Emma Kenney was thrilled to be playing the daughter of her favorite Roseanne character. When she was cast in the revival as Harris, the daughter of Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and David (Johnny Galecki), Kenney went back and watched the original. At only 18, she wasn’t alive when the sitcom premiered in 1988. In fact, she wasn’t born until two years after the finale aired in ‘97. However, the timeless sitcom still connected with her years later. “Darlene was instantly my favorite character. She so funny. I love her dry humor and wit,” Kenney tells Us Weekly exclusively.
While that dry humor is definitely there in Harris, Kenney says her character actually has a lot in common with her dad David. “She’s got that spitfire! Darlene thinks things through and Harris is more impulsive, in a way, like Roseanne,” the actress says. “Harris is more of a city girl, more of an extrovert than an introvert.”
While she stayed tight-lipped about David’s return, she did note, “I think that Harris feels the way any teenage girl would feel if she didn’t grow up fully with her father.”
“I think we’ll see her going through issues — obviously her relationship with her father will be a broad issue when Johnny’s character comes back into the show,” Kenney says, adding that Harris will encounter the same issues many teens do. “She moved from Chicago. She was born a city girl and now she’s here in the suburbs with her grandparents. I don’t think she’s too happy about that. I think we can see some teen angst in that, but it has genuine depth to it. She’s not feeling at home. She doesn’t know where home is at that time in her life. She’s trying to find herself and I think by the end of the season, she does to a certain extant — the extent a 16-year-old can find themselves.”
She also said that while David only appears in one episode, she was beyond excited to even be on set with The Big Bang Theory star.
“He is such a class act. At one of the table reads, he brought in vinyl records of Wonder Woman — it was very sweet — for me and the younger kids,” she said. “He’s the nicest guy and so fun to work with. He’s such a professional, especially in multi-camera. I had a lot of Big Bang questions!”
Roseanne premieres on Tuesday, March 27, at 8 p.m. ET.
