Comedy Central’s freshman series “The Other Two” is a scripted reunion for “Saturday Night Live” alums like former co-head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, who created the new show, and iconic cast member Molly Shannon, who is a series regular.
Actually, “The Other Two” is basically a haven for improv vets in general, as star Drew Tarver got his start at UCB.
But the odd woman out in this lineup is Tarver’s co-star Heléne Yorke, who hasn’t dabbled in the world of improv and thus was intimidated by the names behind the show from the beginning.
“When I got the audition, I knew who Chris and Sarah were, and then I was told that I got past the first audition, which I was really surprised by because I think I went in as a fangirl for the first [audition], just thinking, ‘Gosh, I’m such a fan of ‘SNL.’ I’m such a fan of Chris and Sarah’s,’” York told TheWrap in the interview above. “You know, I’m not in that world. I didn’t take improv comedy when I first got to the city, because I couldn’t afford the classes.”
Yorke says she had “done a lot of theater and had done television in New York and also in Los Angeles.” But it was improve that she “always sort of thought of as a club or something.”
“And I think everybody is so cool and I feel like a little dork, sort of,” she said. “I showed up for my audition kind of like, ‘Hi!’ And then I didn’t know what to do, so I wore exactly the same outfit for the callback to do the chemistry read with Drew, because I was like, ‘I guess I should wear the same thing and I don’t know if this is right!’ And I met Drew and had looked him up and he had this whole UCB background and we were gonna improvise. And I met him and fell into something kind of natural and nice, which is so fortunate cause here we are today.”
“The Other Two” follows Cary (Tarver) and Brooke (Yorke), directionless millennial siblings who become semi-famous by extension when their 13-year-old brother (Case Walker) becomes an overnight YouTube sensation and their mother (Shannon) puts everything into taking his career to the top in NYC.
“What ended up happening over the course of the season was that we just became really big fans of one another and what the other person is great at,” Yorke said of working with Tarver. “And Drew is so agile and so funny coming from his improv background and I get a little bit more meticulous with lines. And he always made fun of me because I gave myself, like, 400 props in scenes. So if you rewind it back you can watch me carry a bunch of stuff throughout the course of the season. I’m always holding something.”
Yorke says at the end of the day, “coming from different worlds and finding out how they come together and meld” is what makes the show work.
“If you’re the kind of person that your brain is bent enough to know what makes people laugh, then hopefully you can make good TV together.”
Watch TheWrap’s full interview with Yorke above.