Jim Jefferies Says His Short-Lived FX Sitcom ‘Legit’ Is Still His Favorite Thing He’s Ever Done
Over the past decade, Australian-American comedian Jim Jefferies has climbed the heights of stand-up comedy. Yet, despite all his comedic success, one past project still feels unfinished to him: his short-lived FX sitcom Legit. The semi-autobiographical series starred Jefferies as a fictionalized version of himself who lives with his two best friends, Steve Nugent and Steve’s brother Billy, who has a severe case of muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. In its premiere episode, Jim and Steve take Billy to a brothel — a real-life event that made its way into Jefferies’ stand-up and then into Legit (which was the case for much of the show’s stories).
While Legit never found a big audience, the show was beloved by critics, who praised it as being both darkly funny and surprisingly tender. The darkly funny part of that equation was familiar to anyone who knew Jefferies’ raunchy stand-up act, but the show’s heart took many by surprise. While DJ Qualls, who played Billy, doesn’t actually suffer from muscular dystrophy, many of the show’s recurring cast members, who played friends from Billy’s group home, were disabled. The most notable of whom was Nick Daley, who played Rodney, a man with the rare Prader-Willi syndrome who often got tied up in the main trio’s mischief.
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The show’s first season aired on FX, but it was canceled after Season Two, following a move to FXX where its already small audience dwindled further. Still, Legit is a subject about which Jefferies is always eager to reminisce — and he did so recently with me via Zoom, sharing the show’s origins, its most unexpected highlights and its untimely end.
Based on a Legit Story
Legit started out with a friend I had who had muscular dystrophy — that’s all true. My best mate at university’s older brother had muscular dystrophy, and when we were in Melbourne one time, he asked if he could go to a brothel. We knew that his heart was weak — he had died previously — so we went into it with the full knowledge that he might die.
We took him in the room, we helped undress him. We left him with the prostitute, we said, “Good luck, mate.” Then we stood outside the door. After a little bit, the prostitute came out, and she went, “It’s done.” I went, “Is he dead?” She went, “Oh, no, no. I’m finished.” I said, “Oh, great. Alright, good.” It was one of those moments in life where you know that this is a good thing. I knew that there was nothing un-positive about this experience. I also remember thinking how stand-up worthy or TV-worthy this was.
Years later, I’d pitched a couple of other different TV shows, but Peter O’Fallon, who co-created the show with me, had a deal at FX, and they wanted him to do a show with a comedian. I think it was Peter who thought we should use this story from my act — I can’t remember how that happened, but when I went into FX, I just basically did the stand-up routine in an office in front of four executives. By the time I finished the routine they said, “All right, we’ll make that into a pilot.”
Finding Jim’s Friends
Dan Bakkedahl wasn’t what I envisioned to play Steve. I envisioned Steve looking more like my friend that he was based on. But what happened was, Dan came in and we were running late that day with auditions and he walked in the room like a volcano that’s waiting to erupt — just holding it in. I’d never seen anyone walk into a job interview like that. When he left, I went, “I love that guy. I think he’s hilarious.”
As for Billy — the guy with muscular dystrophy — DJ Qualls just looked sick, so that worked out. Honestly, as soon as DJ came in, I was like, “Oh, I know who DJ Qualls is.” I’ve seen Road Trip. I’ve seen Hustle & Flow. He’s a great actor. He was perfect for this.
For Steve and Billy’s parents we got Mindy Sterling and John Ratzenberger. With Mindy, they said to us, “Dr. Evil’s wife is coming in.” Mindy’s a big king hitter in the improv world and Dan was from Second City, so I had some real high-end improv actors working here. She brought an intensity into every scene.
With John Ratzenberger, he didn’t have to audition. We just rang him up because I was a huge Cheers guy, and I love John Ratzenberger. In fact, even before we cast him, when I would do the dad part, I would do it as Cliff from Cheers. One day, I’m on The Opie and Anthony Show, and John Ratzenberger was the other guest. I did the impersonation in front of him, and he was like, “That’s a good impersonation.” Anyway, we rang him up, and he said yes. He and I have very opposite political beliefs, but I have a lot of love for John Ratzenberger.
In episode two we introduced Ramona, played by Sonya Eddy, who passed away recently. She was the nurse-type of character and, at that stage, more of a foil to Jim’s, Steve’s and Billy’s plans to do things. She was a wonderful person to muck around with when the cameras went cut. And then as soon as it said action, she was all business.
Then there’s Nick Daley. Nick’s the biggest diamond in the rough that I’ve ever found in any part of my career, ever. He’s a gift.
In the second episode, Rodney debuts — Rodney was Billy’s roommate who was going to snitch on him for leaving the group home. When we opened up the casting, we were looking for someone who had some form of disability, but it wasn’t going to be just another person with muscular dystrophy. I don’t think we even say what Rodney’s disability was, but Nick has Prader-Willi syndrome, which I’ve learned a lot about over the years.
Nick has a few hobbies. He really likes Michael Jackson and he really likes werewolf movies, and if you keep to those subjects, he could talk your ear off all day. But if you were bothering him, he’d tell you to piss off as well. I liked him. None of his emotions were fake, and none of them were hidden. And, with Nick, you’d feed him a line and he’d say it.
He was only supposed to be in that one episode, but once we had him, I kept on saying, “We could have Rodney in this scene” and “We could have Rodney here.” There was no way he was going to be anywhere near as big a character as he became. I’m still friends with Nick to this day. Nick comes and sees me perform about once a year, and I light up when I see that lad. He means a lot to me.
Making ‘Legit’
During the pilot, I was hooking up with one of the actresses, the one who plays the prostitute. Then, about two months later, she got pregnant. So there was that. My son doesn’t exist without that show.
Besides that, after we did the pilot, we got greenlit for a season. I remember we went into a writers’ room, which was just a house that they rented a space in. It was me, Peter O’Fallon and Rick Cleveland. We had three writers at any given stage of the show when, normally, a TV show like that would have a writing pool of about eight or nine people. But we had three writers, and for the most part, “A” stories were based on my stand-up routines, then we’d all work on the “B” stories and how to connect things together.
A lot of the stories really happened. The reason that the prostitute that Billy visited in the pilot comes back pregnant in the final episode of Season One is because I had impregnated that actress who played the prostitute: that was when my son was being born. It actually turned out to be a really sweet story arc for the end of the season.
For the first season, I remember the critics liking it and the ratings being so-so. I also remember the network liking it, but not loving it. It was just good enough to get a second season. Our ace-in-the-hole was that the critics liked it.
Then Season Two was, “What happens with my love life?” and we figured out some stories for that. The character of Katie Knox (Jill Latiano) was loosely based on something that happened to me when I was younger with a girl I was romantically involved with. I would’ve liked the Katie Knox character and the Jim character to end up together, even though she was married. My plan was to have all of us go to a sex club and I was going to find Katie’s husband (Rhys Darby) in the gay room and then go, “Game on! I’m going to go after his wife!”
That was going to happen in about Season Four or Five. Then I was going to chase after that girl again and then maybe something happens along the way where Billy’s dying and I have to make a choice between going to the hospital or to her.
Every now and again I sell another script or I pitch another show, and all I really want to make is Season Three of Legit. But I can’t because I think Billy would be dead by now. He was dying in the pilot, and we can’t have him living forever. My big plan was to have him die in Season Four or Five, depending on how many seasons we go.
The End of the Line
For the second season, we were moved to FXX. If Legit had come out now with streaming, maybe it would have had a different life, but we were on Tuesday nights at 9:30 on Channel FXX, which is way in the boonies. It was very hard to get eyes on the show. Strangely, it did really well in some other countries. I believe it was massive in Israel.
I very much remember it being canceled. I got a call from my agents. I had made phone calls and fought and fought to keep the show going, but they said we were just not getting the ratings. It wasn’t popular enough.
But, still, anytime I get to talk about Legit, I’m over the moon. That’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done. I’m more proud of that TV show than I am of my stand-up or anything else I’ve done. I put my heart and soul into that show.
When you’re an edgy comic or you tell dirty jokes for a living, people can see you as a bit of a bastard or an asshole or a smut peddler or whatever. With Legit, I got to show that, but I also got to show an unforced, genuine amount of heart, which doesn’t always come across in stand-up.
Like, having all those disabled actors, I believe that show is maybe the truest representation of that sort of thing with it not being forced. Other shows have tried to do it, but it’s always a little bit patronizing or it’s making fun of them. In Legit, their disabilities weren’t hidden and they weren’t glossed over, but they weren’t the defining thing about the character. They were being joked with and about, but they were always in on the joke or heavily a part of the joke.
I still see Dan Bakkedahl almost once a week. We play pinball together, and we’re still very tight. I’m still very good friends with DJ too, who just got engaged and DJ came out as gay at one of my shows. Part of the magic of that show was there was genuine love between the three main characters in real life. We deeply cared for each other.
I’ve got to give it up for FX. FX left us to it for the most part. Also, they were the people who canceled us, so I can’t be too nice to them, but they let us do what we’re going to do. Maybe the show was a little bit quirkier than many shows, so maybe it was never going to last the distance. But I know a lot of people who liked that show — even a lot of famous people who dug it. And, now, I’ve seen the head of FX twice since the canceling of the show, and both times he was like, “I shouldn’t have canceled that show. It was a good show.”
I’m just like, “Yeah, man. Yeah.”
