The world has long known the many ways in which the legendary Carrie Fisher showed off her talents. From acting to writing to cutting self-deprecation Fisher was a gem like no other, and fans will soon get to watch her final TV performance(s) on the excellent U.K. comedy Catastrophe, which streams here in the U.S. on Amazon. Star and co-creator Rob Delaney shared with Jimmy Kimmel that Fisher's many wonderful qualities also included improvising and songwriting, with one part of the female anatomy as her muse.
It's funny, because Sharon [Horgan, co-creator] and I are lovely people, but we're very despotic when it comes to the writing. Actors will be like, 'What if I just sorta do this?' And we're like, 'Why don't you do it the way we wrote it?' Except with Carrie Fisher; you can't do that to her because she's funnier and smarter than anybody in the whole zip code. So she would just do whatever she wanted and it was amazing. In the second season, our kid has a christening party, and she just wandered around the back, in other people's shots and stuff, singing a song she'd written that day about 'areolae,' which is the doctor word for nipples. And it's beautiful, it's about nipples. She's at a christening, walking around, doing it, like 'Try and stop me.' And it's in the show! We kept it.
I guess if there were anyone out there that could pull off background acting that includes belting out a ditty about boobs, Carrie Fisher might as well take that prize home. While she hasn't shown up extremely often on Catastrophe, where she plays the incredibly judgmental and uncompromising mother of Rob Delaney's Rob, Fisher is always a treat as Mia. And now I want to go back and watch each of her episodes again, knowing that she wasn't always so dedicated to sticking with the scripts that Delaney and Sharon Horgan wrote together. And yes, for more than just trying to pick out the moments where she's singing about areolae. (Or areolas, if you're not into that whole "ae" business.)
TV wasn't something that Carrie Fisher did with regularity, but when she did it, she was often excellent. And the episode in which she's putting nipples to melody, which was the time-jumping Season 2 premiere, features a glorious moment between Fisher and Sharon Horgan's Sharon over the name of the central couple's second child, Mulreann. It's insulting to anyone with the name, to be sure, but Fisher has one of her best comedic acting moments then through her painfully awkward misunderstanding and dismissal of this very personal decision made by her daughter-in-law. And it's after that moment that she's off and wandering around the house, as well as bidding on eBay items. A class act!
Rob Delaney appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote the upcoming Season 3 premiere for Catastrophe, which also has a fourth season already lined up. (See how all the other streaming and cable shows with our renewal/cancellation rundown.) Check out the full clip below.
Season 3 of Catastrophe will premiere on Amazon for Prime subscribers on Friday, April 28. If you haven't yet watched, or are a little behind, both Season 1 and Season 2 are available for binge-watching at your own delight. And to see everything else hitting the small screen in the near future, head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide.
