‘Mom’ imparts true life lessons
The only show with a larger female ensemble than CBS’ poignant and hilarious “Mom” is Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black.”
After “Mom” stars Allison Janney and Baltimore native Anna Faris realized that, an idea was born: A crossover episode! Or perhaps a multiple crossover episode. Imagine the actresses’ mother/daughter characters, Bonnie and Christy, on a road trip with someone from “Game of Thrones,” says Janney. Surely, trouble would follow, and they’d get arrested, winding up in prison with the “Orange” ensemble. Hilarity would ensue.
No one loves their show more than Janney and Faris, who chatted about their series and its third season, which took their characters deeper into their shared sobriety. This is an edited transcript.
“What ‘Mom’ does is show that it’s not the end of the world to be in recovery.” — Allison Janney
Q: This season has been very serious in a lot of ways — your relationship as mother and daughter has matured, and just as I’m thinking, “Wow, they’re really getting along,” they’re back to their old high jinks.
Janney: Yeah, I think we will always continue to go away and toward each other, as you do with your mom. There are times when we’re both working together against a common foe, and then butting heads with each other.
Faris: I like to think that the reason why the conflict works well is because Allison and I are close friends, and so, hopefully, the audience feels there’s a lot of love there. But like any complicated relationship, there’s a lot of strain.
Q: How has that maturing been in terms of playing the comedy? How do you balance that?
Janney: I think that the writers do that beautifully, and when things happen to Bonnie and Christy, things that aren’t funny, like with Emily (Osment’s character, Jodi) overdosing, we let it happen. We have the seriousness and the emotion of something like that impact our characters, and then we have the lighter moments too. The writers do a brilliant job, and we kind of ride that wave.
Faris: It does sometimes feel like, how do we make sure we respect these really important issues and still be a comedic show? How do we honor the people who face these daily struggles, while at the same time being a funny show?
Q: One would have to go back to “All in the Family” or “Maude,” to that era, where you’re dealing with these very serious, kind of …
Janney: Dealing with issues and topics that you wouldn’t think would be a traditional multicam comedy. It has been done before, but we’re coming back to that. And I think it’s just the issue of recovery and addiction. Everybody knows somebody who is in recovery. And it’s an important topic to talk about in our in society today. And it’s important what “Mom” does is show that it’s not the end of the world to be in recovery. It’s the beginning of something amazing and lots of laughter and hope and fun.