‘Paradise’ Boss Disisters the Pilot Scene That Sets Up The Show’s Central Mysteries

Dan Fogelman Became ObsESSED WITH CRAFTING ABOUT THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL People After Having A Meeting with A Billionaire A Decade Ago and Hearing A Loud Bang On his Drive Home. “IT MADE ME THINK OF Secret Service Agents and Presidents,“ He Says. FAST-FORWARD TO ParadiseWHERE A DYSTOPIAN COMMUMUMITY HAS BEEN BUILT Beneath A Mountain in Colorado in Prepiation for An Apocalyptic Disaster. The President of the United States (James Marsden) is mysteriously KILLED, and Xavier Callins, A Secret Service Agent (Sterling K. Brown), Has to Figure Out What Hap. In the Final Sequance from the Pilot, Collins Sprints Down The Street as Flashbacks Set Up the Show’s Central Mysteries.

FOGELMAN SELECTED THIS SEQUance Because of How Much These Pages Diffeter From What’s Onscreen. “SO MUCH OF THE WRITING IS DONE IN PREPRODUCTION, PRODUCTION AND THEN IN EDITING,“ HE Explans. In the episode, this monologue ends with the line, “I’ll Forgive You WHEN I CAN SLEEP AGAIN, AND I’ll Sleep Again WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, INTEAD OF WHAT’ WITTEN. On Set, The Crew Shot Variouss of Brown’s Monologue, “and WHEN Sterling Delivered that One for the FIRST TIME, I Remember They Yelled, ‘Cut!’ and Sterling SAID, ‘WOW! ”

Brown’s Monologue About James and the giant peachand how the Titular peach was originally a cherry, was the result of wikipedia research. “SomeTimes I Wish There Was More Method to It,” Fogelman Says. “I HAD NAMED The CHILD JAMES, AND HE WAS READING A BOOK, AND I SAID, ‘OH, I WONER IF THERE’S James and the giant peach that i could come up with. ‘ “

In the Original Conception of the Episode, Fogelman Wanted Viewers to See Collins Run Past Every Dayday Things, “and at the end of the episode Places. [and] It Looks Like He’s Watering A Lawn. THEN, WHEN Xavier’s Returning Home, You Realize He’s Painting [the grass]. ” DUE TO PRODUCTION CONSTRAINTS, THESE Moments of Crafting The Artificiality of the Space Changed.

This Kitchen Scene Didn’t Make the Final Cut, Thought It Was Shot. “The Kids Were Great, But We Were Building Toward An Ending, [and] What We Realized Was It Was More Powerful To Just Stay with Our Great Actor [Brown] On his beauty monologue than to cut to the scene itlf, ”Fogelman Says.

These Final Lines of Dialogue Were Ultimately OMitted From The Episode, Even Thought they Made An Initial Cut. Durying Test Screenings, Fogelman Found that’s Viewers Were “Starting to Jump on Carl (Richard Robichaux) As A Potential Suspect, [when] It Was Meant to Speak to The Monotony of This World and Just Be the Final Puncturation on this [being] A Bunker that’s UnderGround and Every Day Is The Same. ”

As a screenwriter, Fogelman has been manned that Network Execs, Actors and Other Readers Can Have “A Tendency to Push Through Stage Direction Really Fast and Almost Will Use Italics or Bold or Underlines Just to Make Sure the Reader’s Eye Goes to It. ” Another Tactic Fogelman Employs to Enhance Readability Is “Really Spacking Out Stage Direction. It Creates Extra Page Length, Which Writers Are of St. just written in prose – WHICH IT EASILY COURCK

In the Final Version of the Episode, we do see Numbers Written on the cigarette as well as a mysterious symbol. That decaution to show the inscription on the cigarette was, again, a reality of production. “I DON’T KNOW THAT I KNEW WHAT WAS GOING TO BE ON THE CIGARETTE [in the first draft]”Says Fogelman.“ Once I Had the Whole Season Broken, I Could Go Back and Plug in What Was On That Cigarette. But The Other Part Is, In Execution, What’s It Going To Look Like IF I Just Him Look at A Cigarette? How Wuld You Ever Know That’s Something [on] It? Is it just going to read, like, is he through it wands to smoke? ”

This Story First Appeared in a June Stand-Alane Issue of the Hollywood Reporter Magazine. To Receive The Magazine, Click Here to Subscribe.