At this year’s Vulture Festival Los Angeles, Andrea Savage, creator of the TruTV comedy I’m Sorry, took the stage with co-star Tom Everett Scott and producer Joey Slamon to screen and talk about the show’s second season premiere. The show — about a comedy writer (Savage) living in Los Angeles and the misadventures she has while parenting, maintaining a marriage, and doing every little thing — is largely drawn from the real life experiences of Savage and members of its five-person writers room. So if you’ve ever watched and wondered how true to life some of Savage’s fictional relationships are, Everett, Slamon, and Scott herself each confirmed the answer is “very,†especially as it relates to her mother. “My favorite this is when Andrea’s mom, Sharon — real Sharon — comes to set, and it’s like this weird time vortex where you’re not sure which one is which,†Slamon said.
When real Sharon is around, she frequently ruins takes by laughing off camera, and renders the writers speechless with how similar she is to her fictionalized counterpart, played by Kathy Baker. “When my mom came to the writers room and I had been doing her all season, mimicking her and writing lines, she came in and just spewed out everything I had basically been saying,†said Savage. “And all the writers were just like [slack-jawed staring face]. She did not disappoint!†But what does real Sharon think of fake Sharon? “She did say to me the other day, ‘Oh, I hope people don’t think this is who I really am!’†Savage added. “And I said, ‘But it is!’ And she goes, ‘I know! But I just don’t want them to know it!’†We see you, Sharon, and thanks for the laughs.