Lucia Aniello on Balancing Comedy and Drama

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Transcript

00:00You know we talk a lot about the idea of the glass cliff, which is that women are often given

00:03opportunities in situations that are designed to fail. And so they say at the very last minute,

00:07I sure throw women in there because, you know, we'll see how that goes for her. So, you know,

00:11those are definitely parts of what we're playing with. And as well as just the media landscape

00:14overall, fewer and fewer comedy shows are being made. Comedy Central, Comedy Central doesn't make

00:19comedies anymore. The show really is about, you know, these women who are finding their voices

00:26and also figuring out who's wanting to hear their voices. And so season three is really,

00:30I think Debra's quest to become the new late night host really, you know, is her fighting

00:35for the chair. And that chair, you know, has been a white whale for her her entire life. And

00:40so the ends to which she'll go to get it certainly are questionable, but certainly,

00:45you know, gives us a lot to write about. If the comedy isn't working, then none of it's

00:48going to work. And the drama only works because of the level of comedy. And it's such a balance.

00:53And especially, I think our finale Bulletproof is like the best or most interesting example of

01:00that because it has some of the most dramatic scenes that we've ever done on the show, but also

01:05have some of the hardest comedy scenes we've ever done, like Jimmy and Kayla on the airplane. You

01:09know, that's like such a hard, big comedy scene. But you have to kind of have them both be at the

01:15same level. So if you're soft comedy, you have soft drama, if you're going to be hard comedy,

01:19you can also balance that out with hard drama. And so figuring out what is the equilibrium for

01:23any story or any episode or any season is something we're constantly tinkering with.