‘Widow’s Bay’ Season 1 Finale With Creator Katie Dippold and Director Hiro Murai. Plus, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Trailer.

23:00Andy Greenwald:To what is the actual population here versus how many people are visiting and what is the relationship to the outside world and how can we keep this going? And one of the smartest things was this idea that was suggested in the pilot and then brought back in the finale, which is that the island goes through these moods or these cycles. And during these cycles, crazy things happen. That gives them such credibility because if these things were happening 24-7, no one would live there. No one would visit. There wouldn't even be the chance to make the argument that people should live there. And it also, though, buys them time.

23:34Andy Greenwald:It buys them time to retrench, think about what's going to happen next, the characters react to it, and then dive back in and have things start to wake up again. and potentially they wake up again with other delightful and funny horror movie tropes haunting them for an episode or not. But I think the other template that the season gave us that is so smart is that every one of those tropes and every one of those hauntings is going to be inexorably tied to a character's emotional life or their history. And so we have a way to continue to be interested in it without it feeling like a stunt. Yeah, there's also like so much room for expansion on this show.

24:09And I don't know whether or not the core audience is going to be happy to hear that. But like you could obviously have new boatloads of people arriving during calmer times. You could have a real estate developer who comes and decides this is great oceanfront property. You could have somebody wants to build a golf course, what have you. You know, that worked very well for Yellowstone.

24:34Andy Greenwald:And the first part of what you're saying reminded me of like the second season of friends and neighbors where james marsden shows up and moves in next door the thing is that i think i have sometimes a little bit of uh i was talking yesterday with with a couple people about breaking bad and i was like there's there was really like at least three different shows you know it's like the at the same time or over the course of the course of this series where it starts out and it's this black comedy about a guy who's got the worst news of his life and decides to become a master criminal then there is a fish out of water show of like this guy who's never been part of a criminal underworld slowly becoming more and more adept at it and then there is the crime epic that is basically on like godfather level that concludes the show uh i'll be curious to see whether widow's bay in three years we look back and remember and we're like remember first version of widow's bay that was like monster of the week yeah and now it's but now it's about this or that or the other thing i think that um what's promising i mean there's a lot of things that are promising.

25:32Andy Greenwald:One is, and you guys will hear this in the interview, I don't think, I think Katie wants to keep making the show, obviously, but I don't think she feels any great burden to like stretch this out, you know, that she has a story to tell and will have as much fun as possible doing it, but it won't necessarily move through eras in that way. I think the other thing is that there's a lot of room for it to be about a community, not just one man. and even if it is even if the focus ultimately does land on Matthew Rhys' character on Tom Loftus it is about his relationship with his son his son who is now the inheritor of a great and ancient satanic evil living underneath the island did you get the impression that he knew that at the end of the episode in the final shot I don't get it's a good question I didn't get the impression that he knew but I did get the impression that he was now suddenly more than aware of he wasn't like when can we go to the Red Sox there's something here that I have now witnessed, that I am now connected to, even though I don't understand that it is a part of me.

26:32Andy Greenwald:I'm so excited about this show. It is such a joy. It was such a gift. And it is such, it's such a, when we talk about this in our interview, but the specificity of it, you know, to be able not just to have an exciting new show to look forward to when it returns in a year, a year and a half, but this show and this place with these actors and whatever is lurking around the corner, be it a monster of the week or a character actor that allison jones has drug out of the dug out of the most perfect obscurity and brought back in front of us i was talking with sean yesterday um about the your spider-man friend no it was about his edition of projections it just went up today and we were talking a little bit about like where movies are at and what are some of the new you know rules of movie of movie making and movie going um in the movie industry and i definitely think i i have a little bit of i i'm always thinking about the relationship between television and movies, those things can be very fluid.

27:30But like right now, I obviously think that between Obsession and Backroom, Spider-Man, Odyssey, the way people are talking about the movies, the way people are going to films, that there's a centrality of it and the culture like that. Disclosure Day. Yeah, Disclosure Day, big hit, but also very divisive, you know, and in a way that I've really enjoyed some of the conversations I've overheard about it. And I think it's led me to wonder about like what TV can be and what TV should be in that, in that world and that reality. I think you and I have lived through some really like plum days of like, even if only X amount of million people are watching succession, it feels like all of them want to talk about succession all the time.

28:12And as TV has tried to become bigger and bigger and bigger and consume more and more and more of our time, I wonder sometimes whether like we've lost certain just known knowns of like how to make it and what people like about it yes and here hearing katie and hero talk about it where it was like it wasn't like what we were trying to do was make hereditary meets this or you know like this very kind of like almost uh antiseptic or scientific way of like it's a pitch it was like no the script was something that she had lived with for a really long time she'd obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this world and then she and hero where like let's make a place that people want to come back to for two and a half months that's like that's all you got to do like and it's way easier said than done but if you want to know like what tv should be or what tv can be it's not necessarily like what do we not get out of presumed innocent the first time it's like let's make a fucking world that people want to hang out in for three

29:10Andy Greenwald:months which is really hard yeah but you have to give people creative space and oxygen to to give them a chance to accomplish that and it's such an important point that you're making and it's such a necessary point at this moment when the companies who own all of the purse strings are algorithmically inclined, whether because they are essentially tech companies who have taken on this other piece of business to monetize and exploit, or because even the traditional studios that remain are now tethered to this streaming model where they have almost too much data to pour over as if it contains some sort of clue like goose entrails in the year 1200 BC.

29:49Andy Greenwald:That's not how stuff happens in film and in TV. Good stuff never comes from trying to predict the future or predict the weather. But I also have to take a moment, I think people who listen to the interview will hear this as well, to call myself out on it. Because I think that as I did a moment ago with like the planning for Ruth, like I take comfort in the same way like I like a really accurate weather forecast. In the idea that, well, because Katie is so good at what she does and had such a vision and Hero is such a genius at making high, high level television, that they walked into every meeting confident and walked out confident and everyone understood because they always knew what they were doing.

30:30Andy Greenwald:No writer, and I would imagine, well, no, some directors think they always know what they're doing, but very few creative people have that kind of confidence day to day. But more importantly, that kind of confidence is kind of antiseptic and anti-art because it disallows other people's ability to contribute. So the writers that Katie assembled saying, well, actually, I think, as she says, Bashir should come in and kill or shoot Ruth. And what's that going to do for our story? Or Hero talks about like the set deck team and what they did in Ruth's house, which is so memorable. Yeah. And it's one episode that it appears in.

31:05Andy Greenwald:Like you have to have that uncertainty. What we take as confident, authorial, artistic voice is often the product of that weird alchemy of complete anxiety and terror and creative inspiration when you need it most. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good place for us to segue into our interview with Katie Dippel, the creator of Widows Bay, and Hiramurai, who directed four of the episodes for the first season. And Andy and I will be back on Monday to talk about House of the Dragon and Star City and whatever else happens over the weekend. Hope everybody enjoys USMNT Socceroos tomorrow. Me and Adam Friedland will be going on after the game.

31:44Andy Greenwald:Oh, you're going to go on live? You're going to react? I don't know if we're going to go live live, but, you know. How is your Australian accent? That is a hard one to do. Do you think you can? Do you know what? I don't even know if it's going to come up, honestly. Oh, because you think we won't even be talking about the Socceroos. Don't provoke them. No, no, no, no. I did not mean it that way. I just mean like, you know, what Adam and I are doing kind of Transcends. Exists in a world beyond impersonation. Look at me trying to drag you back down to earth. Thanks to Kaya and Kai for producing. We will be back on Monday.

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34:48Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. and the Metta Pant, that's my number one I need to look like I tried option. Get 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viore clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Katie and Hero, thank you so much for joining us on The Watch. We've loved the first season of Widow's Bay, obviously, as we've talked about it incessantly. And we can't wait to talk to you about making it and what's the future for this show.

35:21Andy, I think you're going to lead us off.

35:22Andy Greenwald:I am, but I also want to say that I'm especially excited that we're getting you, Katie, here with the energy of having just come from the Jersey Shore and drinking what might be your first coffee in years. It is my first coffee in a very long time, and we're going to see how it goes. I think it's going to be great. How I sound right now is going to be very different in 30 minutes. I feel like we should just let you cook for a second there, Nate, and then— Okay, so we have many questions about the brilliant finale and the brilliant first season, but I feel like we need from you, Katie, the definitive origin story of this script.

35:52Andy Greenwald:because there are, I think you've talked about it a little bit, but the sense was that this was generated years ago. Maybe even this was a script in some form that got you hired on Parks and Rec. Is that true? Can you confirm or deny? Okay, so yes, I was 28 and I wrote it as a sample for Parks and Recreation, but it was different then. It was much more comedic, much more joke, joke, joke. And I think it gave Mike Schur an idea of my humor, so it got me that job. But it was quite different than what you see now. I think that for many of us, the scariest thing imaginable isn't necessarily a sea hag.

36:25Andy Greenwald:It's looking at creative writing we did over a decade ago. So can you just talk a little bit about why you continued to return to this idea and how did your professional experiences since the Parks and Rec job shape what it became? That's actually a great point because I don't like looking back at old stuff either. It's actually a horrible experience. I don't even like looking back at stuff that's been made. I have a hard time. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I just kept tooling away at this. So it's like something that never fully went away because I was always thinking about it. And I don't know.

36:56I think it was always a draft in progress kind of. Yes, exactly. It was my version. It was like my version of a novel. Gotcha. You know? I got one of those too. Age 41. So I would just always just bring notebooks. And especially when I was traveling east, I would just brainstorm what this place could be like and what kind of things could happen there and the different characters. And I just kept at it forever. I just never wanted to stop thinking about it. Had you thought about it in terms, in like the visual terms, the rich way it was realized in this Apple TV version of the show? Had you started to think about it visually before you started talking to Hero about it?

37:35Had there been, like, was there a look for the show in your mind when you were even in those early days of creativity with it? So, okay, the very first version, there is a moment in time after a couple years at Parks where I started shopping it around. And we almost, well, there was going to be an offer, but I put a pin in it because I just had this very bad feeling it was not the right time, that I had not thought about it enough or what it would really feel like and what it would look like and what this world was going to be like. And so that's when I kept working on it. And I remember watching Atlanta, which is one of my favorite shows of all time.

38:10And I love just that cinematic half-hour television. It's so special. And all the different swings they would take. And it was so rich and so much texture to it. And so as I kept working on it, I always thought Hero was the dream director for it. I never thought in a booing years I would get him to do it. It's also still hilarious to me. He said yes because it just seems like a crazy move, honestly. but um so i would it was very inspiring to me and tv just started changing and so i wanted this to feel like a place that you would want to go to and that would bring a certain kind of look and i wanted it to feel grounded and so um i didn't know exactly what he was going to do you know he's a brilliant director that makes all sorts of surprising choices but we talked a great deal about how we wanted it to feel i think one of the first things you said was like you know obviously it's got the joke density and the world-bending and all that stuff, but you're just like, I just want to be in this place drinking a coffee in a diner.

39:14And the feeling of being there was so specific, and you knew what you wanted there. And I think in a way, for a TV show, how it feels to be in that world is kind of the most important part. It can be funny, but if it's not a place you want to return to, then you've got nothing. Is there a magic trick to doing that? But is there like a thing that you've done maybe over the course of a couple of series that you feel like there's a question I want to answer or there's like something I want to execute, whether it's something about the depth of production design and set dressing or, you know, whether it's location scouting.

39:52But I'm always curious about like, what's the thing that's repeatable? I think it just accumulates. I mean, I think a big part of shooting in Massachusetts was that there's just the quality to that part of the country that we just couldn't get anywhere else. and like trying to fake it in Canada felt bad. Yeah. You know, and then I think the other part is just character dynamics and like what it feels like to sit in a room with these characters just felt like the leading thing for the show. And that part, I always felt like you had a really distinct idea of how it should feel. I feel like one thing, there's one joke in the pilot that we talked about a lot because I think Hero always liked it, but it was also grappling with how does that fit in this world, which is the calendar joke.

40:35And the original – In the pilot. Yes, because we really like thought long and hard about all these little choices. And so like the calendar joke originally was a wolf. He's flipping through and he's wolf, wolf, wolf. And then it shows a sexy fireman with his shirt off. And he looks at the top and it says wolves and firemen. So like that calendar was specifically made to be wolves and firemen, which I actually think is a funnier, broader joke. It's a bigger joke. And then so I think you liked the swing, but we think, but like, what is, how does that fit in the scene? Like where this man is coming in and he has, you know, he's determined to do this thing and he's dealing with Patricia and he's doing all these things.

41:14But so then I changed it to just a random flipped over truck. That's not explained why that's in a calendar. So it became a different kind of joke, but I think it felt better to us. And then my reaction was like.

41:28Andy Greenwald:it's so interesting because here your point is so well taken about how the intimate nature of tv means we want to spend time there as audience members but specifically with a project like this the characters also have to get coffee there and have to live there in between the action and so much of this project i would imagine has been was it like a relay race of of communicating tone until you have the proof of concept and you've shot the pilot no one can truly understand what it is, right? So could you talk us through a little bit of those conversations before we get into the more specifics of the show?

42:00Andy Greenwald:Like Katie, we heard about you talking to Hero. And then once you two are together, what do you say to the production designer? What do you say to the executives at Apple? What do you say to Matthew Reese when he comes in to meet with you? How do you communicate what at that moment only exists in your burgeoning shared consciousness to get them to buy in? You should talk about, you have a very smart way of talking to the actors about treating it like a drama you know yeah i think i mean it's all kind of a guess to be totally honest right because we're just kind of building the plane as we're flying it yeah you know and so i think there's a little bit of pretending like you know what it is you know to some people listen to you yeah uh but i think the first thing we talked about is like you know when i read the pilot it was like so funny and it was clear that it was a world that katie's been thinking about for a really long time you know um but but i was just like i wasn't quite sure how to kind of tackle it and katie was the one who was just like i just wanted to feel like a like a real place you know so like the authenticity and like reality of these characters as absurd as some of them are was the most important thing right and so that made me go okay then let's just play it real right and so you know obviously there's things that are heightened or like anachronistic or a little strange, but like I think building the like internal logic and reality of this world became the most important thing.

43:21Yeah. I think. Yeah, which is also hard because when you're grounded, because we wanted it to be grounded so when you do have tension or something terrifying happen, you can't, you'll lose everything if you do a joke where someone's not taking it seriously. Like I was always wanting to avoid something terrifying happening and someone, a character being, well, that happened. But it's like you have to spend every moment like, oh, no, what would they do? Like how would they react to this? And it's also hard for the actors because I don't know what they're drawing on from life, you know? I hope not much.

43:59So it was honestly, it was a tricky thing because I also think, and then in terms of the executives, it's definitely a lot of projecting confidence. Yeah. But I do think we were very confident about the feeling we wanted. It was just how to get there was constant question like just constantly reflection and does this feel good? Does this feel bad? And just doing that the entire time. I do. You can feel the fact that especially in those early episodes when there's still some like town hall office business going on that none of the people in that in those scenes think they're in like a sitcom. Like they're not like Like, this is my bit that I always do when I come into the office.

44:39Like, it's all the comedy is very much, like, a product of day-to-day interaction over, like, tasks that they have to solve. So you guys were telling the actors that pretend you're in a drama, but there is comic things happening, obviously. Like, what was the sort of, like, the way that you led that ensemble? I mean, some of it is just casting. Like, you know, some— Let's talk casting. Yeah, like the people we got for it, it's just like the Avengers of character actors. Like, you know, these guys know how to play the absurd seriously. Like, that's kind of their whole thing. And we were fortunate that like a lot of the people also have really good comedic timing, you know?

45:18Yeah. And so even when they're playing it real, they know how to kind of like dodge and weave around the punchline or like play it up or play it down. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was just kind of like getting them all in the pen together and seeing what happens a little bit. And I just saw an article of Stephen in the Rolling Stone where he's talking about how comedy you always play it straight. And I love that. And that's what's so funny about him. But I think to give him more credit, he's also on top of being a great actor playing it straight, he's also one of the funniest people in the entire world.

45:47Do you know what I mean? He's a genius. So like having people who are great actors that will play it straight, they'll never try to sell it for a joke. They're not going to be hammy. But they are also all very naturally funny people.

46:00Andy Greenwald:I mean, I was going to ask if the casting, like, wish list for Wick began with Stephen and ended with Oot. Like, could you ever have imagined anyone else in this part? Or did he just take it over and run with it? God, I mean, he's like the best person at towing both lines. Like, he's just, he's so perfect for it. To be honest, I didn't have any one actor in mind for any of the parts. But when he said he was willing to do it, it was like, that is wonderful news. I know Colin Farrell was up for it, but he wanted to do the penguin suit. So he's like, do I get to wear prosthetics? One thing I think you guys have said that you've heard us talk about is like that some of the Parks and Rec DNA that may have existed in the show.

46:44Andy Greenwald:And I always think about the way that Mike Schur over Parks and Rec and in Good Place really brought some of the propulsive contemporary serialized storytelling into the half hour and comedic space. And you can actually say with a straight face that you can see that he is a big fan of The Wire when you watch Parks and Rec, even though I would say tonally they're slightly different. Katie, can you talk about how you learned that and then how you applied it here? Because I think that one of the genius things about this season is that you are telling a big story in a cinematic way, but you paste it so beautifully so that you can enjoy the fun.

47:20Andy Greenwald:You can enjoy episodically along the way. There were two moments that really stuck out to me. The first is like the pilot, oh my God, we are going to be in hell for 10 episodes. And then the tourists come and you kind of take a breath and you exhale. And then the other one was just the decision to split 103 and 104 into almost individual perspective episodes that allowed you to tell story happening concurrently that didn't sap from the overall momentum. Like this is like high level breaking, like room breaking stuff. But I just thought it was so impressive. Oh, that's very nice to hear. Some of those decisions were having not done it before and not realizing how hard it would be.

47:58So, like, for example, we had already broken episode three of The Hag, and a writer had pitched that Patricia finds this help book. And we started going on about, you know, our emotional fears of rejection and status. And so what if she tries to throw this party? and then somehow in the room, what if these are happening on the same day? Now, why we decided to add that complicated layer to it, I don't know, but it seemed fun at the time. But it was... That's what Vince Gilligan says.

48:30Andy Greenwald:That's how he plots, too. Then he just lives in regret. Yes, yes. But it's a good exercise. But for the parts of it, you know, it was such a great room there. And I always... The things I love the most about this show or something that I love a good throwaway joke that can come back later in a more meaningful way. And in this show, that can come back in a really terrifying way, you know, not even as a joke. I also loved the world building and Parks and Rec, you know, so all those are just in my bones now. And so that was it was fun to take what I learned there and use it, whether it's for comedy or just lore intention.

49:09Yeah, I was going to ask, I'm glad you mentioned lore, because that's, it's kind of become a catch term recently. I mean, I know that like, I've had lots of conversations with people about backrooms and obsession regarding like whether or not like, you know, are these stories that can be solved, essentially, and that like, you're going through these puzzle pieces. and I was curious about like the or how it feels to like organically write something that also has a clear undergirding of like this is the actual history of the island this is I know where this is going in a season or two or whatever the case may be versus also keeping it lively and playful and allowing you you know moments for where someone can be like what if Patricia found a self-help book I guess you can kind of divide those things into into two spaces like there's the everyday life stuff that happens.

49:57And then there is the, well, these are the planks of Widow's Bay's history that we know we may reference at some point and the monsters that are out there. But how much did you guys talk about, you know, what has happened on this island and what is coming for this island? I'd say the first four weeks we spent time thinking about both things. We would think about what would be fun to do, like what would be a fun episode, Like him going to, you know, an inn to prove it's not haunted seemed like a fun thing to do. But then also we equally spent time thinking about the history of the island. And we really tried to come up with a history that felt very real.

50:35So because I think when the absurd moments pop out, it's even funnier. A lot of the show is, wait, what? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Which I think is also what Hero is so good at where it's never too much in your face or too— So it's just sort of like you can blink and miss it, you know, and you just sort of catch those moments. So we talked about both. And then it was just sort of an organic process of, okay, what feels right now? Like, oh, I just want this to feel like a Monster of the Week episode. I just want this to be fun. And then like, okay, now we have to get a little bit more into the store and get a little emotional here.

51:11I said that like I'm mad at it. What a tragedy. but um so and it's interesting like seeing their reactions because we are trying to do a couple different things and i've seen people that um have loved the monster of the week episodes and then when it gets into more lore they're like no yeah the x-files dilemma well i think we all kind of like long for i want 20 episodes of of just like what am i getting this week kind of yes and and that's i think it's more of like a nostalgia for a kind of tv that you feel for three weeks when you're watching Widow's Bay and then you're like, okay, cool. Like now we have to figure out whether or not Ruth is Evan's grandmother or whatever.

51:49Yeah. I really was hoping to do get all of it if possible, because I really wanted, I'm a lunatic, so I'll go to sleep watching a horror movie. Like I will just put on like, you know, The Exorcist or something and fall asleep halfway. But I like, I'm also a very anxious comedy writer, but I feel like I wanted it to feel like someone can go to bed and be like, oh, I want to put on the in episode. So there's enough standalone so you can just put something on and enjoy it for itself, you know. But still, I know myself, I only, I want to watch a show that's more serialized, that there's a bigger story and that we're answering questions.

52:25So that was why we tried to do both. Yeah. There's something kind of like old TV about the way we built it that I think is really refreshing. Yeah. One thing I wanted to say as a side anecdote is that whenever I would go into Katie's production office when we were shooting, she'd be very seriously typing on her computer. And then on the TV on the wall, there would be, I guess, like a YouTube screensaver kind of thing of a silhouette of a man standing in the woods with spooky wind sounds. And I'm just like, what's happening in here? that's like one of the easier ones that's that's one of the uh later ones there's one it's halloween there's just these videos background videos for you know i'm very familiar yes i'm trying to get them to make one for the show um but uh there's one that it's just a house in haddonfield but um every now and then michael myers comes by just like carrying this dead body and it's so upsetting when that happens so sometimes someone will come in my office and And I'm like, oh, I hope he doesn't come by because this would be an inappropriate thing to happen for this person just trying to do a job.

53:34It's weird enough that I'm watching Halloween vibes videos that are three hours long. Let's try to get this conversation under three minutes before I know he shows up.

53:42Andy Greenwald:I do want to delve into the psychological root of this, but I also want the coffee to peak. So I'm going to hear a question while that goes a little bit longer. The way you guys were just talking about old-fashioned TV comfort and new-fashioned TV ambition. I did want to talk about on the directorial side like here you know that like there's been a move towards the auteur theory where like a director will direct a series like it is a movie. The thing that you guys pulled off this season that I was incredibly blown away by was four directors directed this season there is no massive tonal shift or drop off in quality between any of them people brought their own sensibilities and points of view and quirks no doubt But like that is such a veteran move.

54:28Andy Greenwald:Like we used to watch television and multiple people would direct it, but it would still feel like it was coming from a collective voice. How how did you handle that? How did you manage to pull that off? I think there's two parts to that. I think part of it is just in the writing. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think because I assume because so much of it has lived it in your head for so long. There's like I've never read a pilot and been like, oh, I know this is like this. I know this whole world. You know, a lot of times you read a pilot and you go, oh, they just wrote this hoping that somebody will tell them to go write a second one or a third one.

55:01This one just felt like a fully fleshed kind of world. And so, you know, I think what's magical about that is that there's already boundaries. There's already kind of things to play with. And so even if you got someone who, you know, didn't direct the last block to come in, they're still kind of playing with like pieces that are speaking to each other. And it has its own sort of rules that are a little more stable than, you know. you can't direct it off the rail, I don't think. Right. I've been working with the same sort of DP and edit crew for a really long time. All the guys who did Atlanta came back for this.

55:33Christian Springer. Yeah, Christian and our secondary DP, Cody Jacobs, was our key gaffer when we first started. And so I think there's like an understanding and like a mutual language. And obviously the directors come in and put their own vision to it, but there's also kind of this like, you know, like a mutual understanding of taste among all the crew. And so I think that keeps it a little consistent.

55:54Andy Greenwald:One of the directors is Andrew DeYoung, who did Friendship last year, which is one of my favorite movies. And there are elements that you could see, like the work that he does with Tim Robinson, which is incredibly funny and also kind of horrific at times. It's just like, it's almost like there's a fader and you could go in either direction. Katie, what is this connection that I have to be honest with you, I had never personally pursued or experienced between the hysterics of comedy and the hysteria of horror? I'm a weird one to ask because I find both very delightful. You know what I mean? You're the only one to ask.

56:26Don't ask me. I just think that I've always found horror very fun. I mean, I love Hereditary. I wouldn't say that was a fun time. I felt like I just— I read the Wikipedia. But I mean, I love that movie. It's masterful. But I really, it's just anticipation and, you know, building tension and then payoff. I find it to be very similar. Like, you know, in the movies when, I love when something scary happens and people scream, someone screams and then everyone collectively laughs. There's a similar release that taps into as an anxious person. It's being able to watch the other shoe drop, you know. um but yeah andy i do think um i love when people of backgrounds in comedy do horror it's like the jordan peele thing or zach craig or i think there's a reason it can work really well and andy's so funny he's so lovely as i remember on set um i remember i went up to him with a note and i was just like can you just just i said can just so i could sleep at night do you think you could do blah blah blah blah and he was like just so you sleep but you say that with every note I didn't realize how often I've been using that just so I can sleep at night.

57:43Andy Greenwald:Maybe there's a deeper issue. I was like, okay. I think that Your Baggage episode is a really good example, though, where it's made, obviously, from such a loving place of scenarios like that, of Slasher and, you know, like Halloween and Friday the 13th. And it's really funny, but it's never like a satire of it. It's kind of it's like right on this line of like, no, she's running in Ugg boots. And, you know, this is an apparition slash like, you know, undead, you know, demon following her. But it never feels like you're like doing scary movie or something like that. Or you're like lampooning the fact that like, oh, isn't it funny that like sometimes like these things walk, but they always catch up to the to the victim.

58:29and I was curious whether or not you guys spent much time talking about horror movie touchstones in terms of things that you wanted to reference or whether it was kind of putting aside all of those references and trying to like live this stuff in a much more organic way. I mean, I think Andy just got it. Like, you know, he knew we all love Halloween and all those slash movies, but especially Halloween. And so I think he just understood it. And so, you know, we would talk more about the character and we had a conversation about tone and, you know, not wanting to feel silly. But that, I would say, your baggage or old baggage.

59:12I should know the names of the episodes. I don't either. But I feel like eight was the closest to kind of pushing it. Like, just in script. Like it was, I usually am like really strict about like this scary can never feel silly. And that one was towing the line a little more, you know, that I would usually like. But it just felt like we weren't going to redo the genre that's been done. We weren't going to come up with this brand new horror element to that franchise. So we might as well have fun of it. And the fun is this 40-year-old woman running around the neighborhood trying to get people to see that, but this boogeyman is stalking her.

59:51Andy Greenwald:I want to ask about Matthew Rhys as a collaborator. He is, as a former guest in this podcast, we can attest that he is one of the most delightful people we've ever met in person and is like a true Swiss army knife of abilities because he can be the funniest person and he can be the most emotionally vulnerable actor alive. Going through the season with him, writing and directing, what was the collaboration like in terms of keeping him anchored to where Tom needed to be as both the protagonist, as both, in many ways, the audience surrogate of like, I don't think something bad is happening here. What did he need to stay grounded in a character that needed to play so many different notes throughout the course of the season?

1:00:32I mean, I don't think he needed a lot. He's just very good. He's just a really good actor. He's a really good actor. Yeah, honestly. I feel like he had a couple of questions. When's lunch? Yeah.

1:00:46Andy Greenwald:Could I ride a horse this season? Yeah. I feel like there was some discussion on his backstory. And there was like a couple of like logic things he asked that I was like, God damn it, he's right. And then fixed, you know. But like, but other than that, I mean, he really is just a very good actor. He's just very good. And I think he's also just a very naturally funny person. And maybe he hasn't had a chance to play with that as much. And so he was excited at the prospect. Yeah. And I think when we first started talking, we all kind of, you know, We Zoomed together, and I only know him as Perry Mason and the Americans, so I was expecting a very deadly, serious, somber man.

1:01:25And he was just a joy as you met. And I think we just all kind of agreed that, okay, the way to approach this is going to be find the real emotional truth of it all, and then all the comedy and horror stuff can sit on top of it. And after that, he was just like, okay, I understand. And we just kind of got through a whole season of just putting him through all these crazy scenarios and him finding the reality inside of it. That was like the cast was like the easiest part. Do you know what I mean? It was really not a lot of questions. They would just show up and do incredible work. I mean, I'm sure you're giving direction.

1:02:05Am I really? But in terms of, I don't know, I just, there wasn't a lot of, I don't know, it was, that could have made this very hard. Yeah. It was one of the easier parts. They were all delightful and just fantastic. I do remember when we shot the finale where he had like, you know, like 15 pages of like just the most crazy dramatic scenes with Ruth. Yes. he pulled me aside and was like, I signed up for a comedy and this is the most dramatic acting I've ever done. Well, that's a good way to get into the finale and to the sort of last run of episodes because Andy was asking you guys about breaking story and about playing by sitcom rules versus maybe playing by more newfound prestige TV rules.

1:02:51But I thought it was amazing how much you gave in the finale in terms of like, here's where this could go. here's what else is happening. We've got the film strip that Jeff Hiller is watching and obviously whatever is in that basement, in that dungeon. Can you talk to me a little bit about where you wanted to end up in terms of, I want to give this season a satisfying conclusion versus I want to save stuff for future story that we're going to be telling? I'm a big fan of just giving as much as possible and then deciding what the next season is. I mean, just going as long as you have. I'm not trying to drag this out for, you know, 20 years.

1:03:33I mean, because I think there's more you could do in this world that is beyond the story. But anyways, I guess I just wanted to give as much as possible. But I knew there was going to be probably a season two. I mean, I didn't know it. We didn't know it until recently. And congratulations. So I don't know. I knew going into the writer's room the final dilemma that Loftus was going to have presented to him. And I knew he was going to find out about his son and how exactly that was going to play out. That was discussed a lot in the room. And it was really fun because I didn't know. It was interesting.

1:04:11I had people pegged wrong. Like some writers that were like, oh, I would grab the gun and drive to her house and shoot her in the back of the head. Some people were like, nope, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. And I was completely wrong on who would do what. So it was a really fun time debating that. And so, yeah, it was just a lot of arguments. And then someone else had pitched the Bashir move. And so once we knew that was going to happen, then we started working backwards to try to make sure you can buy that as much as possible, that a man would be pushed to the brink like that.

1:04:44Andy Greenwald:And who in the writer's room pushed for the line, but he got bit by an animal and became that animal? Oh, God, I wish I could remember. because I think we should throw a parade for that person. I know. This is where my, this is my brain is mashed to. I paused and rewound four or five times. It's so good. I called my daughter in from the other room and I was like, this is everything to me. This is so perfect. But do they become like Chekhov's jokes or Chekhov's throwaways where you're like, I guess now we have to have a guy who got bit by an animal and became that animal. I mean, some of these, like, you could absolutely do an ep.

1:05:16I like that some of these things are meant to be thrown away and never revisited and then some that you can be like, oh, no, there could be a whole episode about that, you know? Yeah. So, I don't know, that's exciting.

1:05:25Andy Greenwald:Speaking about old school television, the thing that we have been delighted to observe and hear about and read in the news is that, like, it does sound like, for as much as we have any access to these opaque streaming metrics, that your show is a phenomenon in the sense that apparently it is just growing week to week to week and the audience is finding it in a way that is exciting as a fan of the medium. Like, that's something that people used to happen and now really only happens in The Bear and The Pit and maybe Widow's Bay. What has this 10-week journey been like for you guys of having this weird thing, especially for you, Katie, this weird thing that has lived in your head for so long and suddenly sharing it and finding that maybe other people also like weird things living in their heads?

1:06:02Yeah, it's really wild, you know, because I remember just a couple months ago, I would like look online to see if there's any chatter about it and it'd be absolutely nothing. Just absolutely nothing. I'm like, well, okay. it's it's crazy to work so hard on something for so long and then you have to be okay with no one seeing it or not or no one liking it like if you're doing it just to try to make something that people absolutely like that's I think how you end up with something more formulaic or expected so I really had no idea even though I knew I was really proud of the work, I thought everyone just did such incredible jobs on this show.

1:06:47It's just really like, I'm always blown away by what everyone brought, whether it's the directing or the cast or props or the VFX, the score. But you just don't know. And I honestly did it up until the night before reviews started coming out. I'm like, well, let's see what this is going to feel like. This could feel real bad. You just don't know. You just don't know.

1:07:07Andy Greenwald:Whose cosine meant the most to you? Because I think we have Stephen King was tweeting about it. You got the rare Tim Cook tweet recently, which I didn't know he knew he had a television studio. So that was very exciting. Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo del Toro. Yeah. The Guillermo del Toro one was really thrilling because I'm from a horror director. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because I have been in comedy for a long time, so I have a horror director to say that about the horror in the show. And specifically call out the horror aspect. Yes. It was really exciting. That was shocking. But not sure.

1:07:39I mean, that sounds—but I was delighted and surprised. I will say, like, to, you know, speak on Katie, like, I think as we were making it, like, every sort of craft person or department had kind of coming in, I could tell that they were invested in the world of the show that is, like, pretty rare, you know? And I think it just speaks to the world that Katie initially sort of crafted. Like, this is, you know, it's pretty rare. Like, the set deck people were, like, they had lists of what every worker at the town hall would have in their desk. You can tell. You know what I mean? Like, it was, like, the specificity.

1:08:18And the dressing at Ruth's house was, like, it was, like, very personal to the set decks. Like, it was, like, they were pulling from their own, like, relationships to their moms and aunts. And then, you know, just from that era. The middle point killed me. Correct. I can't read that. I can't read that. I guess all that is to say, like, you know, who knows how shows hit in the world, but I could tell that people really liked investing themselves into that world, you know?

1:08:47Andy Greenwald:Why do you think—you've now been a part of two shows that have done this so successfully. You've done also other brilliant work. I'm not trying to shit on Patrick Somerville, for example, but in case he's listening. He's going to be furious. I know. I kind of want that. No, but specifically in the case of Atlanta and with Widows Bay, I just feel the evidence of something. It was the best advice I ever got, which is that a pilot script is a wonderful thing that opens a door, and then you have to unlock it and let everyone else come into it and bring their enthusiasm. And that's when things can elevate, when everybody is rowing in the same direction with that same spirit that brought you to your laptop however many years ago it was.

1:09:23Andy Greenwald:here having worked with two creators who have been able to communicate that what is the secret sauce? I mean it's sort of a crapshoot a little bit but you know I think it does feel sometimes like a chemistry test you know what I mean? You're kind of like I think good ideas have its own sort of like gravitational pull and I think people are drawn to it and they want to make something inside of it and so like I think obviously you have to walk in with a good idea but then if you let the right people in the room I think a TV show starts to kind of take on its own life, you know, and I think it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts.

1:09:57And I think I've watched that with Atlanta. I watched that with this. And I think it's, I don't know, it's magical every time. You know what I mean? Like you watch an actor that you cast sort of like, oh, you're that person now. Like you're not, you know what I mean? You were someone on the page and now you're just this sort of full person that I like watching. And so that was a, you know, that was an experience of making this show in a lot of ways. does the passion people have obviously, you know, expressed for the show make not writing season two more difficult? But like, do you think about things like, oh, I want to expand this and widen the palette of characters?

1:10:34Because one of my favorite parts about this season is there's this, you know, five some, six some of people who understand what's happening. And then everybody else is kind of like, well, am I going to have any vacancies at my inn? or like how are we going to make it through the summer season? Like do you think that the interest in the show has changed the way you're approaching it creatively at all? Not really. I mean it's helpful to know that – like I'm happy to know that people like the Monster of the Week episodes and so, you know, I would love to keep that feel alive even though we're going to keep going deeper into the lore and exploring different character stories.

1:11:12But I'm basically going to go back to the Jersey Shore next week. And I'm just going to lock myself up in this little condo. And I'm going to go to the – I found a new haunted house on another boardwalk. Nice. Amazing. This is that. I'm going to get soft serve ice cream every day. I will come back a different person. Any airbrush teas?

1:11:30Andy Greenwald:Yes. And then go into the writer's room. And this is like the – this is the part that's fun that, you know, you can just imagine anything. And then it's hard. And then it's very hard. I noted with interest that Damon Lindelof is a huge fan. And if you ever need advice about creating a show that has a mysterious island full of questions that becomes very, very popular, very, very quickly, you could probably reach out to him. There is some precedent there. He has offered that, which was very nice, actually, which is very nice. He could do an instructional video and send it to you on Reels. Last thing, since I have you, Katie, I feel like we were just talking about how wonderful two of the great pillars of modern television are Atlanta and now Widow's Bay in a different medium, Katie, there, by my estimation, there have only ever been two good tweets.

1:12:22Andy Greenwald:One is, was the grink there? Oh, I love that one. Yeah, that's a great one. The other one was your Babadook Halloween party tweet. It is actually kind of amazing to watch people's face light up when I try to explain, like in the early days, like you have to watch Widow's Bay and I'm naming things associated with it. And I say, no, no, it's the woman who did the Babaji. And then they're like, oh, yeah. That might actually be, like, great viral marketing for your show. It's kind of incredible. Could you, I don't want to send you even further back into the past, but could you just tell us a little bit about the life and afterlife of that tweet?

1:12:56You mean, like, how it came to be, how I came to be sitting there?

1:13:00Andy Greenwald:I don't, honestly, we could just close our laptops and just let the cameras run for an hour. Whatever you'd like to share. Oh, okay. I, Halloween, I take very seriously. Clearly. Yeah. I think that's obvious. And so I wanted to be the Babadook, you know, as one would. Sure. I went to, like, a Salvation Army and got, like, the coat and the hat. I really lucked. I struck out. I mean, what's the opposite of struck out? Home run. Home run. Knocked it out of the park. Knocked it out of the park. Knocked it out of the park. Thank you. And then I put a lot of the makeup on. I feel like I put the white makeup on more than needed to be.

1:13:39Like, you know what I mean? Like arms that weren't shown. And then first, my boyfriend was watching TV, and I stood outside that window and waited for him to notice me. And so I got a little scared there. I was excited about that. He did notice? He did finally notice. How long? It took a long time. It took a very long time. And then we drove to my friend's house. He was having his party. And, you know, I had a friend said that he was dressing up as a Sopranos character, but it was just wearing a tracksuit, so it doesn't count. And, yeah, no one was dressed up. And so also I just – it looked worse than it even is in the photo because when I smiled, my red wine teeth, just – it was terrifying looking.

1:14:20Like I was talking to my friend, like Jessie, who took the photo, and I was trying to tell her a story. And she was like, I'm sorry. I just can't talk to you right now. It just, like, wandered off of her drink. and so um that was that night and uh and then i didn't i put the tweet up like yeah later that year and uh yeah it was fun i feel like it really seemed to resonate with people it was a throwback

1:14:41Andy Greenwald:thursday it was a date set so yeah so i did have to explain that to my children so again it's teaching it's a teaching moment yeah but i do think jokes aside like everything that we've just talked about in this beautiful show is kind of in that tweet yeah right yeah remember you didn't know that I was in that tweet until after we started working together. Yeah, I was so starstruck. I was like, you're the Bat Babadook? It's incredible. I personally think Apple should have given you any overall you wanted for that tweet. But if it took the show, then okay. I'll take that too. Congratulations to you both.

1:15:18Andy Greenwald:It's such a joy and hopefully we'll get to talk about it again in the future. Thanks for having us. We'll be right back.