EXCLUSIVE: Ken Jenkins of "Scrubs" to Play Courteney Cox's Dad on "Cougar Town"
by Joel Keller
posted Sep 3rd 2010
Fans of "
Cougar Town" haven't seen much of the family of Courteney Cox's character of Jules Cobb, outside of her son Travis and always-there ex-husband Bobby.
But that will change during the show's second season, according to creator Bill Lawrence... and fans of "
Scrubs" will see a familiar face in the role.
"
I hired Ken Jenkins this morning to play Courteney's father," Lawrence told me earlier today. "
Because I only work with the same 20 actors, Joel, you know that."
"
To me what was fun was casting somebody that hopefully will be in the world too and poke his head around. He's such a great actor... the guy's funny as sin."
The character will be more like Jenkins than mean old Dr. Kelso is.
"
Ken's a Kentucky guy," said Lawrence, "
and we're playing Courteney's dad as a kind of a Southern good ol' boy, and Ken will actually get to play a little bit more of what he's actually like, rather than playing some weird f---in' psychotic doctor.
The guy's a great character actor, and he was a dramatic actor and a Broadway guy long before I met him."
In other "
Cougar" casting news, Lamarcus Tinker of "
Friday Night Lights" will play Kevin, the college roommate of Jules' son Travis (played by Dan Byrd).
"
Travis is going to TV college," Lawrence said, implying he'll be home a lot. "
If we keep him close, we can really quickly establish his dorm room as a set, and his roommate as a character which helps us broaden our horizons a little bit, and he can be home whenever he wants without explanation."
In one of the college-related plots, Bobby (played by Brian Van Horn) will visit Travis, start having a good time, and never leave, something that happened to Bill when an older cousin visited him when he was in college.
"
People can show up to see him and embarrass the s--t out of him whenever we want," he said.
http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/03/ke...d-cougar-town/