Reba McEntire gets her old sitcom band back together for another classic multi-cam comedy, which finds the country music queen playing a woman who inherits her late father’s bar – along with a half-sister she never even knew about
Reba McEntire is in a happy place — in more ways than one.
The country music icon’s acting career has endured, as evidenced by the ubiquitous repeats of her first sitcom, Reba. She hits many of the same notes — along with one of the same co-stars — as she returns to the genre in Happy’s Place.
Also continuing as a coach on season 26 of NBC’s The Voice, McEntire now plays sassy, strong-willed Bobbie, who gets multiple surprises as Happy’s Place begins. She learns that she has inherited her late father’s restaurant (which gives the program its title), and also that she has a partner in running it . . . Isabella, the half-sister she didn’t know she had (played by Belissa Escobedo, of the 2023 big-screen superhero hit Blue Beetle).
Their business views frequently differ, but any clashes are kept at bay by the joint’s staff: bartender Gabby (fellow Reba alum Melissa Peterman), cook Emmett (Rex Linn, who also worked with McEntire on crime drama Big Sky), waiter Takoda (Tokala Black Elk, Yellowstone) and accountant Steve (Pablo Castelblanco, Alaska Daily).
“We all said, ‘Yes, let’s go for it!’ ” McEntire recalls of embracing Happy’s Place when the idea was presented. “I love the sitcom genre. Out of all the things I get to do, this is my favourite, because it’s camaraderie. It’s fun. You just get to go to work and play, and it’s creative. It’s very comforting to me. I absolutely love it, and to get to work with these folks? That’s icing on the cake.”
A three-time Grammy winner and Kennedy Center Honors recipient, McEntire has brought along several former Reba executive producers — Kevin Abbott, Mindy Schultheis and Michael Hanel — and Reba herself is also an exec producer on Happy’s Place. Abbott’s wife, Julie, is also a producer, and even came up with the show’s concept.
Kevin Abbott, who is doing much of the writing for season one, is quite comfortable reteaming with McEntire. “I’ve worked with a lot of people,” he says, “and I have never worked with anybody who has such immense talent in so many areas and yet still keeps a spirit of humility and graciousness and gratitude [that] makes coming to work with her just a joy. It’s very easy for me to write for her, for whatever reason. I sync up very well with her attitudes and the way she looks at life.”
The same goes for co-star Peterman, who has kept a link to McEntire via the Lifetime movie The Hammer (2023) and the recurring roles they both had on CBS’s Young Sheldon. Also the host of the syndicated game show Person, Place or Thing, Peterman confirms of McEntire: “We’ve never really left each other. [Reba] ended, and we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve done other things together. I got to go on tour with her and open the show and do standup, and we vacation together. We hang out, and we just were waiting for another project so we could actually go to work together again.”
CSI: Miami vet Linn, meanwhile, is McEntire’s significant other off-camera, so he has multiple reasons to be glad to act opposite her again. He notes that The Hammer launched their professional collaborations: “Reba was 110 per cent behind getting me to be a part of it, so that was wonderful. Then, Big Sky came along, and she was talking to the producers on Zoom about her character. I just walked back in the background a couple of times — out of focus, which always happens — and then pretty soon, Reba wondered if her character had a husband. Anyway, that happened, too. And now I’m really glad to be a part of this.”
The setting of Happy’s Place gives McEntire room to perform as a singer, and as with both Reba and her 2012-’13 comedy Malibu Country, she’ll croon the show’s theme song. That’s one of the familiar aspects of her return to sitcoms, but she admits, “Everything has changed. When I first got on the set of Reba, I had just left New York doing Annie Get Your Gun, which was the very first play I had ever done. And then I got to L.A. and did the first sitcom that I’d ever gotten to do.”
“I would pull [Reba co-star] Chris Rich, who had done quite a few, into the kitchen set and I’d say, ‘What do they mean when they say this?’ I went through Acting 101, and thank God for Chris and other folks that were really nice to help me. What’s different for me now is I’m the old show dog, and I can help teach anybody who hasn’t done a sitcom what’s going on. The tables are turned a little bit. I’m so thrilled, grateful and thankful to get to do this.”
Happy’s Place premieres Friday, October 25 on CTV and NBC