Alley sheds insecurities in 'Fat Actress'

The former 'Cheers' star says the new comedy is liberating.
By JUDITH S. GILLIES
WASHINGTON POST
When they pitched the idea for "Fat Actress" to Showtime executives, Kirstie Alley and Brenda Hampton sent 24 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the network's offices.
Enclosed was a note: "If you have any left over, send them back to us."
"I think we ate them all," said Robert Greenblatt, Showtime's president of entertainment.
The 288 doughnuts sweetened the pitch, but Greenblatt said Showtime thought the series was hilarious from the start. He was a little hesitant at first because he "wasn't sure how people would take it ... but we've touched a nerve with this topic, and that surprised me. I didn't know how much of a hot button it was."
For Alley, "Fat Actress" has been "100 percent liberation."
"The tabloids were saying that I was 100 pounds heavier than I was. Basically, the phone stopped ringing. ... The only jobs I was being offered were characters and parts older than myself. I thought, 'Uh-oh.'"
So she came up with the idea of a fictionalized, exaggerated version of herself, playing an overweight actress trying to shed pounds and find a job.
Alley, 53 and 5-foot-8, said she weighed more than 200 pounds when she started the series.
She knew she was overweight, but "when I saw the first episode, I thought, 'Oh, my God! I had no idea I was that fat.'"
Alley created and produced seven half-hour episodes with Hampton, who started as a comedy writer before she dreamed up WB's family drama "7th Heaven."
Accent on improvisation
"Fat Actress" is an unscripted comedy with a lot of improvisation -- and a lot of saucy language.
"There are very tight outlines that Brenda and I write," Alley said. "We know what we're doing as we go in and out of a scene, but sometimes we veer, so it's improv in varying degrees."
Populating Alley's fictional world are Bryan Callen as Eddie, a wannabe actor who is Kirstie's personal assistant, and Rachel Harris as Kevyn, Kirstie's makeup artist and hairstylist.
Alley, who seems to know almost everyone in Hollywood, got many celebrities to guest star, including John Travolta, Kid Rock, Carmen Electra, Melissa Gilbert, Mayim Bialik, Kevin Nealon, Mark Curry and Leah Remini.
Kelly Preston has a role as a cynical weight-loss adviser with oddball techniques -- such as making yourself gag using "something pretty."
"If anyone takes advice from Quinn Taylor Scott, they are in serious trouble," Hampton said of Preston's character. "It's just too absurd to be taken seriously."
NBC President Jeff Zucker plays himself in the premiere and a later episode. "He was so comfortable and funny in his role that we kept giving him more and more lines," Hampton said.
Themes of the show
Despite the famous faces, Alley said the series isn't limited to insider Hollywood. The show is about women, the things they experience, and how easy it is to prey upon their insecurities. It also looks at age, especially in relationship to men and work, she said.
"My intention is to get thin again because that's how I like my body. But this is a show about women and their insecurities. We just start with fat."
The series begins with Kirstie stepping on a bathroom scale, letting out a cry and collapsing into a heap. She crawls across the bedroom floor to answer the phone. It's her agent with an offer -- not for a part, but to become a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig.
And in a life-imitates-art deal, Alley later was offered such a job and now is the new face of Jenny Craig Inc. It's a weight-loss plan that worked for her 14 years ago when she played Rebecca Howe in "Cheers" (1987-93).
While doing "Cheers," she said, she was "hauled in several times for being too fat," though she said her weight was 135 pounds or less. It was after she finished "Veronica's Closet" (1997-2000) that the pounds snuck up on her.
Alley isn't definite about her current weight goal, but she is following a diet plan and posting a weekly progress report on the Jenny Craig Web site.
"I just don't know where I'll look good. Usually that's been 125 to 135 pounds, but it might be different now," she said.
"It's been very liberating to decide there's got to be humor in this. With ('Fat Actress'), I hope to have people laughing. That's the best thing there is for the soul."