00:00What attracted you to this project?
00:03Well, when I heard who was doing this show, when I heard about this show, when I first
00:09heard about the show, and I heard that it was Bill Lawrence and Britt Goldstein with
00:14Jason Segel, I thought, well, these are major heavy hitters, and their track record is incredible.
00:21And I had read the first episode, and it was so good.
00:26It was funny and adult and fresh, and I hadn't really read anything quite like it, and I'd
00:32never really been in anything so naturalistic on camera.
00:40So I was very eager to win this job.
00:45And I auditioned, I made a tape, and sent it in, and tried to forget about it.
00:51And then later, they asked me to be part of the show, and it has been very rewarding.
01:02Bryan's energy and positivity are amazing.
01:06How does his relationship with Jimmy evolve in season two, especially as Jimmy continues
01:14to work through his grief?
01:18So as Jimmy works through his grief over the loss of his wife, he makes some personal growths
01:29and some personal mistakes.
01:32And sometimes that affects the people around him, his friends and chosen family and actual
01:40family.
01:41And one of those things is that he begins a relationship with his co-worker, Gabby,
01:47which he keeps from a lot of people, including his best friend, me.
01:55So when I find out, when Bryan finds out that it's been kept from him, it really bothers
02:03him.
02:04And it causes them to butt heads and have to work through this new thing, which Bryan
02:13makes about himself, and is in part about one of Bryan's own issues, which is he's trying
02:24to figure out who he is in relationship to Jimmy after coming out of the closet.
02:31They became friends when they were both straight, and Bryan was in the closet.
02:35And now, years later, is their relationship, has it evolved yet?
02:39Has it yet changed with Bryan's change?
02:50I think things are chipping away at her.
02:55And so I think she gets in trouble from having a big heart, and she thinks she's been rebuffed
03:01and starts feeling a little blue.
03:05I think she is going through a hard time this season.
03:24I mean, for me, I'm always attracted to comedy that comes out of a character, as opposed
03:28to doing like a bum, bum, bum joke.
03:33So anything can be...
03:36The writing is so good on this show.
03:38It's so strong.
03:39It's so funny.
03:40And, you know, to be able to be vulnerable and real and have an authentic moment and
03:44still know that there's jokes in it, and they'll just come, because the writing is so good.
03:50What inspired the show, unfortunately, was two real things, which is, one, I had a person
03:58in my life who this happened to.
04:01It was not a therapist.
04:02It was a doctor, whose wife, and unfortunately, in his case, child, were killed.
04:08And all that was left was him and one of his children.
04:13And that just stuck with me, watching him struggle and persevere.
04:16And so that's kind of the genesis for the idea.
04:18And Brett and I were both working on shows about therapists, and so we decided to do
04:22it together with Jason.
04:25And then the other thing that inspired the show, unfortunately, is the only reason you
04:29can write a comedy about grief is right now, almost everybody we talk to is at most one
04:38or two degrees separated from actual grief in their life, whether it's a parent struggling,
04:43watching them struggle mentally, or age, or a family member, or a kid who feels buried
04:49in the world's problems.
04:51And it is a bummer that grief is such a prevalent issue that it's almost a zeitgeisty thing
04:59to do a comedy about it.
05:00But I think the positive side is finding out that there's a lot of people like us that
05:04are trying to laugh and smile their way through it.
05:07The show is very popular.
05:09What can fans expect from season two?
05:13Sure.
05:14The first season was about grief, and when we tried to sell the show, we said, the second
05:19season's about forgiveness, because all the therapists we talked to said, if you go through
05:27something big and traumatic like this, until you really forgive, and your hearts can be
05:31very hard to move forward.
05:33And I think people will understand the story we're telling right from the first episode
05:39when they see who the added character is for the year.
05:44And it's complicated, and I can't say how it ends, but I think it really works.
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