The Point Radio: Ashley Williams TV Wife With Spice

Ashley Williams is teaming up with comedian Jim Gaffigan to bring his home life to sit com life. She talks about the challenge and the fun she has had usually being a “good girl”. Plus more on JUSTICE LEAGUE GODS AND MONSTERS as actress Paget Brewster explains just how different her Lois Lane really is.

More in a few days with our look at Comedy Central’s DRUNK HISTORY and ANOTHER PERIOD. Be sure and follow us on Twitter now here.

Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub, the adorable Ashley Williams back on television again this time teamed up with Jim Gaffigan. We'll find out what that's all about, plus more on Justice League Gods and Monsters and just how different it really is. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Behind every funny sitcom husband is an equally funny and charming sitcom wife.

And in the case of the Jim Gaffigan show, new on TV, land that job falls to Ashley Williams, who sat down to talk to me a little bit about the show. Oh man, this show is really funny and really different. You know, everybody loves Jim Gaffigan. He's the funniest guy in the world. And his wife is actually the secret weapon behind the operation. And her name is Jeannie Gaffigan. And the two of them have written every single one of the episodes in season one. And they're also the

writing team behind Jim's comedy, stand up comedy. So I think, you know, it's cool. We're getting the jokes and the stories straight from the well, you know. Right. And Jeannie's amazing. That's the character that I play on the show. I played Jim's wife and, you know, she's hilariously funny. And the real life Jeannie is hilariously funny. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's, you know, ambitious. She can sort of do, she's the one of these women that like can balance everything.

She like types on her computer with a baby in her other arm, you know. But she's also flawed. And they've really let me as an actor get to play around with that in terms of the circumstances they've put me in. So, you know, I mean, I don't love using the crazy word, the C word, but she does. Jeannie Gaffigan definitely has like a little bit of crazy in her. And they let me do that on the show, which was really fun. And I think it's going to be really fun for people to

watch. In the case of this role, it's not a made up character on script. Jeannie Gaffigan is Jim's real life wife. And that's who Ashley's character is based on. So is that tougher? Well, yeah. I think, you know, what's funny is I was really nervous because to play a real life person who's standing like three feet away from you is totally terrifying. You know, what if, what if I don't represent her the way that she wants, you know, it was scary. But what was awesome about it

was I think she was actually at the end of the day incentivized to make me look awesome. So the better I look, the better she looks. And that means that she was behind the camera, always wanting to make sure that I was at my best. And I've never, I've never had someone so fully have my back before. It was, it was really actually freeing because I felt like I had like a little partner in crime to play the character with, you know, right. And she was also

really cool. Like I could go to her and say, wait, what am I doing with the line? Like, whoa, you know, what did you mean by that? And she'd go say whatever feels natural to you, you know, and to have, to have a person who, you know, has the opportunity to craft every single syllable that comes out of my mouth, she could have, you know, been really controlling and instead was encouraging me always to do what felt right to me, which, which was also really bold and awesome of

her. Actually now joins a long list of TV wives. And I was curious about which one she admired most. Well, I mean, I love Modern Family. So I love Julie Bowen. I love how she plays that part. I think she's also really funny, but really flawed. And I love, you know, I, I think we're all kind of over the wife who is just going, Oh, Jim, you know, I think, I think that's sort of been done. And now it's an opportunity for wives to be just as interesting and dynamic as their husbands.

And, and that's, that's like fully embraced on the show, which is really cool. For the most part, except for that great turn on warehouse 13, a few years ago, Ashley's pretty much always played the good girl. Has that been the luck of the draw or was it intentional? Beautiful question. Thank you for asking me that. You know, I think, I think there might be a misconception that I have a choice about what parts I play. You know, I am a working actor, which means I'm pounding the

pavement. I'm auditioning sometimes, you know, two, three times a day during pilot season. It's more than that. And I feel so lucky to work, you know, and every job I get is a huge victory. So, um, you know, I tend to get cast. Yeah, it's like the cute girl next door, who's very balanced and very appropriate. And I can't even, I am so proud to say that that's, that there's elements of that in this show, but that's really not the essence of Jeannie. The essence of Jeannie is that she's

flawed, you know, and it's something I have, I've been waiting years to do. I'm a trained actor as I've done theater, I've done, you know, all kinds, you know, student films, I've, you know, and obviously all that stuff gets really dark, but I've never really gotten to do it in the mainstream. And, you know, I believe me, this isn't a dark character. This is still a really fun comedy that a family can watch together. But, um, but she's flawed, you know, and she freaks out and

she has temper tantrums and, you know, she, she rips up a magazine, you know, in, in this like sort of primal screaming terror breakdown moment. And, and that's like among other, you know, fascinating, weird turns. And it's cool. I mean, how, you know, with five kids, even the sanest of women has her moments where she just sort of loses it. And that was, that was something that they didn't hold back on. And I'm so grateful for that. Like so many others with Ashley,

acting has been a family of well, my sister was an actress. When I was younger, my sister's name is Kimberly wins Paisley. She's an amazing actress. And yes, she's older than me. And my mom sort of got us all into the business. Here in New York, we started auditioning for commercials and stuff like that. When I was very young. And yeah, and then I was on a soap opera. Actually, that was probably the darkest character I've ever played was on as the world turns where I played this like

young teen gone wrong, you know, vixen chopped off all my hair and I smoked cigarettes. And, you know, that was fun. And that was sort of the beginning of my career. And then, yeah, I went to theater school and I was obsessed with Shakespeare for like four straight years, did nothing but that. And then I sort of was able to get a TV job. So yeah, I've kept, I've kept my little ball up in the air. It's been it's been an awesome ride so far. And if she could have one

dream role, anything she'd like to portray, what would it be? Oh, man, this is like when there's too many options and you start it's like when you go into the container store and you're like, I want to buy everything. It's a tough question, man. I mean, it would definitely probably be a play. I would let you know what, I would love to play Viola. You know, any of the Shakespeare, honestly, like, I probably, you know, it's funny, it's sad. I'm too old for Juliet now. But,

you know, there's there's those are those are the those are the our source. Those are the very beginnings of our characters. And I would I would love to go back to that maybe like Oregon Shakespeare Festival or something. That sounds amazing. Either that or like, are like super indie film where I could just be really dark, you know, and sort of go to all these places and not be appropriate at all. That would be really fun to catch the adorable Ashley Williams along with

Jim Gaffigan who's not bad either on the Jim Gaffigan show new on TV land. See more right now at TV land.com and new episodes every Wednesday on TV land. Another interesting reboot on the way and a lot more. Here's what's going on in pop culture. On the list of things to reboot now is Zena Warrior Princess. Its project has been picked up by NBC and NBC Universal. Robert Tappett and Sam Raimi, the original executive producers,

are on board. No word yet as to whether there'll be any involvement from original star Lucy Lawless. But the Zena reboot is planned to be ready sometime in 2016. Lauren Michaels new comedy Staten Island Summer is headed to Netflix. It will premiere on the streaming service on the 30th of July and of course features a bunch of SNL vets like Cecily Strong, Bobby Monahan and more. You can also see it in limited theatrical release beginning this coming weekend.

Check your local listings. Spike TV's Big Gamble, the three-night event series Tut pretty much came in with a win. Big numbers for the network which began with 2.6 million viewers for the first night and the Encore presentations combined. Tut has helped give Spike their largest audience in seven years. The 2015 Geeky Award nominations have been announced includes comics like Silver and Captain Canook and web series too like Screen Junkies and The Real Housewives of Horror. The list is pretty

big including toys, games and a lot more. You can see the actual nomination ceremony. If you go to ustream.tv keyword Geeky Awards the official awards will be given out to the winners in October in a special broadcast coming up on the 15th of that month. It looks like both Sigourney Weaver and Ripley are coming back to Alien. Director Neil Bluntkamp had a concept art image on Instagram over the weekend which clearly showed heroin Ellen Ripley in the drawing which pretty much means that

Sigourney will be back for the film when the reboot begins and filming gets underway sometime later this year. Look for a big crossover on Fox in the fall taking place between Sleepy Hollow and Bones. TV Line says we can expect a crossover of some kind at some point during the new season. By the way both shows start their new run of episodes on October the 1st on Fox. When describing the DC Direct the DVD feature Justice League Gods and Monsters the one word

that keeps coming up is different. A different Batman, a different Wonder Woman, a different Superman and a different Lois Lane too. In this case played by actress Padgett Brewster who was a little surprised when she found out exactly what Justice League this was. I didn't know no I just went to a very dark studio in Burbank and on a Tuesday probably and Andrea Romano our director told me what lines to say. I didn't get the whole script. I have now seen the movie that I'm not

allowed to show anybody and I'm not allowed to say a bunch of things because there's a bunch of spoilers some crazy stuff happens but basically everyone's origin story is different so it's not the Superman we know or the Batman or the Wonder Woman. Everybody's slightly different. Lois Lane is still reporting doing her job but she does not like Superman. She's not into him she doesn't trust him and our heroes are being framed for something by someone and I can't say more than

that. It may have been initially a little confusing for Padgett but she had some help to catch up. Because I never read the whole script when they sent me the movie to see it before I came down here I did not know what was going on. I didn't know who was who and my husband actually watches all of these. This is his most favorite job I've ever done because he was like we're gonna get that DVD but I don't think he's supposed to see it but I was packing to come down here having a little

champagne I'm not gonna lie and I start watching the movie and I don't know who's who or what's going on like that man's Mexican I mean a Superman's Mexican. Something's going on with Batman I don't know if you guys know what it is but it's not not what we know and I asked him I said honey you this is like the crisis in our marriage you need to explain to me what is going on here and he was so excited he got to watch the movie he explained what happened it is really cool.

Dr. Will Magnus is pretty much a familiar character in the DC universe but again this version a little different he's played by actor C. Thomas Howell. What I what I really liked about it was because it's a brand new world he was a part of the origin of Batman in this story you know he's an old friend they went to college together you know his buddies dealing with a blood disease and he sort of inadvertently helps create this vampiric larger-than-life superhero that you know sucks the blood

out of criminals to survive and it's a weird it's kind of weird and dark and cool and different you know it's not the traditional story as you guys have heard and I think for the traditional list and maybe I'm wrong because maybe they're the ones that will get it the most but I think there will be some people that have a hard time wrapping their head around it at first but once they do it it's really cool. As with many other successful DC direct to DVD features the voice casting here

all comes from the work of Andrea Romano. She talked about the challenges of filling these rules both using familiar faces and friends and bringing in new talent too. There's a bit of that there's there's making sure to fill out a cast with people that I know that I'm comfortable with like Padgett's like Tommy people that I know and then I like taking that risk of risk of working with somebody new and let's see how if they warm to this kind of work and if they're and sometimes

they don't sometimes it's not their thing they think they can do it and then they're small they only ever can get this loud and like no this is cartoons. Stage actors move into this easier than TV and film actors because TV and film are used to working very small. Stage actors are used to working broader and animation is that kind of broad still real but bigger and broader. So I love finding new talent I will occasionally go out and teach workshops and seminars and meet actors

that way agents know that I'm always interested in new talent and they'll call me up and say I just signed so and so here's their demo if you have time for a meeting they'd love to come meet with you have a coffee and chat and so I like to work with both people I have worked with before and I really enjoyed finding new talent. Not only new talent that maybe has an on-camera career that hasn't done voiceover but also voiceover actors who are just on the cusp. There's an actor that

you guys I'm sure have heard about and if you have it we'll hear more and more about him Eric Bousa who's been around for a long time and was a very good impressionist and a really good kind of voice guy but wasn't really a good actor yet and he's now doing two sessions every single day for every studio in town. Like one day he just got it and he learned how to act and he watched so many other people and and now he's on everything. So acting has always been the crucial thing if you're a good

actor you don't have to do a thousand voices to be a successful voiceover actor. Kevin Conroy does not do a thousand voices he does five or six really really well so it's all about the acting and that's why I find so many actors and this is why I think a lot of celebrities are doing voice work because we know what their acting is we've seen them act and so we go okay I already know that's good I can teach them microphone technique in a short session I can't teach them acting in a

four-hour session I can't teach them how to act I need them to have that down already. There's a magic to the way Andrea works as C Thomas Howell explains. You know it's all it's all energetic really with her but I've worked with some really great directors of Spielberg and Coppola and Milius and Zeffirelli and you know Chris Chulack from TVZR and a bunch of other great great great people but she ranks right up there with them and within what she does she you know greatness is

greatness and she is not only really smart efficient a great communicator but there's something about her that makes you like I would stay and work for hours over time and not charge if that's what she wanted you know it's something about her that that makes you want to go above and beyond the call of duty and that's what a good leader does she's a really good leader she's really confident in what within what she does I mean her background she just told me she

used to be a casting director way back in the days for Hanna Barbera so she was looking for like you know people to be in Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and like she's done this man she knows what she's doing um it you can't say it any better you know when you're great you're great she's great. Justice League Gods and Monsters available on DVD Blu-ray right now and on iTunes and video under band. That does it for the podcast we're back in a few days with a lot

more including a look at Comedy Central's big hit Drunk History and the Comedians who created it. All that and more on websites like ComicMix.com on GetThePointRadio.com and the iTunes podcast directory as well. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and of course on Instagram under the point radio and we'll see you right back here in a few days. GetThePointRadio.com