New York’s Town Hall venue is providing some alternative programming for Election Night — a revival of a cult streaming series. The movie, which was commissioned by Universal and never produced, sees Klausner’s protagonist, Julie, and her best friend, Billy (Billy Eichner), once more attempting to make their dreams of stardom come true even after retreating from the world of entertainment. Throughout, they’re forced to reckon with the ways the industry has changed since we last saw them, from the glut of cheap horror films to the continued rise of social-media influencers.
Klausner and Eichner will be joined on by “Difficult People” cast members Andrea Martin (playing Marilyn, Julie’s mother), James Urbaniak (Arthur, Julie’s boyfriend) and Gabourey Sidibe (Billy’s restaurant boss Denise) and guests including Christopher Meloni, Cecily Strong, Michael Urie and Paul Walter Hauser. (Though Cole Escola, who played Billy’s loathed co-worker Matthew, is unavailable, Klausner has found someone equally adept at high camp — Susan Lucci will be playing the role, as announced by Escola and Lucci on Instagram.) All will be working within the distinct “Difficult People” register: The show skewered both Hollywood and its own protagonists, who were at once clear-eyed about the shortfalls of the industry they hoped to join and delusional about their own prospects. Originally bought by USA, “Difficult People” became one of Hulu’s first original series. For Klausner, whose recent credits include acting in “Long Story Short” and “The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel,” and writing on “Schmigadoon,” this return is both nostalgic and suffused with potential. As she tells Variety, she has hope that the evening might bear fruit and give rise to more “Difficult People” down the line. Either way, revisiting her character after about a decade gave her the opportunity to comment on years’ worth of stories about which Julie and Billy might see through their familiar caustic, perceptive lens.
Well, I think that when you have the center of friendship, there are infinite stories, right? I often, probably to a fault, would start with a joke and back into it, because I get very attached to my jokes. But when you have something as as enduring as the love that comes along with a friendship, there’s no limit to what we could have done.
And then to comment on the culture as it changed — it was very disappointing not to be on the air when #MeToo hit. And the amount that show business and comedy have changed — the strikes and mergers and COVID and the rest of it — has been really frustrating. I wanted to see Billy and Julie during lockup.
I wanted to see how Marilyn handled her Zoom sessions. I have to give credit to this season of “The Comeback,” which was more inspiring to me than almost anything this year: To be able to check in with those characters in this moment — and that [the story] started during the strike — I thought was so genius. That brought me, as the kids say, the feels.
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