‘So Help Me Todd’: Jenifer Lewis as Lyle’s Mother Is ‘an Event’ — What to Expect (VIDEO)
“Lyle’s mother is an event,” So Help Me Todd‘s Tristen J. Winger says ahead of the April 11 episode. “If we have the iconic Jenifer Lewis playing this role, you know it’s an event.”
Lewis’ Jacqueline is an international opera singer and supreme diva Margaret (Marcia Gay Harden) and Todd (Skylar Astin) must defend in “End on a High Note,” and TV Insider has an exclusive sneak peek. Watch the video above to see what Jacqueline thinks of Margaret’s apartment.
“What an absolute honor to work with the great Marcia Gay Harden,” Lewis says. “The entire cast and crew were absolutely amazing. The show is sooo much fun.”
As you can already get the sense of in the clip, Lyle’s not exactly happy about his worlds colliding. “As much as he loves his mother, she’s a lot, she’s a handful, and she’s the complete opposite of what Lyle is,” Winger tells us.
The episode allows for the juxtaposition of mother-son relationships, with Lyle and Jacqueline’s to Todd and Margaret’s. “At the beginning of the first season, you see Todd as this person who’s down on his luck. He’s in shambles, but he is talented,” points out Winger. “And conversely, we see Lyle at the beginning of the first season where he’s very much strait-laced. He is the ‘good son,’ but according to Lyle’s mother, he’s not the good son. He’s the one who decided to do his own thing and follow his own path to her disapproval.” By bringing in Jacqueline, now you can see that Lyle is the way he is because “he has to take care of her all the time. Anytime she’s around, it’s a whirlwind of emotions and she leaves behind her a path of destruction as we expect with any diva, rightfully so. It’s Jenifer Lewis.”
Michael Courtney/CBS
But it is a struggle for Lyle to have his mother around, especially since his mother doesn’t approve of his career. “Not only does he have to solve this case, but he has to prove to his mother that he’s not a failure, that he is worthy of the life that he’s living and he’s worthy of the path that he’s chosen,” Winger previews.
Then there’s having his mother meet his “work family.” Shares Winger, “He knows that she is a lot and she is a diva and she requires a lot of attention and a lot of handholding as her character commands, but also we want to take care of our mothers.” As a result, he’ll be leaning on Margaret as “a sounding board” and Todd “to help him solve this case because at the end of the day, he doesn’t want to see his mother in trouble. He doesn’t want to see his mother in jail.”
During the course of the episode, in perhaps its best scene, Todd, Margaret, Allison (Madeline Wise), Lyle, and Jacqueline sit down for a dinner “in a very interesting place that you would not expect a woman of Lyle’s mother’s caliber and Margaret’s caliber to be in,” Winger previews. As you can imagine with the relationships between those dinner guests, “there’s a lot happening. There’s a lot of crosstalk. There’s a lot of parallel conversations happening at the same time, which I also love in that scene.”
For Winger, filming that scene was “incredible,” “very emotional,” and “very funny.” He adds, “Jenifer Lewis will improv sometimes and it makes me smile and it makes all of us laugh. It was such a great time. I love when there gets to be a large group of us all working together and collaborating to just make that scene as great as possible. Just to see everywhere that scene goes, when everyone sees it, you’re going to be happy to see it.”
The star can’t rave enough about working with Lewis. “[She’s] iconic. She’s legendary. She’s everything you think she is and then some. Seeing Jenifer Lewis perform in person, it’s sometimes I want to make sure that I’m being present in the scene because I just want to watch her. She’s so compelling. She commands the room. Everyone is watching her every move,” he says. “Being in scenes with her is so much fun and I’m learning so much from her at a time. She takes these big swings with every character that she plays and it reminds me just as a performer, whatever my imagination tells me to do, just go there and do it. Jenifer is doing that every single time, and every single take she’s doing something different and it’s funny and it’s moving every single time. I wish I could work with her all the time.”
Might he work with her again this season? Winger wouldn’t say: “You have to continue to watch.”
What are you hoping to see with Lewis coming in as Lyle’s mother? Let us know in the comments section, below.
So Help Me Todd, Thursdays, 9/8c, CBS
