'Home Improvement's Patricia Richardson not into a Tim Allen-rumored reboot, notes on-screen son is a 'felon'
FILE - "Last Man Standing," "Tanks for the Memories" - Mike is anxious to buy the miniature tank collection once belonging to the late husband of his neighbor, Helen Potts (Patricia Richardson). But when he discovers Helen already sold the collection
Patricia Richardson is not looking to reprise her role in, "Home Improvement," despite rumors from the show's star and her onscreen husband, Tim Allen, who has suggested otherwise.
In a recent conversation on the "Back to the Best" podcast, Richardson was emphatic that she did not want to do a reboot of the 90s sitcom. "It was so weird…I would hear [Tim] was coming out publicly and saying this stuff about how everyone was on board to do a ‘Home Improvement’ reunion," she remarked. "But he never asked me, and he never asked Jonathan [Taylor Thomas]. Who I talk to."
"So I called Jonathan one day and said, 'Has he asked you about this? And he went, ‘No.’ And "Why's he going around telling everybody that we're all on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me?'"
PATRICIA RICHARDSON SAYS CHEMISTY WITH TIM ALLEN MADE HER TAKE THE PART ON 'HOME IMPROVEMENT'
Richardson added that at one point, a rumor online had circulated about a specific script pertaining to her character, matriarch Jill Taylor. "He was kind of lying to people and telling people I was on board and I didn't know anything about it," she said of Allen. "So I wrote a big thing on Twitter and said 'I'm not involved in any series with Jill and I've also never even been asked to do another ‘Home Improvement’ reunion thing. But I would not want to," she added.
"I mean, Zach is now a felon," she said, referencing her onscreen son Zachary Ty Bryan, who has been arrested for a litany of charges including domestic violence. In October, he pleaded guilty to felony assault in the fourth degree.
In 1978, Allen was arrested for possession of cocaine, pleading guilty to felony drug trafficking charges, avoiding a life sentence by giving the names of others involved. He served a little over 2 years before being paroled.
"Taran [Noah Smith] hasn’t acted since he left the show; he's not an actor anymore," Richardson continued of her youngest onscreen son. "And Jonathan's not really interested in acting. He wants to direct and write. And we don’t have Wilson," she said referencing late actor Earl Hindman who portrayed the family's neighbor.
"It's not gonna be the show, at all," Richardson said of a possible reboot. "And people think we can just magically go right back to who we were 30 years ago. And do a show that was 30 years ago and we've all changed quite a bit, I think, since then," she admitted. "It would be very weird."
"I think we did it, we did it well, we quit at the right time before it got really bad. And it should just stay as it is," she suggested.
Her honesty comes months after initial rumblings of a reboot sparked by Allen in November. He told the now defunct outlet, The Messenger, as reported by Entertainment Weekly, "I see Richard Karn a lot," who played Al Borland. "And I talk to the boys and I'm there as one of their friends. We keep talking about [a spinoff]."
"It's funny, one of the conversations we've had recently is how weird it would be if 'Home Improvement' would be about the kids' kids," Allen shared. "Like if all of them had children, and I'm a grandparent. 'Home Re-Improvement; or something like that. It's come up."