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Page 2 April 6 - 12, 2015 Billy Crystal and Josh Gad team as 'The Comedians' By Jay Bobbin © Zap2it Billy Crystal and Josh Gad aren't really bitter ri- vals in comedy. They just play them on TV. In fact, the humor stars of different generations play themselves — but heightened versions — as FX debuts "The Come - dians" Thursday, April 9. Inspired by a Swedish program and including Larry Charles ("Seinfeld") among its executive pro - ducers, the series teams Crystal and Gad in a show-within-the-show, a comedy-variety vehicle that network executives insist on pairing them in. The only problem, and it's a huge one: The two see eye-to-eye on very little. Some of it has to do with age and experience, or in the fictionalized Gad's case, less of those. For instance, the veteran of "The Book of Mormon" eagerly recommends doing Broadway to an unamused Crystal ... who earned a Tony Award ear - lier for his one-man stage show "700 Sundays." That art-and-life line is crossed often by "The Comedians," which also regales in putting the duo in unlikely sketches, such as an "On the Town"-like strutting-sailors routine. "I was not looking to do anything at that time," re- calls "Soap" alum Crystal, who hasn't done series television regularly since his one season on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in the mid-1980s, "and I said, 'Well, Sweden. How could this be funny? It's dark at noon, and then they drink.' And then, (those) two comedians were so inspired. The show was so great. With- in five minutes, I said, 'I could do this show. I could like doing this show.' "And the reason why is because I get to play an extended version of my- self, which is great. I get to do live sketches in front of a live audience. I get to do these film pieces. I get to have crazy fun like that, and to work with incredi- ble people. At this point, it's like a blessing to have this show, because it re- inforces and reinvigorates everything that I started out doing and have loved to do my entire career." Also famous now as the voice of snowman Olaf in Disney's "Frozen," Gad has had some brief encounters with weekly TV ("1600 Penn," "Back to You"). He notes "The Comedians" is a much different situation in which "you're gonna take a hit. Your ego's gonna get bruised. And that's sort of the agreement we made going into it: Some of it is going to get ugly, for all the right reasons, and it's amazing to have a sparring partner like Billy because I inherently trust him. "This entire show is one big, giant trust exercise," Gad adds, "and sometimes as our characters, who happen to be named after ourselves, that separation is very thin. We have to say really, really danger- ous things to each other, and in those moments, you're scared and you're not quite sure that the person knows that it's the fake version of himself tell- ing the other person this. Then you go up to him after and you share a hug and you go, 'OK. We OK?' And usually, if Billy doesn't punch me, we're OK." One might not consider the story of 19th century ax murderess Lizzie Borden anything to laugh at, but it's the seriocomic treatment of the subject in the limited series "The Lizzie Borden Chronicles" that drew respected film actresses Christina Ricci and Clea DuVall into the fold. The hourlong eight-part series, which premieres Sunday, April 5, on Lifetime, presents a fictionalized look at the events and people surrounding Lizzie's (Ricci) life following her acquittal of the horrific murders of her father and stepmother in 1892. Now famous, Lizzie finds herself living the life of a celebrity, complete with scandalous love affairs. When several people close to her turn up dead in strange and brutal circumstances, suspicion falls on you-know-who. The series is a continuation of the 2014 Lifetime telepic "Lizzie Borden Took an Ax." "It's a very fun, kind of outrageous show," Ricci says of the new offering, "where you're rooting for two antiheroes the whole time and kind of delighting in the macabre. It's mostly macabre and kind of campy and fun. Above all, it's just supposed to be a really fun show." The most fun part in playing an unbalanced character such as Lizzie, according to Ricci, is that anything goes. "The only rules," she says, "are kind of the rules you establish for yourself and for the character because it's somebody who doesn't really adhere to the rules of society." "I think a lot of the character is based on the action, sort of," Ricci continues, "(which) imply who she is, really. Somebody who is able to take human life like this and actually derive pleasure from it is going to be a certain type of character. We definitely decided that she was sociopathic, that she either played at the emotions of a normal functioning person but that she probably didn't have them for herself." One who was on the receiving end of Lizzie's manipulations was sister Emma, whom the actress who portrays her, DuVall, describes as Lizzie's enabler. "In the very beginning," DuVall explains, "she really took a back seat to Lizzie and really just served as her caretaker. And as the story evolved, she starts to get her own life and evolve into her own person and really has the opportunity to branch out from just being Lizzie's sister. ... She develops relationships outside of Lizzie, which she never had before, and finally taking the steps toward creating her own life and getting married and cutting the cord." "She feels threatened," DuVall says of Lizzie, "and she feels scared because ultimately she is like a little girl who kind of learned to cope in not the best way." Christina Ricci (left) and Clea DuVall BY GEORGE DICKIE Lizzie Borden took an ax – and keeps on taking it in Lifetime series Josh Gad (left) and Billy Crystal star in "The Comedians," premiering Thursday on FX.

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