Acting Legend Doris Roberts on "The 4 to 9ers" & Her Keys to Longevity

Hey guys, it's Tracy Barr in the Young Hollywood Studio and I am with the legendary Doris Roberts. You are legendary and it's an honor to have you sitting on our on our couch today.

Well, how's, well, thank you. I love the fact that I'm part of Young Hollywood. Now, I know it's not the age, it's the attitude. Well, I've got the attitude, I also have the old bones.

You know, if you're cool and you're relevant, then, you know, you're Young Hollywood. It doesn't matter what age you are. Absolutely. You're still doing so much. I mean, you've been in this business for, you know, numbers and numbers of years.

I've been around a long time. But I look good.

You look great. You look not not a day older than 25. Whatever. Yeah. So and I want to talk about, you know, your career because you've won five Emmys. I mean, you've been doing this for such a long time. What is your advice to Young Hollywood? You know, there's a lot of people who want to get into this business. What are what are some of your tips for longevity in the business?

I still go to class on Saturday mornings.

Really?

Yeah, I'm going to learn how to act finally. That's it. I got I I go to the Beverly Hills Playhouse every Saturday morning and have for 25 years. I continue I learn something new every single time. You can't close the brain. You can't stop that. You have to be open to it. And to be an actor, you have to explore.

So what are some of those, you know, things that you've learned every day? I mean, is there anybody that's been influential in giving you a lot of advice in your your life?

Oh, gosh. There's all kinds of, but it's it's the work itself. Right. It is the work itself and the excitement of it and being challenged by it. You can't let this go to sleep. Like you can't let your legs go to sleep. You don't use them, you're gonna lose them.

So and you know, The 49ers is a scripted comedy show. Yes. That's on Hulu and YouTube and it's produced by our friends Content and Company and Subway. And, you know, you're one of the stars of the show and you know, it's all about first. It's, you know, what is your first job out of college? How do you deal with first situations like roommates and, you know, things like that. What were some of your first moments that you could remember? Like what was one of your first jobs as as an actress?

First jobs as an actor was in a play with uh, Gloria Vanderbilt. Who unfortunately was not very good in it. And when she left the stage, I had one line of three that I said. I said it's flusies like her that raise hell with my rocket. And the audience went crazy. They hooted and hollered and stomped their feet and threw their arms up in the air. And that night at the opening night party, William Saroyan came to me. He said, Doris, I'm afraid we're gonna have to cut that line. I grabbed him by his lapel and I said, I only have three lines. Do you know what it took for me to get three lines? And he didn't cut it. So every night the audience went crazy for me.

Oh my gosh. And you were in Broadway or something. You were doing for how long was it? Like 20 years or something?

Yeah, 21 years on Broadway. Yeah.

And is that the first thing that you did when you first started acting?

First thing I did, yeah.

So you did Broadway, you did television, you did films.

Yeah. Except right now, this is one we did, which was wonderful. It's called The Little Rascals.

Oh, the film called The Little Rascals.

I played Grandma and The Little Rascals and it's charming.

So and The 49ers because you know, you're you play the mother of the sergeant Doyle, right? Who's the security guard cop of the mall.

Right, right. Mary Margaret Doyle. And my son is the uh, of He's the he's the police. He tries to exert his authority, but then he also has this really funny side to him also. We have we had a great time. We did a dance together. I loved that. We were jitterbugging out there and having a great.

She really has moves. I'm not even kidding.

I'm feeling hot tonight, Skiby. I feel like I'm going through the menopause, but in the other direction. Use that, Mom. Okay. Music. And the swim. Oh. Is that the bad touching they're always talking about? Disturbing. Is what it is. And yet I can't look away. Call place. I'm gonna give him a mouth concussion right about now. Woo.

I mean, she could probably dance better than I can. You did like a swim thing and you were doing this this whole thing going on.

All about my bumps and grinds.

So and you have a funny relationship sort of with your son. You guys, you know, you have this really hip attitude about you. So what were some of the funny moments? You know, how would you describe the relationship with with Doyle?

Well, she's a little she's a hot potato my my character.

She is. She is. And she kisses a young man and can't stop. She keeps kissing and kissing. I was gonna say you you kiss a lot of people in the show.

I and I can have it as a great experience, you see. I'm acting. I'm having a good time doing it.

You yeah, you kiss your your son, which was a funny moment where it looks like you don't really see, but then suddenly it looks like you're going to kiss him a little more and everyone's like, what's going on? And then you kiss the young guy. Come here. Oh, no. You don't really Okay. We're done. We're all done. No, we're not. Okay. Now we are. What was that like though behind the scenes? Did you have to rehearse that a lot? Was it just sort of natural?

No, we they just let us rip.

So and the series right now, you're you're on series um, three. Season three. Yeah. And it's The Day Crew. Right. So this is sort of a different take from the first two series which were about high school students, right? Right. So what is sort of

We got an older group.

An older group. And so you have to worry about other things like rent and who's going to sleep in the apartment and things like that. So what's sort of something that viewers, you know, can look forward to on the season?

It's actually all right now. It's on Hulu and on YouTube and you can binge view the entire all all episodes of the entire season. And it's wonderfully funny. And that's what we all need laughs. So watch it cuz it'll you'll enjoy it. You'll enjoy. You'll enjoy.

You will see you will see Doris do a lot of dancing, a lot of kissing. And it's definitely it's it's a good time. It's definitely worth sitting and binge viewing. Naughty Doris. Naughty Doris. Well, thank you so much for coming in and.

Thanks for inviting me.

The 49ers. Check it out.