Watching best friends on TV is totally different than witnessing them in real life. First of all, actors who play best friends on screen aren’t always besties off screen. I can safely say that Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair, who play BFFs Maggie and Emma on USA’s Playing House, are as close as two friends can get both on screen and off.
The two have made a habit of showing how much they mean to each other—something that will bleed over into their comedy series’ third season. Like Jessica, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in Sept. 2015, Emma will face the Big C with her friends by her side. “When I got diagnosed with breast cancer, Lennon showed up within minutes of me getting the call to the doctor’s office, and she didn’t leave my side for the entire year,” Jessica told reporters in a press call Friday. “And basically, my friends made a promise to me, which is that I would never be alone in this fight, not for one second. And that ended up being the truth.”
While Emma’s breast cancer battle will include funny moments mirroring Jessica’s own experiences (like how happy she was that she got to keep her nipples), the way her friends rallied around her will be a consistent theme for Emma, too. “It’s crazy because would I wish this on anybody? No. But at the same time, I got to see how beautiful my friends are. And I think that every woman has felt that from their friends,” Jessica said. “And I’m just so proud to be a woman. I’m proud to have a daughter. And I’m proud to know how amazingly kickass my friends are. And that’s what we show in the show. Exactly that.”
Lennon was on the front lines with Jessica throughout her fight, just as Maggie will be with Emma, and she reiterated her costar’s praise of the network of women who helped her through. “They all have superpowers…And everybody was bringing their superpower of joy or being able to access doctors and other opinions or just show up and take you to lunch. So I think that’s the village component that women have down,” Lennon said.
Emma and Maggie’s friendship will be changed by more than cancer in Season 3, but this development comes as much happier news: Mark and Emma are *finally* a couple! How will this affect Maggie and Emma’s dynamic? Answer: Not at all.
Once again, Jessica and Lennon drew inspiration from their own lives when deciding that Emma and Maggie’s significant others (yep, Maggie’s getting a boyfriend, too) will just have to accept the pair’s hyper-close bond. “In our real lives, Lennon and I are best friends, and we’re comedy wives. She’s my comedy wife,” Jessica explained. “And our husbands are also obviously super important to us. But our husbands just accept that—like, my husband calls Lennon his other wife. And so that’s what it is like for Mark and Emma and Maggie.”
“And I think in any true best friendship, the men of their lives understand that their friendship in a lot of ways comes first and they are, in some ways, along for the ride,” Jessica continued, laughing. “Once you find the guy that accepts that and supports it, then that’s a keeper in my book.”
While Maggie and Emma might be taking on challenges they haven’t tackled on screen before, Lennon and Jessica definitely know what they’re doing. Because these best friends are doin' it for themselves.
Watch Playing House Fridays at 11/10c on USA! Or binge the full season on USA’s site, the USA Now app or on demand.