Mary Elizabeth Ellis talks about her transition from It’s Always Sunny to The Grinder
Since her premiere on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia in 2004, Mary Elizabeth Ellis has primarily been known to many fans as “Waitress,” the unrequited love interest of Charlie Day’s character, Charlie Kelly. Through 10 seasons, Charlie has stalked and pined for the Waitress, leaving many fans wondering if she’ll ever finally give in to his advances and make him the happiest King Of The Rats alive.
Of course, in one way she already has. The two are married in real life, meaning that for over a decade she’s lived a double life as his wife at home and his mortal enemy on set. Last year, Ellis finally got to step onto a different set to play the family matriarch. She can currently be seen on Fox’s The Grinder, playing the wife of Fred Savage’s character and a mother of two, as well as the sister-in-law to Rob Lowe. It’s a completely different world than Sunny—which just premiered its 11th season on January 6—but that doesn’t make it any less weird. She also appears in the new movie comedy Masterminds, which comes out this summer.
The A.V. Club: It seems like these days people are more hesitant to believe the recommendation of a network show because it’s a network show. Is it fair for people to judge network more harshly than cable in today’s TV landscape?
Mary Elizabeth Ellis: My personal sense of humor is edgy, I would say more cable-like: words you’re not allowed to say, ideas that the majority of people might say, “That’s too risqué for me.” That’s one thing that I love about The Grinder. We do get to have a little bit of an edgy sensibility.
The network audiences are getting smaller as well. People are going to cable and Netflix and new media places. As the networks see that the audiences are going to those places, hopefully there will be more room for edgy, “cool” comedies on networks.
AVC: What was it about The Grinder that made you realize this would be your type of comedy?
MEE: I didn’t think I was going to do a pilot this year; I thought I would take the year to do my own stuff. And then when I read the script, I was like, “This actually is really funny.” [Show creators] Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul wanted to meet with me and I had read their script for The D-Train and it was one of the funniest, most fucked-up scripts I had ever read, and so I was like “I definitely want to meet these guys.” They were so cool. Then you think about Rob Lowe, this part was perfect for him. And I was already friends with Fred Savage; he had directed a lot of episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. So I agreed to go in and do the test and it was one of the most fun acting moments I’ve ever had. It was so fun to play around with Fred. It was all of those things coming together.
AVC: Which feedback has been the most important to you, regarding The Grinder?
MEE: I’m not good at going on the internet and trolling around and finding information. I’m not good at reading reviews and things like that. Rob and Fred are on top of it, so it’s really nice because they come into work talking about what our numbers were and what critics are saying. So I take joy in those guys being excited about it and proud of it, because we have been really well-reviewed; the critics seem to love our show. Which is great because there’s nothing better than putting out something that you think is good and funny out and having people that you respect say, “This is good and funny.”