BUSY TONIGHT BUSY PHILIPPS :When will Michelle Williams come to the show?

Actress, writer, producer…Busy Phillips takes on a more personal role with her late night talk-show called Busy Tonight. The show premiered on October 28, 2018 on E! Her plainspoken frankness brings a different tone and we made her the interviewee to get her true feelings about this new experience as a TV Host…

Was it difficult to bring your Instagram story aesthetic into the show ?

BUSY PHILIPPS:Certainly, part of the impetus for me deciding to make this career pivot was the success of my Instagram stories and the response that people, and also like The New Yorker were having to the things that I was putting out there online. And I think as a performer and an actor for twenty years, it’s always about the business changes it’s been changing so quickly for the last twenty years and I think part of the trick is figuring out how to change with it. And I think that we see that very clearly in the last night landscape. What was interesting and difficult in what I was really considering and doing for this show, is I’m not stepping into an established institution; we’re building something from the ground up. And so how do you do something that people are going to feel a little bit of comfort, like it’s not too far out the box like: “I don’t know what this is. I don’t want to watch this but at the same time, how do we pull in the things that we know are happening now; the way that people actually watch television like this, on their phone most of the time, or their computers or what have you.  And what people respond to, innately, with the explosion of social media and Instagram stories, is more the authenticity and the immediate connection where they feel like they’re very drawn into you. And one of the things that I think my fans have expressed over the last couple of years is that they really feel like they intimately know me and that we are good friends.

We all know that you and Michelle Williams are friendship goals.Will we be seeing her on the show and whatsother guests would you absolutely love to have?

BUSY PHILIPPS:

We have an amazing booking team and I do feel like that is something that we’ve had a lot of discussions about very early on, and I was insistent that we hire talent bookers basically before the show was even officially green light, because I know how far in advance shows get booked from being an actor for so many years. I wanted to make sure that we were being considered on the same level as the big guys and I wanted publicists and talent to be aware this was going to be a real show to show up on. And that’s why getting people like Mindy Kaling] and Julia[Roberts]in these first few weeks was very important to me. I don’t know if you would know this –I mean it’s public knowledge –but Michelle is currently filming a new television show with Sam Rockwell and that’s filming in New York. So,I don’t know if you know this,but it’s like fourteen-hour days, five days a week, so it’s a little bit tricky for her to come out to do this show right now, which is a bummer for me! She’s very excited to do the show, she can’t wait, so we’ll figure out the timing when she has a break!

On a personal level, the pace of the show is very challenging?

BUSY PHILIPPS :I would say that every day has been its own challenge,only because you build every show from scratch, starting at eight thirty in the morning and then until you tape the show. I also, though, am a person who thrives when I’m working a lot and I’ve a lot of time where I haven’t been working in this career because it ebbs and flows. So I’m well aware it’s like feast or famine. In the feast you don’t complain about it, you don’t talk about how tired you are, you just go –because there will be a time where you’re just going to be going to Soul Cycle and sleeping until ten, I don’t know! So challenging in that a new show is challenging; be in an executive producer and in charge of making a lot of decisions; being the person that comes out and does the entire show and then goes directly into the edit bay with the other producers and editors, and tries to figure out the best way to cut the show together. I’m doing all of those things but for me, right now, I’m thrilled to be –and to be honest with you, I’ve been on a lot of television shows where the schedule is more grueling or you’re talking about fifteen-hour days and then you’re like: “Why am I even doing this?That’s so lame!”I, at least, am very excited about the work that I’m doing and I think that we’re putting something really cool into the world right now. And I get to see my kids most bed times; I drop them off at the bus in the morning and then I go to work, then I see them before bed. So that’s pretty good!

Interview : FRAnCK RAGAINE