Which 'Fargo' Cast Member Has Never Seen, or Heard of, 'Cheers'?! (Really!)
We mean this in the most respectful way: Cristin Milioti, what rock have you been living under?
The actress, who stars in the second season of FX’s Fargo, joined her castmates in a PaleyFest New York panel Friday night, in which she revealed she had not only never seen an episode of co-star Ted Danson’s signature series Cheers, but she’d never even heard of the classic sitcom.
OK, Cheers aired from 1982-1993, and Milioti wasn’t even born until 1985, so… no, no, it still doesn’t make sense how anyone who has grown up in America in the last 30 years would not have even heard of Cheers.
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But it actually gets worse. Milioti has not only never seen Cheers, she had never seen any of multiple Emmy winner Danson’s work. She actually asked her Fargo co-star if she could see his acting reel.
“I got to sit there watch Ted pitch Cheers,” to her, said Fargo executive producer Warren Littlefield (who, coincidentally, was one of the NBC executives who developed Cheers, and can even be seen sitting at the bar in the show’s classic series finale).
Though Danson was MIA for the PaleyFest panel, Fargo series creator Noah Hawley and several cast members — including Kirsten Dunst, Jean Smart, Jeffrey Donovan, Jesse Plemons, and Bokeem Woodbine — chatted about the sophomore season, which is set in 1979 and revolves around the investigation of a hit-and-run accident, a triple homicide at a local diner, and the evolution of the Gerhardts, a local crime family.
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The series is set in Minnesota and filmed in Canada, which means frosty temperatures were a constant topic of discussion. Dunst told the audience she got a very valuable tip during a chance encounter with Billy Bob Thornton, who starred in Season 1. The two ran into each other in Nashville, and Dunst said he told her to make production buy her a Canada Goose coat. Smart added that the first thing she did after getting cast was to go on eBay and snag a long, cozy down coat herself.
The always fantastic Woodbine shared how he didn’t think he’d land the role of mobster Mike Milligan after having just two days to prepare an accent — what he called “Milliganese” — for the audition, while one of the actresses said watching herself on screen gives her a migraine, and Hawley talked about the fun of casting actors like Season 1’s Bob Odenkirk, mostly known for more comedic turns (before Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, of course), in his dark-humored thriller.
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And both Hawley and Littlefield said they think TV, not feature films, is where the best work in Hollywood is being done now.
“We live in an age of incredible choice in television, so you must distinguish yourself,” Littlefield said. “A lot of artists, and artists that have amazing choices in their lives, are choosing television, and it’s not a stepchild anymore.”
Fargo airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on FX.
