The third season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriendhas taken a dark turn, successfully working through the pains of mental illness while mining both humorous and heartwrenching moments. It's a balancing act that's difficult to get right, but The CW musical dramedy has done it.



At the heart of it all is Paula Proctor (Donna Lynne Champlin), the BFF and motherly figure to the show's main protagonist, Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom). Though she's had prominent storylines before, tonight's episode, the seventh of the season, puts her front and center. In "Getting Over Jeff," Paula brings Rebecca along as she goes back home to Buffalo, New York, to visit with her dad, played by comedian Eddie Pepitone, and see if there's any spark left to her childhood crush, i.e. her Josh Chan, Jeff Channington. (Tellingly, this is also the first episode of the series to not feature Josh's name in the title.)



With all of the major changes Rebecca and the rest of the Crazy Ex crew have been through this season, ET spoke with Champlin to dish on her big episode, how on earth she kept a straight face while singing "First Penis I Saw" -- because, yes, it's about exactly what you think it is, complete with a dance number full of phallic vegetable props -- and being the mama bear on set.

ET: Rebecca has been reliant on Paula for so long that "Getting Over Jeff" felt long overdue. I was heartbroken for Paula at first, but by the end of the episode, I was so happy for her.

Donna Lynne Champlin: That's the thing -- depending on who you are, you see her at the top of the episode as the victim or you see her as the perpetrator, as far as her family goes, and she's sort of reaping what she sowed. Especially women -- moms who are trying to hold down a job and a family, you do have that kind of feeling that you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. You're trying to be everything to everybody, and everyone still ends up pissed at you. And it's like, what the hell?



How on Earth did you keep a straight face while singing "First Penis I Saw"?

Where I just couldn't get it together was the first dance rehearsal. It's all a process. First I hear the song, and then I hear the lyrics, and then I laugh at that, and then you get used to the lyrics, and then you do dance rehearsal and you get ridiculous choreography. So, by the time you get to shooting, all the giggles are out, thank God, because we have so little time to shoot. It's ironically a very serious energy on set, even if you're doing a song with a cucumber in your hand singing about penises.



In reality, by the time we get to shooting, it is like being on an express train that's going 400 miles an hour. You have to jump on, hang on, get it done and don't f**k it up. With that song in particular, there were so many different sets: you've got the grocery store as is, then you've got the turntable and the mirror ball, then you've got the produce section, and then you've got them pulling out the produce and having that area as a dance stage. I'm not being overdramatic -- we had literally five minutes left, and we had not shot the dance break yet, which was in the cleared out produce area. The two other dancers were learning a really quick dance break, and I was learning it by watching them while I was standing still for makeup and hair, and then we had three minutes [left to film]. It's basically the three of us doing a dance break that we had just finalized, knowing we had one chance to do it, and they're playing the music and [choreographer Kathryn Burns] is screaming out from behind the camera what the next step is. It was absolute madness, but I have to say, the dance break kicked f**king ass. It was one of these amazing moments that I wish had been live theater, because I wish more people had witnessed it!

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