PARENTHOOD‘s executive producers Ron Howard and Jason Katims, along with Lauren Graham recently took some time to take part of a conference call and answer some of the questions you’ve been dying to know the answers to about their new show, which premieres Tuesday, March 2, at 10pm on NBC. Here are some of the things they had to say.
On whether upcoming episodes will continue to be as light and fun as the pilot.
Jason Katims: Yeah, I mean, anytime you start a show you’re sort of trying to find that balance and discover the tone of the show and what the show wants to be.
And one of the things that I’m so excited about – the second version of the pilot and then as we’ve gone into episodes is we’ve found more and more humor. But it’s really the humor of life, you know, it’s the humor that you find in – when you’re dealing with parenthood and family and dealing both with your kids but also in the context of being a son or a daughter as well.
What I like about the humor that we’re finding it just feels very relatable and real; it doesn’t feel like it’s too broad or going into a place that is in any way sort of not really relatable.
On what it is about parenthood that keeps Ron Howard coming back to it.
Ron Howard: Well the interesting thing – and I’ve got to include Jason in this because, we – Brian Grazer and I are intensely proud of, you know, the film Parenthood. You know, our friends [Lowell] Ganz and [Babaloo] Mandel, did a brilliant job writing it. And it remains a movie that people compliment us on.
We tried a television series a couple years after it and it couldn’t capture the sort of the – the scope of the family; it was a half-hour sort of sitcom approach. And it was frustrating in that way. And we thought that was sort of the end of Parenthood.
We would even toy occasionally with trying to do a sequel. But we felt like another two hours on the subject was not going to be particularly more informative. A series would have allowed the characters to develop but just another movie would probably not be a good creative idea.
And then Jason came to Brian and I and of course we know Jason from Friday Night Lights where he does a spectacular job and said I want to do a one-hour dramatic version of Parenthood. And we were thrilled, Brian and I, very open to the idea because of Jason and his talent but – and our experience with him.
But also we frankly said in that first meeting you’re a pretty creative guy why don’t you just make up your own family? And at the time I wanted to take this because it’s like a book or a play or anything that you can make a strong adaptation from, there’s something in the DNA of those characters and the family dynamics that I think I can build upon.
And lo and behold he has given every character its own contemporary voice and of course the actors are now going even further with it. But I’m just incredibly sort of gratified that those characters – that situation, the DNA of that family can evolve. And now I know it’ll continue to in the right way where you can really understand so much about what it is to be a family member or a parent.
Jason Katims: I think sort of going back and looking at the movie again I felt that it was so rich and that the not only was the movie so wonderful, but the world that was created in that movie was so rich and so ripe with possibilities.
And I kept thinking, you know, I want to see more, I want to know more about them, I want to live with these people. And that to me is the key to, you know, it seems like, oh yeah, come up with a TV show it seems like an easy thing to do. But it’s a very hard thing to try to figure out the ingredients that would make a good show.
And I felt like not only was a wonderful movie but in the movie was sort of the perfect foundation for what could be a really wonderful show. And honestly the show that I would want to watch. That’s why I was really drawn to it; this is the kind of TV show that I would want to watch.
It’s the stuff that is sort of most compelling to me right now, it’s the stuff I’m thinking about most right now in my life. And I think that’s always the thing that you should try to let let guide you as you try to figure out what you want to write.
And of course the other side of it is I’ve had such a wonderful experience with Ron and Brian and everybody at Imagine on Friday Night Lights. I also thought this would be a good thing for me and hopefully for everyone to sort of find something else to do together.
And the combination of those two things made me feel like this was just too good of a thing to not pursue. And even though I had to go to Ron and Brian, I felt kind of humble going into them saying I want to because I know there had been a show that had been done already based on it.
But I was so kind of excited and passionate about the idea of trying to do it that that’s what made me sort of talk to them. And what got me really excited was once I did talk to them that they were really interested in only doing the show if we could re-imagine it. To let the movie inspire something that is new.
On whether they will expand on some of the children’s issues we see in the pilot.
Jason Katims: The idea of the show is to sort of try to explore as much about the experience of parenthood as we can. And that includes the joyous moments, the celebration of family.
It includes the embarrassing funny moments. But it also includes some very dramatic stuff, which includes having a kid with special needs which is something that is very much a part of the show.
What I’m really proud of so far having now shot the first handful of episodes and seeing a few cuts, what I’m very proud of is that I think not only are we dealing with that subject matter in a way that honors it and is real, but it’s also done in a way that is not self-pitying and depressing.
I mean I think really knowing what that experience is like first hand I know that it’s as much of a blessing as it is a curse. And I feel that that is reflected in the work that we’re doing.
On why they decided to have a child with Asperger on the show.
Jason Katims: I think that what I find more and more from my own very personal experience in life but with knowing so many people, what you find is everybody’s dealing with something.
One of the basic sort of defining principal that I had when I was thinking about what I wanted the show to be was the idea that your children are never the people you expected them to be.
You’re surprised by them. A lot of what parenthood is about is figuring out how to deal with that and fight that and ultimately maybe accept that. And I think that to deal with an issue like that which is in many ways a scary issue to sort of to confront.
But in many ways I just think it speaks to what so many people are dealing with. Maybe, I mean, obviously not specifically with Asperger but that’s what I find, honestly. What I find when I see people is everything looks a certain way from the outside. And then when you get inside their homes or you talk to people and meet them and really get to know what’s going on everybody’s dealing with something.
And so I wanted that to be part of the show. As much as I want this show to be fun, and it is, and a celebration of family, which it is, I also wanted to be real and to see people sort of grappling with stuff that createa real challenges.
(To Lauren Graham) On the differences of being part of an ensemble cast versus a show like Gilmore Girls, and the things she has discovered about her character.
Lauren Graham: Well it’s a more sane life for sure, you know, to be part of an ensemble. And I find that the work can be more specific therefore. I have to really make sure I know where I am in the story because I’m not in every scene and I have to sort of think about it as an actor in terms of the arc of each episode in a more deep way instead of trusting that since I’m in most of the scenes I can kind of gauge where I am.
So I’ve found this work really gratifying because it is more specific, you know, you’re working with a smaller amount of material and therefore everything is really important. And on Gilmore Girls sometimes I’d be in a scene that was just there kind of for fun, you know. And here each scene really is an important part of where my character is.
And so that’s been really interesting. And I don’t see dawn as much as I did on the other show which has been really enjoyable. And I think what I’ve discovered and what I’ve really enjoyed about sort – we’re in maybe Episodes like 5 and 6 right now – is just finding the ways in which this character just continues to sort of feel like – it’s too strong to say, like a failure. But, you know, as opposed to maybe Lorelai Gilmore who had a very sunny outlook on things, it’s been really interesting for me to play someone who is kind of shouldering a lot of baggage in terms of being disappointed about where she is in life and just the feeling of living in your parent’s house at 38 and how that informs everything and doesn’t make you feel too great.
And so it’s just trying to think about looking at life through the eyes of disappointment is kind of a thing I think about a lot with Sarah.
(To Lauren Graham) On what made her decide to come back to television.
Lauren Graham: Well the decision was kind of just a very instinctual one. I have been reading scripts for two and a half years or three years, whatever it is since Gilmore Girls ended. And there just wasn’t anything I connected to and that’s including things that I was developing that, you know, maybe didn’t get to exactly the place I wanted them to.
And I always think about, you know, it follows like the dating model of you have a list of things that you want and then you meet somebody and fall in love and half the things were not on your list. And this is kind of that in the ways that I didn’t plan to play a mom, I didn’t plan to do an ensemble, I sort of was thinking about a comedy and maybe cable.
And then I read this script and I met with Jason. And just the idea of being able to collaborate with a writer who has such a beautiful group of work but also is encouraging in the, you know, take your idea and kind of run with it and improvise once in a while if that makes sense to you.
It’s just a very different model from the show that I had come from. And so it just seemed like a good idea.
(To Lauren Graham) On how it feels to take over for Maura Tierney.
Lauren Graham: Well it felt really difficult in ways. I mean, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to really do a great job. And I push anyway but then, you know, this just felt like I hoped that it would go well and I hoped that we would all gel. And I hoped that actors wouldn’t mind doing a scene a second time with me.
And Ron mentioned it earlier, but I do have to say it didn’t feel so much like taking over or anything, you know, it wasn’t like that. It was like we all together kind of started anew.
And that was the only way you could kind of deal with that situation is – and actually the chemistry between these people I can just honestly say I’ve – and not to be, you know, not to compare any of my other wonderful jobs, but this is a very, very special group of people and a really great feeling on the set and an actual functional and dysfunctional family of its own. And all of those kind of, you know, it was actually really easy ultimately to do this work. And so I feel lucky.
On the casting process.
Jason Katims: It was an incredible experience casting the show because it first of all it’s a very, very big cast. It’s unusually large ensemble for a TV show. And so it was all about sort of putting the pieces together and feeling like well obviously you want to find great people who connect with the roles.
But it’s also you’re trying to create a family, you’re trying to create a group of people who when you put them together the sum will be greater than its parts. And so that was what was the complicated and challenging part of it is making sure not only were you getting wonderful people for the roles which is of course what you’re always doing. But I really wanted to feel at the end of the day that when you saw these people together they felt like a family. That there be dynamics and things that would remind you of your family.
And so there was that. Then the other side of it is we got so much tremendous support. You know, I think luckily the network believed in the show so much that they really supported us in putting together this incredible cast.
If you look at the people we were lucky enough to be able to work with – with Lauren and Peter and Craig and on and on and on, I feel so excited and humbled by having this sort of embarrassment of riches is really what it is.
And that wouldn’t have happened had we not gotten the support from the network to say you know what we’re not just going to put one person in this that we could go out and sell, we’re going to build a beautiful show here and we’re going to put our resources behind it.
On the process of creating characters.
Jason Katims: Well the gift that I was given by Ron and Brian when I set out to do the show was complete freedom. Whatever I wanted to do that I should do however closely or – I wanted to follow any of the characters or format of the movie or not, was really completely left in my hands.
And when I started to sit down to do the work I felt that I kept gravitating back toward a significant amount of the structure of the movie. Because as I said earlier I thought that it just was really sort of a wonderful movie but in a weird way it was sort of the perfect model for a television show.
But what I also did was I let the movie, you know, go after I saw it a couple times. And I didn’t watch it again while I wrote it at all because I didn’t – and honestly some of the stuff that people say oh that happened in the movie and it’s, you know, the same kind of thing is happening in the show.
Some of the thing I didn’t even realize what I mean because I didn’t want to become too enmeshed in the movie. I mean, I thought it was important that I be inspired by it but I not be bound by it. And so but the truth is I did go, when I was first starting to do it I went with some sort of radically different ideas and came back around to the structure of a lot of it.
In terms of the Sarah character, what I wanted to do was just to make sure that I was going to do write a pilot that was not only going to be entertaining and hopefully moving as the pilot, but to write something that was going to be setting up 100 stories for all of these characters and not just one.
To me it’s the journey, that’s what you want to set up in a TV show. You want your characters to have not only the episode by episode journeys but you want to feel like they’re on a longer journey as well.
Please make sure to read our comment policy before posting a comment.