Jordana Spiro plays the rare entity on her show My Boys: a female in the world of sports journalism. That is the joy of My Boys, in which Jordana stars as PJ Franklin, a sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her life is surrounded by men, both in her professional and personal life. The second season of My Boys premieres tonight on TBS. Jordana recently stopped by BuddyTV to discuss the origins of her career and her time on My Boys.
Can you give us a little background on how you broke into the world of acting.
It’s a pretty traditional story, I just grew up, I was the girl that was staging the plays, using the living room coffee table as a stage, forcing my little sisters to be in on it, and I just always…ever since I can remember I wanted to be an actress and then I took a lot of classes and trained a lot when I was in high school and then when I was eighteen I just made a move out to Los Angeles to get an agent and start trying to get work and I think it worked in my favor that I was eighteen, but looked younger because they’re always looking for actors that didn’t have to work within the child labor laws, so I think that just kind of helped me get a start in things.
You’ve done a lot of work in both film and television. Is there one that you prefer to the other and is there one that you had originally set out to do?
I would say I originally set out to do film but I think that was partially because I felt that every film was to be filmed in some exotic location which is not really true, but you know now I really just want to do work that I can be proud of and I think that that comes in television and in film these days.
You know, your two biggest roles so far have been on cable series. What’s it like working on those compared to network shows?
I think generally there’s a bit more support behind those shows. You know, with network shows quite often you feel like you’re one of twenty shows and they’re just kinda throwing you up the wall and seeing if you stick but they’re not really putting a ton of support behind you. And that’s what, certainly at TBS, they couldn’t be more of a supportive network. I mean, you see how much exposure we get, and you know how much work they do to pump our show and make people aware that it’s on TV, and so that’s a really refreshing thing.
Moving on to My Boys, can you tell us how you ended up with the role of PJ Franklin?
You know, again pretty short story, I just went in, I read the pilot. I loved it, I felt really close to the character and just in how natural she was and how casual she was and went in and auditioned for it and at the previous year I had done a pilot with Betsy Thomas who’s the creator of My Boys and it never got off the ground but I really liked the way she worked and when I found out that this was this was her next pilot that she was developing and not only that but it was based on her I was pretty excited to be able to be a part of it. I’ve really admired her from day one. She was just an incredible woman so it was pretty flattering that I got the part.
Are you a sports fan in real life?
You know, I wasn’t. I wasn’t and quite frankly a lot of my friends laughed at me that I was the one that got this part, but since playing the role I’ve obviously acclimated myself to the world of baseball a lot and I certainly have a growing appreciation for it.
Do people on the street ever go up and test you?
A little bit, a little bit. They basically wanna know what Gaffigan is like.
Well, what is Gaffigan like?
He’s great. He’s a great guy. I can say wholeheartedly that he deserves every bit of praise that he gets.
Obviously you hold your own with all the dudes on the show, but are there any difficulties to working with a bunch of guys at once?
They don’t have nearly enough sympathy for my PMS days. So, other than that it’s great , it’s awesome.
What can you tell us about the upcoming season of My Boys?
This season, we have some really fun guest stars this season. Johnny Galecki who plays Trouty comes back. He’s certainly one of my favorite characters. I was really happy to see him coming back. Jeremy Sisto comes on in a recurring role as one of my boyfriends. Nicole Sullivan comes on and plays Kenny’s very pregnant girlfriend so those are some cool people you should watch out for and I think it’s a little lot more about the guy’s lives outside of the poker table actually, they do have lives outside the poker table. And Mike starts to work in Kenny’s memorabilia store which I like. I like that plot a lot. Brendan gets named as one of Chicago’s top fifty sexiest bachelors and it goes straight to his head and he becomes like this huge douche baf and he gets increasingly douchebag-ier, I guess. And so we have to set him straight. I like that arc a lot.
Do you have anything outside the show, any upcoming projects that you’d like us to know about?
Yeah, I got to be in this great movie with Jimmy Fallon and Lucy Liu and Sharon Stone and it’s a really amazing cast called Rocket. It might be called Christopher Rocket. I know they’re having the name changed so pardon me on that one. It’s just a small little part but I think it’s going to be a really great movie, so I’m pretty excited about that and now it’s back to the we just wrapped up production and so it’s back to the drawing board again.
(Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl)
(Image Courtesy of TBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
