Summary

During an interview with Collider, Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, and Jamie Lee Curtis discuss what it was like to play pickleball in front of a live audience.

The trio talks about working with legendary director Pamela Fryman and costume designer Michelle Cole.

The three also share the skills they’d like to learn.

Over a decade after they first met (and fell in love!) on political drama Madam Secretary, Téa Leoni and Tim Daly are reuniting once again — this time, for a more comedic project in the form of Newlyweds, where they play eccentric widow Jeanie and pragmatic divorcee James who marry after a whirlwind romance. Leoni is best known for projects in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, including Bad Boys, Jurassic Park III, and Family Man, the latter of which won her a Saturn Award, while Daly’s resume includes everything from the sitcom Wings to guest-starring in The Sopranos — a performance which earned him an Emmy nomination. Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the most prolific and acclaimed actors working today, with everything from classics like Halloween and True Lies to modern masterpieces like Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Bear under her belt. Curtis not only co-created Newlyweds but also stars as James’ overbearing yet fabulous ex-wife Claudia, who meddles in his new relationship whenever possible. Collider got the chance to speak to the trio about their work on the show. During the conversation, they discussed whether they’re more of a butterfly like Jeanie or a gopher like James, playing pickleball in front of a live studio audience, how working with legendary directors and costume designers elevates the show, and more.
The ‘Newlyweds’ Cast Talks Playing Pickleball in Front of a Live Studio Audience

“Somebody went to John Gardiner’s tennis ranch.”

Tim Daly and Tea Leoni in NewlywedsImage via NBC

COLLIDER: I feel like, after this show, I’m gonna start categorizing everyone into gophers versus butterflies, so I’m curious, which would each of you categorize yourself as and why? TÉA LEONI: I think I’m a gopher with butterfly wings. TIM DALY: I’m trying to combine them like a butterfer, gopherfly. Same thing. Yeah, both. LEONI: Little bit of both. JAMIE LEE CURTIS: And I’m butterfly — total butterfly. If I see a page with too many words on it, I say TLDR. I have big ideas. This show was born from a big idea. I’m the ideas person, but the fine print? I’m just like, “Yeah, too much information. Too many words. Too many words.” I want to talk about the pickleball scenes. I feel like pickleball is difficult enough as it is, let alone in front of a live studio audience. What was it like to shoot that? DALY: So much fun! It was really fun. CURTIS: Somebody got competitive. [Looks at Leoni] You! We’re pointing at you. DALY: Can you tell our pickleball story without offending anyone? The first time we tried? CURTIS: Please, tell it. LEONI: Yeah, you can tell it — just don’t name any names. DALY: Tell it. LEONI: No, you tell it. DALY: So, Téa and I were asked by some friends if we wanted to play pickleball, and they had, like, outfits, paddles where you unzip the thing. And we reached into this bucket of damp, wet, moldy paddles. The hardest part about pickleball is the rules, which I still can’t even describe. LEONI: Yeah, the score. CURTIS: The kitchen. DALY: But after a game and a half, we were kind of kicking their ass, and we felt a little guilty because they were so turbo about it. I can’t remember if we let them win. I don’t think so. So apparently, we have a little bit of an aptitude for pickleball — as does Jamie, by the way. CURTIS: Yeah, but somebody went to John Gardiner’s tennis ranch. LEONI: You went to John Gardiner’s?! Oh my god! CURTIS: Of course! It’s where I learned how to play bridge. They taught you how to play contract bridge at summer camp. Don’t even start with me. Anyway, I’m digressing.
The ‘Newlyweds’ Cast on Working With Director Pamela Fryman and Costume Designer Michelle Cole

“She’s really open to play.”

Tea Leoni and Emma Meisel in NewlywedsImage via NBC

The pilot of the show is obviously directed by the legendary Pamela Fryman. What is the biggest thing you took away from working with her? LEONI: Confidence. CURTIS: That’s a great answer. LEONI: You know, to have somebody that was so pure at the helm for a pilot, it’s really important. I don’t care how many years we’ve all been doing this — for me, stepping on that stage for the first time, and in five or six days, you’re going to be in front of a live audience… CURTIS: Creating characters — not just interpreting. LEONI: Creating characters. And you have 22 minutes to introduce an entire notion of the whole thing. And to have Pam, that was honestly, for me, my first big exhale in the process of coming on board. DALY: And she exudes a kind of gravitas. Not to get too heavy about it, but there are some directors, when they come and tell you to do something, you’re like, “Get out of here.” But if you said to Pam, “What if I do this?” And she would say, “No, that doesn’t work.” You’d be like, “Oh, okay.” I knew that she wasn’t saying it from any place other than, “I’ve got this. I know what this is.” LEONI: And we had both worked with Pam. DALY: No, I hadn’t. LEONI: [To Curtis] Had you? CURTIS: No. LEONI: Oh! Well, for me, I was working with Pam after a 36-year hiatus. She always had really great instincts. Always. So I heard her name, and I felt better. And now? My god. CURTIS: We got lucky. She’s very special. LEONI: She set the confidence for us to feel like we got this. DALY: We can play safely.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes
Which Iconic Romance Is Your Favorite?
Harry & Sally · Love & Basketball · Heated Rivalry · Titanic

Four great love stories, and four completely different ideas of what love actually is. One is a friendship that took twelve years to admit itself. One is two people who refuse to stop competing. One happens entirely behind closed doors. And one lasts five days and never stops mattering. Eight questions decide which one is really yours.

Harry & Sally(1989)

Love & Basketball(2000)

Heated Rivalry(HBO Max)

Titanic(1997)

FIND YOUR ROMANCE →

01
How does your love story start?
The first scene tells you what kind of story this is going to be.

AWe are friends for years before either of us says anything.
BWe want the same thing and neither of us backs down.
CNobody can know, including our closest friends.
DOne look across a room and everything changes.

NEXT QUESTION →

02
What do the two of you keep arguing about?
Every great romance has one fight it has over and over.

AWhether this is actually happening, and what to call it.
BWhose career comes first this year.
CWhether we will ever be honest about this in public.
DNothing small. When we fight, it is about everything.

NEXT QUESTION →

03
How do you show somebody that you love them?
Grand gestures are easy to write. This is the harder question.

AI remember every single thing they have told me.
BI show up to the things that matter to them.
CI keep their secrets like they are my own.
DI would give up something enormous for them.

NEXT QUESTION →

04
What is actually standing in the way?
There is always something. Which something tells you the genre.

ATiming. We keep finding each other at the wrong moment.
BAmbition. We both want big lives and they do not match.
CThe world. It is not safe to be open about this yet.
DEverybody around us has decided this cannot happen.

NEXT QUESTION →

05
Which romantic moment gets you every single time?
Be honest. There is one that works on you and you know which.

ASomebody running across a city to say it before midnight.
BSomebody in the stands who stayed until the very end.
CA look across a crowded room that nobody else catches.
DSomebody promising to hold on, and meaning it.

NEXT QUESTION →

06
What would you actually risk for the right person?
Every romance asks this. Most people find out far too late.

AA friendship I could never get back.
BThe plan I have had for my life since I was a kid.
CMy privacy. All of it would become public.
DEverything. I would not think about it for long.

NEXT QUESTION →

07
Where are the two of you in ten years?
Some love stories are about the meeting. Some are about the staying.

AStill talking. We have never run out of things to say.
BBuilding something together, both of us still ambitious.
CFinally open about it, after years of being careful.
DApart, and I still think about it constantly.

NEXT QUESTION →

08
Which of these sounds most like something you would say?
Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your romance.

AI would rather talk to you than anybody else, forever.
BI am not giving up either of us. We find a way to have both.
CThis is mine, and I am not explaining it to anyone.
DI would do the whole thing again, even knowing how it ends.

REVEAL MY ROMANCE →

Roll The Credits
Your Romance Is…
Four love stories, four completely different ideas of what it means to
be somebody’s person. This is the one that matches how you actually fall, and what it would ask of
you.

When Harry Met Sally · 1989

Harry & Sally
You do not fall for strangers. You fall for the person you have
already been talking to for years, which is the slowest and by some distance the most
durable way anybody has found to do this.

When Harry Met Sally made the case that the best romance is an argument you enjoy,
conducted over a decade, by two people refusing to admit what is happening.
You want to be known rather than swept away. Somebody who remembers your worst story is
doing better work than anybody arriving with flowers.
The film is unusually honest about timing. These two are wrong for each other repeatedly
until suddenly they are not, and neither of them engineered it.
You would still be talking about everything at eighty. That is the entire promise.

Love & Basketball · 2000

Love & Basketball
You want a partner, not an audience. Somebody who wants their own
life as badly as you want yours, and who would never ask you to be smaller to make the
relationship easier.

This is the rare romance where both people have a real career and the film takes both of
them equally seriously.
You would rather be pushed than protected. The right person for you is also a bit of a
rival, and that never entirely goes away.
It understands the actual problem in ambitious relationships. Not whether you love each
other, but whose turn it is this year.
You would still be competing at forty. That is how you would know it was working.

Heated Rivalry · Rachel Reid · HBO Max 2025

Heated Rivalry
The intensity was never the problem. The secrecy is. You are
drawn to a love that lives entirely in private, and to the particular ache of wanting
somebody you are not supposed to want.

Heated Rivalry runs on the oldest engine in romance: two people on opposite sides,
meeting in secret, getting far more attached than either of them planned.
You keep your private life genuinely private, and something in you finds hidden things
more real than public ones.
The tension is not only between the two of them. It is between what they have and what
it would cost either one to say it out loud.
Years of this, and the whole story is really about whether either of them will finally
stop hiding.

Titanic · 1997

Titanic
You do not do this cautiously. When it happens for you it is
immediate and total and it rearranges everything, and you would not accept a smaller version
of it.

Titanic gave us the biggest romance in film history and then made it last about five
days, which is precisely the point of it.
You measure love by intensity rather than duration. A few days of the real thing beats
decades of something merely comfortable.
The film is not only about the romance. It is about a woman who went on to live an
enormous life afterwards because of it.
You would still be telling this story at a hundred years old, and telling it exactly the
same way.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

It’s firing on all cylinders in front of the camera and behind it, which leads into my next question. I love the wardrobe on the show, and I feel like the outfits really tell you a lot about the characters. I’m curious if you collaborated at all with the costume designers and if you have a favorite outfit that you got to wear in this show. DALY: Lederhosen. I was like, “I’ve got to wear lederhosen. Let’s face it.” I’m kidding. CURTIS: We hired Michelle Cole, who I had heard about. And when I heard she was available, we talked about bringing her on. Obviously, Claudia was pretty simple — the only thing I said was, “She just wears black.” It just makes it easier because guess what? I just wear black, and I know I look good in it, so I don’t have to worry about it. But I have loved watching how she’s done the rest of the cast. It’s been thrilling to watch. LEONI: She’s amazing. She’s a legend in our industry, and a lot of the costume designers that I came up with, if you were in with Michelle — if Michelle gave you a nod about your wardrobe — that felt great. The other fun thing about it is that she’s really open to play. For me, with this character, I was kind of channeling a teacher that I had in the ‘70s and her style. So in my head, I almost unconsciously came in imagining that, first of all, she’s on a teacher’s budget, and Michelle completely embraced that. There was no “let’s stick her in Prada,” which was going to drive you nuts. CURTIS: That would be me. Definitely Claudia. LEONI: Jeannie has yet to wear anything new. CURTIS: There’s a lot of vintage. LEONI: There’s nothing new. CURTIS: It’s all vintage. LEONI: And that’s become sort of our thing — everything in her wardrobe is secondhand. And as a thrifter myself, I was really into that. That’s so cool. I hope we get some Halloween costumes or something. LEONI: Oh, there are some costumes in this show.

DALY: They’re coming!
The ‘Newlyweds’ Cast Reveals the Skills They’d Love to Learn

“Honestly, I would really love to be a pool shark.”

Jamie Lee Curtis and Tea Leoni in NewlywedsImage via NBC

I feel like Jeannie’s list of Things That Would Be Awesome to Know is so sweet. What is one thing on your own list of Things That Would Be Awesome to Know? CURTIS: Shorthand. LEONI: What? What do you mean, shorthand? CURTIS: Shorthand! I would love to be able to write in shorthand. It’s a job. People do that. Reporters. DALY: I thought about this, but when you said that, I just thought, be able to speak another language. Or American Sign Language, ASL. CURTIS: I would also like to know. LEONI: ASL would be great. I did three days of that. The first three days of COVID. Remember when we thought it was gonna be, like, two weeks? I cut bangs, and I started with ASL, and both were a flop for me. I gotta get back. Shorthand and another language… I mean, honestly, I would really love to be a pool shark. CURTIS: Okay! LEONI: I would so love to walk in and just rope a dope. I’d be like [giggles] and then just clean the table. I would like to do that. DALY: HI, nice to meet you — I’m Tim. [Shakes Leoni’s hand] LEONI: Hey. DALY: We’re still discovering things about each other. LEONI: Are you really good, though? DALY: No, I’m terrible. CURTIS: Should I leave? Let them start making out on national television? Newlyweds airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Release Date

October 23, 2026

Showrunner

Bruce Helford

Directors

Pamela Fryman

Writers

Jamie Lee Curtis, Gail Lerner

Cast

Ignacio Diaz-Silverio

Lolo