‘That ‘70s Show’ star Kurtwood Smith back as gruff Red: ‘Like coming home’
Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp are back as grouchy Red Forman and his spritely wife, Kitty, in “That ’90s Show,” the sequel series to “That ’70s Show,” which aired on Fox and launched Laura Prepon, Wilmer Valderrama, Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis into stardom.
“I loved doing ‘That ’70s Show’; we did eight seasons [1998-2006] and I wanted to do two more and make it an even 10 but everyone else was getting tired,” Smith, 79, told The Post. “I certainly understand the younger people [who] made their mark and wanted to move on, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love what they were doing.
“I was more than happy to come back,” he said. “[Red] is one of my all-time-favorite roles and I feel I borrowed so much from my stepdad. I’m not doing an impression of him but I sometimes say these lines and I can just hear his voice.” (And, yes, Red still wears his familiar flannel shirts — he has closet-full of them, in fact.)
“That ’90s Show,” premiering Jan. 19 on Netflix, opens in 1995: Red and Kitty still live in Point Place, Wisc., in the same house with its iconic basement, where much “That ’70s Show” unfolded. But, with everyone having moved away, it’s too quiet for them both (though Red would never admit that as he putters around his garden growing really small vegetables).
That all changes when married couple Eric (Grace) and Donna (Prepon), and their 14-year-old daughter, Leia (Callie Haverda), come to visit Red and Kitty for the July 4th weekend. Callie, who’s going through the “terrible teens,” soon strikes up a friendship Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide), who lives next door, and joins her group of friends: Nate (Maxwell Donovan), Jay (Mace Coronel), Ozzie (Reyn Doi) and Nikki (Sam Morelos). Before too long, they’re all hanging out in Red and Kitty’s familiar basement — setting the template for the series going forward. In addition to Grace and Prepon, Valderrama, Kutcher and Kunis will be recur throughout the season (and other original cast members, too).
“We wanted this to be a continuation of ‘That ’70s Show,'” Smith said. “Red and Kitty are grandparents and Donna and Eric’s daughter is having some difficulties at home, not serious difficulties, and boom, right away she meets a girl next door and they become pals and off we go and all of the sudden we’re back to the same sort of thing: a basement full of kids driving Red nuts — and Kitty’s just loving it.”
Smith, who is also an executive producer on “That ’90s Show” (as is Rupp), said that most of the set was rebuilt to replicate Red and Kitty’s house from “That ’70s Show.”
“When we closed the show [in 2006] there was no talk of, ‘Oh, maybe in 17 years we’ll bring it back,” he said. “There were some things that were kept from the original set. Debra Jo had probably three-quarters of what was in [Red and Kitty’s] kitchen in her house in Massachusetts and had to send it all back. Most of it is rebuilt but, boy, you can’t tell. I walked onto the set and it was like coming home.”
(This is not the first time since “That ’70s Show” that Smith and Rupp have worked together; they played husband-and-wife in a pilot for “The Nate Bargatze Show,” which was not picked up by ABC.)
Smith said that while Red is basically the same as he was in the original series, viewers will notice some subtle changes as Season 1 progresses.
“I think that Red thinks he was happier than he was in his retirement and the kids all gone, but he realizes, once it gets going, that [the circumstances] reinvigorates him,” he said. “He’s going to complain about it, of course — that’s the way he is — but we see how he reacts to some of the kids. He’s like, ‘Get out! Get out!’ but finally gives one of them his flannel shirts and says, ‘Ah, don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“He’s enjoying having these kids around.”
