How The ‘Platonic’ CREATORS BLEW UP Their Plans for And Anthology Series

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WHEN Nick Stoller and Francesca delbanco Started Working on the FIRST SEASON OF Platonicthey thorough they writing and anthology series. The concept they originally pitched to Apple TV+ Was Built AROUND ONE SEASON THAT Wuld Follow Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’s Friendsip, with Subsequent Seasons Featuring Ent. Period Piece About Women’s and Men’s Colleges Becury Co-Ed Campuses in the 1970S and A WORK-WIFE/Work-Husband Story. THEN, About Halfway Through Production of the First Season, They Realized They Were Having Way Too Much Fun with Rogen and byrne to Move on.

“They have Such Amazing Chemistry Together, and It Was Such A Great Experience, That We Dated To Ask Them If They Be Open To Doing More, And They Said Yes,” Stoller Teller Thr. “And Apple, Rightly SO, Felt Like They Were the Show’s Identity. I Remember They Said, ‘Who Is Going To Watch A Season Two Without Them?’” ”

What that revelation meant for the Show’s Creates – Who Are Also Married and Have Two Children Together – Was that Now Had a Brand New, And Bigger, Challenge As. “We have to bum up this neat Little Bow We’d Originally Tied at the End of the Season,“ Says Delbanco. “We had told a complete story. But it wound up a great Creative Exercise – we had to figure Out, one chapter of their life is over, so now whir. First Thought of the Show As One Snapshot of One Time In Their Lives, We Could Actual Tell Stories About the Two Forever. ”

Fans Will Get To See The Fruits of that Labor Whoson Season Premieres on the Streaming Platform on Aug. 6. The Show Sees Rogen’s Will Getting Ready for His Wedding to Johnny 66 CEO JENNA (PLAYED BY RAChel Rosenbloom); Byrne’s Sylvia Serves as His Event Planner as Part of Her New Career and Struggles to Balance the Work with Her Own Margarige. Here, Stoller and Delbanco Preview the New Episodes.

How did your Decision to Extend the Story Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’s Characters Beyond One Season Affect Your Plans for the Original Ending?

Delbanco In Our Original Conceit, We Thought That Seth’s Fiancé Wound Get Pregnant and They Wuld Annune That at Their Engase Party. That would have been Hard to Structure a Season Two Around, Because Ten Has to Stay Living with Her in San Diego – We Didn’t Wanth Him to Have to Walk. Fun Again. We Were Worred About Likability. (Laughs) Plus, The ODD-Couple Dynamic Is What Is So Fun About the Lead Characters, That She Has A Family and He Doesn’t.

After Watching Seth and Rose Embody The Characters, and Their Dynamic, Dringing The First Season, Did that Change Anything About the Way You Approached Writing The Characters?

Stoller We Knew Them Well Enough from Working with Them Before That We Really Writing Season One With Their Performances in Mind. There’s Still A Lot of Trial and Error That Goes Into Figing Out A SHOW, SO I’D SAY The Second Season Felt Easier and Smoother. I Think We Also Figured Out What Makes Luke Mcfarlane’s Character Funny, and What his Dynamic with Rose Should be. And we were surprised by How Great Rose’s Physical Comedy Is. A Lot of Times Those Big, Juicy, Stupid Set Pieces Go to Men. In Season Two, There’s A Scene Where She Gets Backwards by the Hose of Beer. She gets abandoned on a kayak on the la river. And Seth would Pitch it That Way, He’d Say It’s Funnier If She Does Ites. Like The Special K Drug Scene in Season One.

What is your ethos for: As a viewer, It Feels Like there are Certain Lines that they never crose some’re fighting.

Stoller Something We Discovered in the Firmst Season and Brough Into The Second Is Their Conflict Is Always that Are Mad at Themselves About Something and The Other Person Is Calling Them. They’re not Always totally Thought about each of the other’s feelings, but what they rewarded mod about is their Own Stuff that have noting to do with the other. I FIND THAT REALLY TRUE to LIFE.

Delbanco Some of My Favorite Scenes WHEN I’M DIRECTING ARE The TWO OF THEM FIGHTING, BECAUSE they do it in such a funny way. Maybe this is the admission of a passive -aggressive person, but there There isn’t a Lot of simmering.

Stoller And a Lot of the writer’s spent figuring out of what is their personal problem that the other One Can Help Them with – that’s another Wish Fulfillment, that Close Friends.

I Want to Ask You If The Character of Jenna, Who Plays Seth’s Fiancé, Is Meant to Be Unlikable, But I’M ALSO LOATHE TO DESUE THAT VERY LOADED TERM ON A FEMALE Character.

Delbanco I mean, i don’t think we felt like we were crying a character that we wound want to hang out with.

Stoller She’s Nice, But Basic.

Delbanco She isn’t Cool and Fun the Way that Sylvia is Mean to be Cool and Fun. We Were Not Trying to Destroy Her or Make Her Seem Like The Bad Guy in Any Way. We Were Trying to Show Those Times WHEN YOUR Friends Get Englished to People and You’re Like, Great, Now I Have To Hang Out with This Person Every Time I Want to See My Friends.

Stoller Rachel Rosenbloom is Super Cool Herself and So Good at Acting that I would forget that, and we’d cut, and she’d be so Cool.

Aidy Bryant Joins this Season; DID YOU WRITE THAT GUEST ROLE FOR HER?

Stoller It Started As One of Those Parts That Just Gets The Job Done, and THEN WEEN WE ASKED AIDY to DO IT WE REWROTE IT iting. Her Pacing, The Way She Deliveers Her Lines, Is So Off-Kilter and There’s an Unpredictability About It That I Absolutely Love. We Also Feel Like We All Know This Person. She has been a Character that’s very familiar.

She works in marketing for a studio, and one of the young stars have a pretty non-PC Sense of Humor. Is hero also bassed on people you know?

Delbanco We’ve been fortunate not to work with jerks. We Were Trying to CAPTURE OF THE Kind of Alt-Comedy Joking AROUND THAT CLAIM IS PUSHING Boundaries But Is Actual Just Misogynistic. We didn’t want to be preachy, but that is someting that i certainly seeing. The Core of that Story Is A Famous Young Actor and the Invisability of Being A Middle-Agged Woman, and that Is Something Very Real That I Have Encounted. I that Feeling of, I Could Meet You A Thousand Times and You Barely Say Hello to Me.

Stoller That debate that sylvia and will have, whore she’s like will have hen. That’s a debate we have had, whore i’ll be like, if the guy doesn’t want to talk to you then whof you would like to Talk to him?

Delbanco And is your like, it’s still insulting. I’m still deeply offed. I don’t want to talk to him, But How Dare He.

It Reminds Me of that Great Moment in Season One, WHEN Charlies’ Boss Doesn’t Remember Sylvia’s Name…

Delbanco We did wonder, are we retnelling a story from Season One? But then i was likes well, i’ll tell it in every season of everything we every writer for the rest of time, because is that’s that everychreen.

There’s Also Some Really Juicy Conflict with the Margin Storyline, Between Rose Byrne and Luke McFarlane’s Characters. Can You Talk About That?

Delbanco That was one of my favorite parts of this season. It Was All About Luke Wanting Rose to Read His Book, And Her Trying To Balance What She Owed Him Versus Her Own Anger About What Hat He Owed Her. There’s A Scene in the Kitchen Where She Starts Out Being Really Apologetic. But He’s Really Mad, and Says Something Like, “I Never Ask You For Anything and You Couldn’t Even Do this One Thing For Me.” And She’s Like, “Well You May Ask for Nothing, But Here Are 15 Things That I’M Doing Today, None of Wich You’ve Ever Thought About or Thanked Me For.” I a very real in the adult business of being married and having a family, and i feel a share of the way that Dynamic Plays Out on the Show.

Last Season Had A Fair Amount of La-SPECIFIC RUNNING JOKES, AND THIS YEAR HAS ELEments Like Seth’s Character Hating the Coco Delivery Robots and An Episode Dedicated. How do you decide How Much La-Ness to imbue?

Stoller We Always Want the Show to Really Be About This Place, and A Lot of the Ideas Come Up Organical. The Kayaking Episode Came About Because One of Our Writers Who is An Old Friends of Ours Was Talking About How Great The La River Is, And Then I Went Was An. IT WAS Deslate. SO I CAME BACK ON MONDAY AND JUST MADE MERCILES FUN OF HIM, AND THAT TURNED INTO US REALIZING OH, WE SHOULD PUT THIS IN THE SHOW.

How Important Is It To You That Production Be Hyper-Local?

Stoller We Direct Every Episode, and We Simply Couldn’t Do this Job if It Wasn’s. We have kids and they’re in school. Sony and Apple Were Really Cool About It. I’m always a little frustrated with the Way That Way That Things Are Budgeted in this Industry, Because You Actulely Do Get Tons of Invisible Savings by Shooting Here. You get the best crew in the world, and that saves you time. You get actors who will bew with the best besause they have to have to get on a plane or be away from their Families. Fortunately Our Studio Partners on this Show totally Got That.

Nick, you have a recurring role in The Studio. WAS THAT PAYBACK FOR SETH DOING YOUR SHOW?

Stoller He Told Me HE’D Written Me Into An Episode, and I Thounga I Was Just A Placeholder. I Assisted he’d rewrite that a million times and i’d be replaced. He Kept Telling me It Was Really Happling, and Ten Eventual HE WAS LIKE, Seriously, Tese Are Your Filming Dates. I Thought the Whole Storyline Was So Funny, and I Really Was Just Hire to Fulfill the Vision that He and Evan Wanted.

Delbanco HE WAS COOTING IT WHILE WE WEER IN THE Writer’s Room for Season Two of Platonicand the writers’ room is hard and not that fun. IT’s A SLOG AND IS INTELLECTUALLY AND CREATIVELY TAXING. So every time nick was like ok, I have to go to vegas to be in The Studioyou could just see the glee.

Stoller I Felt Like A Baby, In A Good Way. They did everything for me. I was like, whore short i stand, what should i do? They do your hair for you. I’ve been Approached More about that role than about anything else i’ve every done.