Paget Brewster went from playing a small role as Joey's girlfriend and Chandler's love interest on "Friends," to a longtime FBI agent on "Criminal Minds," to a school consultant on "Community." As someone who has had her fair share of diverse roles, playing a grandma at 46 alongside John Stamos probably never even crossed her mind. People have a hard enough time believing the one and only Stamos is even playing a grandpa on "Grandfathered," but that's what makes the show great, and that's what makes it stand out from the rest. The funniest thing about it is it's all mathematically possible, people just have such an image of what a grandma and grandpa should look like in their head - and the beautiful Brewster and Stamos typically aren't what come to mind.
In the new hit sitcom, Stamos, who plays a 52-year-old single guy living the luxurious and typical bachelor life, finds out he not only has a son, but a granddaughter as well. With Brewster being the only girl he's ever loved - and the one that got away - Josh Peck as their child and Christina Milian as Peck's baby mama, it's impossible to not laugh as "Grandfathered" follows the different relationships between these four incredible actors who have such great chemistry on and off screen as they try to become a family after years of being apart.
When Brewster first auditioned for the show, on her birthday, she didn't expect to get the job. "I thought, well I'm not gonna get it, it's going to be some 35-year-old hot blonde model and they'll pretend that she's old enough to have a 25-year-old," she told HNGN exclusively. "I just thought, well, I'll have fun, I'll meet John Stamos and that'll be cool, so why not."
Playing a grandma at 46 wasn't such a big deal to her, actually, as she'd played a grandma last season on Comedy Central's "Another Period." In that show, she's supposed to be 60 and an opium addict in 1905, so it's very different than her role on "Grandfathered," but she still doesn't mind it. "I think a lot of actresses don't want to do it. I think a lot of actresses don't want to play a mom or a grandmother," she said, explaining that an ex-boyfriend of hers once put her age on IMDB, which apparently, nobody does.
"I've never lied about my age or anything because what was I going to do about it?" she continued. "But for some reason, now that I'm playing a grandmother, my age has been taken off IMDB. So now people probably think I'm 60. But I don't care, I love the part, I think it's great. It's all fiction. It's only in big cities like L.A. and New York where people aren't grandparents at our age."
Brewester pointed out something about society that I'd never really thought about: we grow up thinking a grandma has to be the stereotypical gray- haired old lady with a cane, but that's not really the case any more. "I know some hot grandmas!" she exclaimed. "We're taking care of ourselves, and hopefully jogging a bit and trying to eat better - it's just different. Once you grow up, you look at people older than you differently. I remember thinking people at 30 were ancient...now at 46, I still feel like I'm maybe 30. It's pretty great."
With a cast full of people of all ages, from a 28-year-old Vine star, to a 34-year-old former pop star, to those adorable twin babies that play Edie, it's amazing they get along as well as they do. And this far along in her career, Brewster wouldn't waste her time on something if they didn't get along because that "would be horrible."
"At first, we were all scared because we were all getting along and everyone was really cool, and we kept saying, 'Oh, someone's gonna be a jerk!' And the babies cried a lot, and we thought, 'The babies are the jerks!' But they're not! They're just 2," Brewster said, laughing. "There's not a jerk in site. We're just waiting for someone to come in...what's the likelihood of 160 people getting along and having a great time? Everyone's happy, nobody is complaining. So we're just waiting to see if someone turns into a jerk."
One thing that's for sure, Stamos will not turn out to be that jerk. "He's totally down to earth, and funny, and he's just great," Brewster said. In the show, her character seems to be the only woman in the world that has no desire to be involved with him in any possible way. "Women are like animals around that guy," she explained. "He's so objectified, and now that I know him better and work with him, we talk and he's smart and funny and I kind of feel bad for the guy! I mean people really treat him like he's just a piece of meat or something. It's kind of sad when you know the guy! I feel like saying to people, 'Stop objectifying him! He's more than that!' I'm like this protective, loyal person now. It's just really fun to be the woman that's like, 'Ugh, no thank you' to John Stamos...that to me is hilarious."
As for those adorable little babies, they're just getting used to living the on-camera life at such a young age. It started off terrifying and they were constantly crying, but they ended up getting into it and really having a great time. "Thank God they've turned a corner," Brewster admitted. "It was upsetting at first and I started to feel really guilty because they're crying and you're a stranger to them and just don't know what to do, but they're happy and having fun now."
Just three episodes in, and thanks to the phenomenal cast and writers, the show is already a huge hit. You can't go anywhere without seeing Stamos' face plastered on the side of a bus. Even though the actors are all pleased with the script and how everything is going so far, there's always uncertainty with a new show.
"So many things can go wrong," Brewster explained. "We finished and we saw the pilot and it was really solid, but still, you never know...Television is just, you couldn't pay me enough to make the decisions those people have to make. It's so hard. Fox advertised it and supported it and they're so nice to us and they seem to be happy, but you still just never know...it's out of our hands, but I think we found ourselves really early and really fast."
As someone who has been acting for years, Brewster has gotten used to the long hours and hard work, but once she left "Criminal Minds," she knew she wanted something different - something where the material wasn't so dark.
"When I decided to leave, I decided I wanted to go back and just do comedy and try to get better so I could learn things I haven't learned yet," she said. "All I was offered - the only stuff that came in - for a year and a half, two years, was a role for a cop or an FBI agent. My response was, 'I did that in a show that I think is great and I left.' That's not really interesting to me anymore."
She went on to guest star on many popular shows like "Modern Family" and "Key & Peele," but she wasn't being offered any big roles that she loved. After so many years, and so much experience on "Criminal Minds," Brewster was lucky she was someone who could afford to take time off so she could wait for the script that she knew was the right one. "I was grateful I had that choice," she said. "It wasn't easy! It was really scary and there were a lot of days I was like, 'Oh God, what did I do! I made a huge mistake!'" But then, "Grandfathered" came along and gave her a new experience in her career that she loved.
Her career is coming to a full circle as she started in comedy in a little show called "Friends" - ever heard of it? She only appeared in just six episodes in 1997 as Joey's girlfriend Kathy, but that was all she needed to be remembered, mostly for her voice, by "Friends" fans forever. "I'll be standing on line at the supermarket and someone in another line will say 'excuse me' because they recognize my voice," Brewster explained, which to me, is totally believable because the second we started talking, all I could picture was "The One With Chandler In A Box." It was because of scenes like that that she became the incredible actress she is today, and she has Matthew Perry to thank for that.
"I haven't seen Matthew Perry! He's right around the corner from us, like two stages over, and I haven't seen him yet!" she said of where they're currently filming "And I owe him my career. And I know him, I love him, he's a really sweet guy. I think the last time I saw him he said, 'You need to start telling people I'm responsible for your career.' And I was like, 'Well you are, so I could do that.'"
With "Friends" being one of the most iconic shows of a generation, it makes you wonder if a show like "Grandfathered" has the potential to be that great. "I mean, I think any actor you talk to, if they say they don't want it to become huge, they're lying," Brewster revealed. "If they don't put together their Emmy speech in their head, they're lying, but I don't link 'Grandfathered' to 'Friends.' If it's really successful, that'd be great! I'd be really happy about that, but I don't compare the two. I don't think anyone imagines anything being as big as shows like 'Cheers' or 'Friends.' It would be nice, but in my mind that's completely its own thing."
Watch Brewster in "Grandfathered" Tuesday nights on Fox at 8 p.m. EDT.
