by Gill Pringle in LA
If we’ve already witnessed her husband – Jon Hamm’s Andrew “Coop” Cooper – spectacularly fall apart in Season 1 after losing his job and status, then Peet was eager to also get her hands dirty as Mel struggles with menopause and obsessive behaviour, now risking losing her license as a therapist.
“Nobody wants to watch someone who’s flawlessly heroic or flawless in any way, really – unless you’re playing a Greek god or something like that, but I don’t find that interesting,” says Peet.
“I like to see things be as authentic as possible, and those are mostly the women who inspire me when I see their work. But it’s to do with having good writing and having someone who’s interested in going a little bit farther, and not having a middle-aged woman who’s glossed over,” she says of Season 2 which also features Olivia Munn, James Marsden, Hoon Lee and Hamm’s wife in real life, Anna Osceola.
Likewise, Your Friends and Neighbours creator Jonathan Tropper was not interested in perpetuating any stereotypes. “It’s something that came up in the writers’ room where we were talking about wanting Mel to be struggling more in Season 2 than in Season 1, and the women in the room began talking about menopause and how that would be a great foundation for whatever we put her through,” he explains.
“And then we brought it to Amanda, who was very excited to dig in with us and really figure out the aspects of the story that we wanted to tell. I guess, oddly at the time, I didn’t think we were doing something revolutionary, but the feedback has been that it was great for people to see, so I’m happy we did it,” he adds.
If most actresses shy away from anything that might pinpoint them as an older woman, then Peet was fully game. “I mean, obviously, as an actress and a 54-year-old woman, I haven’t seen it a lot. I haven’t been able to play something in which that’s part of the focus of her trajectory. So, it’s just a pleasure to see something that we don’t often see, and yeah, and see it done right,” says the actress, who made a splash with her role in The Whole Nine Yards back in 2000.
“I was really excited that the show was going to take that on and take it in a kind of entertaining way. And when I was dropping my son Henry off at school – one of the moms was passing me on the sidewalk as we were going into the yard, and she just said, ‘I feel seen!’ That was really gratifying, and so I was just really grateful to Jonathan that he wanted to tackle it and not just give it lip service, but make it part of her trajectory,” says the actress who shares three children with screenwriter David Benioff.
Last year’s debut season introduced us to Hamm’s Coop as a wealthy hedge-fund manager living in an affluent suburban community. From the outside, Coop appeared to have everything: a beautiful home, money, a successful career, and a family.
But his carefully constructed world began falling apart after being fired from his job. At the same time, his marriage was over, leaving him facing a painful combination of financial pressure, wounded pride, and loneliness.
After briefly trying to get back in the game, Coop instead opts to begin breaking into the homes of his wealthy neighbours, stealing their valuable possessions and further complicating his life.
One of the show’s greatest strengths is its tone. It can be funny one minute and surprisingly tense the next. There is a darkly comic quality to Coop’s situation because he is simultaneously losing everything and becoming more deeply involved in the lives of people who probably never imagined he would be watching them so closely.
Ultimately, Your Friends and Neighbours is about much more than wealth porn or a man who is stealing from his neighbours. It’s about identity, pride, marriage, money, and the enormous gap between the lives people present to the world and what is actually happening behind closed doors.
And while Mel had already moved on with a new man – Coop’s old friend no less – in Season 1, then Season 2 sees her also start to unravel, at the same time as trying to parent the couple’s two teenage children.
“I constantly ask him for pratfalls,” says Peet about Tropper’s scripts. “She does. She likes to fall down,” agrees the showrunner.
“I really like to fall down on something,” Peet continues. “I don’t really know why, but it’s just a really big challenge, to like really sell it, and to not use the stunt person. So, I get really excited, and now every time I call him to be like, ‘I have a pitch for you…’, he always thinks it’s going to be a pratfall,” she laughs.
Working on the show has played a huge role in lifting Peet’s spirits after being diagnosed with breast cancer less than a year ago. “Over the last little while, I have felt that humour has been a huge part of what helps me,” says the actress who wrote a poignant first person piece entitled “My Season of Ativan” (in reference to the sleeping pill) about her ordeal – dealing with the death of both her parents while also struggling with her own health diagnosis – in The New Yorker.
“And I don’t know how to say it without sounding corny, but it’s just I have more gratitude, I think, and able to just feel much more – even with my job and the crew, and then my children – most of the time.
“So, when I’m not spinning in my menopausal rage, I feel insanely lucky,” she teases. “Like, how did this happen? How am I on a show that is nominated for an Emmy? I’m 54 years old! How did I get this? It gives me chills. How am I still doing this? How am I still acting? You know, a lot of the people I came up with, who we sat in chairs together outside of auditions at Law & Order, a lot of them are not working anymore. I feel like it’s a bloody miracle a lot of the time.”
Your Friends and Neighbours Seasons 1 + 2 are currently streaming on Apple TV
