As the month of July gets underway, cats and kittens in shelters across the country may soon get a delightful summer surprise, thanks to an initiative by Purina Cat Chow and actress Busy Philipps.
Philipps has teamed up with Purina for a program aimed at helping feed shelter cats, with the hope it will help them in the adoption process as a whole. The success of the initiative will also allow shelters and rescue partners to reallocate funding from food needs to critical veterinary care.
Philipps, a self-proclaimed cat person and mother of two children with husband Marc Silverstein, is doing her part to help the cause, while also keeping up with her very active career in television and film.
She is perhaps best known for her roles in the short-lived but cult classic show Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000), the latter years of the iconic show Dawson’s Creek (2001-2003) and the hit film White Chicks (2004). Most recently she co-starred in the ABC turned TBS sitcom Cougar Town (2009-2015), alongside Courtney Cox. In the more than 10 years since she nabbed her first credit as Mindy in one episode of Saving Graces in 1999, Philipps has appeared in a plethora of other shows and movies spanning all variations of comedy and drama – including ER, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and thriller film The Gift (2015). She’ll next appear in HBO’s new comedy Vice Principals, due this month – and for which two seasons have already been filmed, despite shooting having begun just a year ago, in May 2015.
The actress took a some time to speak with TheCelebrityCafe.com about Vice Principals, her varied career and the Purina Cat Chow initiative.
TheCelebrityCafe.com: To start, what made you want to partner with Purina Cat Chow for this initiative and what’s it about?
Busy Philipps: We’re a huge cat family. I have two little girls, we love our cats. I partnered with Purina Cat Chow for their “Nutrition to Build Better Lives” initiative: the month of July, for every bag of Purina Cat Chow that’s purchased, Purina will donate one meal, up to five million meals, to Rescue Bank which is a nonprofit that provides food and other services to cats in shelters and other animal welfare organizations that are waiting to be adopted. It’s so important because when you think about – there are 3.4 million cats that go to shelters every year and only about half of those are adopted and so we want to give them good nutrition to start off their journey to hopefully being adopted and finding a forever home. I’m very big about “adopt, don’t shop.” There are plenty of cats and kittens that need homes out there – and for free. People can go to catchow.com for more information on how they can help, but also just that simple act of buying a bag of Purina Cat Chow for their own kitten or cat in the month of July will help a cat in a shelter.
TCC: Now, tell us about your upcoming role in Vice Principals.
BP: I’m super excited, I’m on a new show for HBO called Vice Principals. It starts airing July 17 at 10:30 p.m. It’s (actor) Danny McBride’s new show. Post Cougar Town, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I heard that Danny McBride had a new show with his Eastbound & Down collaborators Jody Hill and David Gordon Green. I kind of just said to my agents, I don’t even really care what the part is, I just want to work with those guys. I’m such a huge fan, I love their comedy, I think Danny is so funny, so I was excited to be a part of it. It really centers on Danny McBride’s character Neal Gamby, and his quest to become the principal at the high school that he works at. I play his ex-wife (Gale Liptrapp); we have a very contentious relationship as well as a 12-year-old daughter together. So we get to go head to head and spar a little bit and it’s a lot of fun.
TCC: Based on the trailer, it seems to be a very different style from Cougar Town. How would you compare the comedy tone of the two shows?
BP: Yes, I would say it’s definitely a different tone of comedy and I think that’s something I look for in my career is to mix it up. It just makes things more interesting for me to not play the same part or the same kind of character over and over again. People familiar with Danny McBride’s work in movies and on Eastbound know that he tends to be a little bit darker in his comedy and because it’s HBO you’re able to get away with a lot more than you would be on network television. [And] certainly the character that I’m playing is quite a departure from the role that people last saw me in on Cougar Town so that was a lot of fun for me to explore as an actor.
TCC: You’ve consistently appeared in movie or television roles every year for more than a decade. What’s the key to that particular kind of success?
BP: I think I just really try to find things that are different and that interest me and that are interesting to be a part of. And I think because I always try to mix it up, I’ve been able to work in so many different genres and do so many different things in my career, and I feel incredibly lucky. But also it’s been a career that has kept me interested as well, so I guess that’s probably my secret.
TCC: Is there some kind of platform or genre that you would like to do more of in the future?
BP: I love working in television and right now I’m actually developing my own TV show, so I’m excited to keep doing stuff like that, and maybe developing some more stuff for myself.
TCC: How do you feel about Cougar Town’s run and not returning to it this year?
BP: It’s great – any time you can be on a show for six years, you’ve really won the lottery. And I was very lucky that I jumped right into Vice Principals, and went to filming that a few months after we wrapped Cougar Town, so for me, the work transition was really easy and I’m excited for people to see Vice Principals on the 17th of July.