My Q&A Session with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh (We’re Totally BFFS Now)

Why are these guys in Superman poses? Well, I didn’t ask them that (though I’m sure they have good reasons!) but I did chat with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh about their new TNT series, Trust Me. I’ve already been granted the pleasure of viewing the pilot and the second episode of this show, and I am really amped for it (I’ve made a dance, and everything). Look for my exclusive review of the pilot soon – right here at SofaChip.com. If you can’t wait, you can visit the Trust Me website.

What did I learn from talking to McCormack and Cavanagh? Well, that whole quote about not touching your idols ’cause the gilt comes off in your hands? So a lie! They were outstandingly hilarious and I adore them even more than ever. I don’t know if it’ll be weird (if not just cliche) to say that these two have ‘great chemistry’ together…but they really do. It’s super-wonderful-and-patented-Manly-Chemistry. (You can buy it in stores, but it’s usually out of stock.)

I don’t want you to be lost while reading the interview,  so to sum up the premise of the show – it’s about two best friends who work at an advertising agency. I’m admittedly very picky about what TV shows I will watch consistently. However, I’m already positive that Trust Me is going to be on my ‘must-watch’ list. Read on to see who quoted Rocky, what prank has already been pulled on set against Monica Potter, and you know – other cool stuff like Tom Cavanagh saying one of my questions was really good. *Poses poshly* What? No, that isn’t going to my head ! I ALWAYS wear a tiara and feather boa when I write! Now, please kindly do return my champagne flute, I had ‘Tom Luvs Jessica’ written on the side with rhinestones.

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Jessica Rae: It’s so nice to talk to you both. Sounds like you’re having a lot of fun both working hard. I’m wondering if you could both talk a little bit about your favorite off camera moment or incident while you filmed the first couple of episodes.

Eric McCormack: Off camera. Off the top of my head, what I like, we go – every scene that we do we rehearse first. We go into rehearsal and it’s a different thing for everybody.

Every crew member is there looking at their own department. But we’re there not just to figure out where we’re going to stand to say the lines but we have naturally come into everything looking for what else we can do.

Tom comes in with ideas that had never occurred to me that are just a funny way to start, a funny place to sit, a funny – whatever it is, it’s just something else to add to the great writing.

And I think that’s – I don’t have any one particular – well, there was one the other day. It’s a funny scene; it’s not a very good story. But it’s just a matter of we could just do it as written or we could discover some little things. And my favorite off camera moment are the ones where we invent for the camera and the people will never really know the process that we did to come up with them.

Tom Cavanagh: That was a really good long, boring answer.

Jessica Rae: Yeah. You enjoy the process. Sorry. (Editors note: TECHNICALLY, this really and truly is what I said. But I used a TONE that I think made it kinda funny – not rude.  I just wanted to note that… Oh! Also, I was just trying to not say much. Oops. Transcript technology is out to get me!)

Tom Cavanagh: I was doing a scene with Monica Potter and I poured salt in her beer and she had to drink the beer in the scene. Is that anything?

Jessica Rae: That’s great.

Tom Cavanagh: Cut to the end of the scene and they yelled cut and the first words out of her mouth were, “You bitch.”

Jessica Rae: And I’m going to throw a little twist for you because I know you picked the characters that you play because you like them. But what are your favorite aspects of each other’s characters on Trust Me?

Tom Cavanagh: That’s a good question. You know that line from the classic Sylvester Stallone vehicle Rocky? There’s a line that’s like, “She’s got gas. I’ve got gas. Together we feel gas.”

That’s one of the things that – I don’t know if you know the line but that’s one of the things that I love about the relationship we have together. Like truthfully we do have gas, you know? I siphon some maturity and presence and perspective off his and he gets to live on a high wire a lot off my character.

And not only is it a good thing for the personal but for the professional side of things like necessarily to survive in the cutthroat world of advertising you need to have that kind of symbiosis. You need to be able to react and fill each other gaps and be able to know where the other person is going because you need to come up with a multi-million campaign tagline by 4:00pm.

So you need to be working with somebody that you understand, that you get and that shares your sensibility. So that’s one of the things that I like about the two guys together.

Eric McCormack: Yes. And I like sometimes as Mason, I like sitting back and watching this guy bounce off the walls. I mean it’s what I, Eric, like watching Tom do it and I think Mason likes watching Conner do it.

There is – my wife said one day, we were talking about a stupid friend of ours that is just high strung. She said, “I love being around people like that. I love that because it’s so much energy. You wonder how do they do it? It’s exhausting.”

But you admire it too. Like comedians that are always on or something, you can get annoyed but you can also just admire the sheer non-stop-ness of it. And when we’re on set and Tom is Conner, it pretty much never stops.

Tom Cavanagh: It’s a lot of non-stop-ness.

You can read more with McCormack and Cavanagh over at PopCultureMadness.

I really wanna know: Which character do you think your favorite will be? (Responsible and snarky Mason, or playful and laid-back Conner?)

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