On “Happy Endings,” Eliza Coupe and Damon Wayans Jr. play Jane and Brad, a married couple who are just weird enough to fit in with their oddball single friends. During a conference call with reporters, the pair were just as funny without a script, though possibly not primetime-appropriate.
When asked if we’ll see how Jane and Brad met this season, neither actor knew for sure, but they had their own ideas about how that magic moment might have transpired. “I kind of feel like we met at some frat party, she had hooked up with three or four guys before me, that night, we were just wasted, and I say I’m gonna try to hit that, then I did, and we fell in love,” Wayans Jr. says. “I walked in on her with three other dudes, and said, ‘Her!’ That’s what I think happened.”
“When you saw three men entering me at the same time, you said, that is my wife. She can take anything that comes at her, literally,” Coupe added.
“I’m looking forward to them doing a flashback of us, and I think it’s going to come soon. I would love to see that,” Wayans Jr. said, on a more serious note. But we can assume the writers may not take Coupe and Wayans Jr. suggestions.
As to a storyline we’re more likely to see, Jane and Brad may have to struggle with parenthood, though not in a conventional way. “I don’t know if they’re thinking of having a baby,” Coupe said. “But we find out there’s a possible baby out there of Jane’s and you have to see how that unfolds.”
Wayans Jr. also says his father, Damon Wayans, might make a return visit to the show as Brad’s dad. “I think my dad might be coming back,” he said. “I put a call out to his agent, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll get back to me. He doesn’t really talk to me.” And two Wayans may just be the beginning. “Maybe we can get another one of my family members on there, get everyone a little more confused.”
It didn’t take long for Coupe and Wayans Jr. to get back to riffing on what they’d like to see happen on the show. “My character is supposed to be a kind of straight guy, doesn’t make jokes, but I couldn’t help myself, so it was a take on the black guy who’s not necessarily the macho type,” Wayans Jr. said in describing Brad. “So I’ll probably have some high heels on next up. Jane catches me in the shower wearing heels, like why are you wearing heels in the shower?” Beyond that, he said, “I want to see Brad be a bad ass. Not thugged out, but like Mr T-ed out. Leather jacket and feather earrings.”
“I think Jane could enter the Army,” Coupe said. “She does know krav maga. Or we find out she’s a secret agent or she just kills somebody.”
“And you make me hide the body with you!” Wayans Jr. suggested.
“And we do it all ‘Dexter’ style,” Coupe shot back.
“He uses so much plastic,” Wayans Jr. mused. “I can’t believe no one’s protested.”
“And he doesn’t even drive a Prius,” Coupe sighed.
“We shoot probably a rated-R show,” Wayans Jr. said. “We do our own stuff almost all the time, but what airs is nowhere near what we actually shoot.”
“I’m always surprised when we do ADR, because I know what we shot, and we clean it up for ABC, which is a good thing because otherwise we’d probably end up in jail,” Coupe said.
Clearly, the actors enjoying goofing around, and admitted it created a small problem — longer hours. “I laugh whenever it’s funny, so I waste time,” Wayans Jr. said. “We all try to make each other break and we actually like to stay there longer to make each other break.”
Coupe joked, “I keep a knife in my pocket and stab myself whenever I’m going to laugh. It gets a little bloody, and I developed gangrene in my left leg. I’ll lose my leg pretty soon, but I keep a straight face.”
On a more serious note, Wayans Jr. talked about playing half of a biracial couple on screen. “We don’t even think about it. We joke about it because of society, but we don’t see that at all. And it’s like that in real life as well. At least for me. She could be a raging racist, but at least for me.”
Coupe also addressed the show’s return for a second season, which was hardly a given due to the first season’s sporadic airings and middling ratings. “Given the fact all the odds seemed against us, I kind of thought [the show] would go [for a second season], but I did chop off all my hair, thinking it wouldn’t go.”
For Wayans Jr., who returned to “Happy Endings” after briefly committing to “New Girl” on Fox, he doesn’t see a future when he might do a guest shot on “New Girl.” “I want to keep on ‘Happy Endings,'” he said. “I want to keep it happy.”
And it seems that’s exactly what he and Coupe will be doing. After confessing that she was wearing sweat pants “that may not have been washed this year” and he was wearing “just a tie and toe socks” (both were calling from separate and presumably private locations), the pair admitted the cast is one “Happy” family.
“We bathe together,” Wayans Jr. said. “Actually, no bubbles. So we can see everything.”
“So fun,” Coupe sighed in agreement..