By Fred Topel
“[A show] called Sluts… was the first job I had.”
– Liz Meriwether
I fell in love with Liz Meriwether when she presented her new show, New Girl, to the Television Critics Association over the summer. I would have naturally had affection for anyone who created such a warm, quirky show, but freckles and glasses just completely did me in.
New Girl stars Zooey Deschanel as Jess, a woman who moves in with three male roommates after catching her live-in boyfriend cheating. As she starts to date again, she sings her own theme song to get through the heartbreaks, and dances in celebration a lot. The rough version of the pilot even had a title song set to a sequence of freeze frames where Deschanel posed in different adorable positions. Deschanel sings the theme, lending her musical talents to the show too.
So this innocent reaction to typical sitcom plot lines (wacky roommates, crazy dates) already endeared Meriwether to me. I ran into her later at the party Fox held for its new batch of shows at Gladstones in Malibu. Standing in the beach air at dusk, Meriwether was starstruck herself to see chef Gordon Ramsay at the same party. She was concerned she was not yet drunk enough to be an entertaining interview. Little did she know I was smitten by her natural charm, no drunken word vomit necessary.
Read our exclusive interview with Liz Meriwether on SuicideGirls.com.
