Entertainment

True Brits

Matt LeBlanc (left) and Stephen Mangan are two-thirds of a comedy trio. (
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As a veteran of British TV comedies, actress Tamsin Greig is used to working a certain way. So when the co-star of Showtime’s “Episodes,” which returns for its second season tonight at 10:30, came to America for six days of filming, she was stunned by the stark difference between television production in Hollywood and in the UK.

“There’s loads more food here. If you could see the food we don’t get on set [in the UK], you’d be amazed,” says Greig, 45. “Our so-called craft services is really an old tin can of hot water and some horrible freeze-dried crap that you reconstitute with hope. In America, I find it quite hard to work, because there’s always a pull back to the craft services table to see what else I could taste.”

Greig’s character, Beverly Lincoln, feels a similar culture shock.

In the show’s first season, we saw Beverly — the creator, with her husband Sean (British actor Stephen Mangan), of a highbrow British comedy about a prep school called “Lyman’s Boys” — fall numb as American television executives reinvented their show as a broad (and unfunny) comedy called “Pucks!” and replaced their lead with “Friends” star Matt LeBlanc, who was cast as a high school hockey coach. By season’s end, Beverly was distraught over the state of her show, and also ruined her marriage by sleeping with LeBlanc.

While the show was initially positioned as a vehicle for the “Friends” star, who won a real-life Golden Globe for playing this sleazier version of himself, Greig and Mangan emerged as thoroughly equal — and hilarious — co-stars.

Throughout this new season, which finds Beverly desperately trying to win Sean back, the pair display comedy chops through the awkwardness of the show’s romantic entanglements. Beverly’s first evening out with a man other than her husband becomes a riotous symphony of tics — she almost passes out while attempting to say the word “date” — while Mangan resorts to a devastatingly funny “Wallace & Gromit” face when his own nerves crumble.

“Episodes” is unique in that the show is a co-production between Showtime and the BBC, and airs in both the US and the UK. Given the American audience, Greig had to make some adjustments.

“I have to talk slower,” she says. “I’ve got quite a mouth on me and I do go at quite a speed, so I was encouraged to say things at a slower pace.”

But while certain changes were required, Greig was not alone in her status as a fish-out-of-water. She and Mangan have co-starred several times, including on a British hospital comedy called “Green Wing.” As such, they have a pre-existing chemistry that helped them overcome any feelings they have had as being outsiders among their American castmates.

“In ‘Green Wing,’ we were caught up in a kind of love triangle, so we had a bit of rehearsing in how to be in love,” she says. “That work had lots of time given to rehearsal and workshops, so we had shorthand about how each other works.”

“Episodes” features a kind of love triangle of its own between the pair and LeBlanc, with Greig joking that she and Mangan are possibly “destined to be in love triangles for the rest of our careers.” Luckily for them, LeBlanc’s experience on “Friends” meant that he’s also no stranger to this sort of ensemble work.

“Matt is so used to working in a team, and allowing people to have their space,” she says.

Greig lives in London with her husband, actor Richard Leaf, and their three children, ages 11, 13 and 17. The fact that “Episodes” films in the UK means she’s able to give both her work and her family the time they require.

“Being a mom who takes [my kids] to school, or is there when they come back, is central to our life,” she says. “To be able to work on a show that has an international profile, but also to exist in my neighborhood, was a perfect amalgam of two realities.”

Leaf’s career has added an interesting twist to their lives. While he recently quit acting to focus on writing, his role as John Dawlish in the film “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” made autograph seekers and paparazzi a regular presence.

“He does get asked for autographs in the most peculiar places,” she says. “Recently I’ve had to do various red-carpet events, and I’m the one who goes out and gets an outfit. We recently went to [a premiere] in the West End, and I go out expecting to be photographed, and the red carpet was just lined with autograph hunters who wanted Rick’s autograph. It was a very interesting reverse.”

Whether the second season of “Episodes” brings more autograph hunters her way remains to be seen. But either way, the show’s blend of comedy and pathos makes it a delight for the veteran actress, and a wonderful way to make her a more familiar face to viewers on this side of the pond.

“What’s so beautiful about [this show] is the different elements of tragedy and comedy, and a love affair that’s held in this gorgeous tension. When one starts to dominate, then that great delicate balance is lost, and I’m delighted that you can’t actually say what it is, because it’s so many things.”

EPISODES

Today, 10:30 p.m., Showtime