On April 25, 2019, Jamie Lee Curtis had a chance encounter with a limo driver that would ultimately become a new NBC sitcom called Newlyweds. (Because that’s what happens when you’re an Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor.) For Curtis, she was most struck by the possibility of love flourishing at any age. On Newlyweds, because of their ages, the new marriage comes with a set of kids from another marriage and an ex-wife, Claudia (played by Curtis), who never seems to go away. "Our hope is that we can bring back this feeling of this kind of wonderful experience of love and people of a certain age who are willing to stay curious and stay open and take a leap into something that they have no idea how it's going to [go] in the figuring out of how to do that," Daly said.
While this would be a funny idea for a sitcom in any era, there’s a reason why this idea is actually genius in this era. It used to be that the coveted age bracket for advertisers on TV was 18-49, but not so much anymore. With millennials and younger generations abandoning network TV for streaming, that age bracket has gotten older and older.
According to Nielsen, 65-year-old Americans now make up the median age of primetime TV viewers. And what Newlyweds does is show older Americans living full lives and yes, being sexual. "You turn on your TV on a Friday night at 8:30 and you see two people in their 60s and 70s who are doing it, who are involved, who are in love and you're seeing it literally come alive on your screen.
I think that's aspirational. I think it makes everybody, if you're in a relationship, it'll make you look at each other a little different. I think it's a very hopeful message for people.” Still, the cast believes the premise resonates far beyond their own demographic.
"The thing we keep saying is that it's not just for, you know, the alter kocker [Yiddish slang for old geezer], because we're hoping that young people can take something away from it as well, because so many young people now are so afraid of making mistakes," Daly said. "Yes, because if they do, it goes viral," Leoni added. "We've been saying, put down your phone and brush your teeth and go out there and meet some people, be face-to-face with other human beings and experience the miracle of this life, that we are existing, that we all know is short," Daly continued.
"Well, it's shorter for us,” Curtis joked. It already happened with Poppy [Leoni’s character’s daughter, played by Emma Meisel] on the show where she's the one going, 'Wait, you married a stranger?' Like it's anathema to her that that would happen. And yet, as you're saying, that example for young people to see that, in fact, yeah, and this is what happens from it, I think is a fun result.” For Curtis, beyond just discovering a great idea, she also wants to tap into something that’s rare today: the accessibility of the sitcom.
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