Actor and internet sensation Leslie Jordan, who died Oct. 24 in a car crash onthe way to the set of the Fox sitcom Call Me Cat appeared in his finalepisode last month, but it’s only this Thursday, as the show returns from aholiday break, that Cat will reveal what happened to Jordan’s character,Phil.
And the cast, which also includes Mayim Bialik, Cheyenne Jackson, Kyla Pratt,Swoosie Kurtz and Julian Gant, found making it “a hard week, a very hardepisode to film without him,” Bialik, who’s also an executive producer on theshow , explained to Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Tuesday.
“We’re still grieving,” she said.
The entire show took a break after the heartbreaking development.
“It was obviously a tragic and devastating personal loss for all of us, and heand Cheyenne [Jackson] had a much longer relationship than this show, so itwas especially devastating for Cheyenne. But the fact is, we were midseason,we have a lot more to go,” Bialik said. “We were also right in the middle offilming an episode that needed to be rewritten and restructured andemotionally rebuilt so that we could figure out how to handle it. We did haveto work quickly, and I really do credit Kelly-Anne Lee, our online producer.She and her team, our whole production team — it was a group effort. Therewere so many moving parts. Our main interest as a cast — and I really wasthinking more as a cast member rather than an executive producer — was how dowe honor our friend while also honoring a grieving process that doesn’t endwith two weeks off production?”
Call Me Kat_ co-stars Leslie Jordan and Cheyenne Jackson appear on the FOXsitcom. (Photo: FOX via Getty Images)”src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/bgGqvuj1_E231LR8pYKyOw-/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MA-/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-01/91d8eec0-8b93-11ed-9fec-846611248c0d” class=”caas-img”/>
Call Me Cat co-stars Leslie Jordan and Cheyenne Jackson appear on the FOXsitcom. (Photo: FOX via Getty Images)
The show had been working on the holiday installation when Jordan died, andhis character was supposed to be in some of the scenes.
“We had started filming that episode. We were on a Monday of two days oftaping that episode when he passed,” Bialik said. “We had to restructure somescenes, just some of the blocking and stuff so that it felt a little bitdifferent — so we weren’t literally walking the same steps and expectingLeslie to come out when we knew his entrances were. Muscle memory is a strongthing, so it helped a lot to be able to do that.”
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In Thursday’s episode, Phil’s absence will be explained, and not with afuneral. In fact, Maria Ferrari, one of the showrunners, told Deadline lastmonth that everyone involved wanted the character to have his “happy ending.”
Bialik said the alternative would’ve been a real struggle.
“When it came to the episode that is essentially his tribute, the cast feltvery strongly and completely unanimously that the thought of doing a funeralepisode while we are actively grieving our friend — it felt like a hurdle weweren’t sure we all wanted to jump together,” Bialik said. “I think LeslieJordan was known so much for being Leslie, and while we also love him and knowhim as Phil, he’s such a beloved personality, truly larger than life. To tryto encapsulate that felt challenging in ways that I don’t know would’ve beenhealthy for us as a cast or a production.So, we found a way for him to liveforever.His character will live forever, and he can have whatever adventureswe all imagine.And because we break the fourth wall anyway, we were able touse that convention to say simply, we gave this character a happy ending, butthere’s a lot more going on here.”
But it was still tough. In one scene, Bialik’s Kat and the others discuss howmuch they’ll miss their friend.
“Our hope was to get it done in one take so that we wouldn’t emotionally gothrough it several times,” Bialik said. “But it took a couple takes. We didn’tover rehearse those scenes just because we didn’t want it to feel rehearsed.And I think that’s why we also chose to keep it so brief.”
Two other things that are different about the tribute episode: Vicki Lawrence,who co-starred with Jordan on TV’s The Cool Kids in 2018, will guest star asPhil’s mother, and another, surprise celebrity appears at the end with lovefor Jordan.
“It’s someone that Leslie already has both a professional and personalrelationship with,” Bialik teased. “It’s someone who he admired and considereda mentor of his, and it’s someone who has the personality that Leslie alwayssaid he would like to be remembered as having.”
Call Me Cat airs Thursday, Jan. 5 at 9:30 pm on Fox.