The new CBS sitcom “Bad Teacher” may be based on a 2011 big-screen movie that grossed $100 million at the box office — but the show’s star, Ari Graynor, has never seen it.
“I just missed it when it first came out,” she tells The Post. “[But] when this show became a reality, I decided not to see it. Our show is very much its own story.”
Indeed, beyond a basic premise, “Bad Teacher” the movie and “Bad Teacher” the TV show have very little in common. In the film, Cameron Diaz starred as Elizabeth Halsey, a gold-digging middle-school teacher who cares more about smoking pot and saving up for a boob job than empowering young minds.
The CBS series, which premieres Thursday at 9:30 p.m., follows a less raunchy Meredith Davis as she gold-digs her way through the students’ dads. Granted, she too is not so big on empowering young minds.
“Meredith is just this delicious playground,” says Graynor. “Today there still are very few meaty female characters [like this] that are multifaceted and outrageous and funny and strong and have a real sense of vulnerability.”
Still, Graynor, 31, knows that she’s setting herself up to be compared to Diaz, one of Hollywood’s A-listers.
“I think I selectively forgot that that will be an obvious comparison,” says Graynor. “Cameron Diaz is an incredibly funny, charming, gorgeous woman, and we are just apples and oranges.”
Though Diaz and Graynor haven’t spoken about her taking on the legacy, Diaz has signed on as a producer.
“I would think that if she hated this idea, I would have heard about it by now,” says Graynor with a laugh.
Of course Graynor herself is no novice. She got her start with a gig on “The Sopranos” before shifting into supporting roles in broad comedic films like “The Sitter,” “What’s Your Number?” and “The Guilt Trip.” She also top-lined the phone-sex romp “For a Good Time, Call …” So heading back to TV wasn’t exactly at the top of her to-do list.
“When you do a series, it is potentially a very long commitment,” she explains. “As an actor, we all have commitment issues.”
Beyond that phobia, Graynor also feared taking on yet another funny lady, though she’s made a career playing them. But it was never her intent to just do comedies. Yet tackling the toe-the-line bitchiness of Meredith Davis? That she couldn’t pass up.
After all, she never got the chance to experience a “bad teacher” of her own. “I never had a fun bad teacher,” she says. “I was always hoping for that hot young male teacher or the teacher secretly smoking behind the school.”