‘The Comeback’s Julian Stern On Working With Mom Lisa Kudrow

SPOILERS: This post contains details about The Comeback, Season 3 episode ‘Valerie Does It All’

Longtime fans of The Comeback might be surprised to learn that one guest star on this week’s episode is the real-life son of star Lisa Kudrow.

Julian Stern, who appears in the episode ‘Valerie Does It All’ as AI trainer Evan, told Deadline it was a “genuine dream come true” working with his mother on the HBO mockumentary series, which is currently in its third and final season.

“I was really nervous going in, cause I’ve never worked with my mom professionally like that before,” admitted Stern. “And to be on camera with her, it’s like, ‘Oh God, am I gonna mess this up because I’m only gonna be able to see my mom?’ But my mom, she’s a great actress. And when I’m talking with my mom, I’m talking with my mom. When I’m talking with Valerie Cherish, different person, and it was really easy to slip into just, ‘Oh yeah, this is a different person, this is a complete stranger.’”

As Valerie Cherish navigates making a sitcom written by AI, this week’s episode sees all hell break loose amid a technical malfunction. But the actress finds an unexpected form of help in Evan, a former striving TV writer who quit and went into AI, as it provided a more promising career path.

“I don’t wanna be too altruistic, but I think he’s kind of the hope that it’s not fully done,” he explained of his character. “In the first season of The Comeback, writers thought TV was over and no one’s gonna go to the movies anymore because reality TV was the most popular thing that was happening in the early 2000s. And then in 2014, everyone saw younger audiences going to the internet and thought, ‘Well, that’s it for TV, that’s it for movies, we’re done.’”

Stern added, “I think it’s the same thing with AI. Yes, Hollywood is gonna lose some of their audience, but they’re not gonna lose everyone, and I think Evan is showcasing that people are still gonna work in the industry and people are still going to come back to watch TV shows. It’s just gonna be integrated in a weirder way than we’ve never seen before.”

Read on about Julian Stern’s experience working on The Comeback with his mother Lisa Kudrow, and what’s in store for his character Evan.

DEADLINE: I really love how pivotal and hopeful your role is, just the idea that human ingenuity still exists in the age of AI. What did you make of it, given the growing presence of AI in Hollywood right now? 

JULIAN STERN: Well first, I thought of the role as just a perfect opportunity for me to play an introverted, nerdy, geeky guy, who’s working with a bunch of extroverts, ’cause that’s kind of what my life is usually. But when it came to AI, it was kind of like, yeah, AI is more of a tool than a replacement. That’s kind of how I saw it, that it can do these amazing things, it’s very quick, it can be efficient, but you need someone to actually manage it. And I think that’s the core essential to AI, is that it’s not able to replace a worker fully and it still has to be managed by a human being. 

DEADLINE: Can you tell me about how Evan plays into the rest of the season? 

STERN: I think, for Evan, how he plays into the series and what happens later on and everything—I don’t wanna be too altruistic, but I think he’s kind of the hope that it’s not fully done. In the first season of The Comeback, writers thought TV was over and no one’s gonna go to the movies anymore because reality TV was the most popular thing that was happening in the early 2000s. And then in 2014, everyone saw younger audiences going to the internet and thought, “Well, that’s it for TV, that’s it for movies, we’re done.” I think it’s the same thing with AI. Yes, Hollywood is gonna lose some of their audience, but they’re not gonna lose everyone, and I think Evan is showcasing that people are still gonna work in the industry and people are still going to come back to watch TV shows. It’s just gonna be integrated in a weirder way than we’ve never seen before. 

DEADLINE: I also appreciated some of your physical comedy, how he’s expecting everyone to beat him up. Was it fun getting to play that kind of awkward, nerdy role, like you were saying? 

STERN: It unfortunately comes very natural. Cause I’m not that much of a confrontational guy to begin with. So, Michael Patrick King, who was the director for all the episodes, he would always tell me, “Hey, you can play it up more when you’re scared.” I’m like, “Really? It’s not coming off goofy on camera?” He’s like, “No, no, more goofy.” And I was like, “OK, cool. As long as I’m not looking too stupid or it looks fake.” But it was very natural, unfortunately, to just play very awkward, timid and frightened. 

DEADLINE: What was it like working with your mom? I know she’s playing a character, but it was really fun to watch you two together.

STERN: I was really nervous going in, cause I’ve never worked with my mom professionally like that before. And to be on camera with her, it’s like, “Oh God, am I gonna mess this up because I’m only gonna be able to see my mom?” But my mom, she’s a great actress. And when I’m talking with my mom, I’m talking with my mom. When I’m talking with Valerie Cherish, different person, and it was really easy to slip into just, “Oh yeah, this is a different person, this is a complete stranger.” And I just wanted to make sure that I was doing my job and making sure I’m not playing her son, I’m playing this guy, this nerdy guy. 

DEADLINE: What was it like kind of growing up with Valerie Cherish? 

STERN: Oh, that’s a good question. Well, I would say I didn’t grow up with Valerie Cherish, I grew up with my mom, and my mom is a completely separate character from Valerie. That is a character that she created. But I mean, look, I didn’t know the full extent of who my mom was until I was maybe in my late teens, and exactly what it meant to be her son. But beyond that, my only frame of reference is that it was a normal childhood. 

DEADLINE: Did you ever visit the set of The Comeback in the first two seasons? 

STERN: I think for the first season, I did. I did visit for the first time. I don’t truly recall much. I think I got to hold slate at one point. That’s my biggest memory that I have from the first season of The Comeback. 

DEADLINE: I also see that you’ve made some shorts over the past few years. Can you tell me about some of the stuff you’ve been working on and what’s next? 

STERN: Well, I made a short animated film called The Voiceless Man. It’s an animated horror short, and it was really fun. I actually met my girlfriend working on that, and now we’re living together, so It was a lot of fun. We’re actually now working on an internet series called Goblin Girlfriend. We just have internet shorts online, and we’re setting up a Twitch, basically to just do livestreams as our characters. For other projects, I’m mostly working on a book option with my writing partner, and we’re working to get that into a feature-length movie script that we can sell off or work on. That’d be pretty cool. I’m trying to do kind of everything ’cause at this point in the industry, you kind of have to. You gotta be a writer, gotta be an editor, gotta be a director, just gotta do it all and know the industry inside and out.