Illeana Douglas and the Web go together about as well as the Swedish and meatballs. After all, the quirky actress has found a following online with her IKEA-set comedy series, Easy to Assemble, which starts its second season on My Damn Channel today. (Douglas plays a fictional version of herself who, fed up with showbiz, decides to work in an IKEA store.) And that’s not all: The actress is hard at work producing a spin-off Web series, Sparhusen, which follows a Swedish band that plays music for the big box store. Not only have we snagged a sneak peek of the series (premiering Oct. 8 — see exclusive video clip after the jump), but also a few minutes with its creator. Taking a break from her busy schedule, Douglas talks Assemble, her famous co-stars, and, of course, meatballs.
There is something inherently funny about IKEA.
Yeah. It’s such a fish-out-of-water experience. It’s got this Wizard of Oz quality. And then, when I heard IKEA [was interested], I thought, “Okay, now it has to be IKEA.” The ideas started organically pouring out of me. It was a complete experiment last year, and I threw everything into it that I possibly could. I got all my friends help me out and support me. And we did this thing, and it kind of took off, and we got our second season, and now we really feel like we’ve hit our stride this year, with a great story and a storyline.