Couple's TV show selfie - really

Casey Wilson is Annie and Ken Marino is Jake in Marry Me.

Every sitcom staple and oo-er moment thrown in, from gay dads to surprise engagement party combustion.

There can't be too many women who are happy to help create a comedy series loosely based on their own marital troubles. Even fewer who'd be keen to do it alongside their husband, and also agree to be the lead actress.

But Casey Wilson, who's best known for her roles in TV series Happy Endings, and hit film Gone Girl, has clearly embraced the opportunity in new sitcom Marry Me.

The actress-comedian-writer is happily married to David Caspe - the creator of Happy Endings and Marry Me, but the pair found plenty of inspiration in their occasionally bumpy road down the aisle, for the new series. It began in last week's first episode, with Annie (Wilson) losing the plot when she arrived home after a holiday with long-time boyfriend Jake (played by Ken Marino), and he still hadn't proposed. Except Jake was about to propose and there's a house full of friends and family waiting to surprise Annie - when she lets loose with a barrage of insults about them all.

"I think moving forward, Annie is maybe not as unlikeable as she is in that first episode," Wilson laughs. "But it's just such a funny idea that after six years of waiting to be engaged someone would finally snap and just go off the rails completely and badmouth everyone, only to find that they're hiding, waiting to pop out and surprise her."

Thankfully it didn't happen to Wilson quite in that way.

"No, no no, it didn't, that part's made up. I said all those things about those people, but they didn't hear it," she jokes.

There are plenty of other anecdotes from their life that have been exaggerated for the show.

"When we moved in together, I was a little claustrophobic, going from living alone to sharing your space, and so in the show David wrote about how my character starts hiding out in her car, watching TV shows on her iPad in there, ordering food to her car, putting up curtains, having friends visit her in there, and throwing a party. So it's obviously a bit more heightened and ridiculous than real life, but at the same time, our stories are the kernels."

Indeed, while Jake and Annie are the centre of the show, like any good sitcom, the surrounding ensemble are equally important, and they too are inspired by people in Wilson's life - in the show Annie has two gay dads, both named Kevin, inspired by two of Wilson's gay friends who are both called Kevin, and also her own father.

"He's not gay but is always in competition with me, it seems - when I got engaged in real life, he got engaged right after us, and we had a bit of a Bride Wars type scenario ... On the show, the Kevins get engaged after us, and there's a bride war, but when my real dad saw the show, he loved it, and had no idea it was based on him."

So while the couple are definitely having fun, sending themselves up in the series, Wilson feels plenty of empathy for Annie.

"I do definitely have an anger streak, but I always say, well it's because I'm Italian, or it's because I'm a Scorpio, and my husband just says, 'Actually, you're an actress'," she laughs. "For my husband, who is very laid back and always in a nice mood, I think it's been startling for him to live with someone who's so volatile. And that's really where the inspiration came from."

Lowdown

Who: Casey Wilson
What: New sitcom Marry Me
When and where: Screens on TV2, Wednesday nights at 7.30pm.