The Donald is back!
Donald Faison returns to network television with a hilarious new show called The Exes, which airs tonight on TV Land.
The show is an all new comedy about three divorced men sharing an apartment across the hall from their female divorce attorney, who is also their landlord!
Donald plays a divorced ladies man who struggles to adapt to the ways of his new roommate.
We caught up with Donald to chat about what’s going on with his new show and even found out the secrets of his personal life. Check it out below!
How does it feel to be back on television?
It’s great to be back on television. Anytime you do a show, regardless of its success, and you get the opportunity to do another one, you hope for the best. It’s always great to be back in a familiar format.
How was it working with Newman aka Wayne Knight?
He is awesome. Out of everybody in the cast, he’s the one that I’ve latched onto the most. We have a lot in common. He’s a great dude.
Between the two of you, we’re assuming the jokes on and off set must be hysterical, can you share one of those moments?
I was on the show for 9 years (Scrubs) with pretty good success, but this is my first time doing a four camera show in front of a live studio audience. Wayne and Kristen have been doing this forever and so to be able to hang out with them and listen to their stories from Seinfeld and 3rd Rock From the Sun, it’s great. I can’t share them because they’re none of my stories, but we have a good time. Sometimes it may take us like 20 minutes to rehearse a scene because we keep talking about stories. The director who directed all 10 episodes, Andy… he’s directed a crap load of shows as well, so between the three of them, it’s always great stories.
What are your expectations for the shows as far as ratings? Is there a lot of pressure because there are so many heavy hitters on the cast?
There is pressure, but I’m not really feeling it because the studio and the network have just been so awesome to us. I’m sure if we do horrible numbers we’re not going to come back on, but that’s not our goal. We’ve been in this kind of situation before and it’s crazy to stress out over it. I want to enjoy the moment.
In the episode we viewed, you had a plethora of women. How is it playing a player?
It’s pretty cool to play a ladies man, I’ve never played that before in any of my projects. Maybe in Trippin’ but, other than that, I haven’t played a ladies man ever. It’s really cool to play somebody that’s suave and debonaire because I am nothing like that!
How are you with the ladies in your real life?
I have a fiance so I guess I do alright, but I’m not that guy. I’m not Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love.
And Bradley Cooper who seems to date everybody in Hollywood. He does well, he does well. (Laughs).
Since this is a character that you haven’t really played before, do you feel you had to to break out of that? When you play an iconic role for so long you get typecast. This is a breakout role for you, but how do you feel about typecasting?
I don’t know if its so much of a “break-out role.” But a lot of people are saying to me ‘Wow, you played this completely different than Turk.’ I didn’t go into it consciously saying ‘I’m gong to be different than Turk,’ I just wanted to play the part as best as I could. It’s cool when you get typecast at first, but after awhile, OK I need to stretch out. I don’t mind that everybody seems to think that this is all I can do, but I need to show everybody that I can do more.
What are you doing to get eyes on the show?
I’m on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve been using my network of friends to try to promote the show. My fiance has been doing the same thing. It’s really cool to have Zach Braff and Jessica Simpson and people post the show online. I can only do so much promoting, but TV Land does so much. There’s billboards everywhere. They really care a lot about the show.
You mentioned your fiance a couple of times, is there a date set to get married?
There isn’t a date yet. We’re circling a date, like how sharks circle their food. It’s tough. I’m looking forward to getting married, I’m not looking forward to planning it.
We just had the Kardashian divorce in 72 days, what are you doing to avoid that? How is the bond with the two of you?
It’s great. We’ve been together for five years. After so long you guys develop your own schtick and stuff like that. When we go out, it’s kind of fun to rehearse our schtick on people, but we click. It’s strange because we are so different from each other, but kind of the same.
The differences bring you closer together.
She’d argue that she”s funnier than I am and that I steal all my jokes from her!
