Jeff Lipsky
Eric McCandless/ABC
Then, on May 28, replying to a tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser toPresident Barack Obama, Barr made a racist comment (which has since been deleted). The next day the fallout was immediate, with ABC denouncing Barr’s “repugnant” statement as “inconsistent with our values” and canceling the show. “I remember I was in my kitchen, and maybe my daughter or my wife told me,” Goodman recalls of first hearing about the tweet. “It just didn’t seem true. Then it got true. I was consciously trying to accept it. Just like, ‘Okay, this is happening, just breathe and go with it.’ Underneath I’m trying to get out of a plastic bag that is closing in on me, but I’m trying to be calm on the surface. I remember that contradiction.” Gilbert took the same approach when it came to processing the news. “I don’t remember too much,” she says. “It was more just, ‘Okay, what are we dealing with today?’ I was just kind of taking things one step at a time as they came.” In New York City, where she was performingThree Tall Womenon Broadway, Metcalf “was home, and I saw it on the news, actually,” she recalls. “And I [first] thought, ‘Oh, I wonder if we still have a show.’ Because of how heavy everything became.”
When shooting for the spinoff began in August, the cast searched for the best way to embrace their new world without Barr. “It was awkward but not awkward,” says Metcalf. “It was right but not right, wrong but not wrong. We were sort of looking at each other like, ‘How do you feel? How is everybody?’ Checking in.” The show, which will reportedly kill off Barr’s character, depicts the Conners adjusting and moving on together. It was a parallel that wasn’t lost on the actors. “Sara and I had this scene in the first show where we addressed the grief,” Metcalf recalls. “Sometimes when you’re an actor and you have to go to that place, you substitute something, but in this case there was no need to do that, because it was there. And it was real. And still makes me choke up, because that part of it’s been really hard.” All three felt strongly that they owed it to the show’s fans to allow them to process the absence of Barr’s character as well and were grateful to the writers for managing to do it with laughter.“Any sadness that we feel over what we’ve lost we’re hopefully channeling in an honest way into the show,” says Gilbert. “And our show has always been able to deal with heavy topics, particularly for a sitcom. It’s been kind of built into the mix.” While none of them have spoken with Barr since her tweet (both Gilbert and Metcalf say they have reached out but haven’t heard back), the comedian remained in the news for much of the summer (see box) even as her colleagues focused on getting back to work.
Now whenThe Connerspremieres on Oct. 16, viewers will find the Lanford, Ill., family dealing with loss in a manner befitting the original series. “We have to react to what’s missing, but everything else is pretty much the same,” Goodman says. For future story lines, Metcalf would love to see Jackie “at work” in her new profession as a life coach, and Gilbert hopes to delve more into newly divorced Darlene’s dating life. Dan, as always, says Goodman, “just wants to be left alone.” More than anything, the three of them are hopeful fans “can tell that we’re presenting this in as heartfelt a way as we can,” says Metcalf. They all nod in unison around the table and smile. “I hope they feel they’re on this journey with us,” adds Gilbert. “And we don’t want to let them down.”
source: people.com
