Jay Mohr Back To Flying High: Ready for CBS "Gary Unmarried"
By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Aug 26, 2008
Jay Mohr is flying high again, literally. He's overcome the anxiety attacks that plagued him since he was featured on "Saturday Night Live" in the '90s, and made him, among other things, unable to tolerate a plane flight. And he has elevated himself to a place he considers ideal professionally. His CBS "Gary Unmarried" sitcom that debuts September 24 has him playing a divorced man with two children.
Nikki Cox and Jay Mohr (Image: Wenn)
He considers the show, a "dream come true. I was an actor for a while, but I'm back to being funny. I'm a comic but it's been a long time since I could tell jokes before a TV audience. To walk into a scene, tell five jokes and walk out to applause, that's great for a comic from New Jersey."
Mohr gave up his berth on "Ghost Whisperer" because, he says, "There wouldn't have been time for it and 'Gary Unmarried,' too." And he dropped out of "The Last Comic Standing," that he created and executive-produced, because, "I was becoming further and further entrenched in the show and really wanted to do films and I didn't want to walk into movie auditions as that reality show guy. I did 'The Groomsmen' with Ed Burns and once I made the decision to walk away from 'Last Comic,' I landed this year's 'Street Kings' with Keanu Reeves. A pretty fair trade."
As far as the anxiety attacks, he continues to take the Klonopin medication that was first prescribed to him some 12 years ago, and with the help of his doctor, more fully understands the disorder.
His physician, he says, "told me that those with the biggest chance for anxiety problems are interns and actors, because we are taken out of very structured environments and thrown into unstructured environments. For me, 'Saturday Night Live' didn't have a lot of structure and that led to my attacks. With the doctor's help I was also made to see I should have no fear of flying, that it is the most structured environment in the world -- you are given a ticket, given a seat, told when to leave, when you will arrive. And so on. Now flying doesn't bother me at all."
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