Laughter and So-So Sex: A Winning Combo for Malibu Actor

BY JEREMY WALKER

Spend some time with Malibuite Brad Garrett and I promise you’ll end up laughing, as I did recently on a soundstage on the Sony lot where Garrett tapes his Fox sitcom “'Til Death” before a live audience.
The show begins its fourth season this week with what Garrett calls a new “show leader,” TV veteran Don Reo, and a new character whose chemical history and general paranoia have him absolutely convinced he’s trapped inside a sitcom.
“It gives us the opportunity to stretch the truth and do what a sitcom has never done, which is to break the form open,” Garrett says. “It’s something I’ve been trying to do for a long time, and people always thought I was out of my mind. Is there a single person at home who doesn’t know they are watching a sitcom? Why can’t we make fun of that? Why can’t we try taking the magic out of something—television—that’s not really all that magical after 60 years?”
The core “sit” of this particular situation comedy for the last three seasons has been the indestructible yet—how do you say this in a family newspaper—physically uninspired marriage between middle-class Eddie and Joy Stark (Garrett and the lovely and very funny Joely Fisher).
“Like most things, with time marriage decays and gets complacent,” Garrett tells me under his breath. “When you see a 75-year-old couple holding hands, it’s so they won’t use them to hit each other. At a certain point, sex in a marriage becomes more like a favor one person does for the other.”
Also new this season: the young actress Lindsay Broad will be introduced as the Starks’ daughter who returns home with Doug (Timm Sharp) her eco-obsessed husband. Once set up in their trailer in the Starks’ back yard, Doug starts to feel particularly boxed in and drawn out as he alone hears the laughter of that live studio audience.
I meet for a few minutes with Broad and Sharp before sitting down with Garrett, who “always knows where the joke is,” Broad tells me. “He’s able to deliver a line and then sort of comment on it while the audience responds,” she says. “It’s very unique.”
Adds Sharp: “Some comedic actors can get upset by another comedic actor if, say, the other guy gets a funnier joke. Brad is the opposite. He goes out of his way to give you the joke if it’s better with you. He’s totally generous.”
I feel this immediately when I meet Garrett who, as one of the show’s executive producers, is technically the boss of everyone on the set. A lanky, warm, welcoming presence with relaxed eyes and the kind of deep masculine voice that’s probably kept him out of as much trouble as it’s made, Garrett seems like the coolest boss ever.
He tells me he lives in the Encinal Canyon area, which he admits gives him a slight bias against the eastern half of town.
“It’s wonderful real estate, there’s no question,” he deadpans, “but it's almost like not leaving the studio. Why would I sunbathe with people who don’t like me?”
I ask him about the very intimate relationship his character has with that of Joely Fisher and how the depiction of that intimacy might challenge the usually conservative standards of network TV.
“We can let it hang out on TV a little more today,” he says, which triggers a riff.
“The way we are as animals—men and women—are incredibly different. I’m not bitter, just realistic. It’s hard for me to think of any woman I’ve ever met who is not a better person than I am.”
He reminds me that he and Ray Romano do a stand-up act in Vegas that is a lot edgier than anything they ever did on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” “If you want to be roasted,” he offers, “the first five rows are a great place to be. That kind of interaction with the audience has always been my style.”
But back to those pesky network TV standards.
“They are slowly catching up with the rest of the world,” Garrett says. “I enjoy pushing the envelope, but won’t do it just for shock value. I will if it works for the character, works in the story. In Joely Fisher I found a leading lady with whom I happen to have amazing chemistry. Hopefully out of that the right words will flow.”

The new season of “’Til Death” begins this Friday at 8:30 p.m. on Fox; new episodes become available on iTunes the next day. Ray Romano and Garrett next appear together at the Mirage in Las Vegas on Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10, tickets at 1-800-963-9634. Garrett also appears intermittently