That Was Us - Dan Fogelman and Us | The Creator

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Dan Fogelman (This Is Us, Tangled, Cars, Fred Claus, Crazy, Stupid, Love) is a legend around here. He brought us the Pearsons, and he brought us together! Dan joins us to discuss what went into writing the show, and how he was able to surprise us with bombshell reveals and leave us hanging week after week. Mandy, Sterling, Chris, and Dan talk about the evolution of the Pearson’s stories through time, the process of filming when working with kids who grow up fast, and the importance of weaving in the historical moments that were happening in real-time as filming took place. Follow That Was Us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, and X! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to a very, very special episode of That Was Us. Yeah. I'm Mandy Moore. I'm Chris Sullivan. I'm Sterling Brown. You can put the K in there if you want to. It's all good. I'll do it.

Always. Always got to add the K. Always got to add the K. We have a, it's a special episode because today we have a special guest. We're not going to be discussing any one particular episode of the show, but we are going to be talking to the creator of the show. I'm Mr. Dan Fogel. The Man, the Myth.

the legend. The legend. Spoiler alert, we will discuss like all seasons to a certain extent. So if you haven't watched everything, you can come back to this episode when you have. Listen at your discretion, as they say. So without further ado, let's get into it with Dan. Let's get into it. When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex.

Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. are we ready to go all right we're rolling all right we're rolling all right so today welcome back everyone to that was us we're here with the lovely amanda lee more my man christopher sullivan i'm sterling brown and we have a special guest today very special yes the creator and showrunner of this is us mr dan fogleman Yeah. Wow. Stop.

Everyone's still. Welcome, sir. Welcome. And listen, we decided if we're going to do just a special stand-alone episode. We're not going to talk about any one particular episode of the show. But just talk to Dan about his creative process, how this came to him, how he came to this business, and like what this sort of meant for him, this moment of creating this particular show. Dan, first of all, how you doing today, by me? I'm good, Sturney.

First of all, thank you for having us to your heart. for having us to your home. I've never been invited to him before. It's exactly how I pictured it is. Yeah, it's right. It's very right for you. It's cozy. You have baby pictures of Chris and I. It's very sweet of you.

My grandmother's like a white woman. Your grandma. Yeah, yeah, but she liked white women. I'm just sure. I'm on the favorite. It's good. I'm good. I've got her running nose, but I'm good otherwise.

Okay, we're glad to hear it. It's a little rainy out here in Southern California today, so I'm glad everybody made it here. and sound. Yes, indeed. Does anybody want to ask the first question? I feel like I just start talking. I love when you start talking.

You need to take the lead. All right. I'll just say this. What was the inspiration for the show, Big Bill? How did it come to you? I mean, it was originally, I mean, I've talked about it a little bit. It was originally a movie. Right.

I was starting to write it as a film because I think I was in a bit of a transition point in my career, in my life. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next, I think, a little bit. And my mom had passed away a couple of years earlier. And I was debating having kids. All my friends were having kids. I'm 48 now. So back then I was like 38.

Yeah. Were you 38 or were you 36? I think I was 37. Okay, you're 37. You'll know why I asked that question. When I started writing it, when I started writing it, I was like 36. Yeah. And yeah, and I started writing a movie about, I started thinking about how my friends were all in such

different places in their lives at the roundabout age I was, which at the time. at the time was 36, 37. Some of my friends were married with, like, grown children, like 10, 12, 13-year-old kids. But then I had myself, I was like, I was on the cost of getting engaged to Kate. I had lost my mom. Other friends had lost all their parents. Other friends had had cancer. You know, I had a friend who passed away or was sick with cancer.

So I was like, oh, wow, it's interesting that we could all be hypothetically the same age or literally born on the same day and be leading such different lives. And that was, I think that was kind of the starting. And then I thought to myself, oh, that's kind of a cool twist. What if you thought that was the story you were telling? But it was actually the story of a couple of multiple birth-type children. At the time, when I was writing the movie, there were about seven or eight. It was like octoplets or sex tuplets or whatever that's called.

So it was like kind of a love actually story, finding all these different people born on different days. It sounds like the Wokowski sisters, that sci-fi thing they had on Netflix, where they all sort of shared the same brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was it. I had an English woman in the show. I thought one person moved to England and got an accent.

That would be hiding it. Sure. One character's black. One character's to otherwise white people. So you would never see that they're all potentially related. Yeah, yeah. And then I got like 60, 70 pages in and it just, it was not working. I was like, this doesn't work.

It feels like it exists just to get to a surprise, and that's the end. And I just kind of put it in a drawer, which I had not done before. And then that, so that was the start. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then I was doing other stuff. I had had a bad run of television experiences where shows I made were not quite cutting through. They were getting canceled. But you were getting like first seasons usually.

I had a couple of two-season shows. I was at a different studio. They were just kind of like, I got screwed a couple of times on things. I had some big projects that weren't going. It was just like it wasn't quite, I was kind of going should I go back primarily to film? I wasn't quite sure. And then I... Tell them about the films that you've made.

big guy. Flex on him for a second. Yeah, get the resume going. Yeah, I mean, we can flex on it. Crazy stupid love. That's kind of it. Little Danny Collins. Yeah.

What's the Santa Claus John? What's the... Fred Claus? That's what I lead with. The Santa Claus Joy. That's the one that goes on the Tombstone. This is the second pairing of you and Miss Amanda Lee because we did a little tangled. I wrote Tangled, yeah.

You wrote Cars? Time of Pixar. You wrote Cars. Life itself. Life itself, my big colossal failure. Listen, hold on. Love that. Let me take a little...

Come on. That movie, Dan... Yeah. I know this is gonna make... Look him in the eye. Look him in the eye when he said. Take it. Don't make me cry.

It changed my life. Oh. Rachel and I saw a screening of it at Paramount, and we both walked out of that theater different people. And it was... I love... I love that movie. I love that movie. I love that movie.

Well, yes, I wrote a lot of shit. And then... And then... What did I do? So it was in a drawer. I made a new deal at a television studio. Yeah. And then I was like, I wonder if that could be a TV series, something different.

I'd primarily been doing half hours. And I was like, I wonder if I could do something more in the line of like what I normally write with this. And maybe part of what was fucking me up. Can I curse on this? Yes. Sure. Just it. Go for.

But maybe part of what was messing me up was, maybe part of what was messing me up was that I needed to get to an ending. And that was just the ending. Like, that's kind of a fart. Like, they're all related. that's the end of the movie. Oh, like, and I kind of knew that. And so I was like, oh, if it's a series, it just kind of turns the whole thing on its head at the end.

And then you could make, like, a gazillion of them and follow these people. So I cut back the number of characters and focused on a family of three children in the family. And then I wrote it, and then it just kind of all took off from there. I don't know anything about developing a TV show or writing a TV show, but you set yourself up for a high level of difficulty

as far as storytelling goes. The number of twists and stuff. turns. We talked last week about the secrets that we had to hold so that the thing could unfold in front of people. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the writer's room, because Sterling brought it up last night, the timelines that you guys would keep to keep all of this stuff straight and to keep it moving in a direction that ended somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was a tremendous amount of work. It was... Spoilers possibly. So just, you know, we're talking about the whole show. There you know. I don't think that I was conscious of it when I

I wrote the pilot and like that became a bit of the narrative that like holy shit this guy has a whole grand plan of six seasons of a television show i just i think that kind of started coming after i realized it was going to be a thing once we started shooting it and making i was like oh i better figure out what we're doing so i had a lot of thoughts and like of the big picture shape of the show it's going to end with the death of somebody i told them all right but uh you just cut it out picture shape and the jack stuff and but but no i mean then it just takes on a life of its own and you start putting those time i had all these incredible writers the first couple of weeks of that writer's room was probably like the most exciting time in my career creatively yeah it was like really like

it was just like a bunch of people it was primarily young women um in the room um not young like 10 but like 30 year old women um so fifth graders yeah it was uh what an opportunity Fresh ideas. I really wanted new places. Fresh ideas. Yeah, yeah. It was just really exciting. Everybody was like telling their primal origin stories and we were working them into

the show and that's where the big picture of the show started really developing. And I go, ooh, I like that. Oh, some person would tell a story of their life and everybody would start crying. Oh, yeah, let's do that. And so we kind of picked in shows and then over the course of that year and the next year, really, the timeline really developed that were all over the way. Were they all seasoned TV people? No.

I know, Becca was a playwright, or it still is a playwright. It was Jess and I, my producing partner, I was like, I really want to get great writers and people that aren't necessarily all just television writers. So, yeah, we had, I mean, I hired KJ, one of our writers. She was an established television writer, like, well regarded. But I hired her off a play she had written. Yeah, same with Becca. It was just a, it was a hodgepatch of people from all different kind of walks of lives

and experiences and that kept you know you'd lose writers as you go people kind of leave and go off to do other things and you bring in news but there was always kind of a wide like swath of people in that room and it wasn't just like the obvious thing to say would be like oh it was whether it was diverse or whatnot it was just it was also just people had a lot of different life experiences there there weren't a lot of people who like had the same like oh yeah that's exactly like my childhood it was a lot of different childhoods and I think that was really kind of foundational as well I think as we've been discussing the show, too, and going back and rewatching it, we're just astounded by so many things, but something that's really struck me is just so, how fully realized the show is from the beginning. Did you know that, like, you didn't want to tell the story linearly that you wanted to sort of play with time in that way and jump around?

That I knew. It's a weird one, like, when people ask, because, like, I don't think, there was such intensive planning. I mean, I think part of what you're, what you see when you watch the show as a whole, if you like the show, is like it was meticulous and all the people who were writing on it and then the people were acting in it afterwards and all those parts, we took it so seriously. Like it was as if the world depended on us making sure that we got every connected piece of tissue to it when it was really, you know, and we very rarely let something slide. You know what I mean? It was like, and so there was like a meticulous like nature of like, is this working? Does this work? Does this all connect? That it almost became, like, obsessive for a group of 10 people who were writing the television show.

And I think you feel that. Yeah. We talked about that last week about how that attention to detail, in my opinion, made the audience feel safe. Yeah. And that, like, even though this is going to be hard, there's going to be a lot of hard things that we talk about, that, like, the people creating the show are being that detailed and being that considered with these things. I think what happened, honestly, in retrospect, I had a couple of big picture things I knew. I knew I wanted the show to be challenging but, like, accessible in the way it played with time. I had always said to them, like, in the second episode, we're going to jump all the way back with Mandy and Milo,

and you're not going to be seeing the same people that you're going to see them in crisis. You know what I mean? Eight years later from you. You know, and those little babies that are being born are going to be now eight-year-old kids. And that's like a big jump in network television. Like, that was a big thing. And so I knew that kind of stuff. I think the show took such like, like that first you hear when the show took hold in like the zeitgeist.

It was all the people working on it. And I'm like the writers, particularly, but also I think even the actors, it's why everybody like enjoyed it so much as opposed to sometimes when people miss the enjoyment. I think like nobody had experienced that level of insanity in this field. Like, man, do you've experienced it? And Sterling was just coming off winning an Emmy. but like it was like the popular the popular thing in television when you're just the show that everybody's like watching

and I think suddenly like we were like oh shit we better really figure this thing when did that really hook for you because you're you're a delightfully neurotic human being and you sort of try to play it under but like when did it feel like oh oh snap this is different we're going to be around for a while I knew that I mean I'd been a part of really big things

right like I'd done animated Pixar cars right And I'd done stuff like that had kind of broken through in different ways, whether it was crazy stupid love or tangled or. And I'd also been around big movie stars. Like I kind of like stricent and Pacino and all these guys. So I kind of like knew what it, but I knew what the, I knew what the world. I knew what big things felt like a little bit. But like when I was watching it film, I was like, holy shit, this is going to be something big.

I just had a feeling. I never get that. From the pilot. From filming the pilot. Wow. Yeah. Like I was like, this is going to be very good. And I think it might, and then we started to get all those bellwether signs like the trailer busting out like that.

I remember very vividly, like being, they'd made a trailer before we got announced it upfronts. And I noticed I was screening it for people. And I've told the story that, but people were, I was not, I never thought that the show would be crying and that would be a narrative about the show. Neither did I. I never thought that. I actually thought it was funnier than it was like sad. Me too. I agree.

We mentioned that a lot. We talked about that last week. Doesn't get credit for the levity that it brings you. But people, the viewers latch on to that because it makes them feel some. I think it's part of why they're able to like, those who watch a show and enjoy that type of thing, they let go because like you're not just, you're pounding them, but there's also laughter and stories. Some of the other storylines within the heavier stuff and whatnot. But yeah, I was screening it for people because we had a year or so.

We filmed it so early. We had quite some time before, not a year, but not the normal amount of time from filming to pick up. And I would screen it for people and people were having really severe reactions in a positive way. I had a DVD of it and I would like, once in a while, like my buddies, I was, my buddies would be over like my house in the Hollywood Hills and my old bachelor pad that Kate was making me move out of. You're like breathing on it and wiping it on your shirt. They would come over and they would come over to watch football and then I would like, I remember once vividly my buddy Josh and Alex who subsequently passed away, but but they came over if we watch football. I was like, hey, do you guys want to see that thing I was working on for NBC? And it ended, and my buddy Josh, we just finished watching, like, eight hours of football

and drinking, like, unbelievable amounts of, like, whiskey and bourbon and stuff. And, like, but Josh, like, it was just, like, dead quiet. And then Josh got up, and he excused himself and went outside. And he was, like, really, like, they were, like, emotional. And I was like, huh, this is odd. And I just got notice of that. I thought people could be like, holy shit, that's a great twist and feel something,

but then the emotion. And so then the trailer came out and people were having that reaction just to the materials and the actors without knowing anything about it. That's what I mean, like it was it, 70 million views? Yeah, it was nuts. I went to New York for the up fronts

and Jennifer Salky, who is now the president of Amazon, but was the president of NBC at the time, she called me and I was in a taxi in New York going to the upfront and she said, have you heard what's happening with the trailer? And I was like, what, what? And truth be told, I thought the trailer was like, I had nothing to do with the trailer. I'd been very involved in the naming of the show and how it would be marketing.

I had strong opinions. And I thought the trailer was good. Fine. Yeah, fine. And I was like, she was like, do you see what's going on with the trailer? And I was like, no. And she's like, it's going berserk. And I was like, oh.

And so we had all those signs. And then you could just tell, like, the night we launched. I mean, I was telling Sterling didn't remember it. but like everything, like Sterling won the Emmy for Darden on either Sunday or Monday night the Emmys were and we aired the following Tuesday. Like one or two days later. You were at that Mexican restaurant with us

like live tweeting the premiere a day or two days after you won the Emmy. Oh, yeah. No, come on, you had the Emmy there. Yeah, you were passing it around. If it wasn't, if it wasn't one or two days later, it was the week after, but it was real. So there was just a lot of shit that was lining up.

And then it aired and the numbers were really big. And then it just kept growing upon itself. And I remember going to Thanksgiving to go see my family. And it was around the time the eighth episode was airing. And Milo was doing the push-ups with Lonnie on his back. And I remember on the plane, it was one of those visuals of every TV on the plane. It felt like it was on the show. And then I got there and people were in the hotel.

It was right as like it was getting towards like information about Jack. It was the most we were ever in the zeitgeist, right in that period. And, like, I remember it was on in the hotel I was checking into somehow, faintly. Or maybe at one day, the next week at the hotel, because I was staying there for a week. And, like, people at the desk were looking up at the – and I was like, oh, wow, we're really – this is, like, quite a thing. That's so crazy. Yeah, it was like – I just remember around that first eight episodes, seven episodes of the show, I was like, it took a month or two. And I was like, wow, man, I can't even mention that I work on the show without people, like, going, oh, yeah.

Like, even if they weren't watching it, it just everybody knew about it at that moment. It was one of the few things where people, and I don't know how this happened. Maybe you can speak to like that timing, that people were watching it in real time. Yeah. It's like one of the last shows. Yeah. Sure. Game of Thrones.

Yep. And that's where people were like, oh, Sunday night. Oh, Tuesday night. Appointment television. It's going to happen. Like, why, what is it about the time in which it came out into the world do you think that allowed it to sort of latch on the way that it did? I really don't know. They used to ask me that all the time.

and they would always refer it to Trump and the political environment of the world. I just like, I honestly, I think, I don't know. I always pointed at you guys in the cast. I spoke to the divisiveness of the world and it is something that seemed to live, we could all agree that we love our family.

You know what I'm saying? And that was something that for like an hour, you're like, oh, it felt unifying in a very divisive world. I think that's a good way. I always thought that was a way of saying it was like that, you know, people that you could be red in the face screaming at

because they're so opposite who you are as a person. Like, if you saw that person just, like, when their husband or when they were having a baby or when they were at a parent's funeral, like, it's very, we're all kind of in the same. You wouldn't hate the person in that moment. And so maybe there's something unifying about these family shows that once in a while a show comes along at the right time and just catches people. And maybe the time was right for it. I think it was the cast was just so appealing.

And I think, like, I don't know. I think the mystery of the first season, I always felt like there was a lot that always confused me because I saw parenthood was such a great show and Friday Night Lights. A lot of stuff Jason Cadence had done in this space. And there was a lot of concern that the show would be small and we don't want it to feel like those shows,

which hadn't like in their mind's eyes. It wasn't one particular person, but like had felt small for some reason that I didn't quite understand. But I did always think that like the mystery of the patriarch's death would give people some red meat to go along with a family dramedy that like you're pulling people through something with the story

as they're also really caring about the characters and the other arcs and the marriages and the adoption stories and the romances but like I think that did have a part of pulling us into the zeitgeist as well because that's when it started like Chrissy pulled out that urn in like the fifth five and that was like a moment where like

And it was also like just the Miguel showing up at the end of two, which I knew after the pilot, we needed a big twist at the end of two and said, oh, she married what happened to the dad? And then when she pulls out the urnance, he's dead, and you know, oh, I'm living in a time frame with two timeframes with kids at what point will he die. And that gave it, I think, like a propeller. Yeah. I mean, it makes it feel like the kind of in your face nature of mortality. right pulls the audience towards something that they inherently we all know it's coming right but now it's in your face sure and it also kind of in a way says to the audience we're gonna we will take care of you but anything anything goes here yeah like five episodes in we're gonna kill

one of your favorite characters yeah and you're not gonna know why for a very long time and and and so it like propels people's interest in what's going to happen, which is, which is life, too, the anticipation of what's next. I think that's right. I mean, I think that helped. I think it was like a little magic trick we had inside of those first couple seasons of the show, which was like, and why people, there was an urgency. You, like shows have, Game of Thrones had urgency to see it in real time because someone

was going to die. Yeah. Right. At its best, when sex in the city was one of those shows, primarily for like a different for an audience. It was like, who is she going to wind up with? There's a question, right? There's a question. That's our next rewatch podcast. Yeah, yeah. You guys are doing. That's right. That's going to, that's going to go nuts. More that was us after these words from our sponsors. You can get protein at home or a protein latte at Tim's. No powders, no blenders, no shakers.

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slash T-W-U and use the code T-W-U at checkout. That's V-E-G-A-M-O-U-R.com slash T-W-E-W-S-T-W-W-E. code T-W-U to save 20% on your first order. V-E-G-A-M-O-U-R.com slash T-W-U, code T-W-U. I want to talk a little bit about your writing process because I think you approach things a little bit different than a lot of writers I know. Like you, you seem to just put pen to paper and start writing. Like, you don't outline things beforehand. You're like, it's easy if I just write it and show it to people, you know, because that's

what you did with the parties. Like, I wrote this thing. I want you to take a look at it. Not like, oh, I have a sketch of an idea of a thing that I want to get. Talk to me about why, is that just easier for you? Is that always been your process? Yeah, I mean, part of it's just, I'm unshained and lazy a little sometimes. But it's true.

But yeah, I mean, I don't, so it's two parts. One is like on a business level, like years ago, I stopped. I said I'm going to no longer sell pitch ideas or pitch a sketch of an idea because what happens is somebody will want to make it and then I will write it, but I have lost control of it already, right? Like if they have notes, if they want to make it with a certain actor or a certain director, I am not in control of it. It started at a younger point in my career when I didn't.

didn't have as much of the control as I have now where I'm less worried about that now because I know even if I saw if I was to tell someone I did they were saying we're going to pay you to go right it I'd feel confident I could control it a little but when I was younger I just watched things go astray a bunch of times on me not in a bad way I was I always was lucky enough to work with nice people but like I was not the person in control and sometimes they worked out like John and Glenn directed our pilot yeah I wanted to direct crazy stupid love when I wrote crazy stupid lover I had that in my mind's eye but I had never directed it and these guys got it they were absolutely they out made it what it is you know it is and sometimes it works

more often than that it didn't you know and so um but so yeah at a certain point earlier my crew with film and tv i was like i'm gonna write stuff give people the script and say this is what i want i want mandy to be in it and if you don't like that that's fine but i'll find somebody else who wants to do it that way or i won't do anything so that's like the business side of it i just baller move okay and i always recommend that to young writers um but it's coming it comes from a place of like a little bit of privilege and a little bit of like you have to trust on biting yourself because if you spend a year writing something that you don't get paid by the end of the rainbow might be nobody wants it sure and you've wasted a year and sometimes it's better to get you know

have a career and you have a family and get paid to write something even if it's going to go in the shitter and then you have to do the next thing so okay it's a bouncing night but then as a writer I never have really outlined for myself very much, which is not good. It's worked out okay for you. But I wind up doing it in television series, even at the best, like as an example, like when we get to like the Memphis episode of the first season of the show, like I wrote that episode, but that was outlined. Like I was given, I was so busy at the time.

I was writing so much during that first season. I was given by the writer's room an outline of a story, like beat by beat. Now, I kind of dodge and weave through that. In television series, you wind up outlined in quite a lot. That's the whole thing breaking the story because you're doing it with the room. But when I'm kind of writing television series at the start, you and I are doing a new one, like the first couple, I just write them. And then I start figuring out as it gets deeper.

So yeah, so I don't do a lot of outlining. Here's my next question because you'll come up with things and I think the writers when they'll call them like Dan Storms or something like that where something doesn't do. seem to like make... It's so dishing. It's a hashtag. It's a hashtag. Something doesn't seem to make sense.

So I'm gonna reference the painting. And I remember Dan was telling me, it was like, so Kevin does this thing where he paints before he like does it. He's like, it's hard to explain, but like it all makes sense and it'll be great. And I'll be like, all right, bro, whatever you say. Like, I'm like painting, Kevin paints. Like, I remember the first time he said it to me, I was like, okay. And then you watch it and you're like, mother, how did it? It's so sort of like, it seems like it's gonna go left,

but in your mind you have such assuredness about like, no, I know, I'm gonna land, it's like, where does that come from? I don't, I... The painting, that was a big breakthrough moment though for the show, where I was like... Huge. We were in that, again, that... And that's the same episode where I believe Chrissy pulls out the earth.

And so that was where, like, the show was hitting the zeitgeist. I was like, okay, we need to... I was like, I want to tell us. Like, I want to say what the show's about. I think that was, there were a couple. I wrote any showrunner writes a majority of their show, right? There can be a gazillion. That first year, I did a lot of writing, right?

And then at a certain point, though, after the first, I think, I don't remember if I wrote the first three or four, but then at a certain point, you start turning over scripts to other writers. And that's where you really start having to figure out, like, what is this thing? You know, I'm not writing everything word for word anymore. Sure. I remember, like, we were struggling on that part of the script, and I was like, this is where So I don't know where the conference comes from.

I was like, I had this idea of like, I want Kevin, the character who's not the one with the verbal skills to speak to the big grand philosophy of the show to secretly have something inside of him. And I want him to try and express it to a little kid. And I started pitching it to the writer and it just kind of came out. And they were all like, we're looking at me blink. I was like, no, it's going to work. Not all, but I was like, we'll do that. And then you made them all watch you paint. for like three hours.

Yeah, yeah. Like this. I don't know why. With this show particularly, and when I'm doing stuff that's good, hopefully on our new show that we're doing Sterling, but like I can kind of see it in my head. I can see the scene. Yeah. And then I just kind of have to fill in the words a little bit.

And then sometimes I can't get that. And then that's when things are not working. I was like, oh, I want him to say this is us for the first time in a surprising way. Like not all together, but like he says, I think this right here is up. Yeah. I don't know, I just saw it. I could just see it and then I wrote it. And sometimes I can't.

It's a balancing act that the show not only walks immediately, but continues through six seasons. And I've talked to a lot of people about this. Walking right up to the line of like heartfelt sincerity without tipping over into saccharine or to overly sweet. it's you give something like that and it's it's not it is the writing but it's also who like you said who you give it to yeah give it to kevin yeah and the way justin delivers things it's just right incredible well i think it's a and it's a balancing act and it's like in every moment that's all i would monitor and again this show tipped from the very beginning there's a segment of the popular television

watching population that the show tipped too far into that sentimentality from the very beginning it's just not for them. It's not where they live. And so it's like kind of like the people who more have our radar, right, which I find to be in the middle is like, where is it tipping past that? Sure. Like would it have been too much? A challenge. Like being that sincere. Yeah. There's there's a place for sentimentality. If you're if you're actively engaged in relationship, if you're actively engaged with challenging yourself. And the show, I think the show for a lot of people was like pushing them to go there within themselves, within their relationships, within their own families. And even, even there were, we talked about it, even certain people

who, who loved the show couldn't continue because it was tugging at things that were too difficult. It's family. I mean, family is the thing. It's the, it's not the emotion. If the show had been about golfers, but had the same degree of like, like, emotionality and, and done it the same the same way. People wouldn't have had that pullback. Its family is tough. It's like people have lost older. People our age, a lot of them have lost a parent or two. Younger people, it's a lot to think about all this big stuff. You know, people harbor ill towards their parents, harbor love towards their parents, vice versa. It's like a lot. It's confrontational. It's, yeah. To be presented with it. Yeah. And have it mirrored back to you.

Yeah. Yes. A little too close. Yeah. Because it's interesting because the emotionality of the show which has always mystified me like the conversation around the crying yeah like it's just so around us with i mean i i have a four-year-old now he's taking once in a while in his little spider-man backpack he'll take a little car toy home from school okay and kate noticed it and she sat him down and she said my wife and she said dude you can't that's not good and on monday we're going to have to you're going to take the car back and you're going to tell the teacher you're sorry and you know and and and you'll tell and but that's kind of I know you don't mean to but that's kind of not good that's stealing I I coincident it happened to be a day this would be so in this is us if we were

still like yeah yeah and so what wait why are you laughing I'm getting in trouble for no no no no no continue so the other day it was a rare morning where we both were taking him to school normally it's one of us we had to actually go volunteer for something in school for whatever reason we're both in the car and as we're walking up Ben's like very quiet and he's got his little back-de-cline and I'm like hey can you take him to get out of the car Kate was getting out of the car and she's like he's really amped about this apology he's nervous like he like and it's like I don't know which teacher he's going to say it to and we don't know what's going to happen and we're walking into school and there's a teacher this

very sweet young woman Katie who has actually coincidentally has a kid in the class she goes good morning Ben and he just turns to came we were not ready for it he goes now now now he wants the toy right he wants his backpack and he wants the toy he could give it to me now and so she oh okay and he decided it was going to be Katie the first teacher he saw, and she gives him it. And in a very, like, loud, adult voice, he said, I stole this car from school on Friday. I want to tell you that will never happen again,

and I'm very sorry, teacher Katie. I'm very sorry. I promise it will never happen again. Kate starts crying. The teacher starts crying. The teacher's crying because he was just, like, so kind of brave and just owning it. And no one had heard him use his voice. He's kind of a shy kid.

And everyone, I wasn't crying, but like, like, people were, like, crying. And I was like, everything's fucking emotional. This is, this is more emotional than that. They're crying over him returning a stolen, like me of a queen toy. You know, like, I don't know. That was my, that's my take on.

You know what I was laughing? I'm laughing because I think you and I was legitimately surprised when people keep coming up to us and saying, like, you guys make me cry all the time. Da-da-da-da-da. And I'm like, I guess that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm sorry. Thank you.

You're welcome. because it comes from Dan who has such like, such a defined sense of humor, right? And like, Dan doesn't lead with his emotionality, right? He sort of leads with his intelligence and his humor or whatnot. And so the fact that the show kind of became known for this thing that it elicits from you, I'm curious for you because, like, I've seen Dan cry twice.

Really? Like, I think he cries the least out of everybody. Oh, for sure. Out of all of us. Like, we will all be like, oh, uh-huh. Everyone was like, when Dan had us up to the place when it was in our final season. Oh, yeah. And he gave us a really sweet gift.

I was like, oh, cheeks is crying. Like, do you remember this? Yes. The sweetest thing in the world. And so I'm curious that. Can you stop a podcast? You know what? I changed my mind.

I don't want to do this. For you, like, is there, to write the show, did it ask you to tap into a vulnerability that you don't typically share? But I think I do. I mean, I think your assessment is correct. But, like, I think, like, I do actually sometimes get my eyes tear up when I was writing this stuff. Yeah.

Because that's probably my first time doing it. Like, I remember feeling it a few times. I remember you saying that to us. Yeah. You'd message us on the group text and be like, guys, this episode. Yeah, once in a while it would get me. And, like, so, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, my, my dad's not a crier at all. I don't think I've ever seen him cry.

And, but after the pilot aired, when we were in the Mexican restaurant doing the live tweeting for the premiere, I remember very vividly. I love this to Mexico, right? That's all he said. But it was, right? I think it was a sports bar. It was on Melrose, right? Yeah, it was on Melrose. They had a taco on the menu.

No, no, yeah. It was a restaurant. It was a sports bar, guys. It did have a sports bar feel. Because there were a ton of TVs everywhere. There were a lot of TVs. But it was called like El Cholo or L. Something, yes.

I'm telling you. Sterling had his Emmy, right? And he was waving it around. I'm telling you it was a Mexican theme sport. The wings are dangerous to move around. You got to keep it contained. Anyway, we'll cut this out. The, the, my dad called after the pilot ended.

ended and he was hysteria. Whoa. He was really crying. And he was like, and my dad, my dad's normal routine in my career, it's a funny routine. My dad gets one paper to this day who lives in Florida now and he gets the

New York Post. And anytime I would have a movie opening up or anything, he would call me like well, you got another shitty review in the post. Thanks, Dad. I'm going to send you a different newspaper. It's not like you receive at my at the premiere of cars. It was the biggest

And I mean, technically the biggest premiere of all time. It was at a racetrack. It was the most people to ever attend the movie premiere. It was my first movie. And I flew my mom and dad out and they were divorced. I think their first time seeing each other, plus their significant others. We were sitting with Paul Newman. They both fell asleep during the movie.

So my point... They're not the demo. My point being, my point being, my dad, they are not people who just like shower you with platitude. And so my dad, though, he called. He was crying. And I remember I could... I was like, hey. hey, what's going on?

And he's like, we have a bunch of people over to watch the new show. And he's like that. And he just, he kept going, he was like, he would say, he threw tears on the phone. He would be so embarrassed about this story. You can cut this part. But he would say, he was saying, you're a good person. You're a good person. Through his blubbering.

And I always felt that more than emotion or things, I felt like people felt decency coming from the television show and from the cast. And I genuinely feel like through the writing and then through the cast, it felt, like good people were making something, I think. And because, like, because, and to a person, like the cast is filled with good people. Very good. And it's like, and so I always felt that like the show never checked quite the cool box.

Like, not that, but it did and that irritated people because it would win the awards and we were at all the shows. To be on a network TV show and we were all sitting at the Golden Globes. And you guys were winning the SAG multiple times thing as a cast. But, like, it was an interesting thing that, like, we were able to thread that needle. And I think it speaks to the what people, like, want. You know, I don't know. I thought more than emotional, it was, like, people can recoil against decency.

Most of your leading cool shows are anti-heroes, right? I always thought, like, in a weird way, and I loved Succession. But I thought, like, Succession is the mirror to This Is Us. Absolutely. It is about three siblings. right, vying for their, four siblings, but vying for their father's, shout out to Allen Rock, yeah.

Right, their father's attention to be the primary person in a family. It's about parents and children. It's about generations, even though they're not going back and forth in time. I mean, there was a lot of connection, but the shows could not be obviously more different. And that's not to say bad people made the other one.

But there was something in the water on this one. I don't know. Well, again, it's confrontational. Decency is difficult. Yeah. Like to just write your brother off or to just not make the phone call to your dad. To not find your biological father. To not confront your mother about choices she made.

Like, yeah, I mean, it's an endless list. Yeah. We'll be right back with more. That was us. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the defender, Octa, is taking on the Dakar rally, the ultimate off-road challenge.

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That's a good question, man. I don't have thought on that. I want you to hear your response. I mean, we could think about obviously all six seasons. On a workload level, the first season into the second was so hard because it was just all new, but it was also so exciting, but it was also so crazy. How often did you feel overwhelmed? I mean, I remember having conversations with you where you're, like, in it.

Did you ever feel like I can't do this, or did you feel like I just have to figure out how to keep. No, it just, it took a toll. Like, I mean, it was just, it was so much, I didn't, I, during that first season, I also had a second TV show that was going, and I was prepping a movie that I was going to direct during the hiatus. Like, I was editing the Memphis episode and everything else from New York, where I was prepped, we were already done shooting.

I was prepping a movie. So it was just, like, like, a lot for me personally. Show-wise, like, the first season was, like, everyone was like, are you enjoying it? It's so successful. And I was not enjoying any of it. I was just like keeping my head on straight and trying to survive. And it wasn't that I wasn't enjoying it. But it was just like, I mean, like, I mean, we had so many things.

Like, you guys had them throughout. But, I mean, I don't do press. I don't do, like, I don't do, like, events where, I mean, like, it was, like, nonstop. And I was like, you're not present for any of it. You're nauseous the whole time. I remember standing with Mandy at the first one, which it was at that Barker Airline Hanger thing. It was like the Critics Choice Award. It was our first award show.

And I remember Chris Casper's our publicity guy coming up to me and be like, hey, I just want to give you the layout of the stage. If you win, you'll be the one going up and speaking. I want to show you the path. And I was like, what's going on? If we win, he's like, Dan, you might win. Do you have a, and I was like, no, I don't. I've never been to what.

I mean, it was my first time in a tuxedo since my prom. You know what I mean? And like, so. Same tuxedo. Same tuxedo. He would come up to me and be like, Sterling. If we went, you get up and you say something because you can do this stuff, I'm like, you need to say something, man. So the first season was challenging in that regard.

I think the third season was really challenging in terms of being like that's our first season where like we have to now keep this thing rolling with more storylines. We're inventing now. You jump to Vietnam and marital crises. I believe you guys and like you guys. We'd also gotten the three season pickup at season three. After three. After three, okay, gotcha. But three was the first time, like, what I had in my head in my soul was like the first

two seasons of the show and the last season of the show. Like I could have done this as a three season show, but I always knew six that it would, it could bear to live longer. We appreciate that. It would mean, as a piece of commerce it needed to last. The audience appreciate it. We all thank you. But so that that was the first year of going, okay, how do we invent, where are we going to

go. We're going to go to Mandy O'Mail younger in their courtship. We're going to go to Vietnam. We're going to start fucking up Toby and Kate and Randall and Beth and like do all that stuff because we're going to give Justin a new love interest. And like that was the first time we were off like the core mission of the show and now like making really cool stories but that we're going to last for multiple seasons until we could get to my ending. Was there one particular episode though that you just like found so hard for whatever reason? Maybe it was like it was so emotional It was just like a tough nut to crack. Like the, I remember the first season of the third,

the first episode of the third season was hard. It was when you and Milo go to a carnival and like, oh, yeah. Yeah, and I was just going and, um, so that. Our first date. That first date. It was just like a new timeline. I was like, is this big enough we did the big Franco Harris thing with that premiere episode? He's in our new show.

The guy who plays Franco Harris is in our new show. Holy shit. I knew I recognized. You didn't realize, grow up. That's Raphael. Oh, shit. I got to talk. Anyway.

It's like a fever dream, right? Yeah. So that was a challenging one. I just remember, I just remember going like, is this, I mean, the first episodes, I mean, we had the pilot, the first episode of season two. The first episode of season one, the first episode of season two ended with like the reveal of you screaming in the car and showing the burned down house as you like bang on the steering wheel. And the audience went bat shit, right? Yes. And I was like, oh, season three, I don't.

know what that's gonna be i don't quite have that thin because we don't you can only you know and so i was like so that was a challenge i the the premiere of season five when we decided to attack that's the one that i was gonna talk yeah that was very very stressful and hard like when we were gonna attack and i hear that more from the from the other crowd there like i get a lot of that like i liked your show but then you guys went woke they say which is like code word for what ever it is i don't know but like i'm like really like it was such an artful i thought touch but like anyway I remember talking to you in the midst of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, the ultimate decision for you to incorporate it into the show was based on what?

Because some shows were trying to make alternate realities, and you decided, like, no, this is the world we live. We were the first show back on television, basically, based off the way we were going to go. We were still the biggest show on commercial network television. So it felt like a really big choice. We were like writing the episodes, literally writing the episodes when people were still like millions of people are dying and we were washing down vegetables outside of our house like Lysol. Like that's when we had to make the decision. And it just like I think I've been reading a lot now with kind of the immediacy of COVID in the distance with the immediacy of COVID now years behind us like how much that period like really screwed up this world in this country psychologically. in ways that we don't think about anymore,

but that it did. So when we were making, having those conversations and making those decisions, like, it was just so raw. I couldn't fathom how we were gonna put that onto television through two months later and not address it. And I also thought, and the deciding factor for me, because there was a lot of debate in our writer's room,

and the deciding factor for me was that we could talk about George Floyd, but we could also own the pandemic in a way that other shows couldn't, because it was very specifically a family pandemic, right? Like, the results of the pandemic and the results of the racial reckoning that the country was having at that moment in time, we're particularly unique for us in our show, right?

We had a black kid growing up in a white family. So like, are you kidding? But we're not gonna talk about the world events right now. Like, in a show that has to go six seasons, like I could make Beth and Randall fight again or we could talk about something. The reality of the world that we're living in, yeah. Because we were gonna get into,

talking about Randall reckoning with his racial background in the, as it related to the family anyway. So like, why not make it think? And then in terms of the masking or the pandemic, which we tried to treat artfully, but like we're like, that was where I had a, I was having, you were having kids around the same time, Mandy and Sully. Like, my dad didn't see our kid for a year because it was just too fraught to travel and whatnot. Like, um, having a, I was having a baby during the midst of the pandemic i was not at doctor appointments with my wife i was like sully was during that i was on in the car in the parking lot listening to the doctor through face time often losing reception we had we kate had to get induced a couple of weeks early there was nothing wrong

but some things were starting to go astray and everything wound up fine and i remember hearing the doctor telling her but i was making out every other word in the parking lot and couldn't understand what was being said so that was like our experience of having a baby and i was like how unique it like if we were doing a cop show or not even a cop show, if we were doing a show about home renovations, maybe it wouldn't have made as much sense to do it. But like it felt like it was so, so that was a big challenging moment for us.

That was going on social, which you have to like do at your own caution, right? There were so many people who were delightfully effusive for the way in which we tackled that 501 premiere. And as many people were like, if I wanted to watch the news, I would turn to the news. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? But the thing is nobody was like indifferent. Like, oh, that was okay. Yeah. It was like, very divisive. Yeah, yeah. Well, some really, it was also a really powerful episode of a really kind of crisis point moment for the country.

And so, yeah, I think that was definitely the only time we were very polarizing, I think, which I thought was cool. The other hard part was just the ending, I think, the last two episodes, the last two or three episodes, like just. getting that. It wasn't hard. It was just like, I was like, you know, you get in your own world where you're like, I'm doing the most important thing in the world. I'm ending, this is us, right? And you're like, so you're like, you're really, like you really want to get it right. You know what I mean? And so that was like that last season, I was losing a lot of my senior

level writers who I relied on were starting to, as you do, they're starting to get pulled in a lot of different directions because they're preparing for their life beyond the show. Not that they weren't there and I found myself just like with a very kind of it felt like reverting back to the first season a little bit in that final season as a whole like like I'm kind of here I want to do this right I had I still have them up my son asked me the other day why they're up I have eight I had 18 little you know the little sticky notes uh what do they call stick them post it post it but you know how they're the small ones yeah I had 18 in three rows of six on my wall in my home office because I and because that's where I was mainly doing work from because of COVID stuff still at that

time. And each time I would complete an edit, I would cross it off. And because I was like, I'm going to, I was just like treating it like the last lap of the last mile of a marathon. And I was like, I'm going to end the show right so that I can feel it was done right. And I feel, it was done right. And I feel proud of it. And I was like, but it's going to kill me. And I just was like, and I was just like so anxious about the 17th episode and are the reveals all going to work. And there's the train all going to work. And then like an 18th episode in the home footage. And when I was done, that was a huge. moment of like really that was probably when you asked what the hardest one is probably ending it was

large not because i was like emotional and crying but more because i was like i really felt like i really i was like god this has been it's really been eight years of my life and thousands of people work on the show and then so many people watch i'm like i have to try and get this right so you did some things you did like the the scenes that we had shot i don't know if you i had shot a scene with um with william Randall and William that you put in that final episode, or was it in 17? And I was like, I forgot I had shot this thing. And I feel like we all had like a couple of those,

because you'd been saying like we would get on the call sheet, there'd be like season six, whatever, and you're like, what are we shooting? And then you shoot it and then like, the fact that you had foresight to do that, man, that's pretty impressive. It was the beginning of season three or four? There was three. Yeah. That we shot and banked a bunch of what was eventually shown in the final, final episode.

The main reason was the kids. Sure. I didn't want the kids. You know, in retrospect, if you could have, like, told me, like, do it all over again, I would have taken another beat at the very beginning of season one when everybody was so little and shot, like, unending's amount of footage. I would have taken, like, two, three weeks before we started production, because then you would have had that magic trick to go to all the time or all the time in the final season.

Because even we get older, you know what even. And, like, you can feel like everybody just, like, maturing. And it was, like, cool to get it early. But, yeah, we did that. That's how you keep walking on the island, man. That's how you keep on the island. Shoot them early. Yeah.

Good footage. Yeah. Just real quick, do you want to talk at all about the title? Because when we... Yes. That is a good point. We had, like, the untitled Dan Folgman Project. And then the working title was sort of 36.

How did you wind up coming with the This Is Us? Well, the original title was 36. And I just actually somewhat... some friend who's an author asked for a family member, like a signed original pilot script, and my sister just gave me the original pilot script and I signed it. And it says 36 on it.

And he was like, what the, what the fuck is this? I don't know this. I can't, you can't sell this one, you bet. I had done, you'll see in my office, it's a big joke, but all my early spec script movies, like crazy stupid love and a couple others, I'd never named them because I was just like,

I hate titles. And so. They're all called 36. So I was like, at the last minute, I was like, so all over town, when you're shooting, you would see UDF signs. That's, I mean, untitled Dan Fogler. And I was like so tired of it. I was like, I'm just going to throw a tie. Because then once you do that, you'll never land on a title.

Because if you don't have a title to start, you'll never have a title. No one will ever agree on it. I put together, I'll send it to you guys if you want for the podcast. It was, I play it for people. I'll play for you guys after we're done here because I save it also. I put together the most cockshore promo that was so brazen. And I was like, you've seen it? I was like, God, I was the cockiest.

I should have been kicked out of a window. I put together a promo to try and sell them on This Is Us. And it's like throughout the years, NBC has brought you some of the finest television in the world. And it's like, it would say, this is comedy. And it had clips from Seinfeld and all their shows. And then it was like, this is drama. And it was like the West Wing and all their best shows. And then I was like coming this fall.

a new show to add to the pantheon of classic. And it said, like, this is love, this is laughter. It was all the stuff that came back. It's great. But I was like, I was like, compared, I was putting the show on a stage with all these other shows. And I was like, we hadn't even aired yet. I mean, when I was sending them this stuff.

I mean, it was like. But that's genius marketing. When I made my first cut of the pilot, I put that big paragraph at the beginning that explains how people are born in the same time. And that writing didn't have the words, this is us in it initially. Yeah.

So I rewrote it slightly so that that font could kind of shrink down into the This Is Us. And I was like, then when it's attached to the pilot and the pilot is playing well, and they ask the audiences questions after the show, it will work. The writing of the show, besides the title is one thing. But like people come up to me constantly. You will always reference us as actors. But like, they come to the actors and be like, dude, the writing on that show is insane. You know?

So take about. Thanks, man. You're welcome. No, seriously, if you could take about it. That's how we end. It's part of the part. That was us. Before you guys go, what can you tell us about the new show that you're working on?

Plug your new show a little bit if you can. We don't even know the name of it. We don't know the name of it. Sterling's in it. It's good. It's very different. It's a secret service agent on presidential detail. We can say, yeah, it loses the president.

A retired ex-president, like a retired ex-president. Yeah, retired ex-president and whatnot. And so he's sort of trying to figure out how he died, why he died, what was the motivation behind it. behind it. It's a great, it's an ensemble, wonderful actors. We can't say too much. Dan always has some sort of... It's kind of like a political thriller,

murder mystery, but there's like a lot of secrets behind, like the murder and like the play, like what's gone on to get them there. So it's like... And when it is findable, it will be found on... Hulu. Only eight episodes. I think this is like...

The eight episodes, three seasons. So like, what he would have done to this is us is what he's doing with this. It's so much easier. So much easier. Not 18. My golf games better. Yeah.

A lot of the same directors. A lot of the same crew. John and Glenn are directing our pilot. So we have a lot of the crew too. Cool. Amazing. The crew is really one of the best feelings for me being on set is sort of being surrounded by people that you've known for eight years. Yeah.

You know, Tim Sound like Crickie's there. It is. Shaw is there. Like all of our crew from the show. Everyone's back together. I love that. shoot on 31 and 32. Amazing.

Which are the two of the sets that we shot. It's pretty trippy. Susan came down the other day and was like watching Sterling doing it. And it was like all in the same stage. She's like, this is a trip. It was like really weird. Yeah. Well, Dan, thanks for coming to talk to us. And hopefully, if maybe down the line, there's.

Any time you need me, I'm here. We would love to have you back to talk about the show. I don't come to Sterling's living room any time you guys. I love that it's mine. It's here. It's nobody else is. Please, uh, subscribe. Call up your family and friends.

Have them check out this show, and we can go through the show again together. Rate, review, subscribe. That was us. That was us. Thank you, Dan Fogelman. Thank you, Dan Fogelman. This was so fun.

This was a cheat. That Was Us is filmed at The Crow and produced by Rabbit Grinn Productions and Sarah Warehunt. Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith. Thank you.