Casey Wilson Tries Serious on for Size
What is it about true crime that we just can’t get enough of?
“I was actually talking about this with a friend,” says Casey Wilson, over Zoom from her house in Los Angeles amidst some Christmas decoration unboxing. “I mean, I think there’s the more obvious — ‘Well, at least my life isn’t that bad.’ But also, I don’t know, I just think we all have this fascination with the darkness of life. I don’t know what it is. Honestly.”
The actress says that since having kids, her appetite for truly deep dark crime content has waned, and luckily her latest project stays perfectly within her boundaries.
Wilson stars alongside Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd and Kathryn Hahn in the Apple+ series “The Shrink Next Door,” which is based on a podcast that is based on real events.
“I think there is a huge element of, ‘OK, well that’s not happening in my life at least,’” Wilson continues. “In the case of ‘The Shrink Next Door,’ it’s like ‘My therapist hasn’t taken over all my finances, started to run my business and moved into my home. At the very least, my therapist hasn’t moved into my house.’”
Getting to work on a project with Ferrell and Rudd in the midst of the pandemic was a necessary reprieve from the endless news cycle.
“I mean, we all had to just laugh at the absurdity that we were doing this during the virus, but it was also like, Kathryn had said of working with Paul and Will, ‘I think it will be balm for the soul right now.’ And it was. I haven’t laughed so hard in my life.”
Wilson is, of course, best known for her comedic roles: after being part of the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” she starred on “Happy Endings,” which earned her two Critics Choice nominations, as well as roles in “Atypical” and “Marry Me.” When “The Shrink Next Door” came knocking, she was very much in the mood for something different.
“I’ve done so much comedy and also a lot of broad comedy, which I love, certainly from doing ‘SNL’ and even ‘Happy Endings.’ It’s very physical comedy,” she says. “And I’ve always kind of longed to do material in a more gray area. I just love the tone of where it’s funny, but then it’s also heartbreaking. That gray area to me is the most interesting and what I love to watch, honestly.”
She worried, though, about convincing casting directors that she could play serious.
“I just turned 40. It’s hard for people to see you in a different light. And so I was so thrilled and grateful when I got cast in this, to get to do something a bit different. I mean, I think it’s all acting, but it’s also — I have a podcast about the ‘Real Housewives.’ I might not be the first person that would come to mind for more serious fare,” she says. “But I’m an actress, and so I was so thrilled to get to do it, in a different tone.”
