SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE E13TELEVISIONStars of Showtime series findcommon ground in di∞cult pastsPHOTOS BY NICOLE WILDER/SHOWTIME“Listen, laughter is the greatest healer,and we are very fortunate women tohave laughed at all of it.”
Jenifer Lewis, on mining life experiences for “I Love That
for You” with Molly Shannon and Vanessa BayerTOP: From left, Molly Shannon, Ayden Mayeri,
Jenifer Lewis and Matt Rogers in “I Love That for
You,” which is part moral dilemma, part workplace
sitcom. ABOVE: Lewis, Vanessa Bayer and Shannon
play employees of a home shopping channel.own bout with leukemia as a teen-
ager, which required nearly a year
of aggressive treatment.
When it comes to that kind of
public introspection, Bayer has
company among her cast. Lewis
opened up in her 2017 book, “The
Mother of Black Hollywood,” dis-
cussing her past sex addiction and
decades-long battle with bipolar
disorder. In “Hello, Molly!,” Shan-
non’s recently released memoir,
the 57-year-old reflects on the
deaths of her mother, sister and
cousin in a 1969 car accident with
her intoxicated father at the
wheel.
As L ewis points out, “All three of
us come from great tragedy.”
“I was thinking about that,”
Shannon says. “We’re all kind of
telling our stories.”
“We have all been through a lot,”
Bayer adds. “For me, even off-
screen, just to see how these wom-
en navigate their lives and how
they treat everyone, it’s such a
lesson.”T
he actresses’ convening
paths were charted in the
summer of 2017, shortly af-
ter the Emmy-nominated Bayer
finished her seven seasons at SNL,
when she and Beiler met for
brunch and stumbled upon their
mutual fascination with home
shopping channels. As the duo
decided to team up on a TV pitch,
developed the idea and consid-
ered how to flesh out the protago-
nist, they ended up incorporating
Bayer’s long-held desire to write
about her real-life cancer diagno-
sis — specifically, the ways she
used her illness as an excuse to
show up late for classes, turn
down a date for homecoming and
guilt-trip her way to other privi-
leges.
“I felt like it would always be fun
to do something exploring the fact
that when I was sick, I really capi-
talized on the perks of it,” Bayer
says. “Something that helped me
get through it was the humor and
the fun of just trying to get what I
could from it.”
Bayer acknowledges there’s
plenty of her in Joanna Gold, the “I
Love That for You” character she
plays with an eager-to-please grin
and endearingly anxious energy —
even if her on-screen counterpart
embellishes those tics and traits.
“It is some of the awkwardness
and, especially from when I was a
little bit younger, this [idea of]
playing catch-up in becoming an
adult,” explains Bayer, who
booked recurring gigs on “Brook-
lyn Nine-Nine” and “Will & Grace”
after leaving SNL but is tackling
her first lead role on-screen.
As Jackie Stilton, the home
shopping star who takes Joanna
under her wing, Shannon shares
her character’s mentorlike im-
pulses but not so much her hyper-
feminine style sense, which comes
complete with leather pants, an
immaculate manicure and the
ever-present jingle of excessiveTV FROM E1jewelry.
“The script is so well-written, it
just jumps off the page,” says Shan-
non, whose recent credits include
the heralded series “The Other
Two” and “The White Lotus.” “It
really reminded me of character-
driven comedies that I love, like
‘Broadcast News’ and ‘Tootsie.’ It
had love and comedy and it was
fantastic, and I just said, ‘I have to
be in this.’ ”
Although Cybill Shepherd orig-
inally was cast as network head
Patricia Kunken, various factors —
including a year-long, coronavi-
rus-induced delay to shooting the
pilot — led her to depart the proj-
ect. The postponement proved
fortuitous. Lewis wasn’t available
pre-pandemic because of her com-
mitment to “Black-ish,” but the
long-running ABC sitcom’s recent
conclusion freed her to step in as
Patricia and put her own promis-
cuous spin on “I Love That for
You’s” ice queen.
While the three actresses hail
from different generations, theypromptly found common ground
in their Midwestern roots: Bayer
and Shannon grew up in suburban
Cleveland, and Lewis was raised
in Missouri.
“We came from those places to
where we are now, so that brings
the grounding,” Lewis says. “But
‘wisdom’ is the word I would really
weigh on because of the training
we’ve had. Having lived the spec-
trum, you bring as an artist every-
thing that you are. Those two sec-
onds before action, your whole self
is present. And it’s very exciting to
watch Vanessa and Molly on set,
with them bringing that amazing
experience to the table.”Bayer says she always was
something of a class clown,
specializing in impressions
of her teachers as a kid. But discov-
ering that she could laugh her way
through her leukemia treatment
was what steered her toward such
storied comedy institutions as
Chicago’s Second City improv
troupe and SNL.“I wanted to remind my friends
that I was still the same Vanessa,
who liked joking, who wanted to
just hear about dumb gossip from
ninth grade,” Bayer says. “Be-
cause of that, I think they felt
comfortable just asking me ques-
tions, and we were able to com-
municate in such an easier way. I
was like, ‘Wow, us laughing about
it has really gotten us through it.
This is what I should just do as a
career.’ ”
When Lewis considers why she
gravitates toward comedy, she
dwells on the darker chapters of
her life and her subsequent desire
to derive happiness from her
work above all else. Shannon, on
the other hand, writes in her
memoir that the fearless physi-
cality she brought to her SNL
character Mary Katherine Gal-
lagher — a manic Catholic school-
girl with a tendency to fall on her
face and spring right back up —
channeled her own resilience fol-
lowing her family’s tragic past.
“We’re all digging deep,” Shan-
non says. “I feel so happy for
Vanessa, so proud of her, and I
feel so happy for Jenifer — she’s
such a kind, wonderful person. It
just feels emotional. I love when
girls just kick a-- and dig deep and
tell their stories and succeed.”
Discussing the trio over the
phone, “I Love That for You”
showrunner Jessi Klein adds that
Bayer, Lewis and Shannon share
“a very deep appreciation for life,
and how tenuous and fleeting it
can be.”
“These women are so good at
creating joy in their work,” Klein
says. “One of the amazing things
about the show is this little tight-
rope that’s being walked at times,
between subject matter that can
be very dark and is all connected
to cancer in some ways, but then
also being able to deliver big hard
laughs from one second to the
next. I think all of their life experi-
ences make them singularly able
to do this kind of magic trick.”
Good old-fashioned chemistry
and mutual admiration don’t
hurt, either. Whether Lewis is
ribbing Bayer for wearing knitted
caps and onesies to set or the
actresses are swapping stories
about meeting each other’s fami-
lies at the show’s premiere, their
recent chat is packed with lots of
belly laughs, several “awws” and,
as the video call wraps up, a few
tears of joy.
“Listen, laughter is the greatest
healer, and we are very fortunate
women to have laughed at all of
it,” Lewis says. “We’ve found that
deep humor — that soul that says
keep going, that soul that says,
‘Yes, I can get up from this.’
There’s nothing greater than
moving through the obstacles
that are put in front of you, where
life can take you so suddenly and
so quickly, and to have the tools to
bring yourself back. That’s what
the three of us have done.”I Love That for You on Showtime
streams n ew episodes on Fridays.