Question: How did the revival of THE COMEBACK come about?

Lisa Kudrow: The big moment was when HBO got Michael Patrick King and me over to their offices and said, “We thought it would be great if we did something with THE COMEBACK.” The next thing I remember is waiting for the car in valet parking and Michael and I were just staring at each other, almost about to cry, saying, “This doesn’t happen, this is fantastic. What just happened?” We’re so lucky we get to do more.

Question: What can we expect this time around?

Michael Patrick King: People now know that Valerie is pretty strong. She is relentless in how much she wants something. We really tried to tell a new story and reach for a big arc in these episodes. There will be a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns. But no matter how dark it gets, you will be led out into the light. I have no interest in leaving everybody in the woods or a haunted house, but it is really fun to be in a haunted house some times.

Question: How did you rediscover the character of Valerie after nine years?

Lisa Kudrow: That was in the writing. In the writing, I kept wondering, “Is this her? Is this her?” I had to realize that, like myself, she’s nine years older and everything’s nine years later. A lot’s changed. Things have happened. At first, she seemed a little crankier to me. Michael and I talked about her character and how she might have changed. But as we kept going, we did find that person who’s so optimistic, who spins everything into, “That’s ok, because …” And that’s Valerie.

Question: What challenges did you face in resurrecting Valerie Cherish?

Michael Patrick King: We really didn’t have to resurrect Valerie. Valerie was ready, she was active and raring to go. We did take time creating a world that we could put her in this time, since we didn’t want to repeat the DNA of the original season, which was Valerie and the birth of reality television.

We tried to decide, what is the current television landscape? What would be the heroin for our heroine? What would drag her through another evolution? We decided that a big part on a show on a serious network like HBO would be the catnip that would make her struggle to be recognized as a star.

We’re also trying to reflect what’s happening in TV now, which is much littler hits, six-episode commitments to shows with big mega-movie stars, series events rather than a big smash sitcom world where everybody’s trying to get on “Friends” or “Murphy Brown.” Television now is much darker – it’s more of a dramedy than a comedy situation.

We wanted to also reflect in a “meta” way the idea of us returning to HBO and Valerie actually being on HBO. We wanted to reflect the reality of what we were experiencing by coming back to HBO and what that would mean, which is uncensored, darker, more sophisticated television. We wanted to put her on a show that was completely out of her element, rather than in a sitcom, which is the only thing she had success in doing.

Question: What originally inspired THE COMEBACK?

Lisa Kudrow: A lot of things informed THE COMEBACK and Valerie Cherish, because at the time, reality TV was the next big thing that we saw taking over. We knew that networks and studios weren’t looking for as many scripted shows. They were shifting to reality shows. And all these reality stars would then become famous for a little bit, but after that, what was supposed to happen to them? It’s a weird thing, fame.

I think the important thing was not making Valerie a victim. Instead, she’s phony and self-serving and just trying to get back in the spotlight. It’s not for art. There’s not a ton of professional integrity about her. But she has some personal integrity when it comes to important things. The truth is, for just about every profession, at some point everyone’s asked themselves — maybe even every single day — “Do I really have to do this?” and realized, “I guess I have to if I want to keep my job,” or “I have to if I want that bigger prize over there, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.” So I think that was relatable and uncomfortable all at the same time.

Michael Patrick King: We were reflecting the reality of what was happening. We were seeing shows like SURVIVOR, with people eating bugs, and scripted shows were starting to take a hit. We had no idea that it was going to turn into a nine-year reality TV fast-food fest, which is what it is now. It’s everywhere. But at that time, we were reflecting exactly what was happening right in the moment.  And I guess the moment hadn’t been recorded yet, but the moment was happening. We were ahead of the times probably only because we were the only ones doing it right at the moment it was happening.  Everybody knew it was happening.

Question: How did the original version of THE COMEBACK come about?

Michael Patrick King: It was after I had finished SEX AND THE CITY and Lisa had just finished FRIENDS. We’d known each other over the years, but only seen each other occasionally at events. Neither of us had any interest in doing another television series right then.

But we had lunch and Lisa started doing this character she had in her mind, which is an actress character who’s very self-serving, very Valerie. Lisa’s hilarious doing it. And then I thought, “Yes, but you can’t just do a show about an actress. What would be interesting about an actress right now? She would probably be looking for work, probably on reality shows.”

Within three hours we had gone from, “Of course we’re not going to do television,” to, “This would be interesting.” And we left that lunch knowing that we had the idea of something called THE COMEBACK. We had always wanted to work together and this was a big way to work together.

Question: How did you come up with the idea for Paulie G.’s HBO series, SEEING RED?

Lisa Kudrow: It was crazy. First Michael thought, “Paulie G. is writing a show for HBO based on himself writing ‘Room and Board’ [the fictional show featured in the first run of THE COMEBACK]. What if Valerie auditions for it?” And I said, “What if Valerie gets it?” That just blew our heads off. We talked for a long time about the story, about the arc of the episodes.

There were certain things that we wanted to see happen. We wanted to look at Valerie and Mark’s relationship, and Jane, Mickey and Paulie G., where they start and end up. We also wanted to have a glimpse into Tyler, the nephew who says, “Okay, I’ll have a career in entertainment.” And then there’s Valerie, stumbling. I think it’s really important to see that she knows it’s happened, but always says, “Here’s why it’s ok.” But the stakes this time get bigger and bigger. It gets tougher to spin.

Question: Do you think Valerie has grown as a person since the first season? Or do you think she just believes she’s evolved?

Lisa Kudrow: I think they all believe they’ve evolved, even Paulie G. They’re all trying. They haven’t been tested yet, but “Seeing Red” is going to test everyone. Being on an HBO show is going to test them all. Everyone thinks their priorities are straight, although I’m not sure Valerie ever says her priorities have changed, so that’s pretty honest.

But everybody else believes they’ve evolved. Paulie feels, “I am the artist now and I’ve been through my struggles.” Jane has won her Oscar, but it doesn’t mean anything. Everyone’s been through their thing and, of course, it’s Valerie who tests everyone.

Michael Patrick King: I think she’s a very exciting character because even though she evolved a little bit in the first season, in the very last moment of the first season she forgot everything she learned. As soon as she was offered success on the Jay Leno show when the audience applauded her, she immediately went back to the heat-seeking missile that she is.

For the second coming of THE COMEBACK, we wanted to further explore what happens after somebody has a failure. Years later, they think they’ve evolved past that, but when they are put in a similar explosive situation you see how far they’ve really evolved. The eventual hope for us is to get Valerie to think less about the cameras and more about her life.

Question: So many of the original characters return, from Mark to Juna, Paulie G. to Mickey. Were you expecting that kind of response from the actors?

Lisa Kudrow: No, it was so thrilling. We were still writing the episodes when people started discovering that there was going to be more of THE COMEBACK. Initially we reached out to some people, and then we were hearing from others. We knew we wouldn’t be able to have them all in every episode, but we were hearing people say, “I want to be part of it.” So we moved our production schedules around, and they moved their immovable schedules around to make it work. It was great.

Question: The show developed a strong cult following and fan base that kept growing, even years after the show was off the air. Did that surprise you?

Lisa Kudrow: The thing that really surprised me and made me so happy, but also made all the sense in the world, was that younger people were loving the show. Younger people grew up with reality shows, so they had the “Real Housewives of Everywhere” already, they had people behaving really poorly on TV already. But when we first did the series, that was still new, and may have been too tough for people to take then. We really didn’t have a point of reference for a woman who would be so humiliated. Now they do it all the time.

Michael Patrick King: Our original goal was to do the best show we could do, to be truthful to what we were doing, which was a completely new thing. Over the years, we’ve been delighted by the fact that it just kept going. People have found it and liked it. So we’ve been delighted and surprised that it had a life past our first season – that was a great validation and a great treat for us. It’s a real honor to come back and it’s mostly because of the groundswell of support these last nine years.

Question: What has been the most satisfying thing about working on THE COMEBACK again so far?

Lisa Kudrow: Just getting to be Valerie again, because it is fun to be someone who just won’t accept the negative things. That is fun.