I could tell press tour was having an effect on me when I started insulting Harry Hamlin.
The actor and former People Magazine Sexiest Man of the Year, is in a domestic reality show with his wife Lisa Renna. But it seems like TV Land’s “Harry Loves Lisa” is a bit more contrived, with the two playing up different aspects of their personalities for effect: She’s wild! He’s cranky and conservative!
It doesn’t seem to jibe with what we seemed to know about the couple – well-suited good looking couple of about the same age.
But I shouldn’t have gone taunting poor Hamlin.
He had just made some sort of curmudgeonly comment like “I don’t like watching reality TV… I’m doing it, but I don’t really want to watch it.”
So I asked: “Do you think other people should watch it?”
He said something about his show was a little better than most reality shows. Then I asked what was really on my mind.
Q. I wanted to ask if you’re exaggerating your characteristics about each other? I mean, I don’t remember Lisa being so crazy and you being so — you seem much older. You seem like 20 years older all of a sudden.
Lisa: He is 20 years older.
Q. No, but you’re a youthful man, but it seems like you’re acting like you’re this conservative guy who doesn’t go along with –
Harry: I am?
Q. Really?
Harry: I’m acting like a conservative guy?
Q. This is the real you? I’m just asking if you are exaggerating your characteristics at all for this show, and for us?
Lisa: That’s a really interesting question. I would say no. I would say that — I mean, we are who we are. And you’re going to see a side of me that you don’t — I mean, I don’t act like that when I’m acting. I don’t act like myself when I’m acting because I’m playing a character. The closest you’ve seen me is on “Dancing with the Stars.” You got to see the real person. You know, we are very, very different, I will tell you that. He is very, very conservative? He is not.
Harry: What? Do you mean like politically.
Lisa: Well, not politically, but –
Harry: What?
Lisa: — energy-wise. I’m loud, I’m bubbly. Am I crazy and wild? I don’t know. You will have to decide that for yourself. It makes it look cute for the ad campaign. But you’ll have to decide for yourself. We are very different, I will tell you that.
Well, it wasn’t so much that. It was the grey hair, the horn rimmed glasses, the way he fumbled for his phone when it rang in the middle of the session. The guy is 58 but he was acting 78. Rinna is 47.
They were in the middle of the next question, when Hamlin insited on revisiting the topic. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I have to go back to the ‘20 years older.’
Uh, oh.
“I can’t move on from that.”
And Rinna jumped on board, asking me again:
Lisa: What does he seem like? Wait. Let’s ask what does he seem like, and what did you think he was going to be like?
Me: You know, even when he was on “Dancing with the Stars” he was a young, spry guy, now he’s Jimmy Stewart. I don’t know.
Lisa: Is he acting like Jimmy Stewart?
Me: You know, “Where’s my phone?”
Lisa: You know what? Let me just tell you something. He’s a little stressed out because our daughter had a total freak-out today in the dentist office. She had a panic attack, and she wouldn’t let the dentist pull her tooth out. So now, she’s at another dentist office like All On 4 Brisbane. We’re not there. We have a twelve-year-old sitting in a dentist chair with an abscessed tooth that’s really, really bad. He’s nervous.
Harry: Yeah, she’s really sick. And so I mean, I’m going –
Lisa: He’s really nervous about it.
OK, sounds like the basis of an “episode.”
“Harry Loves Lisa” starts Oct. 6 on TV Land.