ABC’s The Middle is about to wrap up its season, and they will have acting icon Betty White in their season finale. The cast and creators of the show say they were thrilled to work with such a legend.

The Middle follows the Heck family as they struggle with life in the Midwest. Brick is the youngest, and then there is Sue the middle child played by Eden Sher and their sibling Axl played by Charlie McDermott. These crazy kids cause all types of problems and who better to solve them than their parents? Patricia Heaton plays supermom Frankie Heck and Neil Flynn plays her husband Mike Heck.

Patricia told On The Red Carpet that she loves working with the cast but pointed out Eden as the one to watch.

“I predict that she will be the first Emmy winner of our show,” said Patricia.

Source: On the red carpet

The hardest role we had to cast on “The Middle” was Sue, the daughter, and that had to do with the fact that “The Middle” was a pilot that had already been shot two years before with a different cast. It didn’t quite come together as ABC had wanted it to, but they really liked the story. It was a situation where the writers kept thinking about the girl they had from the first pilot, and it was hard for them to get her out of their heads. Eden Sher came in and pre-read for me. She was one of the very first girls we saw for the role. Brought her to producers and she went through that process, but at that time, I think the producers still had in their minds the performance from the previous actress, so they kind of dismissed everybody. I ended up bringing Eden back in again at the end. By that time, they had seen so many actresses for the part, they really started to look at her with new eyes. Eden was the only actress who came in and played that character with exuberance and zeal. Everybody else played her more goth, kind of down and mopey. Eden makes you remember and root for a character that nobody ever roots for.

Read the full story on Backstage

Eden Sher is the 18-year-old actress who plays her. She put on fake braces and dressed real young to help land the role on the show.
“I don’t know what came over me, but I just decided to wear fake braces to the audition,” Sher said during a phone interview with The Oklahoman. “When I tested for it, they didn’t know I was any different from the 12-year-old girls auditioning.
“It was really funny when I went in for wardrobe fitting after I booked the pilot. I came in normally without braces, and the director started freaking out. He was like, ‘Eden, did you get your braces off?’ No one knew they were fake.”

Sher already has a favorite scene from the show, though, and it has an Oklahoma connection.
“It was the ‘Kung-Fu Fighting’ scene when we challenged some boys to a fight, and we danced,” said Sher, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and has never been to Oklahoma. “That was so fun and funny.
“And Blaine Saunders, the girl who plays Carly, was in the scene. She is from Oklahoma, and she’s in a couple other episodes, too. We’re friends, and that’s my only connection to Oklahoma.”

Read the full interview on The Oklahoman

What has been your favorite Valentines Day gift?
Oh God, I don’t know. I never do anything for Valentine’s Day. One of my friends took me out to dinner on Valentine’s Day with her boyfriend, so it wasn’t too romantic for me but it was a wonderful dinner.

What was the audition process like for The Middle?
I auditioned about 3 times. I screen tested twice and finally I booked it. It was quite long and extensive.

Sue tries to find anything she might be good at…what do you think that she is good at?
I don’t know, well have to wait and see! She’ll be good at something, something really weird and obscure, probably.

What would you like to see take place in the second season?
I would like to see Sue get a love interest or maybe succeed at one thing, even have a minor success.

You’ve appeared on many shows including Party Down, and Weeds. Of all of the shows that you have appeared on, what show would you love to go back to if you had the opportunity?
I would love to go back to Weeds if they would ever like to bring that character back for me to play. That was a fun character to play.

The Middle: Eden Sher

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California Chronicle talks about three strong comedy series that debuted this year and one of them is The Middle.

‘The Middle’

There’s no question that “Modern Family” is quickly becoming the best comedy on TV, but “The Middle” (8:30 p.m. Wednesday, WTAE) needs more support.

“The Middle” is a loopy, single-camera comedy about a family in Middle America that’s scraping by on luck and love. What makes the show unique among prime-time series is not its style of humor, which bears some resemblance to “Malcolm in the Middle” told from a mom’s point of view. It’s the emphasis on the children in the family. Other than the half-man on CBS’s “Two and a Half Men,” kids have been largely AWOL from prime-time broadcast network comedies for about a decade and they haven’t been a focus since “Malcolm.”

As relatable as the travails of mom Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton) may be, it’s the stories and characterizations of the Heck kids that make “The Middle” so much fun to watch. Has there ever been as wildly accurate a depiction of teenage boys as Axl (Charlie McDermott), who moves with the leisurely speed of an unmotivated turtle and complains with a mix of whine and gusto? And upbeat Sue (Eden Sher) has a wild-eyed optimism no matter how many times she’s failed before. Oddball Brick (Atticus Shaffer), who looks a lot like Dewey from “Malcolm,” takes weirdness to a new level with repeated, under-his-breath whispers of single words he just said aloud.

So far, ABC seems supportive of “The Middle” despite its low ratings, largely the result of having horrible “Hank” (now-canceled) as a lead-in. But more people need to find this hidden gem and help it escape middle-of-the-pack obscurity. “The Middle” deserves to be nearer the top of the ratings heap.

And you are watching The Middle, right? I know I’m being a nag, but while it won’t get the buzz of more po-mo series like Community and the deservedly raved-about Modern Family, it’s terrific. Bonus praise for the performance of Eden Sher, who plays a fantastically ordinary dork of a teenage girl, a very refreshing thing in a universe that far more frequently emphasizes the Chosen (Buffy, Joan of Arcadia, Rory Gilmore) and the Catfighty (Glee, Gossip Girl).

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