E-mail a friendJenna Elfman
airdate September 18, 2009
Jenna Elfman starred in the hit sitcom Dharma & Greg, earning three Emmy nods and a Golden Globe. She then took on the big screen with films that included EDtv and Town & Country. A classically-trained ballerina, the Los Angeles native made the switch to acting in the early '90s and began her career in commercials. Elfman received rave reviews for her stage work in Visions and Lovers and has lent her voice to several animated films, including Clifford's Really Big Movie. She returns to TV in CBS' Accidentally on Purpose.
Accidentally on Purpose star talks about being pregnant in real life, as well as on the show. (1:25)
Full interview. (10:06)
Jenna Elfman
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Jenna Elfman to this program. The Emmy-nominated actress received a Golden Globe for her work on the popular series, Dharma & Greg. This fall, she is back in prime time in the new CBS comedy, Accidentally on Purpose. Love the name. The show premiers this Monday night at 8:30. Here now a sneak preview of Accidentally on Purpose.
[Clip]
Tavis: So (laughter) if what I've read is correct, it goes down.
Jenna Elfman: It does.
Tavis: And then something comes up (laughter).
Elfman: It does. Well, something comes up and then something comes out (laughter).
Tavis: (Laughter) So I'll let you tell the story line of what happens here. Where does that scene go?
Elfman: Well, I should possibly backtrack a bit to set it up.
Tavis: Okay, all right.
Elfman: That'll probably make it even clearer. First of all, this is based off of a book, a true story, called Accidentally on Purpose by Mary Pols. My character is a film critic in her later 30s at a San Francisco newspaper. She's been dating her boss, the owner of the paper, for a few years. She doesn't want to get married, so I'm not thrilled about that and I go to a bar with some girlfriends.
Tavis: A guy with commitment issues?
Elfman: Apparently they're out there, so I've heard.
Tavis: I can't imagine (laughter).
Elfman: I meet a nice handsome young lad in his early 20s and I have a one-night stand, which she doesn't really do, as you saw, and then she ends up pregnant. He isn't really established. You know, he's like barely employed and lives in a van, but wants to stay and be there for the baby which is a very standup thing to do.
I don't want the father of my child living in a van, so then I'm like, "Stay with me until another couch opens up." But he stays and we keep it platonic. We don't want it to get too, you know, complicated, but we do have feelings for each other, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place.
So it gets kind of crazy and his best friends come around and it's like a frat house in my apartment and then my boss is now suddenly interested in me because he can't have me. Yeah, and that's just the pilot (laughter).
Tavis: I can't imagine that about men either, wanting you because they can't have you. I really can't imagine that.
Elfman: Well, that's also something I've heard occurs, yeah.
Tavis: Yeah, I can't imagine that (laughter). What about the script made you decide that this was the entrée back into prime time?
Elfman: You know, I've been working on developing another show trying to find, you know, a great comedy to come back with for like four straight years. So I know they don't grow on trees, great comedies. So when I read this script, I laughed out loud many times, which really got my attention because that doesn't happen often. I was also very intrigued by the voice of the character. The tone of the comedy felt really fresh and unique.
It felt like a tone of humor I haven't seen on television in a sitcom ever, and the subject matter was something I'd never seen in a sitcom. Those are all qualities that are rare, to find things in a sitcom. You know, there's been talk over the last several years of like the death of the sitcom. This felt like, well, this is nowhere near the death of a sitcom. This feels like some nice green growth coming out of the soil, you know, and that's what got my attention.
Tavis: And then, as the whole world knows now, you announced earlier this week that the timing of this role and real life was - the timing is really propitious because -
Elfman: - I am pregnant with my second baby.
Tavis: You really are pregnant.
Elfman: I am. Once I did the show, we found out the show got picked up for the fall season, I knew my character. I was gonna have a season of work of a character who's going to be pregnant and I thought, "Well, this is a good time to have another kid because I won't have to hide the pregnancy."
Tavis: So it really wasn't accidentally - well, I guess it was accidentally on purpose.
Elfman: Yeah. We weren't even gonna try to get pregnant until August and I didn't want to wait until August, so it was a little actually accidentally on purpose because it just kind of happened. But we were planning on having it happen and Mother Nature decided to join us and help us out with that, so it's all good.
Tavis: Your second baby?
Elfman: Um-hum.
Tavis: You like motherhood, I take it.
Elfman: I love it.
Tavis: Yeah. How do you balance all that? Especially these long hours on these - you're not on location which is a good thing. You're here in town, but it's long hours, though.
Elfman: Yeah. I guess of all the television work, the sitcom is the best in terms of schedules if you have a family. So I have the best of all the situations for television, but, you know, with all the press and everything, the schedule does get busy and we were just talking about it in the car on the way here.
How am I going to see him today? Every day, I mean, I spend a lot of time with him, but on these days where it gets really busy, it can be a bit daunting. So you just get clever. You have to be really good with your management of time and you make it a priority.
Tavis: When you were pregnant with the first baby, were you working then?
Elfman: No, so I got to sleep in.
Tavis: Exactly. You have concerns about being able to work and do the -
Elfman: - yeah. Not so much concerns because I just go, "Let's make this work." You just make it work. You just hunker down and make it work.
Tavis: Of all the various forms, the various genres that you could have put your thespian skills toward, why comedy for you? I mean, you can do a variety of things, obviously, but this comedy thing works for you. Why so?
Elfman: I just love it. I don't know what it is. I just think that I love laughter and I think - it's hard to describe. It's so deep inside of me, my love of it. I was raised watching certain comedies on television and I love the effect it created upon me and I think I'm oriented to that kind of rhythm.
I'm musical. I was a dancer my whole life and it's rhythmic to me and I love making people laugh. Just throw me in front of a live audience and hearing 200 people roar with laughter is like really pleasurable.
Tavis: Is there something about your personality that makes you better - my word, not yours - I don't want to limit you, but better at this comedy thing than, say, drama or -
Elfman: I find the humor in everything and I always have since I was a kid. Like I was always getting in trouble because I would find things hilarious at very inopportune times (laughter). You know, puberty wasn't like the most pleasant thing for me, so I had to develop a sense of humor to maintain my sanity. So I think I'm naturally inclined to find the funny in something in my head and then it was a survival tactic for me during puberty.
You know, like make-believe, in comedy, you must believe, and in drama, you must believe. But in comedy, you have to believe so much and then find that little hair that's sticking out and pull it that makes it funny with the equal amount of belief as you would in drama. So it's almost like it's the same belief, but with a little extra thing, you know, because you got to make them laugh.
Tavis: Well, if you can't sell it, we can't buy it. You got to be able to sell it to us as funny.
Elfman: Yeah.
Tavis: You really didn't think you were gonna mention a difficult puberty three times and I wasn't gonna follow up on it, did you? You didn't really think I wasn't gonna go there, did you (laughter)?
Elfman: (Laughter) Oh, no. Go there. Go wherever you want. Ask me anything.
Tavis: Yeah. So what was this reference about, that puberty was difficult for you?
Elfman: I was a late bloomer and I have wonderful parents. They're still married. They raised me with values. I love them.
Tavis: Here in Los Angeles?
Elfman: I was raised here in Los Angeles.
Tavis: We'll come back to that later, but go ahead with your puberty story.
Elfman: I was just - you know, I was like I wanted to be cool and like, you know, I was in a parochial school and we had these white shirts and you could see like the cool girls wore bras and I had no reason to be wearing a bra, but if you were cool, you could see a bra strap.
So I wanted a bra for that, but then it was like it wouldn't even stay, you know. Then they're all wearing makeup. My mom's like, "You're not wearing makeup until you're 16" and I'm like, "Mom, everybody's wearing makeup." I had like buckteeth like I don't even know how far out they went. It was so bad that I had to wear a head gear. Can you hear the laughter?
Not the neck gear. You see, a neck gear you can hide under your hair at least so you just had that metal thing. No, a head gear, and not just while you sleep. I had to wear it to school. I had to wear it while I ate. I couldn't take it off to eat because, while I chewed, they wanted to train my teeth. It was so bad. And I had my bra that didn't fit, I wasn't allowed to wear makeup and I had a frickin' head gear. Come on. And this was like from sixth grade to ninth grade. Okay, that's key.
Tavis: Oh, in those development years, yeah.
Elfman: So I couldn't even wear makeup to spice up the head gear.
Tavis: And look at how this all turned out? Look at this.
Elfman: Well, thanks.
Tavis: We mentioned that you were born and raised here in Los Angeles. For you, particularly with that puberty story, it means what to have succeeded in this business in this town where you grew up?
Elfman: You know, I don't know what to say to that other than like I was a dancer, so my mom would take me and I would audition for commercials when I was a kid. I did some extra work as a kid, so I was always kind of on the periphery of the entertainment industry and I always knew in my heart that that's where I wanted to end up.
Apparently, I told my mom while we were driving when I was like five and I was staring out the window. She's like, "A penny for your thoughts." She was like, "Come on." She had to drag it out of me and I was just staring out the window and said, "I'm gonna be very famous on television one day."
Tavis: At five.
Elfman: Apparently. I don't remember it, but she remembers it very clearly. So I guess I knew I wanted to be there. I was very affected by the Carol Burnett Show and I Love Lucy because, you know, I was a TV kid.
Tavis: Great comedies.
Elfman: I think it just seeped in, you know, that kind of orientation of comedy. But, you know, I was always surrounded by it, always reminded of it by living in this town, so it was always like the carrot I was going after.
Tavis: It seeped in and now it's eking out - no, not eking out. Spilling out all over the place.
Elfman: Loving out.
Tavis: Literally and figuratively, it's just going everywhere now. Jenna Elfman stars in the new CBS show called Accidentally on Purpose Monday night on CBS. All the best on it. Congratulations on the show and the baby.
Elfman: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Tavis: Nice to see you, Jenna.
Elfman: You too.
Back to September 18, 2009