It doesn’t matter where they act or who they act with, Hank Azaria (‘The Simpson’s,’ ‘Huff’) and Kathryn Hahn (‘Step Brothers,’ ‘Our Idiot Brother’) are scene stealers and stand out in everything they do. So, the fact that they’re co-starring together in NBCs new series ‘Free Agents’ makes all the sense in the world.
“I knew Kathryn a little bit personally before we started working together and liked her.” Said Hank. “And I’ve had a big creative crush on her for a long time and loved her work. I just had the feeling that we sort of would speak the same language creatively.” Added Kathryn, “Well that’s so sweet. I obviously had just such a talent crush on this man for, I mean he’s extraordinary. Here’s a terrific human being and obviously an incredible actor and so it’s been really effortless.”
What does Hank think of the show? It’s definitely about real things, about real emotion, real problems, and real sadness. And it’s also really funny. So it’s not your run-of-the-mill thing.”
In NBC’s new series ‘Free Agents,’ Hank and Kathryn play co-workers, overworked at a public relations firm both looking for love the second time around. Both emotionally damaged after Hank’s character’s divorce and missing his kids, and Kathryn’s widowed and drinking too much, they spend an ill-fated night of passion together and are forced to deal with the repercussions.
Hank can relate to his character Alex’s divorce. “I’ve been divorced and I had to get back out there, be single again and do some of that in the genuinely miserable state where you really do wonder what the hell is going on. And you feel like they’re, you know trying to have casual conversation with someone you don’t know on the surface of the moon or something. And so I know what is it like you know to be really elated or completely depressed within two minutes of a date, you know in the middle-aged. I bring quite a lot of personal experience to it—more than I care to…”
In real life, Hank dated actress Helen Hunt for five years and was married to her for a year. Now he has a two year old son, Hal with his girlfriend Katie.
Kathryn also mother of two small children said, “And as you know, we both have young children and the schedule is relentless and so it’s definitely not the beggars can be choosers in any way but I was not, I was definitely not thinking about network, with that kind of schedule. ”And of course just Hank that he said yes to this I knew that there had to be something incredible.”
Hahn, who always plays that stand-out best friend role to the lead actress in all the great comedies we love, is stepping out herself for the first time in a lead actress role.
Was she nervous taking this role of Helen? Yes, I was. It’s not an easy fit in a really great way. She’s a challenge. I’m a person that just wears my heart kind of on the outside. It’s a strange expression. But she – I think this person is so bottled up and just so closed off from her emotional life that that’s been the real challenge to kind of find, but a delicious one because I think it’s a great place to start comedy wise with somebody that’s kind of a well of untapped emotions.”
How does it feel to finally break out into the lead? Well it’s so easy because I—maybe I’m just in denial as Helen but I really do feel like it’s another amazing gig. And I’m surrounded by this incredible cast- it just feels like an ensemble to me. So I can’t quite see it as a lead or else I think that would put a weird thought in my head that would take me away from actually just doing the job. You know I just want to show up and be as true to her as possible and to be able to work, you know with Hank. I mean, he is so unbelievable as I’m sure you know. He’s an incredible actor. And he’s so, you know, he makes it so easy.”
I said, You’re working with Hank Azaria, hello! I know hello! Exactly, said Kathryn. So once Kathryn and I were done kvelling about Hank, he said, “This is my favorite interview call so far.”
Hank, who’s been voicing on ‘The Simpsons’ but hasn’t shown his face on TV in awhile decided to come back now because, “The script and Creator John Enbom (“Party Down”). We both loved party down Kathryn and I and it was a tough decision for both of us because of schedule and we weren’t really looking to do something like this right now but we just couldn’t kind of ignore how good the material was and how fun the people seem to be.” Added Kathryn, “And for me incredibly special because it took a lot to get him to come back to television in this form. The fact that he vouched for it was a huge proponent in my decision.” Hank: “And it seemed like a really worthy good shot and at the very least we would have a lot of fun doing, and we have.”
And I had a blast talking to these very funny and very cool show biz pros.
NBC looking for a breakout hit has ‘Free Agents’ premiering Wednesday, September 14 at 10:30p ET after the finale of ‘Americas Got Talent’ and then moves to its regular time slot of Wednesday’s at 8:30p ET.