Survivor’s Remorse — LeBron James and “Glee’s” Mike O’Malley team up on Starz

Survivor’s Remorse

Starz
Premieres:
Oct. 4
Airs: Saturdays at 9pm
Who’s In It? Jessie T. Usher, RonReaco Lee, Erica Ash, Teyonah Parris

Survivors Remorse Starz cast

Starz’ new six-episode laugher about the personal and professional travails of young Boston basketball standout Cam Calloway (Usher) — whose multimillion-dollar pro contract is his family’s ticket out of poverty and into a fresh set of problems — is executive produced by the sports-meets-entertainment dream team of LeBron James, his business partner Maverick Carter, sitcom guru and Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner (The Cosby Show, Roseanne) and Glee’s Mike O’Malley, himself a Boston native.

“Ever since I got cut from the freshman hoop team at Bishop Guertin High School in 1980, I’ve wanted to write about my love and hatred of basketball,” says O’Malley. “Starz has given us great freedom to explore an authentic world inspired by Maverick and LeBron.”

“I was with Maverick one day, and he was getting a text from a cousin who wanted to borrow a lot of money,” adds Werner. “He just assumed that because Maverick had it, that money was going to be his. Mike has taken this idea and enriched it in such a way that we have a great source of comedy — and reality, too. The show feels very modern and authentic.”

And, O’Malley notes, completely relatable whether you are male or female, a pro hoops fan or not.

“I wanted to just write a show about this particular family that loves each other,” he says of Remorse’s warm heart. “There’s outrageous things that happen to them, there’s outrageous statements that they make, but a lot of the show exists in the quiet moments of their lives before an issue or an event blows up that they have to deal with.”

And in the process, viewers will score some seriously eye-opening lessons in why so many pro athletes wind up broke.

“What I think is so interesting is we’ve all heard these stories of professional athletes who’ve gone bankrupt, and people wonder, well how the heck did that happen?” says O’Malley. “And there’s a scene in the second or third episode where one of the characters is giving another character the explanation. He’s like ‘OK, take $10 million. Fifty percent of that goes to the federal government. Now you’re down to $5 million. Another 10-percent goes to the state. Another 10-percent goes to your agent. Now you’re down to $3 million.’ And what happens is these people go out and they buy the Lamborghini and they buy the mansion and then they have nothing left.

“We want people to understand that the number on the contract is not the actual number you are making — or that you’re even getting that money,” O’Malley continues, turning to Sox chief Werner with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s only in baseball that it’s guaranteed — which is why you should tell your sons and daughters to be baseball players. It’s the best!”

Survivor’s Remorse premieres Saturday, Oct. 4 at 9pm on Starz.

Survivor’s Remorse cast photo © 2014 Starz Entertainment, LLC Credit: Quantrell D. Colbert

 

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