For better or worse

'Gary’s divorced, I was divorced – that’s about where the similarities end,' says actor Jay Mohr.

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JAY Mohr is one of those actors who makes you ask yourself where you’ve seen him before.

The accomplished performer has quite a CV – he’s been working in Hollywood for nearly 20 years and has appeared in more than 50 movies and TV shows.

But now at the age of 38 he’s finally a leading man, with his own sit-com, Gary Unmarried.

“People were never quite sure where they knew me from,” the actor tells the Buzz.

“They would come up to me and ask how they knew me and I would say: ‘Have you ever seen Jerry Maguire? Have you ever seen Ghost Whisperer?’ And they’d say no – and suddenly you are having this conversation about your resume with a total stranger.

“Now, with Gary Unmarried, people come up to me and say ‘Hey! You’re Gary Unmarried!’

“So aside from many other great things about being on a TV show, is people now know exactly where they know me from!”

Mohr takes centre stage as Gary, a newly divorced guy who’s struggling to balance work, shared custody of his two kids, a controlling ex-wife and a hot new girlfriend.

“He and his ex-wife completely despise each other, they have become experts in making each other crazy,” Mohr says.

“But the more you watch, the more you start thinking to yourself ‘These two have to end up together!’, because no one understands them as well as each other.”

Mohr himself is divorced – he and ex-wife Nicole split in 2006 after six years of marriage.

Now he’s happily married to Nikki Cox – he officially changed his surname to Cox-Mohr – and says his life doesn’t have too much in common with Gary’s.

“Gary’s divorced, I was divorced – that’s about where the similarities end,” he says.

“Like on any situational comedy, the character has to be unfulfilled for there to be humour.

“(For me), there’s nothing I want in life except more of this.”

Mohr, who played the sleazy sports agent in Jerry Maguire as well as Jennifer Aniston’s love interest in Picture Perfect, was starring in Ghost Whisperer as Professor Rick Payne when he was offered the chance to headline his own sit-com.

“I did not have to choose between one and the other, but I was more than happy to go along for the ride,” he explains.

“I am a comic, and for an almost 40-year-old to get a sitcom when you get to tell jokes every time you walk on the set is unbelievable. It feels just right. It feels exactly what I should be doing right now.”

- © Fairfax NZ News