Who says there aren’t any good new shows on TV during the summer?
Lifetime’s new comedic drama, “Drop Dead Diva,” follows the story of a vapid model-in-training, Deb, who dies in a freak accident. At the gates of Heaven, she tries to pull a fast one to get her life back, only to have her soul resurface in the body of a brilliant, plus-size and recently deceased attorney, Jane. Now she has to live as Jane, with only a guardian angel and Deb’s equally superficial best friend as the only people who know who’s really inside Jane’s body.
Yeah, it sounds hokey on paper, but on the screen, “Diva” is probably the most promising TV show of the summer.
Bisexual comedian, actress and activist Margaret Cho, who plays Teri, Jane’s trusty and superbly able assistant, said she was also a little skeptical about the show when she first heard about it.
“I didn’t know how it was going to work,” she said. “When I heard the premise I was like, ‘I don’t get it.’ But when I read the script I thought, ‘Oh, I see.’ For somebody like me growing up and always having issues with body images and weight, it’s really about the struggle of being invisible. I think if you’re a certain size, people don’t look at you. That invisibility is really what the show is about. It’s about turning invisibility into visibility. It’s about how Deb was visible before because she was blond and thin and she matched this societal ideal of what beauty is supposed to be. Jane becomes visible in the world because she’s an excellent lawyer. She’s brilliant and goes out of her way to help people. So it’s about marrying those two ideas of becoming visible.”
Cho said that Josh Berman, executive producer of the show, had her in mind for the role of Teri from the start.
“I think he always wanted me for the role but I’m not sure it was specifically written for me,” she said. “I was doing an album with another artist named Jay Brand and he’s friends with Josh. He came up to me and he was like, ‘I want you to be in my show!’ And I didn’t know what it was. That happens to me a lot when I go out. I never think about if it’s real or legit. So I was like, ‘Sure.’ The next day I got a script from my agent and I loved it. It kind of went from there, but I was excited to be a part of it. I think I was the first person cast for it.”
Actors from a number of notable TV shows soon signed on for “Drop Dead Diva,” including Kate Levering (“Cashmere Mafia”), April Bowlby (“Two and a Half Men”), Josh Stamberg (“Lie to Me”) and Brooke D’Orsay (“How I Met Your Mother”). But it’s a relative newcomer in the starring role who pretty much steals the show. Stage actor Brooke Elliott (“Wicked”) is nothing short of amazing with her funny, poignant and utterly convincing portrayal of Jane, who embodies Deb’s shallow personality but Jane’s superior intellect.
Cho said she was blown away by Elliott’s performance.
“She really has the depth of both characters within her. You can see Deb very clearly inside of Brooke’s acting. She is just so good at this very difficult task of playing two people at once. She’s a tremendous actress. I think it also works because Brooke is so beautiful. She’s way more beautiful than Deb. She woke up even more beautiful. The journey of the show is she learns to see it and I love that. I think it’s just a marvelous idea.”
The first episode of “Diva” focuses mostly on Jane and her attempt to come to terms with her new life as a lawyer. But Cho said the show will eventually involve her character and others in Jane’s circle a little more.
“It goes deeper into their relationships with Jane,” she said. “It’s centered around Jane and her journey. It examines all these different court cases too and how Jane deals with them, which brings in all these incredible guest stars, which is exciting.”
Hanging with celebrity guest stars is nothing new for Cho, but she said working on “Diva” is going to put her in touch with some old acquaintances and a few people she has been anxious to work with.
“I get to see people that I love, like Rosie O’Donnell, Kathy Najimy, people I’m close to,” she said. “Also people I don’t know who I can’t wait to meet, like Liza Minnelli and Tim Gunn. It’s a pretty gay show.”
Cho added that of all the TV shows she’s been a part of in her substantial career, “Drop Dead Diva” is probably the best.
“I’m really proud of it. I’m really amazed with it. I’ve fallen in love with it. Of course, I would love to go do another season of ‘The Cho Show.’ I just love that too, but that’s a totally different thing, and since I’m here doing this I don’t know if that will be possible. But for right now, I’m very happy. This show is really living up to so many of my dreams and expectations. I’m thrilled about it.”
“The Cho Show,” a VH-1 reality show about the comedian, her career and her family, debuted last year. Cho said VH-1 is interested in doing a second season, but that her busy schedule probably won’t allow it any time soon.
“I would love to do it again in some way, somewhere else in a different capacity. I just love [co-star] Selene Luna and, of course, my family is so great. The show is such a beautiful one, but ‘Drop Dead Diva’ is my project.”
Another project predicted to take a while is Cho’s new album, “Guitarded,” a collection of songs she is writing with the help of artists such as Patty Griffin, Jon Brion and Grant Lee Phillips.
Anyone who has seen Cho perform on her recent “Beautiful” tour or her burlesque show “The Sensuous Woman” got a taste of her songwriting skills.
“I did some rap and I just got inspired to do it. It was fun for me,” she said. “The last few years I’ve been putting out little songs here and there. So now I’m just exploring it a little bit more.”
Cho was inspired to pick up a guitar last year, and she’s been practicing ever since.
“I play every day,” she said. “I play a lot, which is good because I only started playing in November. I wanted to play at the Prop. 8 rally in Cincinnati. All over the country everybody protested in their city. I just happened to be in Cincinnati so I wanted to play a protest song. I had never played guitar before but I just thought, ‘I’m going to start playing now.’ I wrote a song about Prop. 8 and played it. That started it off.”
Even for a person who has spent most of her adult life on stage, Cho said that playing guitar in front of a large crowd for the first time was not easy.
“As this public speaker, I can kind of bullshit my way through anything,” she said. “But with a musical instrument, you actually have to know how to play it. It’s harder than I realized. Although, I have the best teacher in the world, so I can’t complain.”
As for “Guitarded,” Cho said her fans can expect a mixed bag of musical styles.
“It’s all over the place. Right now I’m working more on the singer-songwriter-type stuff, but I’m going to be working with lots of different types of artists. It’s going to be techno, some hip-hop, just every type of genre of music. Everything is just crazy. It’ll be cool. I was really inspired by Liz Phair. Cyndi Lauper taught me how to sing. The people that are on this album are amazing. There are a lot of people that I love to listen to that are going to be a part of it.”
When it comes to lyrics for the album, don’t be surprised if Cho manages to work in more than a few social messages.
“I think it’s all kind of political in nature,” she said. “Who knows what’s going to make it on the record? Right now, there’s something like 50 songs in production at some level. I have no idea which ones will end up being overtly political. We’ll see.”
Hopefully, with the “Guitarded” album and/or an upcoming tour, Cho will continue to use her formidable talent to criticize the political machine. A few high-profile comics have recently faced criticism for their jokes about political figures, but Cho isn’t worried about any backlash.
“Comedians have a responsibility to be political,” she said. “We’re the only ones who can get away with it. No matter what, comedians should always have the last word. We’re the workhorses of the entertainment world. We’re the hardest working and the most maligned and the most abused. We should at least always get the last word. Comedians should always get to say what they want and politicians should be afraid. David Letterman has a responsibility to speak to as wide an audience [as] possible, so his comments are taken more seriously. Whereas somebody like Wanda Sykes and myself, we have much more freedom because our points of view are clearer-cut and ingrained in our identity. It’s the one time you can actually feel sorry for straight white guys.”
“Drop Dead Diva” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Lifetime. For more information, visit www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/drop-dead-diva or www.margaretcho.com.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].