Photo: Melanie Dunea
David Hyde Pierce knew it was a no-brainer when he agreed to take on his new role inHBO Max’sJulia.
In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, the Frasier alum, 63, opens up about the eight-episode limited series, based on the life of beloved chef Julia Child, and how he was instantly hooked after reading the script.
“I loved the writing,” says Pierce, who stars as Julia’s retired diplomat husband, Paul Child. “We have an incredible cast, a lot of stories, a lot of different levels of life.”
“There’s just a lot, and I think the writers have captured it again,” he adds.
Pierce, who says he felt “very lucky” to have been offered the role of Paul, believes viewers will enjoy getting to learn more about his character.
“Once I started delving into his life and what a complicated, interesting gnarly kind of guy he was, I thought, ‘This is really amazing,'” he recalls. “This is a guy who played the violin, he was a painter, he was a black belt in Judo and he was an absolutely exquisite furniture maker.”
“People who heard him talk thought maybe he might be English because he had this sort of elevated Boston accent,” he continues. “He knew wine and he knew food and he’d lived in Paris. He had restored stained glass windows in the tops of cathedrals. He had been a sailor on a sailing ship. It just goes on and on and on, this guy who also sublimated all of who he was when he saw that Julia was ascending and starting to have success. He, I would say willingly sublimated himself and supported her at a time when that wasn’t very common.”
He adds, “They were a loving couple, devoted until the end.”
Julia Child and husband, Paul Child.Lee Lockwood/Getty
Bebe Neuwirth, Fran Kranz, Fiona Glascott and Brittany Bradford also star in the upcoming series. Neuwirth plays culinary book editor Avis DeVoto, Kranz takes on the role of television producer Russ Morash, Glascott will play writer/editor Judith Jones and Bradford takes on the role of Alice Naman.
Chris Keyser, the showrunner and executive producer ofJulia, previously told PEOPLE of the biographical series: “Julia Child changed our attitude about food. She put public television on the map. She modeled the idea of a modern, independent woman. And yet all of that put together doesn’t quite explain why, 60 years later, we still can’t get her out of our heads.”
Keyser added, “That has something to do with our intuition that how she approached cooking is how we should approach all of life. It’s also how we tried to make this show — with joy, about joy.”
Todd Schulkin will also be a consulting producer on the series on behalf ofThe Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Art, the foundation that Child established in 1995 which provides grants to non-profit organizations.
As the name suggests, the grants primarily support gastronomy, the culinary arts and the development of the professional food world — all of which were important to Child during her lifetime.
Melanie Dunea
With Lancashire now stepping into the role, Pierce believes she was a perfect choice because she “embodied” all that Julia represented.
“Sarah embodied this character in a very personal way,” he explains. “It’s not a mimic, it’s not an imitation. She has found the essence of who this woman is. I don’t want to speak for her, but she must on some level, identified deeply with Julia. I know she deeply admires her.”
The first three episodes ofJuliaare now streaming on HBO Max.
source: people.com
