Over the course of its four seasons, "Cougar Town" has become less and less about older ladies seducing younger men. But no one embodies the original cougar spirit of the comedy more than Carolyn Hennesy's character Barb Coman. Hennesy stopped by HuffPost Live to talk about the impact of the TBS comedy, and revealed how she prepared for the salty role.
"I looked at a lot of young men. I would go home to my husband and I would say it's all just research, it's business, it's work-related. 'Look but don't touch,' that was my motto ... I used to stake out the high schools," Hennesy joked.
She also described the key to Barb's vicious zingers. "They were able to write for me the comedy Atom bombs. I would walk onto set, say whatever Barb had to say, and then just watch the destruction, and then Barb moves off, just like a ship."
Hennesy believes the show has played a part in making real-life "cougars" more socially-acceptable. "I think they used to get a lot of flack. But seeing Barb, seeing Courteney Cox's character at the beginning of the show when she was trying to be a cougar, it sort of made it all OK. It sort of gave license to women to try and find a happy medium between Courteney's character and my character. To do it with class and panache -- to train the young man how to treat a woman, not an older woman, but any woman."
"Cougar Town" airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. EST on TBS.
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