INTERVIEW: Leigh-Allyn Baker

If you haven’t heard of Disney Channel’s upcoming sitcom Good Luck Charlie, you either live in a tiny hole somewhere in Antarctica, or you don’t have elementary-aged kids at home. Probably the latter. The sitcom, which premiere’s on Disney Channel on April 4 (8:30 p.m. ET/PT) and on the Family Channel on April 5, is about how a family of tweens and teens face the challenges of helping to care for their newborn sister, Charlie, when mom and dad return to work.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Leigh-Allyn Baker, who plays mom Amy Duncan on the new series.

How did you become an actress?

Well, I always wanted to do that. I was one of those people that kind of always knew what they wanted to do. I started doing plays when I was really little at the community theatre in Kentucky and I continued doing them and I decided I wanted to go to a university that had an emphasis and get my BFA in theatre so I went to USC and stayed out here and just kind of wound up in television my Emphasis was Shakespeare, I went to Oxford University.

So was there any part of you, when you first got involved in television, that felt like you were betraying your theatre side?

I didn’t feel like I was betraying my theatre side... I felt like I was a sell-out.  Like, "Yeah, I am a major hack—wow." And then I got my first check and I was like “Whoa! [TV] makes  a lot more than theatre does.” I only hack for money.

I have two little girls who, when I told them I would be interviewing you, about fell over. They knew you from your stint on Hannah Montana.

Oh yeah! I was pregnant with Griffin.

And now how old is Griffin?

Griffin is 14 months old.

How are you doing juggling real-life parenting and play-life parenting?

You know it was really hard at first. It all kind of came down so fast that  I didn’t really know what hit me and I just kind of plugged through. But there were days when I would sit in my dressing room and cry. I took him to work with me quite a bit but it just wasn’t practical to have him there on shoot days. And we do have a set—we call her our set baby—we have Mia who plays Charlie, and so she and I are really close because if I couldn’t be loving on him, I’d be loving on her.

Did you have any guilt with that?

Yeah, I had a lot of guilt! I had a lot of guilt and I had a lot of like… Mia is the most beautiful baby you’ve ever laid your eyes on. Now granted, mine is too—he is beautiful, especially for a little boy. But when the cast goes on and on and ON about how great Mia is, I start to act like a little kid who gets her feelings hurt.

Of course!

You know, “My kid is really cute too! My kid is lovable, too! My kid makes an elephant noise! Or what a giraffe said—the giraffe says ‘chrt-chrt-chrt-‘ That’s what my kid does!!” (laughter) You know. I love Mia and I know her mom and I adore her as well. It’s all one big happy family, believe it or not.

Now that you’ve joined the pantheon of television moms, what does that feel like?

You know what? It’s kind of about time. I was a little young, I felt, to be playing this part. But Disney has been courting me for awhile to play a mom and I was always way too young at that point to be playing a mom. And I kind of feel like hey, you know what? When I’m done with this stint, I’ll actually be the age everyone thinks I am to be able to play the part. (laughs)

Throughout the course of this show do they have any scenes showing you in labor?

Yes.

Okay… did you do it realistically? Because you know how we real moms hate those scenes-- because we know what the pain of labor looks like.

And believe me, six months prior to that I did 33 ½ hours of drug-free labor with Pitocin. I know what labor’s all about.

So you put some realism in there…

I was just going for it and they were really buying it and then the note comes down, “Okay, I want you to contract on this line but by the time you say this line I want it to be over.” I looked at the producer and I said “A ten-second-really-hard contraction doesn’t come and go.” I was like, “Get out of my world! This is my part!”  (laughing) It was the first time I felt like saying to them all, “Let me do my job! You don’t know what you’re talking about here!”

And they had a real little newborn for me to cuddle…

Oh my gosh, it wasn’t one of those TV newborns that are actually like 8-months-old?

He was 2-weeks-old and he started getting a little hysterical and crying because whoever handed him to me had done a really bad job swaddling him. (hurriedly) And I just said, “STOP! I need FIVE SECONDS!” I laid him down, I swaddled him up—(mimics sounds of swaddling), I put him on my shoulder, shhh, and bounced him up and down a little bit… sound asleep. And then I had to hold him strategically for the rest of the scene because I had a major let down.

(laughter—she’s referring to breast milk, as she was a nursing mom at the time)

Of course you would! Now that’s a really good subject there—does that happen with Mia, where she cries and you’re like [suddenly ready to nurse]?

Yeah, because I breast fed Griffin for a year and it was more of like, “Okay guys I need a break.” Yeah, only one more scene.  “Okay guys, it’s been an hour, I really need a break.” Okay, just one more “GUYS! Uhm, I was a C cup at the beginning of this scene and now I’m like a double G. You have GOT to let me go pump.”

Everybody knew about it, you couldn’t hide it. Everybody’s like, “Leigh needs to go pump! Let her go!” And the all kids would stand up for me, “We’ll do my scene, Leigh needs to go feed Griffin.” Everybody pitched in to help.

How do you get along with the rest of your coworkers? I mean, you’re working with  a lot of kids. And they’re all lead actors in this, right?

You know, I thought it would be boring or I thought I would be dealing with a bunch of little hacks who don’t have any idea how good they’ve got it, but I couldn’t be working with a sweeter group of kids. I love them. I hope mine turns out to be as good as they are. I love Eric Kramer who plays my husband (Bob Duncan). We are all very tight, close, close friends, we are like a family.

It sounds like you feel supported in terms of your own motherhood… If your son is sick—you probably have a back up plan but, do you ever have to call in sick?

We had to learn that the hard way. There was a time when Griffin and I both got very sick. It was one of those things where I maybe would have gone into work, but there was no going into work. I said, “I’ve got to take my child to the doctor and I’m not coming in.” It’s interesting. It goes from, “I’ll do whatever you want” in this business to, “Wild horses couldn’t get me in there. I’ll be at the pediatrician’s office.”

So coffee: Best friend, or BEST FRIEND EVER? I’m assuming you have a caffeine addiction.

I’m drinking it right now. I didn’t drink it at all when I was pregnant. I didn’t drink it at all when I was nursing. And if you try shooting a series that works as hard as ours does, with no caffeine, while making milk… ohmygod I had no energy.

You were like a slug.

I was like a slug. You just go on adrenaline. And then I gotta be honest with you: Once I stopped breast feeding, I dropped 15 pounds, my baby weight came off, I was back on the sauce. (laughter) And I got my energy back. It really took it out of me.

So in terms of recommending this show to moms—absolutely?

Oh my gosh yes! Save yourself from the other shows and watch this one. (laughter) I’ve seen everything that’s out there on the kids networks. Yeah, you’ll like it. And moms come to this show and they’re like, “We think you’re great.” And I said, “Well, I am your demographic.”

It’s really good. I think there’s something in it for everybody. I think there’s something in it for the dads. I know there is. Eric Allan Kramer is a fantastic comedian; great actor… and you know what? You’ll like the relationship between the husband and wife. It’s very realistic. And it’s not just grouchy, it’s a couple who’s really in love with each other who also gets on each others' nerves.  It’s very realistic.