‘Newlyweds’ Stars on Bringing Love & Laughter to Network TV

Meaghan DarwishWed, October 21, 2026 at 6:46 PM UTC

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Téa Leoni as Jeanie, Tim Daly as James, Jamie Lee Curtis as Claudia for 'Newlyweds' - Andrew Eccles / NBC

Everyone loves a good laugh, and there’s plenty to be found on NBC’s new comedy Newlyweds, which puts real-life married couple, Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, in the shoes of Jeanie and James.

While Jeanie is a free-spirited woman, James is a reserved professor, which makes for a dynamite combination when they meet at this key stage in life. “I heard this driver in New York mention that he had a new wife — a man in his sixties — and I was like, wait… that’s a sitcom about people in their sixties, early seventies who hook up and marry on a whim and what happens afterwards,” series co-creator and star Jamie Lee Curtis tells TV Insider.

And thus the idea for this series was born, but what is bringing Leoni, Daly, and Curtis all back to network comedy? “My favorite job I ever did was a sitcom back in the early ’90s,” Oscar-winner Curtis says, referring to her former series Anything But Love, which costarred the late Richard Lewis. “I’ve been wanting to do a sitcom my whole career,” she adds. “All I’ve ever said to my agents is, I want to do a sitcom, and they’ve not provided me one. So I had to provide one for myself.”

Nicole Weingart / NBC

Curtis plays James’s ex-wife, Claudia, who keeps him on his toes as he continues to fall in love with the unphased Jeanie. As for Leoni and Daly, who previously starred together in Madam Secretary, they are happy to embrace the joy that comes with a rom-com plot.

“When Tim and I did Madam Secretary together, that was a very interesting moment in our sort of political history. It was wonderful to be a source of inspiration for how things could be,” Leoni offers. As for her sitcom comeback, she says, “Lucille Ball is specifically why I’m here. It wasn’t The Brady Bunch, it was Lucy.”

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“The sitcom is an incredibly safe space, but we’re interacting, and it is so much fun,” Leoni continues, noting that she and Daly had wanted to reunite onscreen and get back into their comedy roots, with titles like Flying Blind, The Naked Truth, Wings, and most recently Leanne under their collective belts.

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“We’re both from comedy, and we wanted to make what the world needs [which is] some love and laughter right now.”

“It’s about people of a certain age who are willing to take a chance on love and to go into it blindly,” Daly adds. “And the thing that’s wonderful about sitcoms is there’s a certain kind of naivete to the characters where they believe so strongly in something that can be so ridiculous, and if you do it right, you bring the audience along with you.”

Audiences will certainly go along for a ride with James and Jeanie with a little help from their friends and family. Don’t miss it when Newlyweds premieres on NBC, and stay tuned for more coverage

Newlyweds, Series Premiere, Friday, October 23, 8:30/7:30c, NBC

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Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”