On The Four Seasons, Kerri Kenney-Silver Gets A Fresh Start

On vacation, “people are at their best and people are at their worst. I feel like there’s no real in-between,” Kerri Kenney-Silver tells Bustle.

It’s a truth brought to life on Kenney-Silver’s new show, The Four Seasons. Inspired by Alan Alda’s 1981 comedy of the same name, the Netflix comedy series follows three couples — all longtime friends — as they reunite for their customary quarterly trips, starting with a trip to Nick and Anne (Steve Carell and Kenney-Silver)’s lake house to celebrate their 25th anniversary. One small snag: Nick is preparing to leave an unwitting Anne. “All she wants to do is play this farm game on her iPad,” Nick laments to his buddies. “I look over her shoulder some nights... she’s really high on the leader board.”

While Nick moves on with someone new, Anne remains the beating heart of the show as she tries to rediscover herself. Newly single and keen to define herself outside of marriage and motherhood, “she’s literally and figuratively smashing all of those ideas, not knowing what’s going to be on the other side of that,” Kenney-Silver says. “What do I like? Who am I? What are my interests? She hasn’t been just a singular person on the planet for decades and decades.”

Simply getting to audition for the down-to-earth Anne was a win, says Kenney-Silver, who’s received five Emmy nominations for co-creating and starring in Reno 911, and is known for playing zany parts. “The opportunity to get to do something that’s such a realized, full human being was a dream. And to get to work with Tina... [it’s] unimaginable for me,” she says.

Even when her character was going through it, Kenney-Silver was having the time of her life on set. “This really was like crawling into a hammock with a bunch of people that you just feel like, ‘Wait, where have you been all this time?’” Kenney-Silver, 55, tells Bustle about bonding with her co-stars, including Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Marco Calvani, and Tina Fey (who co-created the series with Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield).

Between group boat trips, playing around on the resort water slide, and enjoying dinner every evening, filming The Four Seasons was kind of like a vacation — and not the messy kind. “At this point in everyone’s career, most of us in our mid-50s, nobody was there to prove anything,” Kenney-Silver says. “No one was hoping to get the monologue or the moment. It truly felt like we weren’t doing work. It felt like it was the celebration after the work, if that makes sense.”

Below, Kenney-Silver breaks down Anne’s year of transformation, a behind-the-scenes gift, and the show’s shocking twist. Spoilers ahead!

What is your take on Anne when we first meet her in the show? I, for one, will defend her FarmVille habit forever.

Thank you. I realized I have a bit of a habit regarding the iPad as well, which I honestly have curbed a bit since I’ve been home. Because I’m happily married 20 years, all of a sudden, I got home and picked up my iPad and thought: “Oh no, is this heading to a disastrous end?” And it is not.

But when we meet Anne, she believes her bed has been made, and it is comfy and safe, and isn’t going anywhere. She and her husband have raised a beautiful daughter. And she has this marriage of 25 years that has had its ups and downs. She believes they’ve made it through the toughest parts. And very quickly, we realize that is not the case.

Can you tell me about your special connection to Alan Alda, who makes a cameo in the show?

Alan and I met on the set of a movie called Wanderlust, and we stayed in touch. His emails are like letters, and they’re actually somehow hand-signed as well. I would go into the city and see him in a play, and we would write to each other. So when this came up, I couldn’t believe it. It just felt like a beautiful bow to me. And getting to work with him again? I mean, he’s the GOAT.

What do you imagine for Anne’s journey if the show gets a second season?

I couldn’t even dare to dream what the story would be — because I know whatever I would dream, Tracey, Tina, Lang, and the writers would come up with something way better. With every script, I was blown away. I also couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get to play an arc like that. I honestly thought I was going to die in the first or second episode.

What made you think that?

I don’t know. I really couldn’t believe that they wanted me for this whole run. So I kept thinking, “Well, don’t get too excited.”

So after the relief that your character didn’t die... what was it like realizing that Steve’s would? Were you warned?

No, we were not. What a bold but beautiful way to have these characters fall off a cliff of pain all together! It’s brilliant storytelling. Steve was devastated. We were in the middle of filming, and he had been quiet for a couple of days. There were gifts in our trailers — cameras. I said to Steve, “Thank you so much for the camera. What an incredible, thoughtful gift.” And he said, “I’ve been so sad about my character dying — about if we come back, [me] not being here. And I just wanted you guys to take pictures and send them to me.”

That is so sweet!

I know. He’s who you think he is.

Upon receiving your first Emmy nomination, you said, “I’m 50 years old and I’m a woman in Hollywood. That equation doesn’t add up, and I’m glad that it’s starting to.” Can you speak to that equation and how you’ve experienced change in your career as a woman in comedy?

Since I turned 50, I’ve had five Emmy nominations. One would be a miracle to me, but I’ve had five. I appreciate it so much. If I may be sappy, my hope is that I am in — to use a Four Seasons analogy — the spring of my career. Like Anne, my son is now finishing his freshman year of college. My husband [cinematographer Steven Silver] is happily working on his shows. I feel all of a sudden, a confidence and an independence. To be given this opportunity, it makes me feel like, “Well, what are the other possibilities that I never dreamed a woman my age could experience?” It brings up so much, and it’s all positive.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.