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Abigail Spencer and Donald Faison Reveal What Their Kids *Really* Think About Extended Family
What the Extended Family stars' children told them about the show left them with tears in their eyes.
Everybody's a critic, and that includes kids whose parents are actors in the hit NBC comedy Extended Family.
Ask Abigail Spencer and Donald Faison. They play Trey and Julia, who are newly and happily engaged in the show. Julia is amicably divorced from Jim (Jon Cryer) and they are co-parenting their two children — while living in the same home.There are hilarious hiccups along the way as everyone navigates the new family dynamics.
It also turns out that Extended Family has been a conversation starter for Spencer and Faison and their children.
Abigail Spencer and Donald Faison Reveal What Their Kids Think About Extended Family
Faison is a father of six who married wife CaCee Cobb in 2012. Together, they have two children, a 9-year-old son, Rocco, and a 7-year-old daughter, Wilder.
“My kids love it,” Faison jokingly told NBC Insider. “Because of that [8:30 p.m. time slot] they get to stay up a little bit later on Tuesdays to watch the show.”
Faison’s credits in his long career include Clueless and Scrubs. Besides the shared family time, “which is great,” he said, there’s been another sweet side effect of his children checking out Dad at work on the NBC sitcom.
“I’ve now become my son's favorite actor,” Faison said. “He was like, 'Dad, you are such a good actor.; I looked at my wife and I had tears in my eyes.”
The emotional punch was sort of short-lived.
RELATED: Yes, Extended Family Actually Has a Connection to the Very First Season of Law & Order
“’Cause right after that he told me, you know, I was ruining his life," he laughed.
Life is like a sitcom — and vice versa.
Spencer, who has a 15-year-old son, Roman, from her past marriage, relates to appreciating feedback from one’s kids, although he hasn't watched the new NBC comedy yet.
“I haven't been able to see [Extended Family] in real time just 'cause we've been traveling,” she told NBC Insider.
But she fondly recalled getting the ultimate compliment from Roman when they sat together and he watched her act in the 2016 NBC drama Timeless.
"Timeless was really the first thing I did that my son could watch. He’s watching the show and he’s like, ‘Mom, you are such a good actor … you're right here, but you’re different up there. I believe you.’ I got very emotional. I thought that was very sweet.”
One of the ingenious key building blocks of Extended Family is that Trey owns Jim’s favorite sports team: the Boston Celtics. It leads to some very funny predicaments.
Faison told NBC Insider that while he’s “a Knicks fan,” he doesn’t have to act too hard to get behind the Celtics.
“I have love for the Celtics,” he said. “When I was younger I used to wear a Celtics jersey because I liked the Celtics.”
“I liked Larry Bird, I like Robert Parish. I liked Kevin McHale, Dennis Johnson. All of them. I thought they were a really good team. So I used to wear this Larry Bird jersey all the time. Even though I was a Knick fan.”
But an encounter with filmmaker Spike Lee, a diehard New York Knicks fan, who was producing the movie Faison was in, New Jersey Drive, made him rethink his wardrobe.
“I ran up on him with the jersey on, the Larry Bird jersey. ‘Spike, I'm in one of your movies!’ And he goes, ‘Not with that jersey you aren't.’”
Faison “retired” the jersey and lost track of it, he said. “This was an actual Larry Bird practice jersey and I have no clue where it is!"
Watch the whole cast of Extended Family in action on Tuesdays at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Gomulka.
