Paget Brewster on BIRDGIRL being "just wrong" in the best possible way and keeping her fingers crossed for a CRIMINAL MINDS revival

If you’ve followed me on social media for any period of time, then you know that I’m very much in favor of any and all projects featuring Paget Brewster, and while this has a great deal to do with the fact that I think she’s both a gifted comedienne and equally deft at dramatic work, there’s an additional component: I interviewed her in 2015 for the A.V. Club’s Random Roles feature and discovered that she’s just, like, the nicest, most grounded person ever.

This is not hyperbole, by the way, and to prove it, I always tell people this story from the first time I ever met her, because it pretty much set the stage for all of my future interactions with her:

Picture it: the Beverly Hilton, 2015. It was the Television Critics Association press tour, and Paget was in the midst of promoting her about-to-premiere Fox series Grandfathered. She’d agreed to do a Random Roles interview, and when we sat down in the lobby bar, she said that she was excited about it because Jon Cryer had told her how much he’d enjoyed it when I interviewed him, which was mind-blowing enough all by itself. After about 30 minutes, she had to run to her next interview, but I hadn’t quite hit on all the roles I’d really wanted to tackle, so I asked if she’d be up for finishing by phone after the press tour was over. The response: “Of course!”

Fast-forward to that night at the Fox evening event, where cast members and series creators from across the network’s lineup are milling about in an elbow-to-elbow environment. At some point during the proceedings, I suddenly I see Paget, who sees me at almost exactly the same time and says, “Hey! I’m out of here, but we are going to finish that interview!” And knowing me, I probably said something like, “I like your enthusiasm, but it doesn’t matter, because now we’re fast-forwarding ahead two days, at which point Paget follows me on Twitter and sends me a DM:

Will, this is Paget from Thursday. Please DM back a tidbit so I know it's you? I want to continue our talk!

This message never fails to make me smile, and then laugh, and then regret that I didn’t reply, “From Thursday, you say? I’m going to need more information.”

Anyway, long story short, I DM’ed, we finished our talk, the interview turned out wonderfully. First, her remarks to me about the weirdness surrounding her initial departure from Criminal Minds ended up going viral because it turned out that she’d never opened up to anyone about the situation before. Then a little bit later, after she’d told me during the interview about a clip she’d recorded for a show called Strange America, I did some digging, found the producer of the show, and he uploaded the clip to YouTube, God bless him…

And then after she told me about her short-lived talk show, The Paget Show, I managed to find someone on YouTube who’d been going through his massive collection of VHS tapes from the Bay Area and uploaded an episode of the show, the first one to emerge on YouTube in its entirety.

So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m lucky she even still talks to me, let alone that she agreed to do another interview with me.

But, hey, I really, really loved Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and I was downright ecstatic when I heard that Paget’s character, Birdgirl, was being spun off into her own series…and fortunately for me, Paget knew this, and she also suspected - quite accurately - that I’d want to do anything possible to help promote the show, so…here we are!

Quick caveat: given the length of our conversation and my desire to make sure that I was able to get the interview online in advance of Birdgirl’s premiere at midnight, I decided to split it into two parts, which means there’s more to come!

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s roll!

So how long had a Birdgirl spinoff been under discussion? Was it something that had at least been bandied about as a possibility when Harvey Birdman was still on the air?

Paget Brewster: No, it wasn't when the show was on. It was when we all got together in 2018 to record... It was kind of like a movie version of Harvey Birdman?

Absolutely. I remember that.

And when I went in to record, they said, "Hey, what would you think about Birdgirl as a spinoff?" And I was, like, "Uh, I hope you'll let me audition for it!" And they were, like, "What's wrong with you? You're Birdgirl!" And I was, like, "No, I know, but if it's, like, gonna be a whole separate show, let's just make sure the network and studio are happy with it, and I'd be happy to audition." And they were, like, "It's gonna be you. Just relax." [Laughs.] And then two or three years later, they said, "Yeah, we're doing it."

And we started recording... Geez, I'm trying to remember. We started recording a couple of months before quarantine, and it was the last job I did in...February? Or the very beginning of March. But we recorded an episode of Birdgirl at Margarita Mix, and we finished, and we were all just sort of standing around, several feet apart, going, "Well, I guess... I guess I'll see you when I see you." And we couldn't, like, hug or anything. It was so awkward and strange, and we didn't know what was going to happen. Luckily we were able to keep recording remotely, but it would've been nice if we could've done a larger order. But six is great! And I didn't have to audition for it. [Laughs.] I got the part!

Well, there you go.

Yeah, and [creators] Michael Oeweleen and Erik Richter are great. I actually don't know how to say Michael's last name! Do you?

I've...never had to say it out loud. But your pronunciation [ooh-wuh-leen] sounds like a reasonable guess to me. That said, I'm glad I'm running this as a print interview rather than audio.

Yes! [Laughs.] It gives me time to try and sound it out!

So it occurs to me that I don’t actually know who else is in the voice cast of Birdgirl. The last time I checked IMDb, you were still the only person listed in the cast.

Oh! Okay, all right, I can tell you. [Laughs.] Well, first of all, the only person I knew in person was Kether Donohue, who plays Gillian, Birdgirl's and Judy Seben's secretary, who's in the trailer. And she and I did a stage show thing a couple of years ago, so I knew her. But other than that, I haven't met any of these people. I haven't recorded with any of these people. In fact, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a picture and send it to you. Can I do that while I'm on the phone?

Absolutely you can. 

Okay, let's try it. [Hesitates.] Okay, so now I want to go... [Long pause.] I'm not very good at this, but... Okay, okay, I think I can do this. No, not that. Camera. All right, look at this. Okay, hold on. Yeah! Okay! 

Having followed you on social media for as long as I have, in regards to anything related to technology, I'm wondering how many times you've uttered the phrase, "I'm not very good at this."

[After another long pause, followed by a sudden return to the line, it becomes evident that she didn't hear me.]

Okay! So I... Oh! Are you there?

I am here, yes.

Okay, so I'm not very good at technology... 

[At this, I couldn't help but burst out laughing, but I pulled it together pretty quickly and I think I got away with it…until now.]

I just sent you a picture of the cast list and who everyone is.

Ah, yes, there it is.

Because - like you - I went online to try and find out, and it wasn't listed anywhere because it hasn't aired yet. So I called Adult Swim, saying, "Can you send me the cast list? Because even I don't know who's playing what!" [Laughs.] But they're all great. Do you know who John Doman is?

Well, I know that's a great character name: "Dog with Bucket Hat." 

Oh, he's fantastic. His voice... It's great. He's great. But like I said, when we recorded together a year ago, we didn't record together, so I didn't get to meet everybody. And everyone's great, but I just couldn't match anyone's voice to their name. I thought I would recognize Tony Hale's voice, but I didn't! But it's a great cast. I wish we could all record together. Obviously, no one's recording anything together right now, but that would be fun.

By the way, I have pulled up John Doman, and I now see that he's one of those textbook examples of a "that guy." He's been in so many things. Like, we're talking a dozen appearances on various incarnations of Law & Order...and generally as a different character every time!

Oh, good for him. [With surprise.] Is he in New York? He must be based in New York.

He's got to be, because he was also on NYPD Blue and New York Undercover. Plus The Sopranos.

Oh, okay. No wonder I love him. 

And Oz. And The Practice. 

Jesus! How did we get that guy? [Laughs.] 

I don't know. But I'm guessing he's probably still based in New York, because he's also done several episodes of Fox's For Life, and I know that's filmed in New York too. All I know is, he's definitely someone I'd like to interview.

Wow. Yeah, I'll bet he's got great stories!

Okay, so what's the general premise of Birdgirl? Is Judy is setting out on her own?

Well, basically what happens is that in the first episode, Phil Ken Seben is dead, which is always questionable, because he's faked his death a bunch of times before. And instead of leaving the company Seben & Seben to Judy, his daughter, he leaves it to Birdgirl...still not knowing that Judy and Birdgirl are the same being. So Birdgirl is running Phil's company, which... They create just horrible products. Like, terrible, wrong, amoral stuff. They're just a really horrible company. And Judy, of course, is upset that Birdgirl was given the job of CEO over Judy.

So basically the idea is that it's not a continuation of Harvey Birdman. It's a spinoff in the sense that... [Hesitates.] Erik Richter says it's kind of like Fear the Walking Harvey Birdman: except for the character of Birdgirl, it's a different world...and I'm sure we couldn't get Stephen Colbert or Gary Cole, anyway. [Laughs.] I'm sure they're busy. Unfortunately! So it's a new cast of characters - Meredith, Paul, Charley, Dog with Bucket Hat, Brian, and Gillian -  and Birdgirl makes them form this sort of pseudo-superhero group...but it's just their abilities as humans.

It sounds fun. 

It is really good! I got to see two episodes, and it's really good! And I'm so excited, because you never know. You record a voice alone in a booth with the writers, and a year goes by while it's being animated...I think in South Korea? I don't know where they animate it. And then it comes back, and...it's really funny. And wrong. It's absurd. And funny. But wrong. I feel like comedy has gotten so correct, and this is not. 

I'm in favor of that.

Oh, it was nice to watch. I've been watching too many documentaries.

Yeah, that's a bad thing right about now. Everything's depressing enough already.

I've got to stop. Oh, it's just dark out there. So I think this is really funny. And kind of sweet. But absurd. It's really good. I'm really proud of it. 

Excellent. I'm really psyched to see it. 

Oh, thanks! And you've got your thing on your car! [Laughs.]

How awesome is that? And that wasn't even network swag. I was just doing a search for something online and discovered that Adult Swim had done a run of these tiny figures awhile ago.

Really? I never got one! [Laughs.] 

I'll just say that they're not very expensive: I found mine on Amazon, and it was only about four bucks. Okay, so on to other topics: I saw your appearance on Hanging with Doctor Z, and I loved it. 

Oh, good. Yeah, that's Dana!

Absolutely. And I knew that you and Dana Gould went way back, but I didn't realize until listening to him on a podcast awhile ago that you went as far back as World on a String, his pilot from 1997. Was that where you first met?

Yeah, that was... [Pauses.] Did we meet on that? Yeah, we did! That was my first pilot...and I think it may have been my first job in L.A.! It was me and Dana and...Kevin McDonald, I think? From Kids in the Hall. But it didn't go. I, uh, did a lot of pilots that didn't go. [Laughs.] 

Yeah, I found that one, and I knew you’d done more than just that, but the only other one that I was actually able to find - and even then I don’t think it’s actually a full version of it - is Star Patrol.

Oh, really? Wait a minute, you sent that to me, didn't you?

I did, because one point I was going to see if I could get you and Jonathan Frakes together on the line to talk about it, since he directed it.

Oh, yeah. I really liked that guy. He was great. 

And it seemed like it had potential. 

Yeah, it did. But you never know why anything is picked up or canceled. It's so hard to tell. As an actor - and probably as a showrunner and a writer, too - at a certain point you're just, like, "Well, I know enough to know that I don't know." That's really it. It’s, like, “Who knows?” And nobody knows.

Well, I’m sure you’ve been asked this a thousand times already, but what do you hear about this Criminal Minds reboot that’s being discussed?

Well, we're trying. [Laughs.] It was an idea that was floated in August, and we've been trying to negotiate, but it's... [Sighs.] It's hard. That's a situation that is difficult because it's owned by several companies. It's not CBS Studios for CBS Networks for Paramount Plus. It's CBS and ABC and Disney and Mark Gordon, which is now owned by Hasbro, so there are a lot of companies with a partial stake in it. So in negotiating to do it as a streaming show for Paramount Plus, they're sort of...fighting with each other.

And it seems like their job as studios and a network is to offer the smallest amount of money to the cast for the most amount of work in the fewest amount of days, whereas it's our job as people who've been part of a show for between four and fifteen years to say, "No, we want to do it, and we want to do it well, but you can't pay us less than you used to pay us!" [Laughs.] "Or you can hire bikini models to play FBI agents and do it with people who weren't on the show. But if you want us, let's come to a reasonable compromise."

God forbid. 

[Laughs.] No, no, it's all part of the process. So we're trying. And hopefully we get there. Because we were all hoping to start shooting in July, but I don't even know if that's possible now. We just don't know. But we're certainly trying. 

Well, I will be one of many people with their fingers crossed.

All of our fingers are crossed! [Laughs.] But it's tricky! It's a tricky logistical problem. And no one's wrong, you know? No one's doing anything lousy. Everyone's trying! So knock wood... [Pauses to actually knock wood.] ...that it actually happens. 

Stay tuned for Part Two, wherein we discuss Paget’s work on Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, past efforts to turn The Thrilling Adventure Hour into a TV series, her epic hangovers after recording Drunk History, and more! Until then… WATCH BIRDGIRL!