TV Alert: Kirstie Alley
2 min readFans of Kirstie Alley will see the actress on The Middle tonight in the Pam Freakin’ Staggs episode.
The Middle is a sitcom about an Indiana working class family headed by Frances “Frankie” Heck (Patricia Heaton), and her husband Mike (Neil Flynn).
Alley will be taking on the role of Pam Staggs, a former classmate of Frankie Heck. In this episode “Frankie is thrilled when Pam Staggs (Kirstie Alley) – the most popular girl in high school who wouldn’t give Frankie a second look back then – moves back to Orson and invites her to hang out. But Mike becomes concerned with Frankie when she and Pam begin partying every night and acting like rebellious teenagers.”
A “huge fan of the show,” Alley got the role after tweeting back and forth with Heaton one day. “…I don’t remember if she said ‘Do you want to be on the show?’ or I said, ‘I want to be on the show,” said Alley. “However, it happened, boom, it cut to ‘we want to write this script for you’ and I was like, ‘oh, all right.’ I saw it and it was hysterical, luckily, because sometimes they’re not. I felt very fortunate that it was awesome. I was excited to do it. I trusted the writing but I didn’t realize that they were going to write me, happily, as wild and insane as they wrote me, so I was thrilled.”
Alley also spoke about her most recent weight loss. She has lost fifty pounds and is again a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. “You know, I don’t know how the hell I get fat when I get fat, really,” she said. “I don’t know exactly but it’s more unreal, to me, to gain fifty pounds than to lose fifty pounds. I like being svelte. I feel much more athletic and I feel much more physical when I am. Some people just go ‘Screw it, I’m going to stay at whatever weight I am; I don’t really care’ but I really do [care] so it’s just, sort of, nonsense that I don’t.
Clearly, it’s easier to just eat like a pig, honestly. That’s probably the easier route. Just as it’s easier to lay on the couch and watch movies than to go work out, but I’ve realized…I’ve gotten a little more responsible – it’s a little late in life, but I’ve gotten a little more responsible in the area. I’ve learned some lessons. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, every second.”
The Middle will air tonight at 8 PM EST on ABC.