Tisha Campbell & Marcia Gay Harden Interview: Uncoupled
Uncoupled stars Tisha Campbell and Marcia Gay Harden chat with Screen Rant about the dynamic between their characters.
As of July 29, season 1 of Jeffrey Richman and Darren Star’s new comedy Uncoupled is available to binge on Netflix. The series follows Michael Lawson (Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother and Gone Girl) a New York City real estate agent who is devasted when his long-term partner, Colin (Tuc Watkins, Black Monday), moves out of their shared apartment on his fiftieth birthday.
Still reeling from his devastating breakup, Michael and his co-worker Suzanne (Tisha Campbell, Empire) go after a high-paying penthouse listing owned by Upper East Side socialite, Claire Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden, The Morning Show). With Claire going through a separation of her own, the three end up forming an unlikely, yet comedic, dynamic.
Uncoupled stars Tisha Campbell and Marcia Gay Harden chat with Screen Rant about the dynamic between their characters.
Screen Rant: I wanted to start off by asking if you could maybe each tell us a little bit about your characters and their role in Uncoupled?
Tisha Campbell: Sure. I play Suzanne. I play Neil Patrick Harris’s character’s best friend and support system. We work together at a real estate, you know, kind of like, Million Dollar Listing-type of real estate agency and he’s going through a really big breakup after 17 years and so I show him the support and a good friendship.
Marcia Gay Harden: And I play Claire and I literally become Neil’s enemy. And I start sort of as Suzanne’s enemy. We’re all uncoupled on some level. She’s uncoupled. I’m going through an uncoupling. Neil’s going through an uncoupling. And we all kind of come together. It’s real estate…trying to find a home…
Tisha Campbell: For her, yeah? For you, because you just went through a divorce—her character. And so she gives me a lot of a hard time, as well.
Screen Rant: Marcia, we know that Claire is also going through a breakup of her own. Is that going to help her bond with Michael at all?
Marcia Gay Harden: You know, it does, because I think she is so…Claire’s kind of bitter in the beginning and closed off. And as she recognizes the universality of heartbreak, it helps her bond with Michael and it helps her bond with Suzanne, and friendships develop as kind of the facade breaks down, which I think it often does when people get divorced. There’s a facade and then it falls away and you realize, “Oh, this is who I am.”
Tisha Campbell: And there’s a spectrum I think, too. So she’s on that other bitter end of the spectrum that he’s trying to not be and learn from, so that he can try, in the beginning, I mean, I think we can talk about it, to navigate his way back into the relationship that he thought he had. You know, whereas my character’s the other side where I’m just free.
Marcia Gay Harden: Well, there’s a lost relationship that you’re looking for.
Tisha Campbell: Yeah, well, my son is, but I’m not. I’m content with being free. I want somebody but I’m kind of content. So he’s in the middle.
Screen Rant: Do your characters know each other before we pick up at the beginning of the show? Or is this a friendship that starts when the viewers first see it?
Tisha Campbell: Well, it’s not a friendship.
Marcia Gay Harden: No.
Screen Rant: A relationship? A dynamic?
Tisha Campbell: We start out because we find out that she’s newly divorced, and she has to sell her fabulous New York penthouse. And so we want that account. And so we’re racing to try to get that account, and she’s nothing nice.
Marcia Gay Harden: No. And Suzanne is actually the very savvy realtor, but because Claire is so ingrained in some old-school world, Claire dismisses Suzanne and Claire doesn’t even bother to learn Suzanne’s name until she learns to appreciate this fantastic human being.
Tisha Campbell: [Laughs] And vice versa.
Marcia Gay Harden: And they become closer we’ll say. We don’t want to give anything away, but they become closer.
Uncoupled Synopsis
Michael Lawson (Neil Patrick Harris) seems to have it all figured out. He’s a successful New York City real estate agent with a great career, a supportive family, close friends, and a loving relationship with his partner of 17 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins). But when Colin unexpectedly moves out on the eve of his 50th birthday, Michael is completely blindsided. Overnight, he has to confront two nightmares: losing the man he thought was his soulmate, and suddenly finding himself a single gay man in his mid-forties in New York City.
Check out our other interviews with Uncoupled stars Neil Patrick Harris & Brooks Ashmanskas and Emerson Brooks & Tuc Watkins.
Uncoupled season 1 is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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