Whoever says watching too much TV is bad for you hasn't met Vanessa Bayer.
The former Saturday Night Live standout is the co-creator and star of Showtime's I Love That For You, streaming April 29 on Showtime's app.
Vanessa plays Joanna, a small town girl who dreams of the bright lights of the home shopping network (think QVC) she watched as a child. And while this may be a work of fiction, there's some truth to I Love That For You.
Vanessa, who grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, drew inspiration from her own starry-eyed childhood.
"When I was a kid, I used to watch it all the time," Vanessa told E! News in an exclusive interview. "I used to tape it. Once in a while, with my mom's permission because I didn't have my own money, I would get to buy things. I always really loved home shopping. I loved the language. They have their own language in the way they sell things. They talk about the details and the way that they touch the products. I've always been so into that whole world."
To prepare, Vanessa and I Love That For You co-creator Jeremy Beiler made a trip to home shopping mecca: the QVC studios in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
"Jeremy and I got to take a tour of QVC where we got to meet these two hosts, Jane Treacy and Mary Beth Roe, who I always watched as a kid," Vanessa said. "They're still hosts there. They're the biggest hosts there. Even after seven seasons on SNL, where I met a new celebrity guest host every week, I was so starstruck by them. They talked to us for like an hour, which passed very quickly because they're so entertaining to listen to."
In the first episode of I Love That For You, Vanessa's character gets shown around SVN—the home shopping network where she's just been hired—and she's introduced to the bevy of hosts that she's always admired on TV. For Vanessa, it was eerily similar to her first day on Saturday Night Live.
"I remember going in and meeting Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg and Abby Elliott and just being like ‘Oh my god,'" Vanessa recalled. "I was like ‘Okay, this is my job now, I have to pretend to act normal around these superstars.' It was so crazy to me that these were going to be my co-workers. I had to tell myself to act like it was normal."
The most esteemed and longest-tenured SVN host, Jackie Stilton, is played by Molly Shannon, who according to Vanessa, gets to show off more than just her comedy chops.
"She's so warm and joyful and fun to be around. Getting to do these scenes with her, everybody knows that she's such a master comedy person, but she's also such an incredible actor," Vanessa said. "She'd be tearing up in these scenes and she's so dynamic. It's so fun to get to work with her. It was a dream come true when she said yes to this role."
The ensemble cast of I Love That For You also includes Jenifer Lewis, Matt Rogers, Paul James, Punam Patel and Ayden Mayeri.
Get ready for some retail therapy when the first episode of I Love That For You streams April 29 on the Showtime app, with a premiere on the network on May 1 at 8:30 p.m. ET on Showtime.