Actor, writer, and producer Dan Bucatinsky remembers when he was in college at Vassar, and his drama-dance troupe staged a dance piece called “Lost Angels” on the steps of the chemistry building, where another future actor, Lisa Kudrow, was studying pre-med.
Now, decades later, the two longtime friends and collaborators are preparing for a third and final season of their cult-classic cringe comedy, The Comeback, where Kudrow stars as B-list actress Valerie Cherish and Bucatinsky plays her stressed-out publicist, Billy.
“Lisa remembers how annoying the music was of that dance troupe while she was trying to study,” Bucatinsky laughs. “That speaks volumes for how different we also are. But Lisa and I yin-yang a lot, where there’s a lot of things that we complement each other.”
Over the decades, they’ve become close friends (Bucatinsky is now 60; Kudrow is 62). They’ve raised families alongside each other and have worked on projects including Bucatinsky’s 2001 movie All Over the Guy, the series Web Therapy, the game show 25 Words or Less, and, of course, The Comeback.
“I am the luckiest guy on the planet. That’s all I have to tell you,” he says of his relationship with Kudrow, a gay icon also known for Friends and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. “I mean, first of all, Lisa’s a dear friend of mine. We have a sort of fabulous sibling relationship. We’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate on-screen many times and off-screen. I think she’s the smartest person in any room. I feel such a value from having been able to learn from her, be inspired by her, and see the way she operates as an actress. There’s nobody like her.”
Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky in HBO’s 'The Comeback'HBO Max
Bucatinsky has been drawn to projects about driven, complicated women his whole career, including on The Comeback (where he’s also an executive producer), on Hacks, where he plays the executive producer of Deborah Vance’s (Jean Smart) late-night show, and on Scandal, where he won an Emmy for playing gay journalist James Novak opposite Kerry Washington.
“Women are the best. Sorry. They’re the best, the smartest, the strongest, the most resilient,” he attests. “Come on. We have the most to learn from women, period.”
“I have nothing but positive things to say about the women I’ve gotten to act with on [these shows],” he says. “And I hope I get to keep doing that again and again and again.”
The upcoming third season of The Comeback is actually the show’s second comeback. The show was created by Kudrow and Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King in 2005, at the beginning of the reality TV boom, but was canceled after one season. It was brought back in 2014 in time for the premium cable takeover. Now, another decade later, as streaming and AI dominate, Valerie Cherish is ready for her return — to a transformed entertainment landscape.
“It gave us an opportunity to talk about the current threats to our business, to the actor, to television, to writing, to the form, to entertainment,” Bucatinsky says. “So 2026 — and I’m sure anybody will agree with me — is a time where there are many threats to our industry, from corporate giants, monopolization of platforms and networks to the threat of AI, which becomes an important theme in our season. It becomes the drive of our season.”
“It’s here. What does it mean? Is it a threat? Can we work with it?” he continues. “What is reality, anyway? What does it mean to work with something that is the conglomeration of all that came before it? And how do we then create a future if it’s only been created by the little pieces of the past?”
Bucatinsky behind the scenesHBO Max
The Comeback season 3 will explore not just how the industry has changed over the years between seasons but also how the characters’ lives have changed. In this third season, that means Valerie will be without her longtime best friend and hairdresser, Mickey, played by the brilliant Robert Michael Morris, who died in 2017.
Bucatinsky remembers what “an incredible gift” it was to work with Morris on the second season of The Comeback, when Morris was sick. While Morris wasn’t there in person this season, Bucatinsky says they “felt him on set with us a lot.”
“There’s an episode of this new final season, it’s just a beautiful tribute to Mickey in a way that I couldn’t ... I read the script a hundred times and always cry,” Bucatinsky says. “I saw the episode, and it is moving and respectful and perfect.”
The upcoming season also serves as a culmination of the “anger management issue clearly that is bubbling underneath the surface” of Bucatinsky’s character, Billy, since season 1 back in 2004, he says.
“There is an understandable jealousy and competition and low self-esteem and a desire to shine that we’re starting to see bubble under Billy in the first two seasons. And I had only hoped that that would come to fruition in season 3, and it does,” Bucatinsky says. “So just know this, that fans of Billy as a character, Billy gets to explore and explode all the things that were bubbling under the surface even 20 years ago.”
The Comeback’s third season starts in March, and meanwhile, Bucatinsky is working on several projects, including producing three films, one of which he’ll be in and another of which was written by his husband, Don Roos (Boys on the Side, Marley & Me).
Bucatisnky and Roos are raising their two children in Los Angeles and trying to take things “day by day” in these volatile political times. “My kids are the loves of my life,” Bucatinsky says. “They’re both adopted. They have gay dads. They have challenges that come with being teenagers and a 20-year-old in 2026. They’re wonderful and bighearted and are navigating adulthood now in a very difficult time.”
“I say just for today, just for today, my kids are safe. They’re happy, and they’re healthy, and we are going to find something joyful to do and say and support them today,” he concludes. “I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring, and there’s going to be challenges, but I can’t necessarily get ahead of any of it. Certainly not now. When we really, in a global way, don’t know what the future brings.”
The Comeback comes back March 22 to HBO Max.
This article is part of OUT's Mar-Apr 2026 print issue, which hits newsstands March 24. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News+, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.
