Dan Fogelman Wanted ‘Paradise’ to Offer Viewers a ‘Full Meal’
If Sterling K. Brown hadn’t been available, there’d be no “Paradise.” Hulu’s new series from “This Is Us” scribe Dan Fogelman is his second team up with Brown, and if the artist formerly known as Randall Pearson hadn’t joined, Fogelman was ready to call it quits.
“I started going, ‘Oh no, Sterling is not going to want to do another TV show with me,'” Fogelman told IndieWire ahead of the series’ three-episode premiere. “I kind of got to a place where I told my wife, ‘If Sterling doesn’t want to do this — which I’m expecting — I think I’m not going to do it.’ I now only want to do it with Sterling.”
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Brown plays Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins, who finds President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) dead in his quarters. After shutting down the crime scene instead of calling for help immediately, Xavier becomes the prime suspect in a murder case that threatens to destabilize a delicate community.
“I sent it to him and I was actually nervous,” said Fogelman, who had already spent months revising the pilot and sending it out through his studio. “I remember Sterling called me four hours or so after I sent him the script — I’ve been doing this long enough now, and I’m tired and I’m old and I’ve got a young kid, just like exhausted — I rarely get nervous anymore. And I remember the phone ringing, and my stomach dropped a little bit, like, ‘Oh I’ve been really invested in this, and I want this to happen, but if Sterling says no, I might not do it.’ Sterling called, he said, ‘Tell me where it’s going.’ And I told him where it was going. In the middle of call, he said, ‘I’m in,’ and I was like, ‘Come do this with me, this is your show, you’ll be a producer on it.’ That’s how it all kind of started.”
Where it’s going is best left unspoiled, but the episodes already available have revealed that there’s far more below the surface of “Paradise” than initially meets the eye. Cal had his own secrets (Marsden appears in copious flashbacks), and then there’s the inscrutable Samantha (Julianne Nicholson), another powerful figure who steps up after the President’s death. Below, Fogelman discusses the specific “Paradise” interplay of politics and power, producing with Brown, and the joys of watercooler TV. (He religiously avoids “Survivor” spoilers.)
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
IndieWire: What was the original pitch for this show?
Dan Fogelman: There really was no pitch. I wrote it as I wrote — I just wrote the script of the pilot episode, and after I wrote it, I thought to myself, “OK, I kind of I dig this, but I’m not exactly sure exactly where it’s going.” It seems like a pretty complex thing to figure out. So before I gave it to anybody, I sat down with two of my writers who became writers and producers on the show, and we knocked it around for a couple of weeks and did a lot of research. Only then did I feel like I knew exactly what the show was going to be. I went and rewrote the pilot to fit that, and then took it out and said, “The powers that be, this is the show I want to make next.” They said, “Go make it,” and I went and sent it to Sterling. And that’s how the whole thing kind of started.
You told Entertainment Weekly that the seed for this came when you met someone very rich and powerful in your twenties. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
A long time ago, I had a meeting with someone who, as he was speaking to me, I was actively thinking to myself, this might be the most powerful person I’ve ever been in a room with in terms of reach and wealth and all the things. I couldn’t quite hear what he was even saying to me, because I was thinking about that as he was talking to me. I was young, and I was a little intimidated. And as I was driving home, I was driving through Culver City, here in Los Angeles, and there was kind of a loud bang, a crane had dropped something in a construction site. It was one of those things that makes you jump. I just started thinking about that guy and how he must have all these people around him, but when things start going really awry, he’s going to be in the same position that all all of us are in. That became the impetus for starting to think about who is a person with the power? The president. Who are the people who protect that person and take care of that person? A Secret Service agent. I started thinking of that and of the kernel of the big idea of the show, started taking root for me.
I see how [that encounter] becomes the President, and I see how it becomes Sinatra. Was it one person at the time? When do you start to kind of pull those threads apart?
I’ve never been great at thinking about what the threads are hypothetically or in theory, before I start writing, I tend to kind of find things as I’m writing. As I was writing, and I was starting to really like this President, I thought even presidents have people they’re answering to. There’s always somebody more powerful behind a powerful person. I kind of hinted at that person in the pilot, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to explore that person in the second episode of the show. So it was something that evolved., but yes, you’re absolutely right. That type of power, originally, the construct was let’s make that the President, and then as I started writing and investigating, I started going a little deeper with it, to a different character, a different set of characters.
Tell me about getting Sterling on board.
As I started sending the script around my studio, and was getting excited to make it a television series, the one question I kept hearing over and over again is: should we get into Sterling’s deal? How excited is Sterling? And I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t sent this to Sterling.” People were saying “But didn’t you write it for him? It’s so clearly him.” I thought,” You know what? I think I have been picturing Sterling in my mind’s eye this entire time, and I’ve just been afraid to even think about it.” When you’re writing something, it’s not real. You’re not really making a television show. You’re just writing. I was like, “Yeah, I have been picturing Sterling.”
Then I started going, “Oh no, Sterling is not going to want to do another TV show with me. And if I don’t get him…” I kind of got to a place where I told my wife, “If Sterling doesn’t want to do this — which I’m expecting — I think I’m not going to do it. I now only want to do it with Sterling.” I sent it to him and I was actually nervous. I remember Sterling called me four hours or so after I sent him the script — I’ve been doing this long enough now, and I’m tired and I’m old and I’ve got a young kid, just like exhausted — I rarely get nervous anymore. And I remember the phone ringing, and my stomach dropped a little bit, like, “Oh I’ve been really invested in this, and I want this to happen, but if Sterling says no, I might not do it.” Sterling called, he said, “Tell me where it’s going.” And I told him where it was going. In the middle of call, he said, “I’m in,” and I was like, “Come do this with me, this is your show, you’ll be a producer on it.” That’s how it all kind of started.
What was that collaboration like with him as a producer?
He’s the best. With all that cast of “This Is Us,” it was a real– all the narratives that were about the cast and everything were actually true to become a family, and we all went on this ride together through that television show. So I’ve always given them a wide berth of like, I want their opinions, I want their instincts. I want them to direct and write and do these things. Sterling has always been a person that I’ve gone to to check his meter for things. He’s a real leader on set, and it’s his time now. So it was very natural for him to be a producer on the show. I think we’re both very respectful of one another. He doesn’t try and step in my space, nor do I step in his.
But at the same point, if he has a concern about something we have an open line. He’s always right. His instincts are kind of spot on all the time. A lot about casting, a lot of him leading on set. He would come in the room, to his credit, and since he’s a dream to work with he rarely questions anything we’re doing in the script. He likes to more kind of tell stories and see if that informs anything in our writing. He’s the best. I mean, the number one question I get, when you do what I do for a living is, if you work with an actor who people like, they go, “What’s he like in real life?” I get that a lot about Sterling. The whole cast of “This Is Us,” but particularly a lot about Sterling. I always say, “I just spent eight calendar years writing for the man, and I went back for a new series that we plan on doing for multiple seasons.” So I think it tells you, I really love him. It’s a pleasure when you get to answer that question about a famous actor and not be lying or shading the truth. He’s truly the world’s best guy, and he’s a pleasure to work with, and I respect him a lot.
That’s so wonderful to hear. Obviously, this is quite a departure from “This Is Us, but I would also argue that “This Is Us” was a departure for you at the time. What’s been exciting or challenging about tackling all these different genres throughout your career?
It’s exciting to keep it fresh. I don’t come in with a conscious effort of “I’m going to do something different now,” but I have done animated movies and sitcoms, and I’ve done kind of rom coms and a family drama, now a thriller, and it’s fun to explore new worlds. Hopefully, there’s an undercurrent of whatever it is that’s intrinsic to me inside of stuff, whether that’s the relationship in this one between Xavier and his family, or Xavier and the president, or Julianne Nicholson’s character and her people and family — there’s undercurrents of whatever it is that I like to do, and whatever my kind of writing style might be. But I like to kind of change it up.
It’s always a challenge. Making a television series, especially a complex one with a lot going on, is challenging. It’s a genre I’m not always inside of. The show has a lot of special effects and visual effects in it that is not always something. There’s action sequences and stuff. You hire carefully, and you put people in charge who do know how to do these things and these parts of the show that are genre, that are maybe in a genre that I’m not familiar with or don’t have the lexicon for. So it’s all a challenge. It would be challenged doing another family drama that travels in time, because it’s hard. This one just presents new challenges. When you have these actors that are in the cast of the show, it makes the job a lot easier, because they make it viable and real. I just remember seeing Sterling very early on and saying, “Oh, I think this is going to work, because Sterling is going to make it all work.” And that’s three quarters of my job.
That is true. I mean, I love a good like post apocalyptic or disaster type story. So were there any other inspirations, like books, shows, movies, that maybe helped you inform building out “Paradise?“
There was a lot. I referenced a lot early on, of a lot of the classic like, we call them almost action thrillers, of like, the ’90s and movies that were important to me, but that really weren’t necessarily winning Oscars, but I think have held through time. “Crimson Tide” was a big reference point for me. It’s a movie that you can go back and watch, and you stay on the edge of your seat. And it’s the dynamic between these two men, particularly for the pilot, that I found holds up and has always stuck with me, that relationship between those two guys no way out. “Man on Fire,” like these movies. I wanted this to be a thoughtful piece of propulsive entertainment that tells a really big, interesting, cool story, but is also fun to watch, hopefully. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, it keeps you asking questions, and then hopefully in the next episode, getting some answers and asking new questions, until by the end of the first season, you’ve hopefully unraveled and told the audience everything.
I always told people early on, every single question you might have watching the show in terms of the varying mysteries of the show will be answered by the end of Season 1. I wanted to give a complete meal in one season of television that would come out and kind of parse it out in courses, but just make a fun piece of entertainment. I was hoping that if the show hits the right way, it’s the kind of show that you watch with your spouse or the person you share watching TV with, and it’s not one of those ones that like you go into separate rooms to watch your separate shows together. It’s a show where might be something for everyone. It’s a good piece of entertainment that keeps you guessing. If there was a goal, it was that.
You’ve said that you want this to be also kind of a water cooler show. But what are the challenges of that kind of mystery and thriller, where people figure things out and they’re like theorizing crazy week to week? I actually think it’s so refreshing that you do want to just give out the answers for Season 1.
We’re in an evolving landscape of media and social media. As I’m sitting here talking to you right now, there’s so many conversations behind the scenes of you know, how are we going to control what gets put in headlines of feeds so that it doesn’t spoil it for people who haven’t watched? When and where are we going to expand the narrative of what the show is actually about in terms of our promotions and in terms of our commercials?
We’re in a very different era than when a movie like “The Sixth Sense” came out with a twist at the end, where just the simple act of checking your phone on the toilet in the morning could spoil the ending of the of the movie for you. So it’s a complicated dance, and you hope for the best, and you hope people use their judgment. I know that when I’m watching “Survivor,” which I still watch, I carefully avoid all things “Survivor” on Thursday mornings, because I don’t want who got voted out to be spoiled for me in a headline. And that’s the dance we all battle, who do what I do for a living right now. I think for the most part, people are really responsible with it, and people now are finding their ways to avoid when they want to avoid.
Everybody wants to be a water cooler show that crosses into the zeitgeist. It’ll be rare the person who sits in my spot and says they don’t want that to happen. But part of that is conversation about it, and conversation about surprises, and not just the twist at the end of the pilot, but surprises that happen in midway through the show and stuff and and it’s not like we’re sitting and going, “How can we surprise next?” But entertainment can be fun and it can keep you guessing. I remember those early days of one of my all time favorite shows, “Lost,” when we were all positing what the smoke monster was, and eventually what the hatch was, and that’s the most fun kind of television to me. And so I’m hopeful we can scratch that itch if it goes the right way.
Any concerns about people, like, figuring stuff out I don’t know ahead of the game, or anything?
I think this one’s a hard one to figure out ahead of the game. In terms of the big twist of the pilot, I think it’ll all make sense when it happens and when the show is fully seen, the world should make sense and the answers should all make sense, and even by the end of the eighth episode, it gives you the last answer everybody’s waiting for. But this would be a hard one to guess. It would be an easy one to get spoiled, I think, with what’s to come if you go online.
But when I make shows, when I did “This Is Us” and other shows that have a lot of turns and a lot of surprises at the ends of episodes or pilots, I do a lot of screenings for regular people. I have my people that work on the show, I’ll have them call in family and friends who don’t know anything about the television show they’re working on, and I screen in groups of five to eight. I do screenings, and I ask questions after, usually testing for confusion. What did you think you were watching? Did it work for you? Does the ending surprise you? And if it does, does it surprise you in the right way? So I do a fair amount of pre-screening just to make sure, for the regular viewer, that I’m not missing anything. And then you kind of just got to leave it to the world. I go as far as sometimes to in these little screenings, once in a while I’ll go “There’s going to be a big surprise at the end of the pilot,” just to see, with that information being given, what is the viewing of the pilot like. What I found is that people go to different places, but not to the place necessarily where the answer lies. So I’m not too worried about that, but I worry about everything. Right now we’re like, a week from releasing the show. It’s like the worst week of my life every time. I hate it.
Given the show’s eerie relevance right now, was there any hesitation or concerns from the studio in the process of making it, or marketing, or any of that?
There haven’t been, there’s been wide support. I mean, obviously the world is now changing at hyper speed. One week is so different from the next week. I turned in the first draft of this pilot to make it, I would say, like two plus years ago. It was a different landscape then than today. It’s a different landscape four weeks ago than it is today. At no point did it come up. There’s a President and there’s a secret service agent in the show, and there’s stuff that happens, but the show is completely void of politics, so I think that kind of assuaged any concerns, because that wasn’t just what it was about. Obviously, the events of the last few weeks have again changed the world and tilted our city that we all shot the show in and live in on its head. But other than just being really careful with our messaging and our events, this show has received blind, really, really unanimous support from the very beginning, from a network that really believed in it. So no, I haven’t. I wish I could say there’s been pushback and fear about things but there hasn’t been this far, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow in the world.
The first three episodes of “Paradise” are now streaming on Hulu, with new episodes weekly.
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