S. Epatha Merkerson Says Paul Ruben Tried to Mess Up Her “Pee-wee’s Playhouse ”Audition, Recalls Telling the Story at His Funeral (Exclusive)

The actress recalls not knowing who Reubens was going into the interview

NEED TO KNOW

• S. Epatha Merkerson recalls her audition for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where Paul Reubens humorously disrupted her performance

• Merkerson shared the story at Reubens’ memorial and reflected on his kindness
• Pee-wee’s Playhouse was Merkerson’s first TV role and fostered lifelong friendships with cast and crew members

Before S. Epatha Merkerson graced television screens across the United States in Law & Order as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, she played another civil servant, Reba the Mail Lady, on Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

When catching up with PEOPLE, Merkerson, 73, recalls how she got the role for the show. When she went for the initial audition, she says the woman there “really didn’t have a sense of humor.”

“I said, ‘There’s no sides?’ And she said, ‘No, it’s a character. She’s the mail lady, and you’re bringing Pee-wee Herman mail.’ I was doing a play at the time, and I didn’t take the time to find out who Pee-wee Herman was,” she says. “That was a mistake that I made that I fixed after that.”

Merkerson happened to have mail on her, so she used it as a prop in the audition.

“I pulled out my mail out of my little bag and started saying, ‘Oh, here’s something from Con Edison,’ and, ‘Oh, and here’s something from the Museum of Natural History,’ and I started singing ‘Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones’ and it literally cracked me up, and she didn’t think it was funny,” Merkerson recalls.

The woman at the audition asked her to do it again, and she did. Once she left the audition, she says she initially didn’t hear anything and thought it was a “lesson learned.”

“Then all of a sudden, two weeks later, I got this call, and I walked into this room, and there were two producers, the director, this guy named Paul Reubens, and a woman who I thought was going to be my reader,” Merkerson shares. “And the guy, Paul Reubens, had on short cutoffs, and he had long hair and a goatee. I don’t know who this is. I’m just meeting him. He goes, ‘No, no, I’m reading with you.’ I sat down, and he kept really messing with me. And at one point, I leaned over, and I said, ‘Dude, I’m trying to get this job. Okay? Do you want to chill out?’ And he just started laughing.”

Despite his antics, she ended up landing the job.

Merkerson never asked Reubens about that moment, but retold the story at his memorial, after he died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 70, of lung cancer.

“At his memorial, I told that story, and the producer came over to me, and he said, ‘You know what? We saw your audition. He loved your audition.’ And that’s how I got Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” she shares.

Pee-wee’s Playhouse was Merkerson’s first TV gig. She shares that Reubens “took to me immediately.”

“I don’t know, maybe it was because of my silliness in the audition. He messed with me even on our first day of shooting. The director said, ‘Hey, listen, we need to get this shot. Do you mind getting through the scene?’ And Paul was doing stuff to make me laugh because he knew he could make me laugh. And I leaned over, and I said, ‘Paul, give me a break. You tried to mess me up at the audition, and now you’re trying to mess me up with the director,’ ” she says. “He said, ‘But it’s called Pee-wee’s Playhouse, so this is my show.’ “

Pee-wee’s Playhouse ran from 1986 to 1990 and also featured Laurence Fishburne, Lynne Marie Stewart, Phil Hartman and John Paragon.

At Reubens’ memorial, everyone there “found out a lot of wonderful things that Paul did,” according to the actress.

“He would send gifts for two dozen people whenever their birthdays were. We always thought it was something very specific that he chose for us. It would be something weird, like a rose in a little jar that when you spoke, it would light up, stuff like that. It turns out we all got the same gift, and we found that out at the memorial. But it was just sweet, lovely things like that,” Merkerson recalls.

Of Reubens, she says, “he was a good guy.”

“That was my introduction to television. It was a great opportunity, and I got to meet some really lovely people that I’m still friends with over all these years. Because that was the ‘80s, and I’m still friends with people that I worked with on that show, so it was more than just a gig. It was a connection. It was a real connection to people,” Merkerson shares.

Merkerson recalls that the show was “so much fun because you never knew what was going to happen.”

“At one point, I asked Reubens, ‘Could I come in early just so I can watch things?’ Because there was so much for your eyes to see,” she continues. “The creative crew on that show, they were astounding. He would let me come in a day early so I could come to set and just watch. I watched them do the opening claymation. I sat and watched that for four hours, painstakingly moving each piece.”

She says, “You’d open a door, and there would be something behind the door that would just make you laugh.”

“It was just so much fun. I stayed in touch with both he and Lynne Marie Stewart all these years,” Merkerson shares. “I miss him, because every now and then I would just get a message from either one of them just out of the blue that would just make my day.”