Joely Fisher (featured) stars in the Hallmark movie Cupid courtesy ©Hallmark Channel.
Joely Fisher stars in a Hallmark romantic comedy tonight about a career women in the middle of her life never having experienced romance.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, Eve Lovett (Fisher), is worried she will never find true love. But when a mysterious stranger named Vernon Gart (Jamie Kennedy) shows up on the set claiming to work for Cupid, Inc., Eve has no idea her love life is about to get an arrow right through the pump .
The real Joely Fisher is (romantically speaking) is quite different from her Eve character. Entertainment Heartbeat talked to Fisher about the stretch she made to play the Eve role.
“It’s fun to create a character like that because I’ve never been a girl like that, I was a serial monogamist even before I was married; I always had a boyfriend and I’m not really one of those date-ery kind of gals, thank god. I don’t know what I’d do in the world today if I were single because it’s crazy out there,” Fisher says. “…I tried to play this character as if it wasn’t as important (like), ‘oh my god, I’ve got to get married before I’m forty or I’ll die.’ It was, ‘I have what I need; I am successful…I have good friends’ or what-have-you, and that’s how I tried to play it, because I don’t believe that you are whole without a partner, I think you can be a whole person alone, it’s awful nice when you have a valentine.”
With Jamie Kennedy playing opposite Fisher, we were curious how two naturally hilarious people work together on the set. “I am taking credit for his show business career I have you know,” Fisher tells us. “He was hired to do a small part on Ellen years ago, and I looked at Ellen and she looked at me and we were like, ‘this guy is funny,’ and it’s the first thing he’d ever done and he got hired as a regular…and I always remind him that he has a career because of me, but he hasn’t sent me a dime though.”
The Hallmark makeup department had to work hard to make Fisher look frumpy for the role, with more than just thick glasses and matronly hair. By the end of the film we see the Eve character beyond the summer of her life looking more like the sleek, vivacious Fisher herself. Knowing that Fisher is also a trained dancer, we asked what her daily regimen might be but she surprises us saying that she never uses her home gym since her habit of seldom sitting down while running everywhere works just fine.
Fisher is also an accomplished Broadway musical star, but we haven’t seen her on the big stage in a while but we were encouraged to hear that she may be ready for 42nd Street soon enough. “I did Grease five years before and then I did Cabaret,and then I said it’s going to be five years, every five years I’ll do a Broadway show, so now it’s been ten and I’m ready, there’s not a big play on right now and I’m really pissed that I didn’t get the part in Smash (she laughs in a delightful way without having to say that she’s kidding)…you’ll see me back on the stage again for sure, for sure…and happy valentine’s day!”
Cupid premieres (tonight) Friday February 11 (8p.m. ET/PT, 7C) on the Hallmark Channel.