00:00 That was wonderful to see you again. I know last time I got to talk to you at Netflix and I'd only
00:05 got to see one episode. So now having seen all of them, I'm so excited for the ride everyone is
00:11 about to go on. Oh good. Oh yeah, no, I loved it. I can't wait for everyone to join in on the fun.
00:18 Going over to you, Steve, I just want to start us off a little bit. And can you just talk a little
00:25 about the original material and just what you were most excited to bring to life from that?
00:29 Sure. I mean, I started reading Neil's comic books, The Sandman, obviously, when I was in
00:38 high school, but also found Dead Boy Detectives after it had sort of spun off and kind of fell
00:45 in love with the boys. I was going through a particular period of loss in my life and
00:49 it gave me like a sort of psychedelic shoulder to cry on in a weird way. And so I just fell in love
00:56 with the material. And so when I had the chance to adapt it, for me, it was really important to
01:00 hang on to the backstory of the boys and sort of the backstory of Crystal and kind of make sure
01:07 that they felt familiar to people who read the comics, even though we were having to age them up
01:13 and change certain circumstances. That really was the thing that I wanted to hang on to is sort of
01:18 that we've chosen each other instead of death, which I feel is really special.
01:26 Absolutely. And I love all of their dynamics. I want to jump into that in a sec, but I did want
01:33 to go to you, Beth, and just kind of talk about the supernatural elements that we get to explore
01:39 in the show. Because I know you've each kind of worked on supernatural projects before,
01:43 but I feel like this really gave you a platform where you could just go any direction a lot of
01:48 ways. You're literally taking my words. This is what I say to everyone. I'm sorry. No, no.
01:54 No, it's exactly what you just said. I worked on a lot of different genre shows, but this is the
02:04 largest world building. And also in terms of the most creative, we're able to do kind of whatever
02:12 we want, as you see in the season, in terms of who our cases are. We go from two high school boys
02:22 who are trying to figure out who killed them to a sea monster. Giant mushroom. Giant mushroom.
02:28 Every episode is just wacky. And two animated sequences that we love. And I feel like we were
02:36 allowed in the writers room, like the first couple of weeks, we kind of do this thing where we tell
02:40 them to think of their craziest ideas and we put them all on the board and we use absolutely every
02:47 single one of them for the show. I love that. So it's all just original, whatever you can really
02:54 think of the craziest ideas. That's fun. And I have to ask, I mean, do you have a favorite kind
03:01 of supernatural element that we will see this season? A favorite super... I have teeth face.
03:09 That's from her episode.
03:12 Because we find him hilarious. He was just a running joke in the room.
03:18 He was. But can I tell you though, like inside baseball here, in the writers room,
03:22 we had never talked about teeth face speaking. And so when Beth's script came in and it included
03:29 teeth faces line, like, Oh, sorry. Bye bye. Or whatever. I was like, are you kidding me?
03:36 And so it was and we kept it because it was bananas. I think for me, it's, it's maybe
03:44 my favorite supernatural element is the cat king generally. And then specifically the sprites.
03:54 Absolutely. I was going to say those are obviously some of my favorites, some like
03:59 characters that we get to learn more about, which is fun. And I do have to ask, I mean,
04:04 was Lucas Cage and the cat king, is that just all him? Did he need any direction?
04:08 I know, I know what this is about.
04:12 We had, we had a zoom with him and he talks to us. This was right when he took the role.
04:18 And then when he came in for his costume fitting, I think that was very informative for him
04:25 because Kelly, our costume designer had like, gone to the mat on these very kind of
04:32 sexually fluid, but still really regal outfits for him throughout. And so I think he really
04:39 kind of pieced it together from that. And he showed up on set and kind of delivered
04:42 that character. I mean, we were very, we're very grateful.
04:47 I think because he's obviously so different from Edwin, I think he kind of used that energy for,
04:54 you know, shock value to kind of mess with that character. And
04:57 Oh yeah, he's having fun.
04:58 Yeah. How can you not, honestly? And I mean, I love, I love the core for the Nico,
05:06 Crystal, Edwin, Charles. I mean, there's such an unlikely pairing, but you really get to watch
05:11 them grow. And I also just love how relatable all of their perspectives can be to multiple people.
05:17 I mean, even with the queer stories, there's queer relationships that kind of just flow
05:21 and are not introduced. And then there's other ones, you know, like Edwin's that kind of take
05:26 a little more time. So going over to you, Steve, again, can you just kind of talk a little bit
05:31 about their, all of their dynamic and what you love about it?
05:34 Sure. I mean, look, we, the great thing about the show is that, and this is true of all of
05:39 Neil's work. So you can kind of take it out for a spin, which is that it is, it has so much
05:45 representation built into it. But for me, I thought a fun sort of new discovery was Edwin's sexuality
05:53 and his journey across the episode and discovering his identity because he died in Edwardian London
05:59 when it wasn't even an option to be gay as we think of it today. And especially for him in
06:07 boarding school. And so I just think that getting to go on the journey with him of self-discovery
06:15 that he has over the first season was really a highlight for me. And then if we're going to have
06:23 like, my rule is heroes can be gay and so can villains. So I'm not super worried about
06:29 queer people being presented in a negative light in a show that kind of has queer people across
06:36 the board. So the Jenny Maxine story is one of our favorites. And that's what I'll say. And people can
06:43 watch the episode and see how that unfolds. Absolutely. And I think we've kind of touched
06:49 a lot about the fun of this show, the whimsy and everything, but it's also just really dark. Like,
06:54 I think episode three is what came to me and that I was like, Oh, like, we're actually we're going.
06:59 That's what it's supposed to do. Episode three is supposed to let you know.
07:03 So I just wanted to go to you, Beth, and just kind of talk about it. So you said that was
07:08 intentional. But do you ever really have these conversations on how dark it should be while
07:11 still kind of keeping all of the supernatural whimsy? We did. And we and that's how we broke
07:16 the episodes. But I do remember being seeing a cut of three for the very first time and being like,
07:23 whoa, this is dark. And it was even darker, actually. But I think that that's the fun of
07:30 the show in terms of the tone where you can you can have these like lighter moments while you have,
07:36 you know, someone murdering his entire family over and over again. And I think that's what
07:41 makes this show special, because it you don't really see that kind of blend. And in a lot of
07:49 shows in it, and it didn't feel it didn't feel hard. It wasn't like a it just kind of kind of
07:55 naturally flowed, I feel like. Yeah. And we we use the humor in the show to tell even darker stories.
08:01 So if we're kind of letting the audience off the hook with some jokes, and then there's some things
08:06 that you can't really look away from. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed all of it. I
08:14 think it really, really came together. It was was beautifully dark and scary, but also just so fun
08:20 to watch. So congratulations. That's all the time I have. But thank you. I'm glad we got to talk to
08:25 you again. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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