There's always hope for mothers-in-law says 'Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage' star Rachel Bay Jones

LOS ANGELES – Rachel Bay Jones won a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy for playing the heartbreaking mother in “Dear Evan Hansen.”

Now she’s a less-than-generous mother-in-law in “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” and she’s not quite as huggable.

“She’s changing,” Jones says with a smile. “She’s a bit of a mama bear and she wants what’s best for her child. She thinks she knows what that is – and she may be right – but there are signs she’s changing.”

Jones got to test the character on “Young Sheldon,” then got the green light for the spinoff. Considering much of her recent work has been on Broadway, it was a switch. “It’s like developing a new, wonderful skill later in life,” the 54-year-old says. “It’s been a real blossoming for me.”

To get into the mindset of her new character, Jones says she has been exploring what makes her character tick. “I always look for some kind of redemption because I feel that being hopeful for audiences is important. If there’s anything that I consider to be a life mission, it’s to bring hope. With some of these characters, who, on first glance, are unpalatable, they do have an evolution.”

While Jones played a cold character on “The Good Doctor” (she was the cool administrator Salen Morrison), she has had more huggable roles on stage – including Anna in “The King and I,” Catherine in “Pippin” and Heidi Hansen in “Dear Evan Hansen.”

The latter brought her that Triple Crown of awards (the only trophy missing from the EGOT: the Oscar, “the easy one,” she says with a laugh). But the role was highly emotional, giving her a song that prompted tears among those in the audience. A single mom, Heidi tries to raise her son Evan to be a good boy, work hard and deal fairly with others. When she discovers he pretended to be friends with a classmate just to improve his own standing, she blows. The scenes are among the show’s most powerful and key to those awards.

An emotional roller coaster eight times a week? It was, but “the audience participated in that journey, so it’s including the audience and their shared motherhood – whether it’s a child and a mother or a mother alone. It made it feel like I wasn’t alone in that experience.”

Unlike Audrey in “Georgie and Mandie’s” or even Heidi in “Dear Evan Hansen,” “I want to be huggable all the time,” Jones says. “But is wonderful to explore different sides of myself as well as other people. As actors, we figure out who we are by running up against something.

“I love building my own heart and my own brain. The more we use ourselves and our own creativity, the easier it is to do on stage.”

When Jones, the mother of a 21-year-old, first started television, she wasn’t sure how she would adjust to a camera. “You’re communicating through the lens to a greater audience.”

Characters on “Young Sheldon” and now “Georgie and Mandy’s” have a universality, she says. “We all can relate to them… I think we need more of that now – to find the ways in which we connect and … are the same.”

Eventually, Audrey will morph into “somebody that we can all find as a relatable mother,” she says.

Already, Jones says, the sitcom runs like a symphony. “It’s so beautiful how everything gets put together. You don’t think of that when you think about sitcoms. But (Executive Producer Chuck Lorre) creates this environment and the writers make beautiful stories with so much heart and so much humanity you’re laughing the entire time you’re feeling all these feelings. It’s wonderful.”

And that missing Oscar? Jones didn’t get to play Heidi in the film version of “Dear Evan Hansen” (Julianne Moore did) but she’s hopeful there will be more opportunities to try that medium.

“Maybe we’ll wrap up some more Emmys with this show,” she says. “And then we can do film. We’ll see…we’ll see as we evolve.”