The actress shares how the sitcom will bid farewell to Jordan’s character Phil.
Fox
When Leslie Jordan passed away on October 24th, the world mourned the loss of the Emmy-winning actor and author. At the time, Jordan co-starred on Fox’s Call Me Kat, where he played Phil, a baker at a cat café in Louisville, KY. Following his death, the cast and crew took a brief hiatus before returning to film the conclusion of Jordan’s final episode. Actress Mayim Bialik, who heads the series as Kat, spoke to EW about how the series will bid farewell to Phil (Jordan’s character) this Thursday.
“He was a fabulous, fabulous person. And the ability to both celebrate him and honor him in a way that we hope is respectful was really our goal,” Bialik said.
While Jordan’s last physical episode, Call Me Fancy Puffenstuff, aired December 1st, Phil remains part of the series’ storyline. The January 5 episode will reveal Phil’s exit, with Bialik saying that filming the episode without Jordan was “very hard.”
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“For us, we’re still grieving. Grief is a full process, and I think there’s a level of authenticity that we feel we want to have as actors. And I’m grateful that Warner Brothers and Fox and Jim and Maria were able to let us have that. We’re humans and we lost our friend. We lost our little buddy,” she said.
Call Me Kat co-stars Cheyenne Jackson, Kyla Pratt, Julian Gant and Swoosie Kurtz. Vicki Lawrence, who worked alongside Jordan on Fox’s The Cool Kids, will guest star as Phil’s mother, Lurlene. Bialik shared that there were conversations about whom the role would go to and that working with Lawrence feels like “an act of love to [pay tribute to Leslie] together.”
Related: Leslie Jordan Remembered by Will & Grace Co-Stars: ‘My Heart Is Broken’
Immortalizing Leslie Jordan
NBC
While Bialik doesn’t disclose exactly how the series will say their goodbyes to their beloved castmate, we do know that this will not be a funeral episode. Instead, the series looks to immortalize Jordan:
“When it came to the episode that is essentially his tribute, the cast felt very strongly and completely unanimously that the thought of doing a funeral episode while we are actively grieving our friend — it felt like a hurdle we weren’t sure we all wanted to jump together. I think Leslie Jordan was known so much for being Leslie, and while we also love him and know him as Phil, he’s such a beloved personality, truly larger than life. To try to encapsulate that felt challenging in ways that I don’t know would’ve been healthy for us as a cast or a production. So, we found a way for him to live forever,” Bialik said.
Although Jordan’s career began in 1986 when he appeared on The Fall Guy, he is best known for his appearance on Will & Grace and for portraying multiple characters in the American Horror Story anthology. Jordan became an Instagram favorite during the Covid-19 pandemic, gaining over five million followers throughout 2020. In 2021, Jordan released his autobiography How Y’all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived. He starred in Call Me Kat until his death.
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