listen, we spent six years pretending to be married on TV, and I would get to do it again, but we actually are married. It’s a miracle, it’s really fun, it’s cool, and we still like each other.”
Said Leoni, “It took 12 years, but we got there.”
Newlyweds tells the story of a free‑spirited woman (Leoni) and a buttoned‑up professor (Daly) who marry impetuously after a whirlwind courtship.
“We’ve been told that we have chemistry, we were told that on Madam Secretary, and, hopefully, we exported that into this show,” Daly said.
Added Leoni, “We haven’t lost it.”
While they have proven to have an on-screen couple chemistry, being one in real life has its advantages too.
“One, we don’t need an intimacy coordinator because we are licensed to do whatever we want,” Daly said.
Additionally, “We get to start ahead of the game,” Leoni said, giving an example with an exchange between their characters on their first date in the Newlyweds pilot.
“I was looking at James, aka Tim, and I can read him, I know where he’s going,” Leoni said. “We just found this moment because ‑‑ maybe that happened somewhere else, but it happens in our life all the time, and it’s fun. It’s really fun to act with someone that you know so well because we are a little ahead with each other. It’s great, we like it.”
Newlyweds is created and executive produced by Gail Lerner and Jaimie Lee Curtis, with the Oscar winner also recurring on the show.
Curtis was asked about being a boss on the show.
“I like to refer to myself as the ‘HBIC,’ head bitch in charge,” she said. “I’m 68 years old, I have wanted to be a boss my whole life. If you ask my children, my husband, they would tell you I’ve been a boss my whole life, but I’ve been waiting my whole life, literally, to be able to manifest ideas and bring what I love about what I do into the workplace I do it in. I’ve been doing it not as a boss for a long, long time, and now I’m a boss, and I love it.”
Curtis’ title choice was clearly by design.
When asked what she brings of herself to her role as James’ (Daly) ex-wife, she did not mince words. “I’m really a bitch,” she quipped.
