Tonight at 10PM (ET), TBS premieres their new original comedy Sullivan & Son with two back-to-back episodes. Much like some of the recent cable TV sitcoms – the successful ones at least – Sullivan & Son is a bit of a throwback to a time where a comedy doesn’t necessarily have to be high-concept, but instead, provides a bunch of characters that you’d want to enjoy and welcome into your homes every week… and maybe a few that you’d like to lock your door so they can’t get in.
The show stars comedian Steve Byrne and is executive produced by Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers), Peter Billingsley (he’ll shoot his eye out), and Rob Long (Cheers). We had a chance to do an interview with Byrne (no relation) by phone to talk about his new series, which, as we mentioned before, premieres tonight.
The first question asked of Byrne, of course, is how he became involved with the project.
“I’m on this phone right now because of Vince Vaughn,” he explains. “That’s where it starts, and ends, and everything in between. He’s been an incredibly supportive friend, not only in my stand-up, but with this as well. He’s just awesome. He’s been to a lot of my stand-up shows; he’s had me on his Wild West show, and he said ‘Steve, you’re a great comic. Why don’t you create something for yourself? Why don’t you create a vehicle?’ I’d never done anything like that before; I’d never written anything other than jokes for myself… and he just said ‘you can do it!’ And it was a conversation that maybe lasted two minutes, but I looked at him and I said ‘Okay.’ I went to a bookstore, I bought a bunch of books, I spent three months reading the books and taking notes. I spent another three months writing the pilot, and then I met Rob Long, who executive produced on Cheers, and Rob and I sat for about six months and worked on tailoring the horrible script that I had written, and made it a hell of a lot funnier, and changed it from a diner into a bar, and it’s just been an amazing experience.” Byrne points out that Vaughn and Billingsley have been involved throughout the entire process. “All of them are so invested in this. Vince and Pete don’t just put their name on it; they’ve been there every step of the way.”
Like his character, Steve Sullivan, Byrne is originally from Pittsburgh, where the show takes place. “I don’t live there now, but I consider it my hometown. I just love the city. I think it’s reflective of America, where it’s Midwestern values and Blue Collar mentality. I grew up saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to everybody, and I hope it’s reflected in the show as well.”
Also regarding Steve Sullivan, “I think he’s a fish out of water that’s going back into the water,” Steve laughs. “It’s kind of a weird way to put it, but yeah. I think this show ultimately is driven by the characters. Steve is still the sane man in the insane world. He’s Dean Martin, the bar is Jerry Lewis, and the show is really driven by the scenarios and the situations that these outlandish characters get themselves into or create for themselves. So Steve’s trying to navigate the waters, and trying to kind of steer the ship and help them all get through life together. It truly is a bar that – it’s an Island of Misfit Toys, and they’re all getting through life together, and they’re there for each other.”
Many of the “misfit toys” were friends of Byrne’s prior to the start of the series.”The other guys on the show – Roy Wood Jr., Owen Benjamin, Ahmed Ahmed – these are actually my real friends in real life,” he explains. “They’re incredible comedians. We all met each other doing stand up comedy. So when I wrote it, I wrote their names in it, not thinking they’d ever get cast in it, but they’re actually cast in it. They each bring a specific color to the palette. Roy’s the married guy who is a little unhappy with his marriage, but he loves his wife. Owen Benjamin’s kind of the town banana. Ahmed Ahmed’s a tow truck driver that loves older women.”
For every group of guys, there are always a few girls, and on Sullivan and Son, the girl Steve is most interested in would be Melanie, played by Valerie Azlynn. “Melanie is a girl Steve grew up with. He had a crush on her in middle school. He finds out throughout the series that she had a crush on him as well, and I think we’re going to see where that relationship ends up, and we’re going to keep kicking that can down the road and see what happens with it,” Steve teases.
Essential to building Steve’s TV family was also casting the parents, who are played by Dan Lauria and Jodi Long. “Jodi Long, who’s my mom, is actually really reflective of my real mother, or a caricature of it, where she’s just really money-conscious. My mom grew up really poor in Korea, and actually met my father like in the show, in a Korean mess hall as a waitress. My father was in the Army. My father in real life is actually a really outgoing Irishman who enjoys having a pint and hanging out with his buddies, and telling stories, and laughing out loud. Dan Lauria does an amazing job at that. He really is kind of the father of the set, where people gravitate towards him. He’s an anchor.”
As the characters, particularly Jodi Long as Steve’s mother, are a bit extreme in the caricature department, “They’re just over the moon about it. The fact that I used my mom’s real name in it; she’s just beaming, and she can’t believe that her son is on a television show. It’s come a long way from when I started off as a stand-up comedian in New York City. In order to perform at the clubs on open mike nights, you had to bring two paying customers at the door. So, if you bring two paying customers, you’re allotted five minutes on stage. My parents were my two paying customers every weekend for four months when I first got started. So to see from the time I started with horrible jokes, which I probably still have some horrible jokes, to now, where they’re actually visiting me on the set of the Warner Bros. lot, it’s been a tremendous experience for all of us. They’re really beaming, and I’m happy that they’re able to see this.” Steve Byrne’s brother, however, might end up cursing him – Steve Sullivan’s sister is actually a caricature of his brother. “I made him a girl, just to further incite hatred,” he laughs, pointing out that he “just can’t say enough” about the actress playing his sister, Vivien Bang. “She is so eccentric, and so hilarious, and I think as we go on in these shows, America will fall in love with this girl, as this whole cast has. She is just so damn funny. I can’t glow enough about her. She’s great.”
The parents aren’t the only characters from the older generation that we’ll see. “[The character played by] Brian Doyle-Murray says things that are off color but grew up kind of almost like that great scene in Gran Torino, where Clint Eastwood brings the young kid into the barber shop, and they just talk about the different minorities in the country but in a fun way. So Hank’s kind of that guy. And then Christine Ebersole, who happens to be Owen’s mother, is a cougar that’s always out on the prowl on our premises. So that’s her hunting grounds,” he says.
“The cast truly does get along. The chemistry you see – that I hope people see – is real. This is a cast that does not go off into their dressing rooms as soon as they say ‘cut.’ We all hang with each other. It’s been great,” he adds.
Is Sullivan and Son the kind of bar that Steve Byrne would hang out at? “Absolutely,” he says. “I’m a guy that sees a velvet rope and a guy in a suit with a clipboard, and a bunch of idiots standing out front, I hate those kinds of bars. I like a neighborhood bar. A juke box, a pool table… I like some warmth to it, and I like a good collection of people. Not where it’s just all people in their 20’s, but a place where you see some seniors, you see some vets, you see some hot girls, you see some cool guys… that’s the kind of bar I like hanging out. That’s just always been my speed. I like a bar where you can have a conversation. Maybe I’m just in my 30’s, but that’s just me.”
Sullivan and Son premieres tonight, July 19, at 10PM (ET) on TBS.
