‘Night Court’ – ‘The Judge’s Boyfriend’s Dad’ Post-mortem Interview with Julia Duffy

NIGHT COURT -- "The Judge’s Boyfriend’s Dad" Episode 301 -- Pictured: (l-r) Julia Duffy as Susan, Melissa Rauch as Abby Stone -- (Photo by: Nicole Weingart/NBC)

It is definitely safe to say that Julia Duffy is nothing short of an acting legend. For she has graced so many iconic franchises over the years with her incredible skill set, and currently, she’s been dropping by Night Court on NBC to play Jake’s mother, Susan, and it just so happens that we had the distinct honor of sitting down with Julia to discuss her career and her work on the new-boot of Night Court.  
 
John Betancourt: I would love to start by getting to know what got you into acting in the first place.
 
Julia Duffy: Oh, my goodness. Oh, that's a really long time ago. Well, what I recall is sitting just a few inches away from the TV and those days, there weren't so many young people on TV or children as there are now, but very often there would be little girls like in a shampoo commercial. And I would think, “I could do that, if I could just get my hair not to flip up at the end like that.” I could do that as if that was acting. But I was so sure I could do it, and I was so jealous of the little girls’ shampoo commercials. So anyway, half a dozen shampoo commercials later, I was a pretty serious actress, but I did do a lot of commercials when I lived in New York, and a friend of mine, I always forget this little story, lived just a few doors down, and I went to see if she could come out and play one day, and her mother came to the door and her name, the girl's name was Cathy, and she said, “Listen, I've signed Cathy up to take drama lessons downtown, but I don't want her going downtown alone. Do you want to take drama lessons with her?”
 
And I thought, “do I ever” and I had been agitating for dance lessons from my mom, but they were expensive, so suddenly I had to make a choice. So, I am now an out of work dancer today. I'm a working actor because I made that choice, and Cathy dropped out quickly and didn't like it. Her mother wanted her to take them because she was so shy. She was really not shy. If her mother ever played with her like I did, she would have found that out. So, because of the girl who was supposedly shy and forced to take drama lessons, I took drama lessons, which actually led me to my first professional job some years later, in a theater production in a summer stock theater in my hometown of Minneapolis, because the drama teacher was asked if she had somebody who could play a teenager. And I really hadn't been taking that class for a while, but she gave them my name.
 
John Betancourt: I have to ask as a follow up to that. I mean, obviously your career is just amazing, and I would love to know what it is about acting that still just ignites a passion in you.
 
Julia Duffy: Well, it's always the role. It's always the writing that ignites the passion. And then, of course, if you haven't worked for a long time, which at my age, there are gaps, you're just passionate to work again, because it's what you do, regardless of the script. But usually you can kind of find some kind of hook to make you excited about the script, even if it's a bit bland, or the kind of thing you've done a million times before, you know the kind of type that you've done a lot?
 
John Betancourt: Now, moving forward to Night Court, how did you become involved in discussions to join up to Susan?
 
Julia Duffy: Well, all right, so when I did the scene in the cliffhanger as Susan in season two, it was just offered to me. It was like a… I don't know… how many lines did I have? I had like, five lines or something, but it was this bombshell that she drops. She comes in as Jake's mom and drops a bombshell that terrifies both Jake (Ryan Hansen) and Melissa (Rauch). So, I thought, “Well, that will be fun to do a cliffhanger. I mean, probably they'd have me back the next year because of the bombshell that I drop.” So, I did it, and it turned out that Melissa and I bonded like crazy. Immediately. She is an incredible human being, which anybody who's met her would know, and we just really had a lot of in common. And she's a generation younger than me, and she had been watching me as she was growing up, and it was… I don't know it was like it was meant to be, to meet her and to work with her. So of course, they had me back, because of the cliffhanger, and wrote for us the one of the funniest scenes I've ever done in my life. It's so funny, the premise is so incredible, that you c could not know anything about the cliffhanger from season two, basically, and you could watch that scene and still find it very funny.
 
John Betancourt: One thing that I've always loved about Night Court and this particular iteration of it, is everybody feels so real and so fleshed out. There's such depth to all the characters. And I think that's a testament to all of you as actors, and I'm curious how you've created such depth for Susan.
 
Julia Duffy: Well, of course, in the scene that we're talking about, she's completely altered by drugs from having had surgery. So, I guess it's not the real her. You would like to think it's not the real her, and that it's the drugs, but then you think, well, maybe this kind of is the real her, where she has these passionate feelings and Mercurial mood changes that the drugs cause, because when I did the little scene at the end of season two, all you knew about her was that she'd been a bit wild back in the 80s, which is why she doesn't really know who is Jake’s father, and that was a fun thing to know. And I guess I was thinking about that and how that kind of came out in the scene where she's completely altered by drugs.
 
John Betancourt: Now since you mentioned it was a treat to play an amazing scene to begin with. What have you enjoyed the most about being able to work on Night Court and play Susan in such a great playground?
 
Juila Duffy: Well, working with Melissa is absolutely what I've enjoyed the most, because we have such a connection. I mean, that's, you know, you always hope to have a connection. But this one was extraordinary. And I think what I love about it is that the way they write the characters, these characters, they're always very much themselves, and they spout nonsense, but it's so real, and each character is so different, even though they're all so silly in their own way. And so, you get surprises all the time, because their behavior is so driven by their ID and not being a certain way, you know, for each other, they just kind of let it fly all the time. They absolutely crack me up. I mean, Lacretta’s character, she's so funny, and, of course, John Larroquette, but having that mix of people who are so distinct and so wacky in their own way, and yet so real. I feel, I feel like there's no other show like that where you can get this kind of wild comedy that makes perfect sense, because the characters don't make sense.
 
John Betancourt: Now, in looking at that vibrancy you mentioned, what does that kind of chemistry and that kind of comedic chemistry do for you as an actor, and your performance?
 
Julia Duffy: Well, first of all, you're around people who are very comfortable with what they're doing and relaxed about it. They know what they're doing, and it just makes you somehow instantly feel like you're a part of it because they're so welcoming, and they've been doing it for a long time. And I've also done sitcoms, three camera sitcoms, in front of a live audience for a long time. So, there's, there's no period of being awkward. You're just immediately in it, because they're so in it, and they're so relaxed about it. It's really a wonderful feeling. And it's a bit like doing theater, in that you have rehearsal, and everybody is trying to make it work. Everybody is trying to make the piece work. Because it takes everybody to make it work. Which is a wonderful feeling when you're doing theater, and you don't get that so much with a single camera shoot, because people are doing their scenes separately. You've never seen them, and it's always a huge surprise when you see it, when it's done, but sitcoms, three camera sitcoms, where you rehearse all week and you're rewriting, it's a whole other feeling. And I love doing theater, and it has a lot of that same feeling
 
John Betancourt: That leads me right to my next question as well, because something I've heard often in talking to the Night Court cast, is that when there's a live audience in that arena with you, there's something very special, energy wise, that it seems to do for the actor, performance wise, what does having that live audience present do for you?
 
Julia Duffy: I'll tell you what it did for the scene that we're talking about in the premiere episode, was kind of change what we were doing, and up it. Because in between, you know, you do it a few times in front of the audience, and then you think, “Oh, you know, the warmup guy is begging them to laugh the second time,” even though they've heard the jokes. And that part's hard and challenging. And Melissa and I were talking after doing the first take, and we said, “We gotta give this audience more. They're so into it,” and that's why we came up with, well, you'll have to watch and see… something that wasn't quite in the script. And it was, the reaction was overwhelming. It was so funny to begin with. And then there was this feeling amongst everybody, the writers and Melissa and I, that it had to go up a notch. You just felt it in the room. And wow, I haven't had that feeling in a long time.
 
John Betancourt: I have to ask as a follow up to that, was there much more improv to be found in that scene?
 
Julia Duffy: Oh no, it was the script, but the improv was more a physical moment in the script that just, you know, ratcheted it up a notch, because when you have an audience like that, then you want to give them what they're into. You want to give them more of it.
 
John Betancourt:  I'm also curious too, why you think, because this is a show that just continues to endure, people love it. Why do you think Night Court resonates so well with audiences?
 
Julia Duffy: I just don't think they get it anywhere else. There aren't as many sitcoms anymore, but there's such a place for them in your TV watching. You know, you just want a sitcom occasionally or with some regularity. You want that, and you don't get these wild moments of comedy anywhere else. And the audience drives that because it is a live audience, and the structure of it drives it, I would say, because each 30-minute episode is building in some way through the episode. That's how it's written. Yeah, and at Night Court, they really, they've got it down. They've really got it down. They know what the audience likes. You almost can't go too far, because it really works with the people watching it, and it's so gratifying.
 
John Betancourt: The last question that I have for you today is a bit of a two-parter. I'm just curious what it means to be a part of this particular iconic franchise, and just as an actor, be a part of so many iconic franchises, because your name is just so well known.
 
Julia Duffy: Oh, well, I don't… I guess I never really think of them as franchises, because it's, you know, one script at a time that you're working on and trying to make it the best it can be. I mean, I've just been very, very lucky. You know, it's lucky. You have to, for some reason, fit the image that the writers and the producers have when they're casting the role, and in that moment in time, someone else could fit it better. And they're taking a leap of faith. It's not like they really, really know what they're doing when they're casting something they're taking a leap of faith on the future. So, it kind of turns it out to mostly be luck. They make this decision at this time, and it includes you. They don't make the right decisions sometimes, but, you know, sometimes the stars align. That's all. You just have to wait for that, you can't control that.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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