The half-dozen stars of Happy Endings, a TV comedy about six friends being funny in Chicago, got lucky, says one of them. "We clicked," says Adam Pally.
"We're all playful and don't take anything too seriously. The six of us are troublemakers."
The six are "very much a team," said Elisha Cuthbert, "and I think that comes across on camera. We just really care about the wellbeing of our show and each other."
Isn't there even one member of the cast Cuthbert doesn't like? "I don't like any of them," she said, deadpan.
Damon Wayans Jr. called it a combination of like minds. "We spend so much time with each other, it's like we became a family."
Wayans plays Brad, the metrosexual exec who, as the third Happy season begins, has been laid off from his job. Or so thinks Jane (Eliza Coupe), Brad's whippet-slim, high-strung and lovingly dominating wife, who likes the idea of her man at home waiting for her after her own workday.
"It's very important to us to not be a boring married couple on TV," Coupe said.
"So we want our characters to give and take like a real relationship would be, and be best friends, like a real relationship should be."
Penny (Casey Wilson) is resuming her eternal search for Mr. Right, but in the season opener, she's in a body cast (don't ask). Meanwhile, Max, the sarcastic and openly gay slacker played by Pally, falls in lust with Penny's hunky physical therapist.
Rounding out this sitcom sextet are Dave (Zachary Knighton), who, on the series' first episode, was ditched at the altar by his panic-stricken fiancée, Alex (played by Cuthbert). But they're resuming their romance this season, as "friends with benefits."
"I'm excited about getting to be an actual, legit couple with Dave, over there," said Cuthbert, gesturing to Knighton. "I'm looking forward to that."
"Lotta making out!" crowed Knighton. "Get those Altoids ready!"
"When the show started," Pally said, "Elisha and Zack were our emotional core, because the show was about their relationship and how it affected the rest of us. But as the show evolves, the writers have opened up their two characters and let them be as funny as everybody else. And Elisha and Zack are amazing comedic talents."
Since premièring in the winter of 2011, Happy Endings has found loyal fans yet remains somewhat of a secret to many other viewers. "In a weird way," said Knighton, "a lack of billboards or commercials or any promotion of any kind actually helped us. Sometimes it isn't a good thing to shove things down an audience's throat. It's good for them to just discover it."
A slow build?
"I want this to be a marathon," said Cuthbert. "I don't want this to be, y'know, a short race."
The formula of Happy Endings is a blend of physical comedy, sight gags and comic cutaways with Mach-speed wordplay. ("Why are you using a travel agent?" Max asks Penny, who's planning a trip. "The only travel agent you need is a time-travel agent to take you back to a time when people still used travel agents.")
"Nobody on our show talks the way people talk in real life," Wayans said.
"They don't talk that fast, or make so many pop-culture references. Sometimes when I get the script, I go, 'Who is this?' and I have to Google to find out."
"Happy Endings lives in a world where everything is fast-paced. Everybody's up all the time," Pally said. "The hardest part of the job is keeping our energy up."
