Time In

November 22 – 29 2007 Time Out Dubai 141

Time InThis week’s television Edited by Matt Pomroy TV listings Freyja Tasci

Courteney Cox is back on television with her newdrama Dirt, in which sheplays the devious editor of a celebrity gossip tabloid.Time Out met her on set in Los Angeles and talkedabout the series, the natureof celebrity magazines andwhy she doesn’t think there’llever be a Friendsreunion.Words Matt Pomroy

Good grief, Courteney Cox is tiny – justlike a little brunette pixie. I know thecamera puts on 30 pounds and all that,but she’s so thin and so petite, but looksgreat for 42 and it’s…well, just like thesort of thing you only see in a celebritygossip magazine. Ironically, the kind ofmagazine her new series is about and itreally is her series. Courtney is not onlythe main character – Lucy Spiller theunscrupulous editor of Dirt magazine –but also one of the executive producers.

So after a decade on the small screenwith Friends what made her return? ‘It’s just a world that I’m very familiar

with and I was a part of it from the verybeginning,’ she says although admitsthat originally she wasn’t sure if she wasgoing to be acting in the series herself.When it comes to tabloid gossip magsthough, Courteney knows the score.‘Well, yes, it’s something I know somuch about. And then it seems like a fun character that I haven’t done, and the more I play Lucy, the more fun it actually is because now I can feel like I can be outrageous with her and whatshe does to people – it’s great to havethat. I think once people get involved, it’s like a delicious soap opera.’

In the history of TV super-bitches – from Alexis Carrington to Edie Britt – Lucy Spiller is up there with the best(or worst) of them. If her character ofGail Weathers in the three Scream filmswas the epitome of sensationalist newsanchor then Spiller is a wonderfullyoverblown caricature of an editorwithout morality. For Courteney it was the change she’d been looking for: ‘I wason Friends for 10 years, and that was avery high energy, obsessive-compulsivecharacter. So to play someone who is a lot more solid and less emotional wassomething that was fun and challengingfor me. But now it’s more challenging tofind ways to make her, you know, theperson you love to hate.’

There’s sex, blackmail, lies, betrayal,prostitution, drugs, gossip, bitching,

Dishing the dirta sacking and a taser gun to the groin.And that’s just episode one – we’re notkidding. Say what you like about gossiptabloids, but they give the public whatthey want and Courteney’s series is, in many ways, doing the same as thefictional magazine it portrays. In theseason finale, Jennifer Aniston gueststars as a rival-editor and the pair kiss.So, purely for technical reasons, howmany takes for the kiss scene did you dowith Jennifer?

Courteney smiles, ‘the kiss was so not important… we did a lot of takes.But I literally kiss her longer sayinghello when we meet than that kiss. I mean it was just… Oh, people make so much of it but we had a ball. It wasreally fun to come on the set and playcompletely different characters and just be together.’ Cox seems sweetlyflustered, but, like her character, she knows what sells and how to play the game.

That scene added over a third moreviewers compared to the previous week.In a ratings obsessed industry, Friendsreunited gave the series an undeniableboost. But will there be the full Friendsreunion we keep hearing about?

‘You know what? I have a feeling it’snot going to happen,’ she says with a hintof disappointment, before starting tolaugh, ‘We’re close to 80-years old nowand the longer we wait, the older we get.’

It’s a question she’ll probably beasked until she really is 80 years old andone that won’t disappear from the pagesof those celebrity magazines. Not thatCourteney actually reads them. ‘Exceptfor last summer,’ she admits, ‘when wewere in the writer’s room every day, and, it’s like candy. You can’t stop. It’s fantastic to look at pictures, but I don’t really read them. There reallyaren’t that many words, are there?’

You must have some great gossip of your own for the writers though? ‘I do,’ she giggles, ‘I have a lot of storiesto bring to the table, yes.’

So we’re watching your friend’sprivate lives on screen? ‘Well, it could be like a bit of a friend of a friend’s issue.We don’t really ever copy anyone’s exactlife, but you could take a little bit ofeveryone and then add a twist to it.Maybe it’s the conglomeration of aboutfour people.’

Her friends haven’t stopped tellingher things through fear they might endup on the show, but Courteney believesthat the nature of the paparazzi andcelebrity reporting is becoming moreintrusive. ‘It’s getting so much worsethan it ever was and with the videocameras, you can never say the rightthing,’ she sighs, and indeed that nightTime Out meets packs of paparazzi with video cameras outside bars andrestaurants in the city. ‘It’s not just a picture anymore,’ Courtneycontinues, ‘the photographers, I lovethem now. It’s the videographers that are tougher.

‘Someone said to me, “check out thiswebsite,” and I went on and they’re somean. It’s brutal. It’s amazing how meanpeople are.’ Not that Courteney actuallyreads them, you understand.

In Dirt, her star photographer Don is a fiercely loyal, high-functioningschizophrenic played by the superbEnglish actor Ian Hart. Between hereditorial leadership and Don’s photosthey rake the Hollywood muck, althoughinterestingly the stories are alwaystruthful. Is that realistic? Do these realmagazines ever lie about Courteney?

‘I just saw in a magazine where I’mcoming out of my doctor’s office and I’mgoing through menopause, so I’m reallyupset because I can’t have another child.It’s not worth it, but I do read lies likethat all the time.’ Of course, not thatCourteney actually reads them.

So having been in front of thetabloid’s lenses for over a decade, and now playing an editor of a celebritymagazine, what’s the best way to dealwith it? Just ignore them?

‘It’s going to happen, no matter if I getupset about it. A lot of it is ignorance isbliss. I have so many other things to beupset about or to be interested in or to be having fun with.’ And then she startsto laugh and, perhaps, gets to the bottomline of the way most actors view the sortof publications Courteney has portrayedin the series: ‘Y’know, if I am looking OKin the picture, I don’t care.’•Dirt is on Showseries 2 from December27 at 12 midnight every Thursday and Friday.

_ _ q / / g