Amy Schumer: To let that moment come and get all the inspiration and all your thoughts you’re having down, don’t stop and don’t question it. Just get it all down. Don’t worry about if something’s wrong, write it down.
John Hoffman: Go for it. Go for it. I remember bringing into Dan Fogelman, and again, this is the real gift of this process too, with Steve and Dan, both very open people and you really magnetize yourself to them, open people who are genuinely hearing what you’re trying to do, even if they don’t like it, they don’t want to do it, that’s okay. But open at first is really what you’re looking for. And I found that with both of these guys. And I brought into Dan Fogelman at one point. He said, this is really stupid. But when I’ve been just mulling on this show, I think of the artful nature of Steve Martin and Martin Short and The Fools and the Beautiful Fools they are, and the elegance of them. I said, there is this thing I saw, a friend of mine, Kevin Chamberlain, you may know him.
Kevin Chamberlain sent me a little thing he found on YouTube. I just had to send this to you. This is beautiful and it was this balletic sort of guy going up a stair and bouncing on a trampoline and then bouncing back up. And it was this sort of dance piece. Just look at this, but I don’t know why. I feel like this has to be a part of our show, and maybe I’m insane. Tell me I’m crazy. Dan watched it and said, “You’re absolutely right. We have to put it in the show.” And I was like, that is the greatest thing ever. And sort of, wow, okay, I’ve got a yes on that, so let’s write to that. And then it sort of allowed this lovely other element in the show that I enjoy. I like the surprises that allow you into sort of play in some, oh, I hate these words, but yeah.
Amy Schumer: No, it’s good. And I would just say about my experience being on set, which was so fun and so much because of you, and your warmth and your humility and being down to collaborate and being down to say, okay, yes, let’s throw away that other idea and let’s do this idea. And having zero ego, which is all so vital, I think in making, especially comedy, there’s no tension on that set. Sometimes you’re on a set and it doesn’t feel good and you don’t really understand why. And of course it comes from the top down. So Selena, Martin, and Steve are all great vibes, and you are a great vibe. So you just feel so free to come in there and just enjoy yourself and play and get it wrong, and you’re not trying to nail anything and that freedom. For me, when we filmed the episodes I was on, I’m sure you remember this, but I just want to talk about it.
John Hoffman: Do you remember all of it? Please do.
Amy Schumer: Oh, yeah. But that Martin and I, the moment where we kissed, and it made no sense at all, but it was this moment where he started just kind of playing with me. You’re an attractive woman. I’m like, excuse me. And then neither of us, we were both calling each other’s bluff and then we kissed for a while. We start making out, and it made no sense for the episode, but just to be in an environment where you can have the freedom to play like that.
John Hoffman: It’s the greatest… There are two clips. There is that clip, and we have to share it. I hope you don’t mind. We have to find-
Amy Schumer: Oh my God, please.
John Hoffman: We’ll send you things because it is-
Amy Schumer: Just put it out there. People need to see it.
John Hoffman: It’s still one of the greatest things. I will tell you that in season three, because those guys, Martin and Steven, Selena, all, they’re beautiful actors in every way. And they come in, they’re so devoted to the scripts and they come in and they really want to make it right based on… I’m like, that’s a surprise in certain ways ’cause you would think they would want to free it up and all that stuff, but they really want to hit it. Anyway there are times when they go, that was a brilliant moment, but they only do it with the people who can really play that way. You and Martin were so stunning in that. The other time that happened was with Martin and Meryl, the beginning of season three, there was a moment we just let the camera roll at the end of Martin as the director talking to his championed leading lady.
Amy Schumer: Oh my God.
John Hoffman: Has been a failure in every way throughout her career. At some point, there’s a table read scene in the first episode of season three, and she’s trying out different accents. And so we let the camera roll on a private conversation they were having after the fact. And Martin as Oliver just started into an improv about, I just want to say something. You’re wonderful. I think you’re wonderful, but accents are not your thing. And he starts going, she’s like, well, really? Because I’ve been told, no, no, no, no. And it went on and on and on. We were like, there’s nothing better than being at the monitor, very much like your makeup session with Martin Short, where we were just the jaw, the jaw, the jaw drop.
Amy Schumer: Did you use it? Was it in the show?
John Hoffman: No.
Amy Schumer: No, but it was just the, oh, you have to release that.
John Hoffman: Have to go with-
Amy Schumer: You have to release that. I want to ask about, because I love the show and no one makes me laugh more than these people in person or on this show, but also for creating such a world. I think one of my lines in the second season where it’s describing the show as just kind of cozy murder. So you talked about this sort of ballet moment and whatever. What were the elements that you thought of that would create the world of this show, and did it look and feel how you had anticipated?
John Hoffman: I will say this last question, because Jason is chatting with me on the bottom, and he’s 100% right to say, we are going to segue to Life and Beth, in two seconds.
Amy Schumer: Wait, let me grab a water before our segue.
John Hoffman: No, because I want that so badly. But I will say while you’re gone to answer that question quickly, I think in regards to this show, someone tells me that you’ve got these people in the show, you’ve got to do this job, all of that. I take it very seriously. I step up, but I also down to every little thing I get very obsessive. I’m made fun of for it in many ways. But while I want the atmosphere to feel as you described it, and I hope it does, I think on the other side of things, everything, the look and feel of the show, the brilliant conversations with our DP Kristin, with our production designer, Curt Beech and now Patrick Howe, all of that stuff, the wallpapers and the fabrics and the color scheme and the inspiration of all of that, and the little bowler hat with Dana Covarrubias, all of that was deep conversation that was very, very specific.
And I like the opportunity of a TV show as we’re going to segue right now, because I’m obsessed with and Life and Beth has been, again, I feel like we’re writing the same show in many ways because we’re sort of humanist point of view about people affected by personal death and who isn’t. But I feel like that’s the leveler that we all should open ourselves up to. And that’s the thing that’s sort of the most common ground point is that there is a life we’re leading, but we all know where it’s heading. And so the ways in which that affects us is very important for living.
So tell me, because this is the other thing when I talk about you is that I can’t fathom is that the shift of form that you’ve done in your whole career that going, you can do it all. And I would love to write a sketch one day, and I genuinely, I don’t know that I’ve ever written a successful sketch, but I’ve got other things the way I tell stories, but I can’t fathom your standup to sketch to then this brilliant show and everything else narratively that you’ve written. I just think it’s a wonder and you are, but beyond that, please tell me your inspiration for Life and Beth and how then that became what it became, which is gorgeous.
Amy Schumer: Yeah, thank you. I think you and I are very connected in that. We’ve been learning and getting better at this work. I don’t know if it’s storytelling or filmmaking or TV making, whatever. We’re like students and we’re interested in getting better and we’re sort of taking the tools and doing the best we can and it’s all part of this ride. And it’s amazing to have a moment where we’re making things we’re proud of. We will hopefully keep making things that we’re proud of. Life and Beth came about, I had journals. I’d kept very detailed journals about my life from age 12 to 21 as a means to feel less alone and have something to express myself to and keep it very real with. And I reread those when I was writing my book. And then I got pregnant and I was upstate at this farmhouse that I’d grown up going to.
Nothing fancy, just this place up in the Catskills that we had lost ownership of when my family went bankrupt when I was young, and when I made some money, I bought it back. And so my body was physically in this place. It had been thinking about the pain of early teen years and how they affect you for the rest of your life if you don’t deal with them. I mean, I’m sure that they will affect us for the rest of our lives no matter what, but looking at myself with more empathy and looking at everyone around as having gone through these experiences that have made them who they are and why they react the way they do. And being pregnant, I was pregnant and writing is how I process things my own life, whether it’s standup or a TV show or movie or something. And it was me sort of processing, falling in love with my husband and remembering my teen years. Also, I loved the movie Eighth Grade, Bo Burnham.
John Hoffman: Yes, I love that film.
Amy Schumer: And there’s that one scene in the backseat of the car where this boy is kind of encouraging. Is it Elsie who stars that? He’s kind of encouraging her to do things that she’s not ready to do sexually. And I just thought, God, that age is so traumatizing, and you’re such a kid, and then these moments just come at you with no warning. And it’s so scary. And I felt like it’s kind of under examined, especially for women. I feel like it’s under examined looking at your early teen years when having your first sexual experiences and you’re seeing your parents as human beings and not just these perfect caretakers. And I wanted to look at that. And I don’t really know how to write a TV show. I don’t know how to write an episode of a TV show, so I kind of just wrote a long movie and hopefully in season two I figured out a little bit more about how to write an episode as well as it really just being a long movie.
John Hoffman: They are long movies though, in the world of streaming don’t you find that? I genuinely, that’s all I was doing before going into TV and I think the only way I could do TV was I was terrified of a 22 episode sitcom room. I’m not joking, and I’m going to drown in there. I’m going to be silly and out of there. The world of streaming, it opened up a world of comedy that felt like that, you could have big themes and big ideas and keep them funny and real and human, but then you only have eight or 10 episodes to do them. So they’re kind of extrapolated movies and the middle is hard.
Amy Schumer: Yeah, that’s how I was watching things too. I remember watching Ricky Gervais’ show After Life and the joke of people going, I don’t want to watch a movie. It’s too long, but then you will stream eight episodes or 10 episodes. So I was like, I just want to make something that people can stream in two days and really go into the world of it and lose themselves. And I rewrote the pilot. I’m like the grim reaper with my own stuff. I’ll just throw out 100s of pages, or I’ll go with the exact first thing I ever wrote. Just being open to it and being open to my collaborators and the writers being, just being open to everybody’s input because being the leader, it is a really nuanced position because you need to keep people engaged and feeling good and wanting to do their job, even though you’re the decision maker. That’s a skill to hone over time.
John Hoffman: It is. And I mean, that’s the thing I’m curious about that for you walking into a writer’s room and doing that, obviously you do. I’ve talked to no one who doesn’t love that experience in your room. And I think the gift is, I mean, it’s a pleasure in my mind if you picked the right people, and I tend to try and do that, and I’ve been very successful at doing that. I adore the people who work on this show, and I know clearly when they start speaking, they’re giving me everything that I could not give myself. And that’s the greatest thing to sort of hear whether or not it fits or anything like that. That’s sort of the balancing act as you’re saying, I find. But how is that when, because it’s such a personal story, you were telling here clearly. How is that dance of collaborating in that way and it has to be just a gentle process in certain ways because again, you’ve opened yourself up and now you’re bringing people in. I don’t know how that happens. It’s such a personal-
Amy Schumer: It is so. It’s super vulnerable. So it’s like we would beat out index cards up of, and Colleen McGuinness was really instrumental in helping me figure out how to tell a story and make this show and just be vulnerable and get things wrong. And Dan Powell and Kevin Kane and Ryan McFaul, my main collaborator’s also on my Sketch Show. But it’s like, okay, so I think for the second season, it was like, I think Sas Goldberg’s character, Jess, I think I’d like her to have an affair. It feels like first season we got to see she’s kind of not getting what she needs from her marriage and she wants something else, but what does that really mean, that she’s lost confidence in herself and whatever. And I think Jen gets addicted to opioids.
John Hoffman: Just right out.
Amy Schumer: Yeah, I was like over the summer, just something would hit you like, oh, I’d love to see her get addicted to opioids. And it’s also the things that I want to communicate about being empathetic to people who get addicted to opioids and empathetic to people who have affairs. And John, my character is based on my husband being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and so for example, Ron Weiner wrote episode four of season two, which is the episode that John is diagnosed. So it’s like we would talk about it and I would share, everybody has their own experience with whether they’re on the spectrum or their children or a friend or whatever.
And it’s still such a stigmatized thing that it was like, okay, well, I shared our experience of having a lot of false starts, having not a wonderful experience, finding a therapist who specializes in it, how it came up for us, seeing a little bit about John’s past, going in flashback, looking at Michael Cera’s character as a child, what actually getting a diagnosis looked like for us and the ideas around that and then everybody’s pitching. So there’s a lot of the real, but it’s like I describe the real arc, and then Ron wrote a beautiful episode and then we all work on it together. But everybody really put their heart and soul into this season and-
John Hoffman: It’s beautiful. Can I say, it feels to me also what you’re talking about, which I love, is this clash of the personal meets, the pragmatic and the what do you want to see versus what’s the real of what you want to tell? That is a balance I try to strike as much as I can. The first season of this show, and I’ve talked about this ad nauseum, I won’t go into it’s a big drama story, but the first season of this show is also built on the underneath for me personally, in the fact that a year before I was asked to meet with Steve Martin on Larchmont Boulevard, I had been spending a year unlike any other I’ve had in my life, investigating, asking, trying to find out what had happened to my best friend in my world, my life growing up. My friend Mark and I had just found out that he had died in a way that made it look like he had killed someone and committed suicide.
And I couldn’t fathom I’d grown apart from him, and I didn’t know where he was, what his life was like, but I had to go. I went to Wisconsin, I went and met his family, understood this sort of underneath of everything. Underneath everything was very personal to Only Murders this became Mabel story and Tim Kono and all of that. So underneath is this very delicate, little, very emotional, fragile thing that I’m sort of still dancing around in the first season to understand ultimately that my friend had been murdered. But isn’t that a happy story? Whatever.
Amy Schumer: It’s really meaningful and you can really feel that and the dignity and respect that that character was shown and I think our shows are connected in that grounded, painful, traumatic love. And then also silly because I’m sure there are parts of that for you that were also funny in these traumatic, horrible moments. Sometimes it’s so awful that there’s something funny about it or something so normal that it is so out of place and the [inaudible 00:40:30] and I think that’s why I love your show so much is because it’s not just jokes.
John Hoffman: The same back at you. It’s the laugh at the funeral. It’s when you’re not allowed to have, it’s the sort of thing. Right up against that in some way true. I’m very pragmatic. I’m very at the beginning of our writer’s room. I don’t know if this is helpful too, but it’s 50-50 in many ways, no more than that, 80-20 maybe. But the idea at the beginning of a room, I always start off, and maybe we’ve gotten into trouble this way too, but I genuinely make it a task early on in the room to say, what are the trailer moments you want to see? What are the images? What are the pictures? What are the sort of things you want to see, whether it’s opioids or an affair or anything like that. Kind of a balancing act of what do you want to see?
What would thrill you just to get a glimpse of it in a trailer and now how do we help maybe craft something that takes them there or something like that. That’s also helpful for me. In many ways, it can also get you into trouble because ultimately you have to let the story sort of also guide. And if it doesn’t match up with that big dream of Selena Gomez in a wedding dress in an episode, then you sort of find your way to make it in some way within the show as well. But it can be tricky.
Amy Schumer: Working with Judd Apatow, he really made me confident in, and he just encouraged me so much when I was writing Train Wreck, and he would be like, the funny stuff will be there. So it’s leaving yourself to write something pretty much as a drama, and then you can add the silliness later because it will just come. And I think the funniest moments are just the way that the actors behave. I don’t want to see the writing. And hats off to your show too, because there’s great writing, but you don’t hear a joke and think of in picture a writer’s room. It’s so earned, and it’s just who the person is. It’s not snappy talk and the best is if you can get a laugh just from the way an actor looks at an expression, they make that being free to just to write out just an actual thing that happened or something, and then add the funniness in later.
And I’m so turned off by kind of funny dialogue, but it’s the way Selena will just look at them, just like they’re so pitiful. Just these people that you’re like, God, these people should have never even met, but they’ve been thrown together. That’s my favorite stuff. And then there’s moments where you’re like, oh, I have this amazing, beautiful, because you want it to be beautiful and visual in this world. And sometimes it’s like, oh, I didn’t really earn it. But then what’s amazing about trailer moments is you can shoot them and then they don’t even have to be a part of it. The movie I did, we shot some things that I’m like, this is just for the trailer. This doesn’t even make sense at all. Us walking slow motion through the Cherry Blossoms, I’m like, this doesn’t actually happen in our movie, but it’s going to happen in the trailer.
John Hoffman: No, we want that picture in the trailer because I look really good in this light. All of it. Yeah, that is so true. It’s that balancing act, I think. But also just to that point of, I love that Judd was encouraging in that way because it is, I find it true, it’s sort of the silent moments in our show are the ones I love the most, just the things. We had a whole silent episode, but it’s the silent moments that we just shot one this season. I’m a little spoiler, but it’s like a moment that stops the train and just lets the characters just have a reflective dumbbell moment is my heaven. And there’s a moment where Selena, just as you say, and Selena Gomez in this show, I just think it’s the sauce that is everything to it.
She is the most unexpected thing. When this show came out, the trailer, everything else, whatever, the poster made no sense to a lot of people. How does that work? But it’s intriguing. And then she fulfills, but she fulfills in a way that only she can, but it’s like that particular comedy style she has of lacerating underneath quietness. But here, there was a moment in the season where she’s talking about trying to claim a title for what she does as a career in life.
At some point she’s like, “Wait a minute, how do I introduce myself as a thing I do? What am I doing?” So they have this whole talk, and she tries then to sort of, hang on, I’m a podcast producer, and say it to someone out loud, and they’re giving her tips on, no, you got to come out with it. And Steve’s like, no, underplay, underplay. That kind of thing. But it’s adorable in that way because it’s also, these are the things that are, I don’t know, connective and make you feel less lonely and make you feel all of the things that I think at the bottom of everything, what’s funny is that to me, I’ve always seen in you.
Amy Schumer: Yeah, the humanity that these characters have. And I mean, Martin just kills me, and you just empathize with all of them.
John Hoffman: You do. I mean, here’s the thing with you, and again, I’ve had many friends in my life say, I like it when you’re mean. If I’ve had a drink or something like that, and I’m delightfully mean when I can be. [inaudible 00:46:09] could be that too. It’s that the other thing, it’s sort of say the thing that’s calling it out. It doesn’t always have to be truthful. You can be a jerk, and that’s also part of humanity. You are the thing that you’re feeling about whatever the state of the world or whatever the state of the people are around you, and be straight up about it. I think that’s the beauty of the mix of comedy and allowing yourself to go to places that are, I have to say this.
Amy Schumer: And also something that happens, I think it only happens to women, is that your likability comes into question. Just in my experience, I’ve never heard them say this about a guy, but, can we forgive her? Can we still like her if she, whatever and you have to explain to them, so you know how men are human beings, women are also human beings. And they go, “Oh.” And you’re like, yeah. Just same thing. And sometimes you’ll do something that’s not totally likable that you’re not totally proud of. Women do those things too, and then people still find a way to like and love them.
John Hoffman: It’s incredible. Yeah. And that’s where I think in our ways, you have to be really brave. I do think you have to be brave in order to say things that the world is going to hear in some form or fashion. And you have to be responsible. You have to say, okay. Sometimes yes, people will say things, and I think we have to be more forgiving of people saying things in the moment and not ruining careers and lives and things like that, and branding people in that way that we’ve been. But I also think it’s implicit upon us to be just honest in those ways that feel important to us but it’s also, yes, the divide to reaction along gender lines, along the main one, but along every line, it is shocking. And yet it’s the thing that I think it’s also underneath most writers and their wish to be writers, to say what they want to say and how they want to say it, and from their point of view, any encouragement that I think we could give to say, keep leaning into that impulse and keep leaning into the personal is everything.
It’s thing I would say to anyone because I never know what advice to give people. It’s terrible. It is exhausting. It’s tough. It’s the pressure and trying to step up and do anything worthwhile is challenging at any point in a career.
Amy Schumer: I would just say don’t try and get it right. Don’t feel like you need to understand every part of final draft and write it out shitty. Just write it out even if you don’t know how to do the final draft, just get these ideas out. Okay, they’re inside this place, this music’s playing. This is the feeling I want. Just express it and it doesn’t need to be in perfect form, and yet just not trying to make it perfect because that slows you down.
John Hoffman: Oh my God.
Amy Schumer: You make it bad. Write it out bad at first and then rewrite it until you like it.
John Hoffman: Yes. And get past the time of waiting before you do.
Amy Schumer: Okay. All right. We should wrap it up. I love you. I’m so happy to see you.
John Hoffman: Same here. Thank you.
Amy Schumer: Yes, thank you. So good talking to you. Bye writers.
John Hoffman: Bye writers. Thank you. We love [inaudible 00:49:54].
Speaker 3: OnWriting is a production of The Writers Guild of America East. This series was created and is produced by Jason Gordon. Our associate producer and designer is Molly Beer. Tech production and original music by Taylor Bradshaw and Stock Boy Creative. You can learn more about the Writer’s Guild of America East online at wgaeast.org. You can follow the Guild on all social media platforms at WGA East. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate us. Thank you for listening and write on.
