heat chats to Kaley Cuoco about everyone’s new TV obsession The Flight Attendant
From the ‘hot blonde next door’ on The Big Bang Theory to exec-producer of her own show The Flight Attendant
For those of us lucky enough to call ourselves 8 Simple Rules fans, we already know how much of a star Kaley Cuoco is. The 35-year-old California native landed a role on the ABC sitcom at just 17 years old, and although she was playing the “hot” blonde bimbo of the family, it was obvious she was a smart cookie IRL.
As one of the only female leads of The Big Bang Theory – the show Kaley is best known for – she managed to negotiate $1million per episode for the last four seasons. The same, it should be noted, as her male co-stars. No mean feat in Hollywood. Now moving in the same direction as the Reese Witherspoons of the world, Kaley founded her own production company – Yes, Norman – in 2017, named after one of her seven rescue dogs. Her Instagram followers will know she’s obsessed, and we mean obsessed with dogs – specifically rescues – and she and husband Karl Cook specifically moved to Hidden Hills in California, as the area has no restriction on the number of animals you can keep at a property. A woman after our own heart. The Flight Attendant is the first offering from Yes, Norman productions, and Kaley served as executive producer for the series, as well as starring as Cassie, the titular air stewardess who wakes up after a one-night stand with a passenger, only to discover he’s lying dead next to her. And if that doesn’t make you want to watch it, we don’t know what will…
Kaley, what made you pick The Flight
Attendant as your next venture after The Big Bang Theory? It’s kind of interesting. Over the past few
‘I’ll be noticing flight attendants for the rest of my life’
years, I’ve been looking at books and stuff to produce, or different stories that were interesting to me, but nothing excited me. Then, honestly, I just read one little snippet, a line of the book on Amazon. It just was one sentence and I got, like, this weird chill and I called my team and said, “Hey, I’d love to look at the rights to this book.” And their first question was, “OK, so you read the book, you love the book?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, totally.” I had not read it, but something told me to jump on this. They did not know that… they’re going to know now. So, then I read it really fast, and thank God I loved it as much as I thought I would. What happened then? Then there was a bidding war and I won the rights, and I’m like, “Now what do I do?” I brought it to Warner Bros. and I said, “You know what? I think this is a great character – I think this could be a really great show.” And they brought me to Steve [Yockey, a producer], Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter [executive producers of the show] and it just kept rolling. I still can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about it.
What was it about Cassie that made you want to play her? She is extremely perfectly flawed – it was kind of an actor’s dream to play someone like her. She’s got a roller-coaster of issues, but a heart of gold and she’s strong. It’s just a great female character to play. I think coming off doing comedy and The Big Bang Theory – which I loved, I love making people laugh – there was something about this that I thought, if we could find the right team and bring some levity to such a dark book, that it could be kind of cool. How was your first experience being a producer? Obviously, being a producer and being part of the creative team has been a whole new experience for me. I have never done that before. I laughed over the last few years working on this – I’m like,
“I know too much!” Sometimes, you don’t want to know all the stuff that’s going on. But it’s been totally career-changing for me just to see it from the beginning, and kind of go with my gut on things, make my own decisions and put this great group together and learn so much. It’s been wonderful.
Did you start studying cabin crew after you knew you’d be playing one? Well, after I got the rights to the book and I knew that we were going to do this, of course it was all I was looking at. I mean, you start looking at the flight attendants, you start seeing what they’re doing when they’re making the drinks, how they talk to each other and how they react to passengers – and even the fact that they take their heels off and they put their comfy shoes on during a flight, and that their hair is always perfect. You also notice the friendships that some of them have. They’re a very close-knit group. I mean, you really are travelling together. So, I can’t help it, and I’ll probably now, after doing this project, be noticing flight attendants for the rest of my life. The show isn’t all dark. How did you weave in the comedy elements? I think the tone has been a fascinating challenge, in that we really have had to ride a fine line, because dark stuff happens, but there is levity and we have so many funny actors who can make those quirky moments be a little lighter. It’s a very specific tone. I don’t think we’ve seen much of this on TV.
What was it like working with Girls’ Zosia Mamet, who plays Cassie’s best friend, Annie? When Zosia walked in the room, we were so excited she was even coming in to read. This was PRE-COVID and we could touch each other – I was touching her, and hugging her, and kissing her, and everyone asked me the same thing, like, “Oh my God, you guys obviously have worked together,” but we hadn’t. It was a kismet [destiny] friendship from the start, and on camera it bloomed. It was just really special. Film legend Rosie Perez stars, too. She apparently hates travelling and flying – how did you get her on board to play your co-worker Megan? [Laughs.] She said, “I don’t really want to talk before 8am.” And I’m like, “Neither do I. This is going to work out great, I promise!” I was begging her. I’m like, “Please, you are the vision we’ve had for this role. You are the one we wanted from day one.” I was pretty much begging her when we met. I said, “You’re all I see in this. Please!” Rosie and Zosia are so incredibly good in this project, it’s so beyond. I think at one point, I was looking at Rosie and – because this has been, for me, three years since I locked eyes on this book – so I was looking at Rosie in one scene and I was almost crying, going, “I can’t believe you’re in front of me and we’re doing this together.” It was just so overwhelming to be in that room with her And I feel that way with Z, too. It’s just been an absolute dream, the whole cast. We know you for your comedy – how did you combine that with the darker dramatic moments? I’ve always loved comedy – I grew up in sitcoms. Obviously, starting out on my first series with John Ritter [who played her dad in 8 Simple Rules], I just love the art of making someone laugh, and not taking yourself too seriously. I did that for years, and loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat, but this was a great new path, and it wasn’t so far off the path that people are like, “What is she doing?” There’s still that levity and that side of me. Finding Steve Yockey and our creative team who really got to learn my voice, my personality over the past few years, and putting those Kaleyisms
in, I think that was really important. But I’ve loved it. I’ve loved the drama, I’ve loved being scared, I’ve loved running, it’s been completely new and different, I’ve really never done anything like it before. But I love sitcoms, too, and you know, people think, “Oh, she’s never going to want to do that again,” but that’s what got me to this point, and it’s totally cherished. Why did you decide to do a TV show, instead of heading for the big screen? TV is great. The schedule is great, a little more compacted. And TV is changing. All the new ways you can watch it – series are different. You know, with Big Bang, we were doing 24 episodes a year. This is just as a different situation. You want to binge on things, they’re shorter. It’s kind of like doing a long movie. I’ll always love TV. The series is based on a book, so will it be a limited series, or can we expect to see more of Cassie? Oh, we have plans for another season. [Laughs.] So there. n
The Flight Attendant is on Sky ONE/NOW TV, Fridays, 9pm, and Sky On Demand
Flashing lights, cliff hangers, and Oscar-worthy tears and tantrums: it’s TV night and we’re on the edge of our seats. But we’re not watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster, we’re actually ten episodes into yet another Masterchef Australia binge – and it is nail-biting stuff. Yes, welcome to reality TV, Aussie-style. It’s high-octane, hyperbolic… and putting our home-grown shows to shame.
OBSESSED AT FIRST SIGHT
Let’s begin with the obvious: Married At First Sight Australia. Unless you’ve been living under a lockdown rock over the past few months, you’ll at least have heard about this dating show with a difference, which just finished its sixth series on E4 (the seventh is coming later this year, while all previous seasons are available to stream on All 4). For the uninitiated, the Aussie version of this show takes the same premise of couples being “scientifically” matched by a panel of experts – and adds ten tons of high-grade rocket fuel. While the UK version was all a bit serious, its Australian counterpart gives us reality TV’S three priceless Bs: bitching, backstabbing and, ahem, bonking – moving all participants into the same apartment block and letting the sparks fly.
In the most recently aired series, we saw cat fights and affairs aplenty, with a genuine match made between Jules and Cameron, while Jess and Dan hooked up on the sly. Using fast-paced editing of the drama – interjected with candid talking-head interviews of the contestants giving their version of events –along with regular dinner parties (featuring plenty of booze) and commitment ceremonies, the show’s producers ensured we were never not hooked. It’s been such a winning formula that in January, the series reached a pea k audience of 1.57million viewers, majorly eclipsing E4’s other top shows Celebs Go Dating and Hollyoaks. What’s more, it’s now been announced that the UK is reformatting its version to replicate the success and drama of its Aussie counterpart.
AMPING UP THE DRAMA
Australian reality TV is nothing new. Big Brother launched in 2001, just one year after the UK version, while The X Factor, I’m A Celebrity and Australia’s Got Talent are also long-standing telly triumphs. But, until very recently, these versions didn’t have much of a UK platform – some were shown late at night on Sky, while others were only available to stream. But then the pandemic happened and filming
for UK shows was put on hold, so channels scrambled to find decent programmes to fill their schedules.
Love Island: Australia, now showing on ITV2, was filmed back in 2019, and there’s something undeniably comforting about being able to watch it nightly in the absence of any UK villa drama.
What’s more, while some might say the Brit Love Islanders have been a little tepid with their sexy shenanigans in recent years, the Aussies have no such reservations. We’re talking partners having sex within hours of coupling up, and rows to rival UK Big Brother season five’s infamous “fight night” in which a food fight escalated into fisticuffs.
STOVE-TOP SHOWBIZ
But the biggest departure from the UK original has to be Masterchef Australia. The show has been running for 12 years, with each season more OTT than the last. And whereas the British variant focuses on the action in the studio, overseen by John and Gregg, the Aussie version sees the drama unfold via the perspective of the 25 contestants, who are whittled down each week in a series of mind-blowing cook-offs, challenges and invention tests. Again, we have the talking head format to whip up viewer empathy for the amateur cooks, while all contestants live together in the Masterchef house for the three-month stretch, meaning melodrama can be stirred up quicker than a béchamel sauce.
What’s more, the show (which is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video) welcomes culinary giants to oversee proceedings, including the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Marco Pierre-white. Believe us: you’ve never seen white-knuckle drama quite like the moment Chef Marco makes mincemeat of an amateur cook’s sub-par attempt at a shepherd’s pie. “What would your mother say?” he hisses, as the dramatic background music reaches a crescendo and he glares down the poor contestant, who’s reduced to a quivering wreck.
The good news is that the stellar line-up of Australian reality TV is only growing. While Sheridan Smith received lukewarm reviews for her hosting gig on Pooch Perfect, Aussie A-lister Rebel Wilson has been far more successful with her version of the show. Meanwhile, Parks And Recreation co-stars Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman are all set to launch the Aussie version of their feel-good Diy/crafting series Making It later this year.
Yes, from where we’re sitting, there’s true telly wizardry going on in Oz and our friends Down Under are coming up trumps. n
‘Aussie reality TV puts the UK’S to shame’