Busy Philipps Moved to New York After Getting Offered the Role of a Lifetime
Dec. 17 2020, Updated 12:52 p.m. ET
It seemed like for a hot minute, actress and TV personality Busy Philipps was everywhere. She was gaining popularity on Instagram, released her 2018 memoir This Will Only Hurt a Little and Busy Tonight, and had a late-night talk show that she hosted on E! the same year.
And with just the swiftness that she came onto the scene, it seemed she disappeared that much quicker. Busy Tonight was canceled after just one season. However, this didn’t stop Busy. In August 2020, she launched Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best, a weekly podcast she hosts alongside her former Busy Tonight colleagues Caissie St. Onge and Shantira Jackson.
More curveballs came for Busy including an unexpected move from Los Angeles to New York City with her husband, screenwriter Marc Silverstein, and their daughters, Birdie and Cricket. So, why did Busy and her family make the move to New York? She was actually offered a huge opportunity.
Busy was feeling physically ill while living in L.A.
Busy opened up about her love/hate relationship with the city of Los Angeles to Shondaland. According to the outlet, she was suffering headaches, a cough, chronic sinus infections, lung pain, acid reflux, and IBS.
“I don’t know one f--king person in Los Angeles who doesn’t have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It’s why we all give up gluten and wheat, but maybe it’s the toxicity of the city. I don’t know, just a theory,” she joked to Shondaland. “When the fires started again this year I just had this real lightning bolt moment where I turned to Marc and said, ‘We have to leave. We have to go to clean air.’”
A family trip to New York City ended up as a full-blown move.
Busy, Marc, and their children initially planned to go to New York City for just three weeks. However, once they were in New York, things began to make sense for Busy and her family. After their first night, Busy said that she no longer felt sick.
Things then got even better. After spending two weeks in NYC, she received a call from Tina Fey with an offer for an acting role in Tina’s new Peacock show. Tina wanted her to play an ex-member of a ‘90s girl group alongside Sara Bareilles and Renée Elise Goldsberry of Hamilton in the upcoming Peacock sitcom Girls5eva.
“Tina Fey called me and said, ‘Hey, we have this show. We always thought of you for this part but because of Covid, and your kids are in school, and you live in LA, we wouldn't have offered it to you,'" she explained.
"'But you're in New York. Do you guys want to stay for the next five or six months and do this show? It's about a '90s girl group that tries to stage a comeback in their 40s, and Sara Bareilles and Renée Elise Goldsberry are already in it,’ and I was standing on the street in New York at 8:30 at night having an out of body experience,” she told Shondaland.
Busy is coming out of acting retirement to star in ‘Girls5Eva.’
The Tina Fey-produced show was something that Busy just couldn’t turn down. Per the comedy’s description, “They may be grown women balancing spouses, kids, jobs, debt, aging parents, and shoulder pain, but can’t they also be Girls5eva?”
Busy Philipps will star as Summer, “the most bubbly, but least talented member of the group, who is now a Real Housewives reject in yoga pants living in a New Jersey McMansion.”
