CCC 66 more.com | february 2014 BLIPP THIS PAGE to see—and hear—Cox behind the scenes of the More shoot. CC WELCOME TO TOWN IT’S A PLACECourteney WHERE DIVORCE CAN BE AMICABLE, WORK IS COLLABORATIVE AND FRIENDSHIPS ARE LIFELONG. HOW COURTENEY COX, THE INSPIRINGLY GROUNDED STAR OF COUGAR TOWN, CULTIVATES C CLOSENESS BOTH ONSCREEN AND OFF | BY MARGOT DOUGHERTY PHOTOGRAPHED BY SIMON EMMEtt STYLED BY JONNY LICHTENSTEIN seeming utterly relaxed as she or- “I think he got the idea that I’m not a ders a glass of Cabernet. pain in the ass and am actually fun to Cox is currently entertaining audi- work with.” Shortly thereafter, Law- ences on Cougar Town, the TBS sitcom rence invited Cox and Coquette, the she stars in, produces and occasion- production company she owns with ally directs. Her character, Jules, is her ex-husband, David Arquette, onto the leader of a pack of friends who live the Cougar Town bus. on a Florida cul-de-sac. She began the To create Jules, Lawrence spent show as the recently divorced mother time observing Cox, attending the of an 18-year-old, dating again after Sunday-night dinners she has hosted 20 years of marriage. Now, five sea- for friends and family for about 25 C sons in, Jules is married to her former years. “He was getting to know the neighbor and surrounded by hilari- weird parts of me that he could write ous, idiosyncratic sidekicks played about,” she says. “He said he came to by, among others, Busy Philipps and my house one time and I poured the Christa Miller, whose husband, Bill wineglass so full, he could barely walk COURTENEY COX makes an unexpected Lawrence, is the show’s cocreator. to the table.” So Jules is prone to drink- stop en route to her table at the Polo After the 2008 cancellation of Dirt, ing red wine from a goblet the size of Lounge in Beverly Hills. Dressed down the FX series in which Cox played a a child’s head. “Part of a comedy writ- in black jeans and a gray long-sleeve hard-bitten tabloid-magazine editor, er’s job is to write edgy, snarky people T-shirt, she’s nonetheless spotted by she was looking for another show to giving each other shit,” says Lawrence, Ca diner who jumps from his seat to of- produce as well as star in. “I’ve been do- who, with Miller, has become close fer his services as a branding agent— ing this too long and have too strong an friends with Cox. “But if you’re doing presumably promising to make her opinion not to be a producer,” she says. a show for Courteney, the characters more famous than she already is. Cox, She zeroed in on Lawrence, creator of have to inherently love and want to kill gracious, listens to the pitch, accepts Scrubs, a co creator of Spin City and a or die for each other. Mean and vindic- a business card and finally takes her writer on Friends. “I really wanted to tive don’t wear well on her.” seat. “ThatC was weird,” she says. work with him,” she says. “But I don’t But it’s probably not the most in- think he was that interested in the be- SHE WASN’T the kind of girl anyone pre- trusive moment the actress has ex- ginning.” He wasn’t. “Sometimes when dicted would be a TV star—or even an perienced. Having played Michael J. you work with a big-name actor or ac- actress, for that matter. “Out of all 21 Fox’s girlfriend on Family Ties, the tress, they become your boss in a way,” first cousins,” she says, “I was the one ; TAILOR: DAVID HERSHBERGER AT LARS NORD STUDIO; PRODUCER: TRICIA SHERMAN FOR BAUERFEIND PRODUCTIONS-WEST HERSHBERGER AT DAVID ; TAILOR: obsessively organized Monica on says Lawrence. “I liked Courteney, and who just sat with my grandmother CLM at Friends and the ambitious reporter I didn’t want to wreck our friendship.” and played with her elbow skin. I was in the Scream movies, Cox is unlikely Lawrence, who already had the idea really shy.” The youngest of four (after ERNIGAN to ever go unnoticed. The Alabama- for Cougar Town, asked Cox to do an her parents divorced and remarried, J born star, 49, has had decades to ab- arc on Scrubs, giving her a role as a she gained nine stepsiblings), she grew ULIET : J sorb the vagaries of fame and takes soulless chief of medicine who loses in- up in a suburb of Birmingham and was, STYLIST them in stride, arriving without an terest in patients when their insurance by her assessment, a good kid: “I was assistant, let alone a retinue, and runs out. “That went well,” says Cox. so open, I’d tell my mom everything. NAILING HOLLYWOOD; AT FOR SHESWAI DEBBIE LEAVITT HARLOR FOR LANCÔME; MANICURIST: SALLY MAKEUP: GENEVIEVE AT STARWORKSARTISTS.COM; HAIR: ADIR ABERGEL AT PROP 19871984 19871991–89 19931994 “DANCING IN THE FAMILY TIES ACE VENTURA: DARK” video “I’m reminded of PET DETECTIVE “I was petrified. how funny Michael “I went on location Brian de Palma J. Fox is. He could for the first time. and Bruce Spring- turn one joke into It felt like the steen had the flu. three separate beginning of me But that’s not why laughs just by his becoming my own I was scared. I liked pauses.” person. Jim Carrey Bruce, but I was was amazing.” more into Earth, Wind & Fire.” 68 more.com | february 2014 She’d say, ‘That’s too much informa- ‘Listen, you guys, I did a guest thing boyfriend and girlfriend?’ I thought, tion. I don’t want to know!’ But I didn’t on Seinfeld, and over there they all Really? It seems a little soon.” Maybe want to sneak. My whole thing is that help each other. They say, “Hey, try not: In 1999, between Scream 2 and 3, I don’t want to not tell the truth. So if this. It may be funnier.” So if you think they married. Cox, who has been can- I was going to smoke cigarettes, I did of anything that could make it fun- did about her miscarriages and in vi- : : it in front of her.” nier for me, let me know.’ This was so tro fertilization, gave birth to their LEFT Cox went to Mount Vernon College freeing.” And so began one of the most daughter, Coco, five years later. “She FROM to study architecture. “It was the only rabidly watched ensemble shows on has my eyebrows,” Cox says, “although , school I could get into—my mom’s television; its finale in 2004, at which I think David’s dad has them, too, kind page school,” she says with characteristic point the stars were making $1 million of arched. She has David’s color eyes THIS frankness. “Testing is not my forte. an episode, drew more than 52.5 mil- but my mouth. She’s got David’s feet— Those ACTs were a real bummer. But lion viewers. The cast—Matthew Perry little flat feet with cute Barney Rubble I love architecture and I love design. So (who will appear on Cougar Town this toes. She’s a good combination.” that’s what I thought I was going to do.” season), David Schwimmer and Matt Last May, Cox and Arquette, who The summer after her first year, she LeBlanc, along with Jennifer Anis- has been open about his alcoholism, went to New York to try to make some ton, Kudrow and Cox—was as tight off divorced. (He is now expecting a child money by modeling and wound up on camera as on. “There was nothing but with his girlfriend, Christina McLarty, the covers of Tiger Beat and Young Miss. “I thought, Well, this is great. I’ll go back to col- lege after I do this for a little bit,” she says. Instead, she got “I THINK SUccESS IS DEFINED BY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE commercials, including one for TO DO. IF YOU’rE HAPPY DOING IT, I THINK YOU’rE SUCCESSFUL. Tampax in which she became I’m dEFINITELY HAPPY DOING WHAT I’m dOING.” the first person to say “period” (in that context) in a TV ad. Brian de Palma cast her as the girl pulled from the crowd by Bruce goodwill,” says Kudrow. “There was an entertainment reporter.) Asked how Springsteen in his 1984 “Dancing in never any competition from anybody. they managed to stay friends, Cox the Dark” video. Family Ties and a And I really think Courteney set that pauses and her eyes fill. “Because we few movies—including Ace Ventura: tone of ‘We’re all in this together.’ ” love each other,” she says. “And when Pet Detective, opposite Jim Carrey— you love someone, you want them to led to Friends, the juggernaut that IT waS ON the set of 1996’s Scream that be happy, even if it’s not with you. You launched in 1994. Cox, inaugurating her recurring role can love somebody so much, but it’s not LEFT: WIREIMAGE; © PARAMOUNT TELEVISION/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION; © BUREAU L.A. COLLECTION/SYGMA/CORBIS. WIREIMAGE; © PARAMOUNT LEFT: When the sitcom was cast, “Courte- as Gale Weathers, met Arquette, who the life you should be living together. I FROM ney was the only one of us who was fa- played the goofy Deputy Dewey. “I had think David and I are supposed to be , mous,” remembers Lisa Kudrow, who such a crush on him,” she says.