‘ Kevin’ had waited for this
James brings on ‘ King’ co- star for good old laughs
It’s been a decade since Kevin James and Leah Remini played pugnacious partners on CBS’ The
King of Queens, but their waggish rankling never stopped.
“Can you chew any louder?” Remini hisses, curled on a couch next to James on the set of Kevin Can Wait while shooting a promo for her guest arc in the two- part season finale ( Monday and May 8, 8 ET/ PT) of his newest CBS sitcom.
“Yeah, I can,” he counters, shoveling a handful of kernels into his mouth and crunching voraciously.
The badgering continues into the episode, “Sting of Queens,” in which retired cop Kevin Gable ( James) is reluctantly called back to finish an undercover assignment with his old rival, Vanessa Cellucci ( Remini). The testy duo poses as husband and wife to investi--
gate a fraudulent dealer’s art show, but much like Doug and Carrie Heffernan, the married couple they played on King, Vanessa spends most of her time trying to keep Kevin in line.
They’re “literally Doug and Carrie, as cops,” says Remini, sitting on audience risers overlooking the soundstage, which is dotted by swooping cameras and crew members in New York Mets gear. ( James is a superfan.)
“Yeah, it really is,” he adds. “They argue all the time and rib each other, but you can tell deep down it all comes from love.”
James, who enjoyed box- office success with the Paul Blart and Grown Ups movies after King wrapped in 2007, mulled a small- screen reunion with Remini throughout Kevin’s frst season.
“It was always about how to do it the right way,” he says. “I didn’t want to have her come on and deliver a meatball hero and then she leaves, like ‘ Oh, it’s a funny cameo.’ We had to come up with a way that incorporated what made ( our dynamic) special before.”
He landed on an idea about a month before taping and rang up Remini, who had vaulted back into the spotlight in November with her revealing A& E docuseries Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, which was renewed for a second season due later this year.
Their easy working relationship “is not something you find all the time,” she says. Between takes, they snap selfies and get down to Billy Joel, whose songs blare through the speakers as the crew sets up the next shot. Taping their scenes together, they sometimes burst into giggles and bounce jokes off each other, with Vanessa likening Kevin to both a member of Run- D. M. C. and “a guy that’s gonna get whacked on The
Sopranos” when he saunters down the stairs in a red- and- black tracksuit.
Aside from the episode’s winking title and Remini’s meta- casting as Kevin’s fake wife, James was careful not to go too overboard with the King references.
“We’re ( not) going, ‘ Hey, can you Carrie this for me? I really Doug myself out of a hole this time, didn’t I?’ ” he jokes. “I chose to not make her Carrie, or say he was having a dream. I just wanted to make it realistic and not break that fourth wall.
“That was greedy on my part,” he glances over at Remini. “If I just made you a weird Carrie I met in my dream, you couldn’t come back on the show.”