On Review, Megan Stevenson’s A.J. Gibbs Plots Her Ascent

Megan Stevenson didn’t enjoy kicking Andy Daly in the groin.

She had to do it many more times than appeared in the final product—a recent episode of the Comedy Central series Review with Forrest MacNeil—because her spiky heels were cumbersome and she had trouble nailing the precise leg movement. Each jab at both Daly and his stuntman was more painful and challenging than the last. Plus, she likes Daly, she adds. She didn’t want to inflict pain upon him, even if her character secretly did.

“A.J. had a ton of fun, but Megan Stevenson was not a fan,” Stevenson recently told Paste.

But numerous groin kicks are among the unusual requirements for Stevenson’s role as A.J. Gibbs (which stands for “just A.J.,” Stevenson says) on Review, which wraps up its second season tomorrow night. Her co-star Daly plays the title character, who inflicts pain of all kinds on his family, his co-workers and innocent passersby alike as he embarks on a fervent quest to review life experiences for a TV show. A.J. is Forrest’s co-host, the Vanna White to his Pat Sajak, the Kelly Ripa to his Regis Philbin.

Or at least, she would be, if the character was written and played as a straight homage to that trope. But over two seasons, Stevenson has grown A.J. Gibbs into something more complex. A.J. appears increasingly driven by an ambition to take center stage, perhaps at Forrest’s expense, and she doesn’t hide her revulsion at the heinous acts Forrest commits in the name of his show. And yet, despite her obvious disapproval, A.J. doesn’t quit. Stevenson, who’s had guest appearances on 30 Rock and Suburgatory but few regular TV gigs, sympathizes.

“Even though I’ve never been a co-host in a TV show, I can just imagine it’s just so hard. On one hand you’re happy you have a job, but on the other hand of course you want to do more. You’re just sort of sitting there and waving off the person that gets to do all the fun.”

Developing much of the show was easy for Daly and his team because they were working from source material: the Australian sitcom Review with Myles Barlow. But that show didn’t feature an analogous sidekick character, so they had to make one up from scratch.
Daly said in an email that his team was looking to cast someone who would play A.J. as a frustrating and irritating thorn in Forrest’s side. Stevenson brought those qualities and something more.

“There was a classic Goldie Hahn quality there, sweet, silly, and she could sell the most ridiculous lines with total sincerity. But then this other element crept into the character. As Forrest’s behavior became more reckless and idiotic, AJ developed into this weird voice of reason and Megan really excels at that too. Watching her balance her professional on-camera function with her real feelings toward Forrest is so much fun,” Daly wrote.

At first, A.J.’s principal character trait was an almost manic bubbliness. But Stevenson said she and the Review team started noticing that the tone of her studio bits clashed with the segments “in the field.”

“When we came back for the second season, it really felt like it was clear who A.J. is and what she wants and there’s so much going on behind her. She’s even faking the role that she plays for Forrest because she really is the audience perspective.”

Stevenson also thinks A.J. has too much respect for Forrest to walk away.

“What I really believe is even though she has a very interesting relationship with Forrest, she obviously loves him as a friend and feels bad and is sort of protective of him and for him in a way. If they were backstage together, she would never tell him that…She needs to ground him in the show so that the audience doesn’t completely bail on him.”

And there’s always the possibility that A.J. is looking at her co-host gig as an opportunity for career advancement. Daly has said that he considered opening the second season with A.J. having taken over for Forrest, who seemed to quit the show at the end of the first season. That possibility never reached Stevenson’s ears, but she’s not surprised—an early draft of the first season finale ended with Forrest fleeing and A.J. taking over as host of Review.

“That would have been fun,” Stevenson said. “A.J. would love it.”

Although A.J.’s primary function in the show is to react to Forrest’s transgressions, Stevenson rarely gets to see how Forrest’s antics look before she reacts to them. The shooting schedule places all of the bits in the studio towards the end of production in a chunk of four or five days, which for this season fell the week before Christmas. A.J. only appears in the studio segments, so Stevenson isn’t on set until her parts are shooting, and she rarely gets a sneak peek at the footage of the reviews. Jeffrey Blitz, the show’s director, does his best to brief Stevenson on what A.J. is up against for each episode.

“Part of me would love to see a tiny little snippet of it and then go into the reaction,” she said. “But I’m always shocked at how, when I actually watch the show and I see my reaction afterwards, it does match it. He must be doing a very good job explaining.”

Her surroundings don’t necessarily help. Though Forrest and A.J.’s studio set looks glamorous on television, the effect doesn’t translate to real life, Stevenson said. The brightly lit soundstage is outfitted with a greenscreen, two small steps, an iPad and A.J.’s trusty stool—which, according to Stevenson, “might even be from IKEA” and isn’t particularly comfortable. The floors require regular Swiffering because of the shiny surfaces. But on TV, she admits, it all looks gorgeous.

“It feels very Price is Right,” she said. “It looks amazing onscreen, but when you’re there in real life, it looks really funny and slightly cheesy.”

If Stevenson knows anything about the prospects for a third season, she isn’t letting on. But she hopes it happens. Review has provided the best showcase of her career, and she doesn’t plan to let its success be her only achievement. She hopes to take some cues from Daly and eventually find a vehicle of her own.

“This has inspired me to start performing live improv much more and creating my own characters and finding my particular comedic voice so that I can go full force with that,” she said.

But, groin kicks aside, Stevenson said her experience with Review has only gotten more satisfying.

“I really went into it with absolutely no expectations. I had no idea what was going to happen, which I think, as an actor, you just have with things. You just have no idea. It’s always nice to be happily surprised.”

The second season finale of Review with Forrest MacNeil airs on Comedy Central on Thursday 10/1 at 10 PM / 9 C.

Mark Lieberman is a local news reporter in D.C. who’s written about entertainment for USA Today and the Washington Post. He also writes about pop culture on his blog and on Twitter @MarkALieberman.