Exclusive | How Lake Bell keeps a straight face opposite Tim Robinson’s lunacy in ‘The Chair Company’

Musical chairs. 

Lake Bell co-stars with Tim Robinson in the hit HBO comedy “The Chair Company,” which airs its Season 1 finale Sunday, Nov 30 (10 p.m). 

Bell, 46, told The Post that she had trouble keeping a straight face “all the time.”

“Especially playing the straight man – or the straight woman, I should say,” she went on. “I really enjoy it, because I do feel like I get to strangely be in both a drama, and a comedy.” 

“The Chair Company” follows Ron (Robinson), a family man working in a corporate job. After a workplace incident where he falls out of his chair in front of a crowd of people, he becomes convinced that the chair company is involved in a conspiracy, and spirals into paranoia. 

Like most Robinson characters in his Netflix show “I Think You Should Leave” or his movie “Friendship,” Ron is often angrily bewildered by commonplace human interactions.

The show has been HBO’s best comedy debut in five years, scoring 1.4 million viewers for its premiere. It’s already been renewed for a Season 2. 

Bell plays his wife, Barb, who shares two young adult kids with him — Seth (Will Price) and Natalie (Sophia Lillis).  

“Being that force of constant for him and for the wackiness of what’s around – I think that’s part of the balance of how this whole tone works,” the “It’s Complicated” actress explained of her co-star Robinson.

Even “simple scenes” like when Barb and Ron are in bed together can be “really hard to keep a straight face,” she noted. “And he’s got to either check his phone, or he’s fussing about something. And the director, Andrew DeYoung, will give Tim the opportunity to do different levels of Tim, and different levels of Ron’s inner torment.”

For instance, in the premiere, Ron also fusses over his pillow and angrily exclaims, “I swear, I have the worst pillow in town!” while Barb lays next to him silently. 

Bell said that when Robinson goes “full level ten,” that’s when she has to, “take a deep breath, engage my core, and think about something sad” so that she doesn’t crack up. 

She added, “You have to really compartmentalize, to stay in the zone of sobriety in his wackiness.” 

Bell shares two kids with her ex-husband, tattoo artist Scott Campbell, whom she was married to from 2013 to 2020. 

The “Boston Legal” actress said that she can relate to Barb’s relationship with Ron because, “I have been very happily married, and I’ve been happily divorced with my ex-husband.”

“I just know that when you love someone and you know them, it is part of the relationship journey to just love them for the good, and love them for the bad,” she told The Post. Because of that, she believes that Barb is “aware” that Ron’s “movement through life” has always been full of “rocky moments,” and that she is “quite used to him, and his antics.” 

Even more, she thinks Barb knows that “the way he sees the world, he creates challenges for himself and can be his own worst enemy.” 

The “Bless This Mess” actress said that she had an amusing moment when she took her 8-year-old son, Ozzy, to set on the day that Ron’s son Seth had a vomit scene. 

“My son thinks I have the coolest job ever, because he got to see a bunch of people wrapped around Will Price while he had to hold pea soup in his mouth, waiting to vomit it out.” 

She likes taking her kids to set to “learn about” the camera and electric departments, and to get an education. “So I was like, ‘I will seed the creatives of the future by showing my son how movie vomit works!’” she quipped.  

“The Chair Company” was officially renewed for Season 2 earlier this month.

“I can’t reveal anything, but I think what people really respond to is the fact that it is so unexpected and that while it’s very relatable and accessible – this is a family that you could see anywhere  – and yet, there are things behind the curtain that allow for this anxious hilarity to ensue,” Bell noted.