00:00Hi, we're the team from your friends and neighbors, and this is Deadline Contenders
00:04Television, the nominee studio.
00:22I'm not sure what it is about the second season specifically that made it catch on.
00:26I think in some cases it's just the fact that we came after the first season.
00:30You know, if I sat down and thought about it, you know, second seasons are generally
00:33a little denser, there's more character complexity because we've already built the world.
00:38And so I think in a binge culture, the fact that people can sit down and watch 19 episodes
00:44as opposed to just the first nine episodes probably gave us a little more staying power.
00:48And I think it's one of those shows that's just had a wonderful word of mouth spread,
00:52so I think the word of mouth just had to continue spreading.
00:57How did it feel getting that Emmy nomination?
01:00It was surprising and surreal.
01:02We were in Europe, so it was the end of the day for us.
01:04We had no idea they were being announced that day, and my phone just started to blow up.
01:09And, you know, I couldn't really wrap my brain around it until I really started hearing from
01:14a lot of friends in L.A. who in real time were learning of the nomination.
01:17And then I began to realize just, you know, that we were in that conversation, which was
01:22really exciting.
01:23This is a show I've really wanted to do for a long time.
01:26I just had to get to a point where people would let me make this show.
01:31You know, due to a handful of circumstances, I came up more on the genre side of television.
01:35I was doing action shows.
01:37But I had been writing novels that were more set in worlds like this and that dealt with
01:41these types of situations and journeys.
01:45And I think I was just biding my time until somebody trusted me enough to do a show like
01:50this.
01:50I lived in Westchester for 15 years.
01:53I knew this world really well, and it had always felt really ripe to me for exploration.
01:57And I think it was just a combination of my own maturation and the ideas maturation coinciding
02:03to bring this show forward.
02:06Having Jon Hamm in that role is interesting because you really can't shake the spectre of
02:13Don Draper.
02:14I think that follows him.
02:15The minute you put him in a suit, that's who you see.
02:19And the way I viewed it is kind of a deconstruction of that character.
02:23Or, you know, as Jon likes to say, you know, Don Draper sold you the American dream and Andrew
02:29Cooper bought it.
02:30And I think we started from there.
02:32In taking on and playing a character like Barney, I think the great appeal of it is being able
02:38to give voice to sort of all of your inner turmoil and your inner chaos.
02:43A lot of the times I've been asked to play characters for Jonathan that are sort of organizers of
02:48the world or move through it as fixers or operators in it.
02:53And that necessitates a kind of level headedness and a coolness under pressure, et cetera.
02:57So to be able to let fly with neuroses after neuroses and sort of allow the character to really spin
03:04out was incredibly fun for me to start to dabble in.
03:09And now that's just building.
03:11It's as the stakes go up for the entire situation, as he becomes more enmeshed in Coop's world,
03:15he starts to really unfurl.
03:19And that's proven both fun but also challenging.
03:22And that challenge is always of interest to me.
03:26Yeah, so it's more than anything, as with I think the general feel of the show, it's incredibly
03:31fun to do.
03:34Shooting the climactic scenes of the finale, which involve a huge amount of action, stunt
03:40work, despair, gnashing of teeth, et cetera, was kind of a sweet spot for me.
03:47Coming up in the shows that I've come up in with Jonathan, these action shows, in some
03:54ways it feels like returning home to do something very physical and sort of a stunt oriented
04:00and a place where you feel that there's danger and risk and it focuses you and keeps you very sharp.
04:09And to be able to do it with participants like James and John and Mark who are so game
04:14and so capable, that's always a pleasure.
04:18You feel like you're on a great varsity team.
04:21You feel like you're with a group of people that are going to carry you and elevate what happens there,
04:27make it funny, make it entertaining.
04:29Those were some of my favorite days on set.
04:32We've always operated under the thesis that this business of breaking into people's homes
04:38does not have a long shelf life and that it's not sustainable.
04:44And so with season two, we're already doing less of it than in season one.
04:49It just leads to a much greater complication than it did in season one.
04:54In season three, you can already see he's trying to avoid having to do it anymore, but circumstance forces him
05:00to.
05:00And the idea is he's now acquired this skill set, but he doesn't want to use it anymore.
05:06He would really like to get that element of risk out of his life.
05:09And the problem is that life keeps forcing him back there.
05:13But I do think as we move, we're halfway through shooting season three now.
05:16And I think as we move into seasons beyond season three, I think it will be less about him robbing
05:22his neighbors
05:23and more about him figuring out what his exit strategy is and what his landing point is.
05:31And that's, I think, what we're working on.
05:32But I think now that he's, it doesn't have to be robbing houses.
05:36Now that he has stepped over the line, I think one of the things Coop has learned is that the
05:41only way to get back to the other side of the line
05:43is probably to step over a few more lines, and that's, I think, going to be our premise moving forward.
05:47Are you saying there are going to be seasons beyond season three?
05:52We can only hope, Hoon. We can only hope.
05:54Deadline exclusive.
05:57Season three, Michelle Monaghan joins the show in a really exciting role, and we love what she's doing.
06:02We also have Josh Jackson for a number of episodes.
06:05So, you know, we're still populating the show with new bogeys to cause complications for everybody.
06:10Right.
06:11And Corbin Bernson, I should mention him, too. It's really fun to see that.
06:15Corbin Bernson is the best.
06:16Is he great?
06:17We just consider him part of the show.
06:18He's the best.
06:19He's just there.
06:21Circumstances will occasionally slow us down by a month or two, but we don't plan to take a year off.
06:29In terms of the writing of the show and the producing of the show, we may slow down by a
06:33month or two,
06:34but our goal is always, as soon as the creative is in place, to come back as soon as possible.
06:39All right.
06:42Let's go.
06:43All right.
06:44Let's go.
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