Fire Your Agent: Becki Newton!

Time for another Fire Your Agent here at Remote Patrolled – where I take a talented star who’s frankly not getting the attention or roles they deserve…

Last time around I talked about Megan Mullally, and today’s choice has much in common with the former Will And Grace star.

Becki Newton also scored success playing a bitchy sidekick on a gay friendly comedy series – but in Becki’s case it was the ABC hit Ugly Betty. For four seasons Becki brought Mode receptionist Amanda Tanen to life, the wonderfully viper tongued mean girl who constantly plotted and schemed with her partner in crime Mark (Michael Urie). In a show of BIG characters, Becki more than held her home, scoring laughs with her terrific comedy timing, line delivery and facial expressions.

When Ugly Betty wrapped after 4 seasons in 2010, Becki was top of every casting director’s wish list and pretty much had the pick of every plum comedy role in town. And what did she end up doing… Love Bites!

Yep, you remember Love Bites, the miserable NBC flop that stayed on the shelf for almost a year before finally crawling onto our screens over the summer. Bites launched with just 2.64 million viewers before disappearing 8 weeks later with just 1.80 million people tuning in. Yep, you read those figures correctly. Less than 3 million viewers on a broadcast network. Shocking!

Okay to be fair Love Bites was a jinxed project from the get go, mired in behind the scenes changes – and the fact that Newton became pregnant during production (and yet was playing a virgin) didn’t exactly help! But the result was the same for Becki – her white-hot status pretty much cooled off. That’s TV for you…

Now it’s been announced that Newton will be joining the cast of How I Met Your Mother, playing a love interest to the womanizing Barney (Neil Patrick Harris). Becki’s character, Quinn, will be the ‘female Barney’ – doubtless giving Newton the chance to flex her comedic muscles even more. And How I Met Your Mother is a hit show that will undoubtedly give Becki some extra career juice. Plus she’ll be playing off the undisputed star of the show – and a major talent in his own right.
I just wish Newton was leading a show of her own – built around her own strong talents, rather than becoming a supporting player in an already established show. For me, Becki’s How I Met Your Mother move is somewhat of a step back from Ugly Betty (plus there’s the fact that I don’t think Mother is funny at all!)

I think it’s wise for Becki to stick to comedy for now – she can always branch off into more dramatic roles down the line – but I’m puzzled why the likes of Tim Allen and Whitney Cumming receive sitcoms built around them while a comedy powerhouse like Newton is stuck playing second banana. No matter how well Newton performs in her new CBS role she’ll never be the star of the show. Best case scenario is that Mother reignites her career heat and CBS offers her her own sitcom down the line. Just try and avoid working with the team behind How To Be A Gentleman!

So Becki – I say Fire Your Agent and post-Mother hold out for the roles you truly deserve. We’ve only seen a glimpse of what you can do as a talent – and I for one, want to see more.

Oh and by the way – you might want to give the same advice to your hottie husband Chris Diamantopoulos – have you seen that atrocious Three Stooges trailer! Boy oh boy does that one stink!