Thirteen years after the second season, Party Down returns for a third season.
The comeback was long overdue, after several failed revival projects (including a movie), until star Adam Scott, Ken Marino , Martin Starr , Jane Lynch , Megan Mullally and Ryan Hansen team up again in the workplace caterer comedy.
“I gave up hope about five years ago — before that I said it was going to happen, it was going to happen and then I gave up,” Marino told at the Los Angeles premiere of The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday night. “And then about three years later, I got an email saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this.’ So the moral of the story is to give up hope on things, and then maybe they’ll come back to you.”
Executive Producer Rob Thomas explained that when a new president took office, the show’s first The first time it was canceled to take over Starz, which was just starting to dabble in original programming at the time, “he just looked at the numbers we were doing and they weren’t good—the bad was actually kind, they were terrible. Then suddenly they had Spartacus first hit, so they decided to steer the net in that direction: lots of blood and breasts. We tried to give them some breasts, but we didn’t bring enough blood, our blood was zero ’”
In the years since, Party Down has gained a cult following due to its availability on streaming Or, when Jeffrey Hirsch took over as Starz president and CEO, he lamented the network’s cancellation of the show; Thomas said he called the executive the next day.
The only original cast member not returning is Lizzy Caplan, Thomas said “sad , because she couldn’t be on the show like we were, but once they approved it was like, ‘This is the window we think we can do, who’s in it? We’re really lucky to get as many actors as we do; Sadly Lizzy isn’t one of them,” due to scheduling conflicts.
EP John Enbom said they discussed whether they could do the show without Caplan, but they knew they couldn’t change the shooting schedule because Scott was going to shoot Severance and Lynch are getting ready to be Funny Girl. “It feels like Severance is going to be around for a while, so we’re lucky to have as many people as we do at this point, added Thomas (Scott wasn’t actually in the second season premiere Severance which is currently being filmed).
The party is over The third season also ushered in new faces, including Jennifer Garner, James Marsden, Zoe Cho and Tyrell Jackson Williams.
“Can you imagine anything funnier?” Garner said of joining the show. “I watched one episode of season one, then I watched all of them, then I watched season two, and then I went back and watched it all over again. I just wanted to be around these guys,” Marsden added, He’s also a fan of the first two seasons, and after being asked to play Garner’s other half, he quickly said yes: “You just want to be with certain people, and that’s the group.”
As to why the episode didn’t come as expected in the first place , Lynch mused, “About The Office and Parks and Rec time), although that’s later than us, and it’s a workplace with great actors Comedy. Probably because Starz is so new, maybe Starz doesn’t know how to handle it. I don’t think we get bad reviews, I don’t think we get reviews at all; I think People have seen it or something like that.”
” People weren’t ready. Now, she’s ready,” Hansen joked, returning after all these years, as Starr pointed out, “to have this following that’s built up now in its death Coming back from the show is a tough feat, and while we’re on the air, we must live up to it. At years later, I was a bit skeptical we’d be able to do it, but having watched five of the six episodes, I’m glad I did.”
Party Down Season 3 premieres Friday on Starz.
