Betsy Brandt on transitioning from Breaking Bad to The Michael J. Fox Show

Betsy Brandt is enjoying a well-earned glass of wine after a long day of press for her new series The Michael J. Fox Show, having done the same drill just a day before for that other series she’s on. “Don’t let me get drunk or I’ll tell you how Breaking Bad ends!” she quips cheerfully, taking a sip from her glass and settling into a sofa in the lobby bar of a Beverly Hills hotel.

Betsy Brandt The Michael J. Fox Show

I tell her we first met when Breaking Bad began, six years ago on the Bad set as the show filmed its first episodes. At the time, Brandt stretched out on a high-school cafeteria table and described comical videos she and Dean Norris — who played her husband, DEA agent Hank Schrader — filmed around Albuquerque to entertain themselves during downtime.

“Oh my God!” Brandt exclaims. “I still have those on my computer! Deeean! He’s so funny.”

You can’t blame Brandt for being wistful about the TV husband she’s left behind as Bad reaches its much-anticipated Sept. 29 series finale with Brandt’s Marie Schrader widowed, and an executed Hank in a remote desert grave. Even so, as the final season filmed, she had already landed a coveted new onscreen spouse to salve the wound, scoring the role of Annie Henry, wife of Michael J. Fox’s New York newsman Mike Henry, in The Michael J. Fox Show, which premieres tonight at 9/8CT on NBC.

“[The Breaking Bad cast and crew] were all at dinner for my birthday and I said, ‘I feel like I’m cheating on all of you!’ — because I was shooting the pilot while we were still shooting Breaking Bad — and Dean thought that was hilarious,” she recalls. “He said, ‘You tell that Michael J. Fox to back off! This show isn’t over and that means the divorce isn’t final yet.’ I said, ‘I was thinking about you the whole time, baby!’ And then I imagined turning to Mike like [widens her eyes and vigorously shakes her head no].”

With Bad marching toward its carefully planned final showdown, fans wondered how the cast and the show’s creator Vince Gilligan could possibly find another project that would rival the cultural phenomenon they were leaving behind. Brandt — who, at a press conference earlier in the day, jokingly told TV critics “once I read with Mike, I would have shanked all the other actors that were there to get this role” — says she’s still trying to process how quickly more good fortune came her way.

“I said to my husband, ‘I don’t know what you do after a show like Breaking Bad, but I hope I have the patience and the confidence to wait for a really good show,’” she says. “It’s like somebody was looking out for me. We’re talking about it now, but there’s a huge part of me that still really can’t believe it.”

Brandt also welcomes the chance to further flex the comic chops she got to showcase as the earnestly dipsy Marie — even if switching gears from Bad’s hourlong format and intense subject matter required a bit of adjustment.

“I’ve never done a comedy on TV,” she says, “I’ve done comedy before, in movies and theater, but this half-hour format is a whole different thing for me. And I love that. Yeah, it’s a little scary — but in a good way. I don’t bungee jump or things like that because I feel that my work life is risk-taking enough. And there’s really very little I wouldn’t do. I’m like, ‘Oh you think that would get a laugh? I’ll do that! I’ll put my underwear on my head! Funny? Is it funny? Do I look ridiculous?! Let’s shoot!’ I have no vanity when it comes to that.”

She was also pleased to discover that she and Fox got along swimmingly from the moment they met. “It felt really good to me right away,” Brandt says. “But he’s so wonderful and warm — how can you not be a little bit in love with him? I mean, I’m very happy in my marriage and I would never try to break up Mike and [Fox’s real-life wife, actress Tracy Pollan], but you have to be a moron not to be a little in love with him! And the more I work with him and the more I get to know him, the more in love with him I am. He’s that guy!”

Asked if Pollan — who guest stars in an upcoming episode — gave her advice about the reality of being married to a guy with Parkinson’s disease (which Fox’s character has, too) Brandt says, “Honestly we just talk about our kids. I don’t know that we’ve ever talked about Mike having Parkinson’s. But I have to tell you, she is so fantastic and I don’t know if I would have even gone in [to audition] if they’d said, ‘We want you to play Tracy Pollan.’ That’s a big order. I remember them on Family Ties and the ‘What Would You Do’ and the train station and they danced! I mean, I was a kid and I was still like, wow!”

Instead, Brandt says she draws on her own experiences as the oft-harried working mom of her eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.

“I had a moment the other day where I was like, ‘This is an Annie moment! Because they were going to get some food and I had to get ready to go to work, and my son was like, ‘Mama, will you walk me?’ I was like ‘Ohhhhhh [drops her head in mock despair]. OK.’ He asks this as he is going out the door, and I had on my glasses and my hair was crazy and I didn’t brush my teeth and I had my pajamas on, but I didn’t have time to get ready before I had to come back and shower and get ready. My daughter said, ‘Mama, don’t do it! Don’t do it! People are going to laugh at you!’ And I said, ‘Honey, this is New York City. This is nothing compared to what they’ve already seen and what they are going to see as the day goes on.’

“But I had to pretend she wasn’t my daughter!” she exclaims. “I wasn’t ready for that yet! And then someone recognized me, so I said, ‘My daughter is very embarrassed that I look like this right now … that she has to be seen with me. My daughter is VERY EMBARRASSED.’

“That was an Annie moment — and that’s what I love about this show. It’s real-life funny. And it’s relatable,” Brandt continues. “You’re laughing with them because the same thing has happened to you and to me. I bring up The Cosby Show a lot because it reminds me of that — even though the shows are very different. When I was a kid, I looked at it from the kids’ point of view and it was funny. Now it is hilarious to me as a parent. And that is so amazing for a viewer. Even though I’m on Breaking Bad, I’m a huge fan of the show, too, and I feel the same way about this. If I’m between scenes, I watch at the monitor. I watch and I laugh. And I have ruined more than one take because I can’t stop laughing.”

The Michael J. Fox Show - Season 1

In the meantime, Brandt is hoping for one more, very poignant reunion with her Breaking Bad family — or possibly two, if the second half Season 5 is given the chance to defend Bad‘s recent Best Drama win.

“The cast will be together at the Hollywood Forever cemetery watching the finale,” Brandt says. “I’ll be in New York working, but I’m hoping to get that Monday off so I can fly back to L.A. and watch it with my fam — with my TV fam. Then hopefully the second half of Season 5 will be nominated and we’ll do one more big Emmy push.”

And just maybe she’d consider a guest spot or two on Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad spinoff featuring Bob Odenkirk’s fan-favorite sleaze ball lawyer Saul Goodman before he ever crossed paths with Walter White?

“Anything can happen, because it’s a prequel,” Brandt says. “Oh I hope so! I hope that pans out! I don’t want to say goodbye to Marie!”

The Michael J. Fox Show premieres Thursday, Sept 26 at 9/8 pm CT.
The Breaking Bad series finale premieres Sunday, June 29 at 9/8 pm CT.

Photos/ video: © NBC Universal, Inc.

About Lori Acken 1195 Articles
Lori just hasn't been the same since "thirtysomething" and "Northern Exposure" went off the air.