The Watch - Ep. 122: Interview With ‘One Day at a Time’ Showrunners Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce

Episode Date: February 16, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss one of their favorite new shows, Netflix’s ‘One Day at a Time’ (0:45), before Andy sits down with its two showrunners, Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce, to talk about making the show and rethinking the modern-day sitcom (10:41). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio. It's almost time for his kinsignior. It's Andy Greenwald! Thank you. I think I look pretty good for 15. It is a special episode because you have an extended interview with the showrunners and writers of the wonderful Netflix series one day at a time. Yeah, Gloria Calderon-Kellet and Mike Royce were nice enough to come in. We chatted about the entire season of the Netflix show, and you and I are going to do a little prep.

Yeah, we're going to do a little, play a little racquetball on that one, but real quick, let's get through a couple of things. I want to let you know that we are going to do Young Pope Postmortem Monday, I believe. believe. Also, Big Little Lies. I'm psyched about that. Also, crashing. It's TV back. Yeah. I feel like we say TV back a lot. Maybe it never left. TV's been really good this year. In the sense that I like some shows. So it's been a, it's been a peak year. Let's just be honest about what we're doing here. Next Thursday, Andy and I will be doing a Oscars pre-show. Sean Fennessee will be joining us. He's been writing a bunch of columns about, you know, award season.

He's been interviewing a bunch of directors. Dipping his toes into the podcast space. He's been a, he's been a new voice in the podcast space. I recommend people checking out his conversation with Barry Jenkins, director of Moonlight. It's fantastic. Double-down book club, Andy and I's book club. We're keeping the book industry alive. Single-handedly. David Downing definitely bought a country house in Cornwall off the back of this podcast. Zoo Station by David Downing.

It's his World War II espionage thriller that Andy and I are going to do for the book club in a week or two. You guys have a little time to keep reading. Amazon's got that back in stock. Go to your library. Go to a bookstore. Check it out. Tweet questions or discussion topics. At the watchpod, that's Twitter, and show the watchpod with Friend.

It really helps. Thank you very much for your patronship. Patronage? Patronage, yeah. But you don't pay anything. So it's not really patronage. It's more like your participation. That's really nice.

Okay, let's get to your, before we get to your interview with the developers, with the writers one day at a time, I'm going to talk. We talked a little bit about this show a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, we watched the first episode, and we were pleasantly surprised. And I burned through that first season very quickly, and we mentioned this the other day, I think, on one of the pods in relationship to girls. It's just one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. And it's really what we often talk about playing by the rules or breaking the rules,

you know, in television and whether or not you're basically going to take some quasi-rigid format, whether it's a sitcom, whether it's in front of a studio audience, whether you're doing a procedural, whether you're doing a who-done-it or whatever. and what you can do within those constraints. And then there are shows like Legion and Robot and all these other ones that are kind of like, well, we're going to tweak what a show can do and what a show formally can be. One day at a time, obviously falls in the former, but is as progressive or provocative and rule breaking, tonally, emotionally, content-wise, and the level of writing and acting that you get here is as good as anything on television.

I completely agree. I'm still shocked. I mean, you'll hear it in my interview with them. I really just kept saying, how did you do this? I still don't quite understand it. And it was really great to talk to them both as a fan of the show and also just as a fan of how TV gets made and how it works because this is an arranged marriage between them, basically. Norman Lear, you know, 90-plus years young,

he created All the Family and Maud and the original one day at a time. And then it's kind of an out-of-the-game, but it's still very much with it and active and wanted to, it felt this was ripe for reimagining. He brought in Mike Royce, who had worked on, Everybody Loves Raymond for a long time, created men of a certain age, which is a good show that kind of fell between the cracks. And then, you know, they wanted to make it about a Latino family to update the show. And Mike Royce and Norman Lee are many things, but they are not members of a Latino family. So they reached out to Gloria Calderon-Kellet, who has very impressive IMDB list of her own.

I mean, she worked on two and a half men and IZombian rules of engagement. And she is Cuban-American. And so she and Mike basically started working together on this. And what was really interesting to me, and you'll hear this in the conversation, was that every time they were faced with a choice, they generally took the more complicated choice. I think that pays off in the characters. Like specifically, like, there's a wacky neighbor on one day at a time. Schneider.

It was in the original version of the 70s. It's not the like a bearded man baby next door neighbor character we've seen on a whole parcel of, you know, attempted multicam reinventions over the last few years. But on a deeper level, they talk a lot in the interview about how in the writers room with their writers, they share personal stories. They cry a lot. Mike teared up during our interview. And the show really knocks you out because it has this, it's created this format or space for itself to get off of the plot treadmill of the shows you're mentioning of prestige shows and deliver these emotional wallups that are really breathtaking. And that's something that TV can do and has gotten away from.

and they found a space to do it and to create a workspace where they celebrate those ideas and then put them on the page, which I think, even in my own experience, limited experience, has been a challenge. There's a couple of shows like this right now. Also on Netflix is The Ranch,

although obviously has a completely different sort of set of, I mean, in some ways actually is quite similar in terms of it's about a family, it's about a family that's struggling to make ends meet. It's about a family that's struggling to stay together under tough times, but is set in rural Colorado and is about a bunch of characters

who I think would identify themselves as sort of, you know, red state people. And then you've got shows like mom and Carmichael, all of which I think just like are shows that kind of take for, you know, they say the situation of the situation comedy is always going to seem, you can pitch it in an elevator. It's about a recovering addict and her mother who are living together. It's about ranchers who are living together in Colorado.

It's about a Cuban American family living together at Echo Park. And then what happens is if you foreground, quote unquote, issues, you know what I mean? but these issues are actually just things that happen to people's lives. And they deal with them, Carmichael's like this too, where it just deals with them in a very head-on and in a very like, not uncomfortable the way, say, Larry David does it or Louis does it, where it's almost like twisting the knife a little bit for as amazing as those guys are.

This is more like kind of what you would expect from a play, you know what you mean, where you're kind of stuck in this room with these people and they're going to get through this or not and you're going to go there with them. Yeah, and I think another way to appreciate the show. And I said this when we first talked about it, and I'll say it again, like, even if you find it a little weird rhythmically or off-putting or you just can't get past the laugh track, give it an episode or two. If you make it to three, I think you're in. Yeah. I think it's a really remarkable use of the Netflix model because, you know, they spoke about this, about the freedom Netflix offered in terms of not having to write to commercial break.

So you don't have to have that want, wah, wah, and then you bring it back. They have long scenes that just sit there. but also watch the season and it's remarkable the way a sitcom is plotted with the intricacy of a prestige drama basically things that happen over the course of the season things that don't pay off until the finale

are there in the pilot and they had the luxury of running that through and then also because Netflix and all the episodes are there they don't have to remind you of them yeah so you said surprise I think that's that's the operative word even for this conversation

you know like I just think that I'm I still don't quite understand how this happened why we like it. I know why we like it, but just that it hit us in this way. It's nice to know that TV can still surprise you and surprise you with something that is essentially 40 years old in a lot of ways. Anything that it's very difficult to make something so uncinical

that doesn't also tread into corny and they did it. I'm also excited because, though, this is not officially an Andy Greenwald podcast, I think my music gets to play, right? We get to listen to Little Church's music. Let's hear a little churches. It's going to sound good. So this is my chat with one day at a time. I'm developers, co-show runners, Mike Royce, and Gloria Calderon Kellett.

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Is that really? Pam is our director. Yeah. Friman. Pam Fryman. Yeah. But we're recording. She has no inside down, so she's going off.

Only if you don't want to see. Only, yeah. No, this is fine. Yeah. Pam's going off. Yeah. To recap what we said before, I miss Gloria terribly. And our director magically thinks we're getting picked up today.

Yeah. So you guys really don't know anything right now. This is one of those. Because my understanding of Netflix, which is purely from sitting on my couch at this point. Yeah. a wink wink back root like shake hands like we got you you're coming back or like you plan the next five seasons and we'll i mean we feel good we feel winked at yeah we feel winked at was it a flirtatious wink or an angry wing it was a very flirtatious wink okay good but to be clear we're not we're not

we're not there's no official anything and and they are think trying to um maintain a more uh traditional you know i see you should like wait a little while get some data together make everyone but we're buying condoms. I'm staying with that thing. You're buying condoms. I'm staying with that

and now it's not a I'm not really, I'm not really buying condoms because I really put up. We don't do that anymore. Obviously, I'm speaking to the showrunners of one day at a time on Netflix, Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce.

Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. And being here. I'm, obviously we covered one of the big questions first, which is we don't. It's usually the last question. So I appreciate we're doing, we've reversed it.

whether the show's coming back or not. But it's almost irrelevant because we're here to talk about the really surprising and amazing first season of your show, which is available for everyone to watch now. Thanks. I am completely dazzled by the show you made. I'm confounded by it. I can't, I don't.

I just basically, the first question I have written down, written down in bold. How did you do this? I don't understand how you did this. I have many other specific questions, but I wanted to express to you how impressed and just still kind of confused I am about how you're able to make the show and make it so, so good. Gosh, that's really nice.

I feel like we should kind of end there. Maybe call us every day and just tell us that and hang out. No problem. Okay. I'll bring condoms. I don't know. I mean, thank you for. That's so nice.

I mean, we both come from different, you know, but like different multi-cam backgrounds, right? I mean, you worked on a very different show than I did in terms of sort of how it works. and but we I feel like we both had a lot of experience and then you can kind of get behind Norman and do the simple answer is try to do what Norman did and Norman Lear you'll never get there but it's a good goal

Yes and when you talk about your past experience on sitcoms Mike you worked on everybody who loves Raymond and Gloria tell me what was your multi-cam experience I was well my multi-cam is rules of engagement was traditional multi-cam and then how I met your mother was multi-cam hybrid right that's what they call it Sort of a wink-wink.

So we didn't shoot in front of a live studio audience. We shot over the course of three days, and we had many quick cut scenes. But both of those were a great training ground for this, certainly. And she also has a very theatrical. She's written a lot of plays. And I haven't done that. And that really, that's what Norman did, really. And so that really lent itself to just structurally, that's the way we went into it a lot because of, you know, she's very comfortable with that.

Well, it's interesting to me because obviously the shows you both mentioned were multi-cam or quasi-multicam shows. They were also enormous hits. The number one show on television is also a multi-camp sitcom to this day. But over on Prestige Island, where a lot of TV critics have set up camp, these shows basically don't exist. You know, this is basically a foreign language at this point. And, you know, there's a generation of people who grew up with the smart, I'm putting this in quote, sitcoms being single-camp sitcoms growing up on the office in 30 Rock Parks and Recreation. So to my mind, I grew up on these on multi-campus sitcom, certainly.

But it was like relearning a language I had forgotten, kind of. And I feel like the system in many ways, certainly in older people, I don't want to say older people's, some audiences' mind had fallen into some disrepair. So to suddenly see it picked up with such gusto, not commenting on it, but embracing the possibility of the form, felt really exhilarating. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

have a whole, I mean, I, I, I, I, exactly what you said is what I am often, like, thinking about and talking about as terms of like, at some point when single camps became a thing, the multi-camp became, that's the one where you do the dick jokes. I mean, I'm saying reception-wise. I'm not, because there's a lot of there's good ones out there, you know. And some of them have dick jokes. And yes. And there's some really good jokes. Me too. Hopefully we can workshops them later. But I think there's something, there's something to also today's day and day and age, the way there's a way there's a. a million choices. It used to be, you know, three channels and shows would wear you down in a good way, you know, but you had to, you know, you had three choices and so, whatever, I'll try this one again, and you would get used to and you would meet the characters and buy you. So you, even if you didn't, weren't crazy about the pile or whatever, you know,

you kind of had time to warm up to everybody and, and welcome them into your living room. Yeah. And now it's obviously three seconds in you can make it. Oh, this sucks and make a choice. And that multicam thing, I think there's a, you know, maybe. Maybe it's an American thing. Something about hearing that laugh. Yeah.

If you hear three jokes and one of them you don't think it's funny and then you hear, uh, your head is like, fuck you. Come on. I'm like, no, no thank you. And so it's more of a, I just think the mindset is it takes more patience to watch it and get used to it. And, you know, and there's just a higher standard or whatever. Well, there's also, I think, a very high degree of difficulty in writing it. There's a music to it, a rhythm to it.

you know, that has to be understood and embraced. But then also now, for the audience, has to learn to dance those steps again and sort of, you know, dial into it. And for me, five minutes into the pilot, I was like, well, I see what they're doing. 10 minutes in, I like what they're doing. 20 minutes in, I want to continue with what they're doing. You know, it's a buildup. But how much do you got, you guys have experience working on it,

but you also had a writer's room as well. How much do you talk about that rhythm or that music of what the show needs to feel like as opposed to what the words actually have to be? Because we'll get to those in a minute. Well, I think it's like, I think this show in particular we feel like is so much more like a play than, I think a bit more that way than like a sitcom, really. Because we don't have to really build to those commercial breaks either. Yes, that's huge. So we're really writing these long scenes.

And rhythmically, I don't know that it is like a traditional sitcom in that we don't do three jokes a page. Right. know, we're really writing to what is funny about the character. I don't even know if we're doing, we do hard jokes, but it's not, it's not like, b-and-bum-ch hard jokes. It's jokes that come from character. Yeah, which I think is, I mean, to be fair, I think that's the goal of, you know, most multi-camera sitcoms, I do think that Netflix, the structure and, again, sort of having Norman,

this is a word I hate, but as almost kind of the brand, you know, the way to basically be able to embrace the way he did things gets you so much because people know what you're doing without you having to explain it. Right. It would be a harder argument with, you know. So, you know, we're not reinventing the wheel, but we're able to execute with fewer barriers to it, maybe, you know. The thing that I've been toying with, and then I'd like to return to Norman's role and

just really how you got here. Back to my original question of how you did this. I was wondering why I was so, I'm sorry, this is really about me. My therapy here, I'm really interrogating my own reaction to your. very good television show. I was trying to figure out why, I mean, your show is deeply moving and really engaging on an emotional level. And it touches on, you know, social issues and political issues with a not heavy hand, you know, that feels natural and appropriate. And I was wondering, why aren't more, first of all, why aren't more shows like that?

And that's going to be another podcast we do. But I was thinking that one of the downsides of this golden age of television that we're sort of still huffing the fumes of has basically turned the drama into everything. and then in this arms erase of drama that you were sort of referring to, it's really a plot treadmill. You know, it's an engine for an exciting engine for kinds of plot, and the emotion has to be lacquered onto that

because now you need to top what the other shows are doing and you need to catch the eyeballs. By using this template that is pre-established, you know, it's almost, honestly, it's almost like Shakespearean at this point. It's mutable. You've stepped off the treadmill.

You found a natural way to step off the treadmill and deliver sensations that used to be quite familiar to television viewers but are weirdly in short supply now. That's not a question. But that's my theory that I would like to leave here in the middle of the table and then let you pick at it. I like it. I like the theory too, yeah.

I think that's right. I think, yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean, we both really, we're both, we both joke. We're both cry babies. We both like to feel our feelings. And I think there is something nice about having quiet moments that maybe time on traditional network television has taken away from us. Maybe doing a story in 20 minutes, it's difficult to have those quiet moments, moments of

stillness moments where there's not a laugh and people are worried that there's not a laugh so they want to fill it with a laugh. We don't have to do that. So we don't and it's nice sometimes to earn a moment and have a little more time to earn it. Yeah. Yeah. It's the music, as you say, is an interesting because, again, it is a sitcom and is, you know, anybody who watches it who, like, has listened to this right now and,

turns it on in the first five minutes like, this is just a fucking sitcom. Like, it's true. Yeah. It is. Yeah. But it, I just, you know, our goal anyway is to, you know, it used to be, again, you'd watch 10 sitcoms and one of them somehow resonated with you. And we try to put stuff out there that, that, you know, makes us cry and makes us laugh. And you're just not always allowed to do that these days.

Well, also, it's definitely a badge of honor and definitely gets you more critical attention to, to, to, to, challenge the audience, and I am all for challenging the audience, but it's not always, you don't always have to challenge them with shock or with violence. You know, you can challenge them with emotions or characters with differing points of view. But also, I think that one thing that we've sort of gotten away from is that TV is essentially intimate medium. I mean, it comes into your home, and the shows that I fell in love with, and I'm sure you guys fell in love with too, you have to fall in love with the people and the world. You have to want to continue to go back to it. Otherwise, what are we all doing? And I feel that way about prestige dramas, too.

I mean, you know, you kind of, the ones that worked, even when things got pretty dark, you still wanted to be in that world, even if luckily it was only for an hour a week. Right. But how do you, and maybe we can start to pivot towards just how did you do this? But how do you express that idea that I just sort of stumbled through? How do you, at the beginning of a project, try to imagine that world or the characters? What comes first in your own processes? The characters, I think, came first for, I mean, we knew what the premise is going to be. was going to be a single mom.

And then really... That's inherited from the original. That's inherited from the original. And Norman really allowed us to reimagine. He really said, take that and run with that. And so Mike and I sat in a room, and we talked about my family and his family. And we really merged our families and made this family. I mean, that's ultimately...

We have certain things in common. I have a girl and a boy. She is a girl and a boy. Hers are 10 years younger. So mine are kind of going through what the characters are going through now. she sees the future. Yes, it's terrifying. But yeah, we're always driving towards, I would say, the emotional thing.

Like that's sort of the, oh, we got to do an episode about that. Almost always is that's the part where we cry. Right, right. I mean, because then we built the, you know, then the architecture becomes how do we tell an interesting story to get there and then earn whatever that thing is. And then we also tell a lot of personal stories. I mean, I come in with stories. about me and my mom, you know, my mom and I, those are a lot of real conversations we have had. Yeah. Yeah. And he comes in and tells stories about things going on with his kids. And, you know, and then we...

And all the other writers do the same thing. And then we sort of pull from that and how through the eyes of these people does it come... Does it come out? Yeah. Well, I refer to the act of watching the show as intimate, but also collaborating like this and talking about your families and your lives and your actual feelings is incredibly intimate. So Norman Lear, who is incredibly active still as a human being, I mean, I definitely have a lot of questions about him. So do we. Oh, good. This is a safe space for it. But he wants back in the game. He has this property that is really timeless, like Shakespeare could be molded in a lot of different ways.

What comes next? How did you, was this an arranged marriage, first of all? Yes. Totally. How the heck did it work? How did he bring you in? How did it work? Yeah, he met with me, I think, first. Yes.

And it was me and him and Brent Miller, three, I'll say white boys, Norman's 94. We never lose the white boy in us. No, I can say that. And it was, you know, so for me, the idea of working with Norman, like, I mean, reinventing one of his shows. Oh, my God, what an incredible opportunity. And then it was like, you know, the first, the idea was a Latino reboot or whatever that meant at that moment. So I was like, we should probably get someone. He knows what they're talking about.

Right. Someone who's not us, which they were doing. They were already meeting with lots of different Latino writers. And she was the only one that they liked. No, that's not true. But she was only the top of the heap. Yeah. And, Gloria, what was that like for you to hear that this is being put together?

to meet with these guys and then to be able to... Well, look, somebody says Norman Lear wants to meet with you. You go. You go and we'll do that meeting. I'm waiting. So for me, I was just like, I just want to meet Norman Lear. I don't know what he's... I mean, I guess he's going to talk about this thing.

I don't know if I'm interested in doing that, but I just wanted to sit with him. And he is really disarming. So he tricks you because he's so charming and interested. And, you know, after the first 30 minutes where I don't know what happened, I couldn't tell you. Then it just became a conversation with somebody who was very. really interested in asking me questions and genuinely wanted to hear my answers. And it was a beautiful conversation. I actually at the beginning, he said, what do you think of this? And I was like, I don't know that I would, I don't know, it makes me nervous. And he said, why does it make you

nervous? And I said, because as a Latina, we want a great show. And every time there's a show, we watch it and we're like, at some point, there's that moment. And you're like, oh, it's not, oh, somebody got in there. It's something loses authenticity for me. And he goes, Well, what wouldn't lose authenticity? I mean, you know, he just always had a great question. Well, I mean, let's start at the place where most authenticity gets lost in Hollywood, which is, you know, there is a not non-noble goal. We would like to make a Latino-centered family, a sitcom-centered around a Latino family.

Okay, let's do it. Now, that could mean so many things. Yes. That could, there's, you know, a whole tapestry of possibilities for what that could mean. And I do think that level of thinking is often missing. in the boardrooms where these things are initially discussed. So, you know, one of the greatest things about your show is the enormous specificity, not just of the characters and who they are as people, but the culture that they're representing

on the screen for us. So, Gloria, I'm correct in saying that came a lot from your family. Yes. Cuban American heritage. Yes. I'm curious about that conversation where you must have at some point said, well, Latino is a pretty large. Yes.

Well, you know, I was, again, I've been so supported by these guys. It's such a crazy love fest. But because I've been really fortunate, I'm sure a lot of people listen to this and they're like, ah, she's so lucky. I know I am. Because every time I had a concern or something, they were really supportive. So I joked with Mike at some point. I was like, look, let's make him Cuban because I'm Cuban.

And I can just have the most fun with that. Yeah. You know, I can make fun of my own people because I'm Cuban. If I deal with somebody, it's just going to be a little bit different. It's going to, I'm going to require, if we want to do a Mexican family, we just need to hire a lot of Mexican writers on the show. So that I, not that I couldn't do that, it's just it would be less authentic coming from me. So. Not less authentic coming from Mike, interestingly.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the go-to. He's the go-to, let you know everything, be all. Yeah. So at one point, we did get a phone call saying, can you make them Mexican? And, you know, Mike immediately came to my defense.

Well, I mean, I was like, well, I'm not Mexican and she's not Mexican. So maybe, you know, I just, my experience has always been, uh, um, especially for a multi-cam, it's so great to be able to come from your own place. It's not required like you're talking about. Everyone should be able to write everything and does. Totally. And you shouldn't be, you know, chained to writing literally your own experience. But to get stories that feel authentic and to really do a good job and to not have people looking at, you know, what, as you described, somewhat, a lot of people thinking the format itself is just complete horseshit to begin with.

Then to pile on top of that, oh, these people don't know what they're talking about. you know, Gloria had so much from her family to draw on. It just seemed like a mistake. By the way, they didn't battle us. They were literally just floating it because there are many more Mexicans in the United States. That's true. Mexican-Americans. Yeah, and I think that was such an interesting and ultimately correct choice because, you know, in many ways, if you are just doing the headline version of the show, the Mexican-American story is very prominent.

You're like, okay, well, that makes sense, Echo Park, sitting in Los Angeles. Right. Like, even with the current political climate, which even before it was the, you know, current political climate. Oh, there's a lot to do here. There's a lot of story here. So why not go to where the story is? When in fact, you guys made the ultimately correct choice, which I think is probably a little bit challenging in the short term to say, actually, all the stories in a place of truth, and we're going to start there. Yeah, and we can still get to, you know, as we did certain, yeah. I was about saying you got to a story about deportation. Right.

You got, there's room for all of these stories in this place. I mean, you talked about the nation's hidden shame of our northern border with Canada. That was brave. Yeah. Somebody had to say it. On the radio coming here, though, in all seriousness, that more, I think there's more Canadians who overstay their visas than any other, you know, other country. Just look at Hollywood.

The comedy field alone. I mean, if we could clean up that. So many lovely Canadians. We have to do something. We have to do something about it. It would be really amazing. So what, so, Gloria, coming into it, you've agreed on this. It's going to be a Cuban-American family.

What then are the building blocks for you to make this authentic to your, to your experience? Just sharing stories. You know, we just, I just told stories and it was interesting because it was also great to educate.

Like, Norman really wanted to do something about deportation. He was like, what if, like, Liddy gets deported? And I was like, actually, Norman Cubans can't get deported. And I don't think he knew that. Yeah.

You know, so he was like, oh, that's interesting. Well, then, so then it was like, well, if we want to do this, how do we do this? Yeah. What is a way to do it?

Let's create a character that we fall in love with earlier and then have it come through that and also have what many Cubans, you know, I know a lot of my Cuban relatives are like we did it the right way and have that conversation and what does that mean and have, get to say a lot of my point of view through Penelope and, and. But yeah, you can look at it from all angles and we tried to give, you know, give everybody a sort

of a fair, even the character of Scott who is probably not, you know, certainly a villain in episode two. You know, he's representing a point of view that a lot of people have, rightly so in terms of they're not like idiots, you know, there's a reason, there's a reason, there's, It's a complicated. It's very complicated. It's very complicated. So it's good to make it complicated. Well, you also have a format that allows conversations to unfold, as you were saying before, at a reasonable pace. Oh, right. But also, hopefully reflective of the way conversations actually happen in the world, which is to say that even if you are working with someone who you disagree with, you likely aren't going to have a tweet off with them.

You're not going to yell at each other in 140 characters and slam the door or block them. You're going to have to go to work the next day. Right. So there's going to have to be some humanity present. Right. And I think that, I mean, just again, as a fan, to me, that takes real skill to be able to do, to take that big humanity brush that you guys have and then have enough. Enough paint. Oh, I really lost that one.

But basically have enough to go around. Love paint. No, I can't. Emotional goo. I can't. Sorry. Emotional goo? Wow.

Yeah, that's, we're in about. Netflix could let you do that. Probably. Probably. Probably. Probably. Probably. Probably.

Let's talk about that. So Netflix was, was this always developed for Netflix? They were the ones who were interested in it from the beginning? It's what always made the most sense. Yeah, yeah. We did pitch other places, but yeah, they were the frontrunner to begin with. I think it's, you mentioned the lack of commercial breaks, which obviously helped in the storytelling. But I was really dazzled by the way you plotted it like a 12-episode season of a prestige drama or even like a movie with, you foreshadowed things.

Things are there earlier. There's Mr. X. the way that Elena's sexuality is handled, that builds. And obviously, the Keynesis is the first thing, and then it's the last thing. That's really wonderfully done. It does seem that Netflix made the most sense from a creative standpoint as well because you could have that luxury. You didn't have to worry about spreading it out over 22 episodes or you knew exactly what you're going to be working with. Yes.

Yeah, 13 is much easier. I can't imagine serializing something, you know, intricately. And we didn't, I mean, we didn't, they love, however serialized it can be, they love. Yeah. Right. Because they want you, they want you, they want you,

they want you. Sure, the next one. We didn't set out, we really set out to make, you know, an arc, but not to make them super interconnected.

It just happened. I think the experience is very much, the binge experience actually helped us, helped people experience the show in a way that you wouldn't have gotten on a broadcast show and made it feel more serialized

than it actually is, which is, which is good. But people were able to really go, we probably wouldn't be able able to take so much time with Elena's thing on another network and explore those different things because week to week, I'm not sure they want to, you know, oh, let's love to put a beast or here. Right.

You know. So, yeah, it has its advantages. But it was also a shortcut to get to a place that only really great sitcoms get to, which is where there were moments in the back half of the season where I'm not necessarily laughing at the joke, although the jokes are well written. I'm laughing because I'm expecting a character to have something to say. say there. I'm expecting that voice to arrive and it does. And that I feel like as a writer you might make you cringe. Like, oh no, we don't want to

be so predictable. But at the same time, that's that intimacy, right? That's a familiarity. Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine when you're writing, you hear their voices coming in to their right points too. Yeah. Definitely. Oh, it's the great, that's the greatest thing because, again, just on Raymond and I came on Raymond in the fourth season. So I was a fan before that. So I'm allowed

to fan about the first three seasons. But because the show felt. apart after that. I think everyone knows. The record states that that show. I took it into the toilet. Yeah. Cut to someone, the audience starts laughing. They're not talking yet. That's the gold standard for me. Like, that's what you want. It's like, people are like, oh my God, what are they going to say? Or just that reaction, we get it already. It's, that's, you know, they're really in, right? Yeah.

My familiarity with the show was, the original show was low. It wasn't one of the normally shows that I think was on syndication when I was aware of these shows. But the one thing that I did know was that the idea of a neighbor named Schneider was definitely a running joke for people who watched a lot of TV or, you know, red TV guide or whatever, which I did.

You're sitting down, you have the blueprint, you don't need to have a neighbor. You don't need to have the character with that name. You did, and you pulled off something which low-key might be one of the more impressive things about the show, which is that you made

the annoying neighbor, but he's not annoying, you know, and he's much more than what you would have expected from your reboot even when you see him first appear in the beginning. Can you talk me through that process? Starting with the decision to even include it, the character.

We went back and forth on it. And ultimately we felt like it was important with this Latino family to have, at first it was sort of ugly American. We were like, it would be kind of cool to have an ugly American character. Maybe Schneider could be ugly American. Right. And then

we were like, what's a, but a better foil for this working family, hardworking family, would be kind of a white privilege guy, really. Yeah. But maybe a well-meaning liberal, like we're in L.A. So often it's like these really well-meaning liberal white guys that are doing damage. You're sitting with talking to a podcast. Hello?

Yeah. Go on. So we thought we could have some fun with that. And it went through many versions. And Todd is somebody we loved from the beginning. He's amazing. He's so amazing. I've worked with him for over a decade in plays.

And I remember when I first brought him in, it was like, look, we can't find this guy. You're really too handsome and likable to be him. But like you're good, and we just kind of need to see a good multicam actor because our brains are exploding and our eyes are bleeding. So come in. And then he just had a, you know, I think Todd grew up with guys like this guy. Yeah. And there was a familiarity he had and sort of a take he had. And then we started to write it more towards that.

Yeah. And then we went away from that for a minute. And then we went back to it. And we're so thrilled. Yeah, he said it, when his audition, he said, this is a guy, one of those guys who's just constantly writing, he's writing, everything is, he's writing a book about himself. Yeah. So everything's a chapter in that book.

And it was so right on about, yes, how seriously he takes himself. But in a very sort of expansive way. and not totally clueless, you know. Clueless but not totally clueless. That's all. Yeah, Todd is, he really does have, because multi-cam acting is such a specific skill. And he just nails that perfect, a little bigger than life, but not too big to make you go, you know, that's too big. Well, there are moments in the show that I think are the most impactful.

Specifically, I'm trying to remember the number of the episode. It might be three or four, but it's the episode where the nature of Lydia and Penelope, his relationship is really questioned and she goes away in the Uber to the church. And does she even want her there anymore? And when they have it out, you know, these are two Titanic actors. They both have tears in their eyes, at least that's what the camera's picking up. And it is theater, you know, and it is gripping. And we can see the tears and we can see them connecting in that moment.

Obviously, as writers, that's what you chase. You dream about getting moments like that. So can you talk me through? Maybe that scene specifically is a good way to talk about. about the process in general. But in terms of conception, sorry to put you on the spot, if that was a writing it was a long time ago, but from conceiving of that, writing it to actually being

on the set and seeing it play. I mean, I'll just a little bit about the, you know, the writing of that was we had, you know, when you're talking about it, we're doing the show where they're gonna discuss religion and one of them is, has, maybe doesn't believe in God isn't sure, one has a, there's a lot. Yes.

It's a lot. And. There was weeping. It was weeping. Yes. Yes. Yes. But even to get, you know, we knew.

You mean off in the writer's room? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of crying in the writer's room. Yeah. And not over lunch orders. No.

No. Okay. That's what things get really sad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. what kind of faith or whatever, but faith has its value.

And that, you know, to tell the story about Lydia, however flawed her beliefs are, or however flawed, maybe Penelope is looking at them that way, that there's a value to it. And that in a certain sense, she has the last word, even though there's not really a last word in that particular. And I think it was, if I remember right, Audro came in one day and said, brought up the thing about her. Same word crybaby. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, the thing about the military service and, you know, but, you know.

Oh, that's the amazing part of the scene. Yes. Right. She says, I believe. I am still religious because I prayed every day and you came home. Yes, yes. And we had like some speech in that vein, but that wasn't touching on that. And that really made it, you know.

That really made it real. Yeah. So, yeah, the thing about don't tell me he doesn't exist. So, yeah. And we all talked about, I mean, we have a room of a bunch of different, we have Catholics. We have Jews. We have atheists. We have agnostics.

We have, I mean, it's all. in there. So we, everyone sort of talks about their stuff and where they are with it. And certainly, I'm in Penelope's camp of, of, I still consider myself Catholic, but don't believe half of it. But I believe half of it, you know. And so I get upset when other people are on, you know, real Catholics say I'm not Catholic, but there are certain priests, Jesuits who say I'm very Catholic Like because I'm, anyway. But my parents are very upset that I don't go to church every week. And that's definitely a conversation we have, even though they don't go every week.

Sorry, mom and dad that I'm out in you. They listen to the show, by the way. Yeah, they do. So they listen to everything I do. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Believe me, they're listening. Thanks for listening.

So it's a great conversation because my kids go to Catholic school like the kids on the show do. And it's complicated. It's complicated. And my conversations with my kids about faith are complicated. And what I really liked about the episode is nobody wins. Nobody ends the episode with their mind changed necessarily. And that felt really real to me. Lydia still goes every week.

Penelope will probably go a couple times a year. And when I go, I like it when I go. I'm not going to go every week. But when I go on Christmas and the few other times I go, it's nice. Yeah, you know, it's funny. The beauty of television right now is we have all these things. But I will say all these different styles of shows, different types of stories, telling, but, you know, in my experience, as I get older, certainly, like, the battle of your

life isn't necessarily against zombies. I'll use I'll use I statements that it's so far. They seem very important. The way things are going, we never know. But so far. But the real battles are very difficult to articulate, like, you know, the models of how to be an adult in the world that have been set for you by your family, the, the ties that bind you to your family that you also want to flee from and the desire to sort of make your own way in it. And just in general, respecting other people's choices to make their own way, whatever makes sense for them. Right. That's a lot, guy.

I mean, that's just like, that's the work of, like, being alive in the world. And so it's hard to, and I'm always amazed when you can have a moment of that in Game of Thrones, because everything is that, sure. But you have a show where that's really what you're doing. I mean, that is your drama and your engine. And I would imagine that that is both daunting and exciting as writers and as people in the world. Yeah. It's mostly exciting.

I mean, it's fun to get to talk about stuff and also to have these really real moments that we share with these writers and get to talk about things in a way that you don't normally. I mean, normally I was in rooms where it was a lot of dick jokes. Yeah. So to kind of be having a therapy session with one another and say what is interesting about this that we can dramatize for the show is. And then then to go through the enormous stress of, oh, well, now we can't really fuck this up. Yeah, let's not put this up. I mean, that episode that ends in, you know, with the deportation stuff, that went through so many permutations. And it was, you know, like, there were definitely a number of times where like, maybe we're just taking too big a swing.

Because we just weren't getting it right. Yeah. And, you know, I'm very proud of what we ended up with. But, yeah, there's that it just becomes, okay, if we're going to do this big swing, we got to nail it. In terms of that moment in particular, was it that, you know, that, quote unquote, TV way would be, oh, you can live with us, honey. Like, you can live with us now for the rest of the school year. Yes, that was discussed.

That I would have nodded because I'm watching a TV show. Right. But these people have their own lives and they have to, she has to, Penelope, has to think about their own resources, right? I mean, they're already taking care of a Canadian. Right. Every meal. So they can't bring in.

It's true. It's true. So it's all on the table. Yeah. And then you have to commit at some point, I guess. There are two, I should let you guys go in a moment, but they're two specific beats that I wanted to ask about that struck me as very difficult but highlight the real

possibilities of the multi-cam format. One is in the finale in Kintes, which is really a remarkable episode, especially because it is the summation of the season. How do you get, how do you know when to get out of a moment with laughter? Because I think, again, as people in the world, we kind of know how to do it. We can break the tension, hopefully, and sometimes we fail miserably. But specifically, there's the moment

after Victor has left and Elena and Penelope are talking. Well, she's just comforting her. They're not talking. There's this horrific shock about what's happened. And then Penelope says, you should have seen him the first time you saw me without makeup. Yeah. And it breaks it.

Yeah. How do you know? How do you know what the line is and how to do it and then onset the timing? How does that work? Well, I mean, certainly every scene is different. And it is a case of we're going towards the emotional thing. There's almost always, you know, I think part of our goal is to certainly build in a treacle cutter, you know, something that, but so it's not just a joke, but something that's built into the scene, you know, one that I'm thinking of is after Elena's big revelation that I guess is not a spoiler anymore, but why don't, you know, she says, why do I keep giving one the wrong sex talk, you know?

Oh, it's a great one. Yeah. That's the one I felt the best about because I was like, oh, that's really something she would say that's funny, but also doesn't take away is not getting us. away from the emotion. Is that a showbiz term? Treacle Cutter? Yes. I love it.

See, I know there's a hidden language of television comedies. I don't, I'm not like a big, there's people who know that stuff way better than me. House number, that's one. We never use that, but I've heard that's a thing.

People have been trying to explain, people have been trying to explain hanging lanterns on things to me for months and I use it wrong constantly. I'm literally like I'm someone who has the Hungarian phrase book and I just say, is that? Did I have a lantern? Yeah.

No, not right. One lesson that I can impart is that if anyone's says, okay, the bad version is that's the version that they actually want to pitch. That's not, that's a way of pretending that I know. And then somebody's, no, that's not bad, that's good. Oh, did you like it? Oh, then it's the good version. Oh, really?

Oh, the false modesty. I was just a spitball in there. Mike always pitches like that. So I'm very confused. I mean, I'm a big proponent of it. It's very revelatory. The other one, and this is a very small one, and I just noticed it because I was rewatching it last night. But there's a moment you have the great Stephen Tobolowski in the cast of your show.

The sweetest man in the world. The moment when his birthday party, I think it is, the scene at Penelope's house. And I think that's the episode of the deportation is handled. Alex, the son is selling candy bars. He approaches Stephen Topolowski's character, The Doctor, and you hold on the director, who's Pam Fryman who directed that or something. I think Phil.

Phil Lewis directed that. Holds on Tobolowski, and he's loving it. In that moment, he is the actor, too. You know, he's enjoying the kid's performance. He's present in it. And that's something that I love about sitcom, old-fashioned style multi-cam sitcoms. You know, it's a performance.

They're reacting, too, and it's alive, you know, in that way. But you also don't want it to be Jimmy Fallon when Will Ferrell's in the hot tub. Right, right, right. This isn't that show. Right. So how do you feel about that line? How much of that is actually part of the conception of it are allowed to be there? I mean, if it feels like it's something within the character that the character themselves would enjoy,

then I think we love it. Yeah. You know, anytime they put their, it's like putting, the actor putting their stink on the character. You know, that's, that's Tobolowski's stink, which is so good. Tobolowski stink. That's, is that a treacle cutter. I mean, that is the best way possible. It's a fan name.

It's a podcast name. It's available for whatever. So you guys have, you've done this, it's been out in the world now and it's been received, you know, really, really well. You know, I said to Mike Larry before you arrived that, like, I wasn't checking for this show. It was not circled on my to-do list. I did not have any idea what it could be. Another critic Alan Seppin while G-chatted me and said, you know, I have 45 screeners in front of me, but all I've done is watch the new one day at a time.

So I was like, well, I better take a look at it. And I was really glad I did. TBD on renewal, although I feel very good about it. Clearly, you said your director does too. How do you guys feel, having done this? How does Norman feel? This is all It's funny

But we're talking about something That is from the past But honestly My excitement about what you've done Is that it all feels new Norman is so thrilled Yeah he's he's yeah He keeps on calling us and telling us about

You know his Grandkids watching it And loving it He's he just loves being a part of the conversation He loves He loves being Participating in life And so this is

This is Really been I think rejuvenating for him. But for us too, I mean, this is, this is certainly the most creatively satisfying and personal thing I've ever done. And, and I think you too. Yeah. Yes, I mean, I can say that I've been fortunate to do things that were sort of personal before. He did men of a certain age, too. That's really good. But this is a really good show. You guys should watch it. Grudgingly, yeah. Let's get those DVD sales up. Okay. Yeah. No, it's, it's amazing. I mean, it's been, for us, it's super duper rule.

I, you know, feel very incredible. I've never been able to do a show where I'm sort of able to put what my kids are doing at the time into the show. Raymond, the kids were younger. I mean, the kids were older and my kids were younger. And even men of a certain age, it was my kids were not, you know, this is as personal as it gets, even though I am not Cuban. He's honorary. He just came out now as a non-Cuban podcast. I appreciate that.

But just the working processes were, you know, to be able to do things that you feel so. connected to and that you love, and that Norman is pleased is, you know, intensely rewarding. Yes. And look, also, my parents came here not speaking any English in 1962 with a suitcase. And so the fact that now they come to the show every week and get to see a version of their life dramatized. I mean, that's like a gift. I can't believe that these might have given me. I mean, it's one of the greatest joys of my life to be able to kind of do this for them, too. I hope Netflix, I know they're stingy with us, I hope they share some data with you guys because I just, you know, I hope, I know people watch things on Netflix. It's just so opaque as to what they're watching.

And I hope that, you know, let me start this way. Whenever I talk to younger people about TV, like high school kids, current high school kids, they all watch friends on Netflix. You know, they just, and they watch it serialized. Yeah. I'm like, you don't need to. You don't need to watch all 200 episodes, you know. They thirst for this stuff. And I hope they're discovering your show, too.

I hope that that's being filtered into their unhealthy binge diet. I think that would be a great thing. I hope so, too. Yes. I hate anecdotal stories, but I do see on Twitter. Yeah. People are watching it a lot of, like there's three and four. More than, yeah.

I'm watching for the fourth time and, you know, that's great. People never get things wrong on Twitter. Right. I think all 2016 has established that. It's just, it's 100% accuracy. Yeah. Perfect gauge of everything. That's, and it makes you feel better to spend time on it.

I'm glad we ended in a place that's personal to me. Yes. Let me pitch you on that story. Mike and Gloria, thank you so much for the show and for taking the time to talk to me about it. Thank you.