BARR WAS TUTU CLOSE TO ROLE
Frankie Shaw knows how to drop a bombshell. The Brookline-raised actress and creator of “SMILF” just came clean about casting the role of her mother, Tutu, on the South Boston-based show: The part was supposed to go to criticized comedian Roseanne Barr, not Rosie O’Donnell.
“We did offer Tutu to Roseanne, and she was going to do it and then she broke her knee and had surgery,” Shaw revealed during an ABC’s Studios For Your Consideration event.
Up until now, that insider factoid has been kept a secret. Even Connie Britton, the Boston-born actress who plays Ally on the Showtime series, was shocked by Shaw’s confession and asked the creator to share the whole story.
“I was like, ‘You’re my hero, will you play my mom?’” Shaw said of her brunch meeting with Barr, which happened in Los Angeles prior to filming the first season of “SMILF.”
“And (Barr) said yes, and I went to Boston and then I got this call that she had fallen in a park and had like 45 stitches and wasn’t allowed to travel,” she continued. “I sent her this package and I even wrote the character would be in a scooter. I was like, ‘She’ll be in a scooter, we’ll just scoot you around you won’t even have to walk.’ And her doctor said she can’t fly.”
Only a couple of weeks prior to shooting, which also took place in locales throughout Greater Boston, Shaw met another Roseann, this time with no “e.” And that’s how fans have come to recognize Rosie O’Donnell for her raw depiction of a city-dwelling mother struggling with bipolar disorder.
In hindsight, it appears that Barr’s unfortunate fall might have been a stroke of good luck for the show, which is now filming its second season. She recently tweeted racist remarks regarding Valerie Jarrett, aide to former President Barack Obama, causing controversy that led ABC to cancel its well-received “Roseanne” reboot.