- 14 hours ago
"We try to show the sides of the struggle."
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00:00Hi, this is Mariah Gullow from The Hollywood Reporter, and I'm here with Our Lady J, writer for Transparent from Amazon.
00:07Hi, thank you so much for coming here today.
00:10Thanks for having me.
00:11We're very excited. We have interviewed quite a few people from Transparent, an award-winning show, obviously.
00:18We've had Amy Landecker, we've had Jill Soloway, we've had Catherine Khan.
00:22Oh, those are my family.
00:23Yeah. So, let's, I don't know, let's just get everything out of the way now, and let's talk a little bit, like, can you tell me anything about Season 4?
00:33Because there's a lot of people anticipating when Transparent will be out.
00:37It should be coming out in September. There's not a hard date yet, but September's what we're aiming for.
00:42And Season 4 is full of shenanigans, once again.
00:46The Fevermans are misbehaving, although instead of misbehaving in Los Angeles, they're misbehaving in Israel.
00:53So, we're going global with the show, with politics. It's really, really political this season.
00:59Oh, wonderful.
01:00Frighteningly so.
01:01I know everything about global politics that I never really thought I would need to know.
01:06You had to learn a lot.
01:07I had to learn a lot. I read a lot of books on Israel and Palestine and everything that's happening over there.
01:13Oh, wow.
01:13So, the Fevermans are also going to be learning about everything, and hopefully the rest of the world will be as well.
01:18Did you spend any time on set, or were they filming mostly in Israel this year?
01:24No, no. We filmed mostly in Los Angeles.
01:27There's a lot of political discussion about BDS and the boycott of Israel.
01:33And also because our family is a Jewish family, we wanted to address what is the boycott?
01:39Like, why are we boycotting the state of Israel?
01:42Why is there a community that is boycotting the state of Israel?
01:45And so, we wanted to be sensitive around that, but also not choose one side.
01:50Like, the show, I think, we try to do a good job at not having any villains, any characters that are necessarily good or bad.
01:57So, we try to show the sides of the struggle.
02:01And so, we did that this season, and hopefully we did that with the production of it as well.
02:05Oh, nice.
02:06So, yeah, there was a little bit of that in previous seasons as well.
02:09There's definitely a lot of...
02:10There's a little discussion in season three.
02:11Yeah.
02:12About a coffee pot, I believe.
02:13Yes.
02:14An espresso maker.
02:15That's right.
02:16That's right.
02:17So, can you talk a little bit about how you became a writer for Transparent?
02:21Because you started off in season one as an actress.
02:25No, I auditioned.
02:25Oh, you auditioned for season one.
02:27And I failed, horribly.
02:28Oh, no.
02:29Alexandra Billings got the part.
02:31Oh, right.
02:32You auditioned for Davina.
02:34Yeah.
02:34She's an old friend of mine.
02:36And so, yeah, I auditioned for Davina.
02:37And I was in this workshop, and I ended up making it to the final callback.
02:42And I did a lot of improvising with Jeffrey Tambor, which was really fun.
02:46There was a scene where we went off the rails with the scene.
02:49And I just felt like the show was something that I was so attached to, even before I saw the pilot.
02:55And then the pilot came out, the first season came out, and I decided.
03:00I did a spell, actually.
03:01I did a spell with Jill Soloway.
03:05I haven't told Jill this.
03:06Sorry, Jill.
03:07I put a little spell on you.
03:09And then I got involved as a writer.
03:13She asked if I had written anything.
03:15I sent her a short story.
03:17She taught me how to write for television in a week.
03:20She held this workshop with six other trans women and taught us all how to write for TV.
03:25And then afterwards asked if I would join the staff.
03:28That's amazing.
03:29Which, of course, I said yes to it.
03:31You said yes.
03:31I jumped up and down.
03:32You were like, that fulfills the requirement of this spell.
03:35Yes, exactly.
03:36I can blow out that candle now.
03:39What was the most challenging thing about making the jump from writing as an essay or novelist to going to dialogue?
03:50Well, actually, I was a musician.
03:51I was writing for musical theater.
03:54I was writing songs.
03:55I was touring.
03:56Actually, I was touring with Sia, and I had to quit touring with Sia for Transparence.
04:01So it was like one amazing gig to another amazing gig.
04:05But I feel like as a musician, there's so much that you can say emotionally and spiritually,
04:11but you can't really tell a narrative that is educational.
04:16And it's harder to tell stories about identity through music.
04:21And what I was noticing in the music world were people, I would go into a room, you know,
04:26I was a pianist at American Ballet Theater, and they were always really wonderful with my transition.
04:30But a few other places didn't really get what I was doing with my gender.
04:35And so I felt the need to explain myself and to educate.
04:39And unfortunately, I lost a lot of jobs because people just didn't understand what I was.
04:44And this was before trans was a national conversation.
04:48And so I had to make identity part of my art making.
04:54And with writing, especially with television, there's just a lot more opportunity to inform
04:59and have a discussion around identity.
05:02And it's what's needed right now.
05:04Eventually, it'd be so nice if I could make a living playing Debussy or, you know,
05:08something that I don't need to be so literal about.
05:10But right now, it's a matter of survival, not for myself, but for the community as well.
05:16Right.
05:17And there's, you know, there's a lot of dialogue that involves, you know, just, it's explanatory,
05:23but it's done in a very natural way.
05:25And one of the things that I love about the Pfeffermans is that they, you know,
05:31speak over each other in a way that's almost musical.
05:33Like, it almost feels like that build to, like, a musical when people are just kind of speaking.
05:41It becomes a cacophony.
05:43Right, right.
05:44The cadence.
05:44The cadences all echo each other because I feel like they all have the same drive in a way.
05:49Like, I mean, they are a bit narcissistic in the way they go about doing things,
05:55but they really are a family that love each other.
05:59And they try to get beyond themselves, even though they have a hard time doing it.
06:03And so I guess what happens with that is that we write the script and then Jill tells everyone
06:11to throw away the scripts after two takes.
06:14And so they improvise and they improvise.
06:16And that's where that cadence and that rhythm comes from.
06:19And then eventually they get back on script.
06:21Usually by the end of the day, we have a lot of what was there in the first place.
06:27So that's the layers all come from that work.
06:31And then going back to season three, what were some of the, like, bright spots in the season
06:38for you, like, just as far as your writing?
06:41Well, we had broken all the outlines together as a group.
06:45There were eight writers.
06:46And so then the day came and we were assigned our scripts and there was a flashback episode.
06:53And the content for the flashback episode was the story of my childhood.
06:59And it was a story of a trans childhood that I had never seen before and something that
07:04I really wanted to tell.
07:05And so when Jill said that that was going to be my script to write, to take it from the
07:10outline to a full script, I was just so overwhelmed.
07:16I was overjoyed, but also I had, like, it felt like a really great responsibility to get
07:21it right because this is something that hasn't been told on TV before.
07:25And so the whole process was such a joy, not just because it was so personal and the content
07:33was reflective of an actual authentic experience, but also because the episode is a bubble episode.
07:39It takes place in the past, so there aren't any current characters in it.
07:44And it was, it felt like a little mini movie.
07:46I got to write a little mini movie last season.
07:48And so I'm really proud of it.
07:51I want to do it again.
07:53And do you, I mean, do you prefer the personal stories or the stories that come from your
08:00own experience?
08:01It's kind of interesting because it was a story that was put into historical context.
08:05So you had, like, this personal dialogue.
08:08It's coming from your own experience.
08:10But then you had to do a little bit of research about the past.
08:14Right.
08:14So you're kind of combining both personal experience and doing some research to, you
08:19know, like, how did, how did that work out?
08:21Like, did you have to do a lot of kind of research on?
08:24Yeah, I did a lot of research on the Cold War and what was happening in Los Angeles around
08:28the Cold War and what was happening in the Jewish community and communities of color.
08:33And I found that that story was reflected in my own childhood.
08:38I grew up in an Amish community and it was very religious.
08:42And there was just always this element of paranoia and there were, everyone had their secret
08:47hiding space.
08:48And so Maura's hiding space was the bunker.
08:50My hiding space was the barn.
08:53So, you know, I would cross-dress, I hate that word, but like, I would dress like female
08:57in the barn.
08:58And it was like my private place where I would dance around.
09:01And so I put that into Maura's story.
09:04And Jill's parent, actually, Carrie, who Maura is based on, cross-dressed in the bunker
09:10in World War II.
09:11They grew up in England.
09:13And so she would dress in the bunker.
09:16So that's from her parents' story.
09:18Oh, amazing.
09:20Is there anything that you found challenging about season three?
09:25Was there any difficulty or is there a certain character that's harder to write for?
09:33Or, I mean, everything feels challenging when we're in it.
09:36We just wrapped like a month ago.
09:38So a month ago, I felt like overwhelmed by everything.
09:41And now that I've had a minute to breathe, I'm like, oh, that was easy.
09:44I'm ready to do that again.
09:46So like, I don't know.
09:48It's a hard show to write.
09:51We're really pushed to find the truth.
09:55And anytime I think you're searching for the truth, that's the greatest challenge.
09:59Just because we don't want to recycle stories we've already heard before.
10:03So finding the nuance in all these characters is really challenging.
10:09I also find anytime that there's business talk with Josh and his, like, the music business,
10:15I'm like, I check out.
10:17I'm like, I can't write this scene.
10:18What am I supposed to write about?
10:20I bring in one of the, like, two.
10:24Well, we have one straight male writer in the room.
10:27I'm like, knock, knock.
10:29Ethan, can you help me with this scene?
10:32You know, what is the writer's room like?
10:34Are you, do you do retreats?
10:37Yeah.
10:37My first day of writing for season two, actually, we went on a writer's retreat in Santa Barbara.
10:45And we had a shaman come in.
10:47And the shaman, you know, brought the spirits of the Pfeffermen and the Pfeffermens around.
10:53And we all hyperventilated in a sweat lodge.
10:56And it wasn't a sweat lodge.
10:58It was like a, what are those round tents called?
11:01Oh, like a yurt?
11:02A yurt.
11:03We hyperventilated in a yurt together and cried and saw the Pfeffermens come down from outer space.
11:08That's wonderful.
11:10Pretty awesome.
11:11So you had, like, a real, you had, like, a really good connection with everybody.
11:16Yeah.
11:16Yeah.
11:17It's, we write from an emotional and a spiritual place.
11:20And so.
11:21Does that include a lot of arguments, too, when people are so close?
11:25We argue over lunch every day.
11:27Lunch.
11:28Every single day, we argue about lunch.
11:30That can be counted on.
11:33So what's your side of the argument?
11:34Do you have any preferences?
11:36I am pescatarian, so, like, I don't do meat except fish.
11:40You have some restrictions.
11:41And I'm generally a very healthy eater.
11:44Mm-hmm.
11:45There are many days where people just want meatball subs.
11:49Those are the days that we go.
11:51I'm not going to see eye to eye today.
11:53Can you tell me a little bit what it's like working with Jill?
11:56Jill's amazing.
11:58Well, first of all, Jill has changed my life.
12:00Like, I was a musician.
12:04And it's a hard life being a musician, you know.
12:06It's gig to gig to gig.
12:07And she really gave me this tool, not just for transparent,
12:12but something that I can do for any show in the future.
12:14I feel equipped to write on anything right now.
12:18She just, she opened, like, the holy book of television writing
12:22and, like, had me study it and followed her.
12:26So, first of all, I'm just really grateful for her vision and her belief in me.
12:32And to work with, she's just so much fun.
12:35Like, every time she's in the room,
12:38she just, she cracks crazy jokes that make me laugh really hard
12:43and make me cry and pee my pants sometimes.
12:45So, we have a good time.
12:47That's beautiful.
12:49So, there's also, like you said, you've worked with Sia before
12:53and you've also worked with RuPaul,
12:55who we've also had on quite a few times.
12:58I have Ru.
12:59Yeah.
13:00Can you just give, like, a one-word or one-phrase descriptor
13:03of both those talented people?
13:04One-word or one-phrase?
13:07RuPaul, I mean, charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.
13:11Yeah, there you go.
13:12That's what described her.
13:14Absolutely.
13:15And Sia, kooky.
13:19She is so kooky.
13:21Like, always giggling, always smiling, always laughing.
13:25Mm-hmm.
13:26We were, we performed at the Hollywood Bowl
13:28and there was, like, this grand reveal.
13:31We were on this turntable.
13:33And we turned around and I'm standing at the piano
13:35and she's facing the back because she wasn't facing the audience.
13:38And there was a delay for, like, two minutes.
13:43We had to stand there.
13:44And she just looked over at me and made, like, the funniest faces.
13:47I was, like, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out.
13:49And I'm, like, trying not to laugh
13:51because you can actually see my face.
13:53She's kooky.
13:55Yeah.
13:56One thing that a lot of people don't realize about Sia
13:59because she has that persona is that off-camera
14:02she's, like, quite loud and vivacious
14:04and just fills up the entire room.
14:06Yes, she does.
14:07Can we talk a little bit about how transgender people
14:12have been portrayed in film in the past?
14:14Like, how, what was, what did you see
14:17before you started writing on Transparent?
14:20Well, the only time I ever saw trans people
14:23were as either villains or victims.
14:29They were never the protagonist.
14:31They never were the subject.
14:33And so most trans people on TV were sex workers
14:40and they were, like, murdered sex workers on Law & Order.
14:44Yeah.
14:45And so there really weren't stories being told at all
14:49about how we are just, I hate the word normal.
14:51Oh, I hate, I love, I love, like, letting my freak flag fly
14:55and I love being queer.
14:57But, like, how we're just normal people, you know?
15:00We're human beings at the end of the day.
15:02And that was never really told.
15:04And I always felt alone, like I never really,
15:09I thought, well, you know, I'll be a weird artist,
15:11but am I ever going to really participate in society
15:13and have a family and have a partner
15:16and kids and all these things
15:18that are very human wants and needs.
15:21And that was never on TV.
15:24And I think that's the reason I never felt like I could have that.
15:27And now that it's becoming more and more of a thing,
15:29especially with Transparent and Orange is the New Black
15:31and shows that are just really normalizing the trans experience,
15:36I feel like the future hopefully has another viewpoint
15:40of what they can be and what they can do.
15:43Yeah, and, like, because the news can sometimes be so awful
15:49about what's happening in, you know, in the world.
15:52What's happening in the news?
15:53I don't know.
15:54I turned it off a while ago.
15:55Yeah, exactly.
15:58But, you know, you find yourself writing for what's happening now
16:05and your own personal experience,
16:07but how do you not fall into that, the tropes?
16:10You know, how do you keep yourself out of the victim-filling place?
16:16Because I know it's, you know, you're also creating television,
16:19must-see TV, you know, so, you know,
16:22how do you keep from falling into that?
16:24I think I watch out for anger, really.
16:27Anger is really great to drive you and to inspire you,
16:33but at the end of the day, I can never write from a place of anger.
16:38I really have to write from a place of empathy.
16:41And if I'm, like, spinning in my, like, angry zone,
16:45I'm just feeding into the system that I don't believe in in the first place.
16:49You know, I believe in a loving world.
16:52I believe in justice, and I believe in humanity.
16:56And a lot of what's spinning in the news cycle is just anger,
17:00and it's not productive at the end of the day.
17:03It's, again, it's good to drive you whenever you notice
17:08that someone is being treated unfairly or a group of people
17:11are being marginalized or demonized.
17:13But as a writer, it's not someplace that I can write from
17:18because then I end up vilifying another group of people.
17:22And, you know, and I end up demonizing people
17:26instead of allowing us to see the human experience
17:29and allowing us to see, well, this is why someone believes this way.
17:33How can I change their mind?
17:35And I'm never going to change anyone's mind
17:36by making them look like the bad guy.
17:39Right.
17:40That's true.
17:42So where would you like to see television in the next five years?
17:45This is a question that I also asked Jill.
17:47Oh.
17:49Virtual reality.
17:50I love virtual reality.
17:51Oh, yeah?
17:52I have, like, a little virtual reality set at home.
17:53I love VR.
17:54Except I get a headache.
17:56I need to fix that.
17:57I can go, like, three minutes.
18:01Floating in the space, listening to Spotify.
18:04It is interesting how when you put on that headset,
18:06you really have to be in a safe place
18:09because you're walking around blind.
18:11Oh, totally.
18:12And, you know, in virtual reality,
18:14they tell you when you're stepping too close to a wall or, you know,
18:17when you're, you have to really trust the place that you're in.
18:21Oh, yeah.
18:22It's terrifying.
18:23I, like, lock my doors, like, six times before I do it.
18:25I'm like, what if someone comes in here and, like, murders me?
18:29I would never know because I'm in, like, outer space right now.
18:32That's like a good horror movie.
18:34Exactly.
18:35Someone's just watching me.
18:37Yeah, I was kind of, like, looking around.
18:40So you'd be interested in writing for a new virtual reality series?
18:44Most definitely, yeah.
18:45I'm actually working on something right now.
18:47Oh, wonderful.
18:48A little secret project.
18:49And do you interact with people online in virtual reality?
18:53Are you talking to people?
18:54I don't, no.
18:55You're not going into the net.
18:57No, I haven't done that yet.
18:59A little, that's the next level.
19:01Yeah.
19:02Right now, I like exploring it by myself.
19:04And a friend of mine is a virtual reality producer, so I go to a studio and play with the new technology all the time.
19:10Do you have a good avatar?
19:12I don't have an avatar.
19:14Oh, you have an avatar.
19:14I am my avatar.
19:18I know some of those lucky celebrities get to customize their avatars.
19:22Right.
19:22No, I'm just, I'm customizing this avatar day by day.
19:27Absolutely.
19:29Um, well, a question to wrap up on, um, what's the most important thing you want to get across with your art through the transgender experience?
19:39And then, and, and I look, I like that you were saying you're, you're going to move past that as well, so let's add that to it.
19:46You know, what, what would you like to, um, how would you like your art to move forward?
19:52Besides virtual reality, of course.
19:53Well, I feel like there's still so many stories that need to be told about the trans experience that haven't been told yet.
19:59And, um, I'm writing a pilot about my own upbringing right now, and, um, it's really important for those stories to get out, um, before I feel like I can work on, you know, I can go write for another show, you know, um, be staffed on another show.
20:15So I just really, I want to excavate, um, all of the, the, the truths about, um, what it's like to grow up trans and what it's like to feel otherized and to feel like my body doesn't match with my gender.
20:31And, and, um, until all of, um, the negative, um, stories that have been told about trans people are outweighed by the positive stories, then, then I'm going to continue doing that.
20:44And then afterwards, I'll write a romantic comedy, you know, or a horror movie.
20:52Well, thank you so much.
20:53We wish you luck on all your endeavors.
20:55Our Lady J, the show is transparent.
20:58It's on Amazon, and it's coming out in the fall.
21:01So thank you so much.
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