Mayim Bialik on new sitcom 'Call Me Kat' and 'Blossom' reboot
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Mayim Bialik talks to Yahoo Entertainmnebt about her new Fox sitcom Call Me Kat and reveals whether or not she'd want to do a Blossom reboot.
Video Transcript
SWOOSIE KURTZ: Catherine, I found your soul mate.
MAYIM BIALIK: I'm not going to go on a date with a random man you met at the horse track.
SWOOSIE KURTZ: He's not a random man. He's the track announcer.
MAYIM BIALIK: And I'm going on a date with a track announcer because I said yes to my mother, yes to my mother. And taking the lead is hell must have frozen over.
KYLIE MAR: On top of starring in Call Me Kat, you're also an executive producer. You produce the show alongside your ex TV husband, Big Bang Theory co-star, Jim Parsons. What came first? Were you a producer first or star of the show first? Because he came to you with the project.
MAYIM BIALIK: He came to me with the project with the purpose of me starring in it. And I have what's called an overall deal at Warner Brothers which means that I have a production company. That production company then gets to produce along with me being in it. So it's Jim's company and my company. It's a different kind of working together than both of us getting to be on camera together. But he's placed so much trust in me to play this character that I trust him so much with all of his decisions as well.
KYLIE MAR: So filming this in quarantine with COVID protocols, do you have like a skeleton crew on set?
MAYIM BIALIK: We have a skeleton crew. Everyone who's there essentially has to be there. So we have a very hard working skeleton crew. People are often having to kind of double up on duties. For example our lighting team is usually a bunch of dudes. And now it's just like a handful. And actually two women. We have two women groups, which is really awesome.
So we don't have any writers on set. We have our show creator, Darlene Hunt and David Holden. Those are our co-executive producers. But we have no one from the writers room on stage. So it's up to Darlene and Dave to be like texting and Zooming with the rest of the writers. And we have no studio audience. And I'm like, we're a studio audience show. So that also takes some adjusting.
CHEYENNE JACKSON: Kat?
MAYIM BIALIK: Max? No way. Hot Max? That was meant for you.
KYLIE MAR: You break the fourth wall. It's a huge part of the series. And some are already comparing it to Fleabag, and the Emmy award winning series. What do you make of the comparison? And also why was breaking the fourth wall important to Call Me Kat?
MAYIM BIALIK: Our show is based on a show called Miranda which was a BBC show that was very popular. And Miranda broke the fourth wall long before Fleabag did. So ours is actually not a Fleabag reference. It's a Miranda thing. There's a lot of quirks to our show, breaking the fourth wall, all of us waving at the end, those are Miranda things. A lot of our plotlines and really the basis of the characters are all based on Miranda.
KYLIE MAR: Leslie Jordan also stars in the series. Do you have any fun anecdotes from him?
LESLIE JORDAN: Ooh, I'd hit that. That's just something I've heard people say. I wish I hadn't tried it.
MAYIM BIALIK: He's as adorable and delightful as you imagine that he is. That's what he's like. I watch his Instagram videos. And everything he says is quotable. He's got more of a naughty mouth when he's not on camera. He's delightful. And Cheyenne Jackson who I didn't really know a lot about, I'll admit, he's an unbelievable talent and he's such a loving person. So to have him play my love interest is incredible. And we have Swoosie Kurtz who's a legend in television. And Kyla Pratt and Julian Gant also who are phenomenal comedians.
And to get to work with people who get timing so much, it's-- we're having a great time. We really are.
KYLIE MAR: It seems fun to be on set with everyone.
MAYIM BIALIK: Oh yeah.
KYLIE MAR: Also because you get to be very musical in Call Me Kat which may remind viewers of your '90s hit sitcom Blossom. Have you thought about rebooting Blossom? Because there are so many reboots happening these days.
MAYIM BIALIK: Yeah. I've already been quoted once. And I try and be very diplomatic about it. Don Reo who created Blossom, he and I actually do have a reboot that we have pitched. And we have not been able to get it picked up.
KYLIE MAR: Why not?
MAYIM BIALIK: I don't know.
KYLIE MAR: I literally just watched the pilot of Blossom the other day just to remind myself about it. And like Call Me Kat--
MAYIM BIALIK: It's delightful. It's a good time.
KYLIE MAR: Like Call Me Kat, I was like, that is so wholesome right now. She got her period, her brothers are treating her like a woman now and putting her jacket on and opening the door for her. I'm like, that doesn't happen anymore.
MAYIM BIALIK: No. We had a great time making that show also. We really did. Don and I are going to keep chipping away at it because we really do believe that people have an interest in what happened to those characters.
KYLIE MAR: Where would Blossom be today? What would she be doing? What would she think about quarantine?
MAYIM BIALIK: I think she'd probably-- I think she'd probably be a political person, meaning she'd be somehow working to make the system better.
KYLIE MAR: I can see that. The leadership quality in her.
MAYIM BIALIK: Yeah. So we have a lot of ideas. We've got ideas and a script. But it's been kind of a weird year for us. So yeah.
KYLIE MAR: I feel like it's going to happen. I can see it. Netflix series, Blossom reboot.
MAYIM BIALIK: We hope so.
[MUSIC PLAYING]