Sara Gilbert, John Goodman, And Laurie Metcalf Talked About Their Roseanne-Less TV Show
It’s been more than four months since ABC cancelled Roseanne. Since then, a lot has happened. Roseanne has remained supremely messy. ABC brought back Roseanne but changed the name to The Conners. Through it all, the rest of the main cast hasn’t really said too much, save for the odd tweet denouncing Roseanne’s twitter racism, or John Goodman’s confession that he was pretty depressed when the show was canned. Well, Sara Gilbert, John, and Laurie Metcalf have been talking to People, and of course they talked about Roseanne’s exit.
The three got right into the Roseanne-less The Conners, which premieres October 16. We know that Roseanne Conner will be killed off, and John Goodman says they all felt it was important to keep the show going and finish telling The Conners’ story. Laurie says it was difficult to wrap her head around the idea of cancellation, because they had just come off a huge “high” (the Roseanne revival did more than decent TV numbers). Laurie adds they all took a risk in agreeing to come back for the spin-off.
“There was a lot of risk involved. But we all decided as a group to take the risk, knowing that we could be judged by deciding to come back.”
Oh, I don’t think anyone would have judged too harshly if the cast and crew came to a unanimous decision to run far, far away from that dumpster fire (or a check). But they’re coming back, and according to John, it’s partially thanks to Roseanne’s gracious decision to give up creative and financial ties to the show, saying: “That was a very big deal, to give us a chance.” That screechy noise you just heard was the universe marking the first line in the PROs column on a white board tallying Roseanne’s 2018 deeds.
As for how the cast is moving on from Roseanne’s departure, Sara says they’re tackling it like it’s any other heavy issue on the show.
“Any sadness that we feel over what we’ve lost we’re hopefully channeling in an honest way into the show. And our show has always been able to deal with heavy topics, particularly for a sitcom. It’s been kind of built into the mix.”
John adds they’re all leaning on each other and being supportive, and that there’s a different feeling this time around that’s helped to create something new. I’m willing to bet one such new creation has been a rule that states if you feel like tweeting something, you’ve got to lean into the person next to you and ask: “Is this the kind of thing that could get the show cancelled again?”
Pic: People