66 EMMY
After all, she’d just turned sixty. Her nine-season run on the ABC comedy
The Middle had come to an end, a stint that had begun not long after her nine
years on CBS’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Meanwhile, her four sons were
either in college or off working, leaving her and husband David Hunt home
alone to binge on Game of Thrones. If ever there was a moment for self-
discovery, this was it.
“I know for me, when The Middle finished, there was a little bit of that ‘My
kids are out of the house and my show is done — what now?’ feeling,” Heaton
explains. “So I started thinking, ‘What’s my identity?’ You know, ‘What’s my
purpose in life?’”
That search led her to try a still-life painting class (“It was intense, but that
was a good thing”), to take up golf again (“I’ll never be able to hit the ball very
far, but it just really feels good and it’s something my husband and I can do
together”) and to volunteer for the humanitarian aid organization World Vision
(“If you actually want to save somebody’s life, this is a way you could do that”).
While these were fulfilling uses of her newfound spare time, Heaton
couldn’t help but handle this new phase the way she knows best: by getting
back on television. In the comedy Carol’s Second Act, which premieres
September 26 on CBS, she plays Carol Kenney, a fifty-year-old divorced
mom who’s following her dream of becoming a doctor. Working as an intern
at a hospital with peers half her age makes the work doubly challenging.
“What we’re talking about is: what’s that thing you’re going to do when
you’ve done the things you were supposed to do?” Heaton says, sitting down
at a conference table in her new office at CBS Studio Center in Studio City,
California. “You got married. You had a career. You had kids. But what’s the nextthing? Which I guess is where my connection point to Carol is. I feel like at age
sixty-one, I have more opportunities now than I’ve ever had.”
This particular opportunity, though, took her by surprise. After two
successful sitcom experiences as a TV wife and mother, she “just couldn’t do
another mom.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that after
The Middle, she was thinking, “‘Maybe I should wait for something different.
But I don’t want to do a procedural. The movie business — what am I going to
do in the movies?’ So I had to make peace with the idea that I’m never going
to do that big costume drama.”
Then, along came Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins, the writer–executive
producers of Carol’s Second Act. The timing was perfect, given where Heaton
was in her own life. Also, she felt there was something deeper going on with
the title character: even though Carol has a couple of kids, her career was
going to be the primary focus moving forward.
As opposed to Frankie Heck on The Middle and Debra Barone on Raymond,
Carol is a former high school science teacher and “much more intentional
about what her interests are and about continuing to pursue them.” Heaton
insists the new role provides her with a great — yet still comedic — way “to
give older people encouragement that their wisdom and experience are
valuable and that they can be contributing to their community.”
It’s a responsibility she’s clearly taken to heart. According to Kyle
MacLachlan, who plays a doctor and potential love interest on the new show,
“It feels like she’s very invested in this. We had just one scene together [in the
pilot], but I sensed a real engagement from her. She seems to be part of what
the character is. She believes in who she is, but is not without insecurities.”PATRICIA
HEATON
TRIED.
SHE REALLY DID.
IN SPRING 2018, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A
LONG TIME, SHE WAS ALL SET TO TAKE A
LITTLE TIME FOR HERSELF.