#heres the aftermath of a truly awful audition today

[thegoodplacepodcasts-blog]

Ch. 2: Allison Jones and Ben Harris, Casting Director, Alan Yang, Writer

Ch. 2: Allison Jones and Ben Harris, Casting Director, Alan Yang, Writer Featuring the voices of host Marc Evan Jackson (MEJ), casting directors Allison Jones (AJ) and Ben Harris (BH), and writer Alan Yang (AY). Intro and outro features D’Arcy Carden (DC) as Janet, and Ted Danson (TD) as Michael. Clips from 1X2 of The Good Place include the voices of Kristen Bell (KB) as Eleanor Shellstrop, and William Jackson Harper (WJH) as Chidi Anagonye.

Ding!

DC: Hi there, I’m Janet. Welcome to The Good Place, the podcast.

TD: Janet, what is a podcast?

DC: It’s like the radio but there’s no music and literally anyone can do one at any moment about any subject. And, there’s a billion of them!

TD: Sounds great! Hope you enjoy this week’s episode!

[Opening music]

MEJ: Welcome to The Good Place, the podcast. I’m Marc Evan Jackson, I play Shawn. Today we’re talking about episode 1X2, “Flying”. In the aftermath of the chaos, Eleanor tries to avoid suspicion, Michael is distraught and believes he’s made a mistake in his first neighbourhood, Tahani puts together a group of volunteers to clean the neighbourhood, but anyone who participates will miss out on flying day, Chidi volunteers Eleanor, but Eleanor hides trash quickly in order to fly which causes a trash storm and ultimately Chidi refusing to help her. Eleanor feels guilty and cleans the entire neighbourhood herself so Chidi changes his mind. The cliff-hanger of this episode is Eleanor receiving a mysterious note under her door that she doesn’t belong in the Good Place. This episode features guest cast Allyn Rachel, Amy Okuda, Susan Park, Jorge Diaz and Steve Berg, and today my guests are casting directors Allison Jones, Ben Harris, and the writer of the episode Alan Yang. Allison Jones, Ben Harris, Alan Yang, welcome! Everything is fine.

AY: Thanks for having us.

BH: Yeah.

AJ: Thank you.

AY: Also just wanna say, amazing hearing Marc just read that intro. That, that was the first take guys, no editing on that just amazing elocution.

MEJ: I appreciate it, does it bring back any memories – do you now recall the episode?

AY: I recall that episode, also yeah thanks for that recap. I was just telling these guys, it feels like we did this so long ago, ‘cause since then we did the second season, I was telling them I remember the episode I directed season 2, and you know, I also work on some other shows… so I think since then we did season 2 of Master of None and season 1 of this Amazon show that’s not out yet but yeah so, so thank you for that recap, otherwise man, I would have no idea what was going on.

MEJ: Of course, of course, so I guess to get us started, Alan, you had been – you know, you were in the room for season 1…

AY: I was! I was there for a lot of it, so the way that sort of happen was – you know I’d finished season 1 of Master of None, which was a show I did with Aziz Ansari and then I came back to LA, you know, we shot the show in New York and I have a bungalow on the Universal Studios lot with Mike Schur, the creator of The Good Place and my good friend, so we were both writing stuff in the bungalow and he was working on a show and gradually, as we’d walk together to go eat lunch, de would start giving me bits and pieces about the show and he was, ‘like what do you think of this? What do you think of this?’ and I would give him an opinion here or there, and he was like, ‘oh that’s interesting, that’s interesting’, then he pitched the whole pilot to me and I was like, wow that’s really good, and then eventually he was like, ‘What if you helped out on it a little bit’ and I was like ‘okay’ and he was like, ‘what if you were in the writers room a little’, I was like ‘okay’ and he’s like, ‘how about you write episode 2’ and I was like ‘okay’ so suddenly I was on this – I was on the staff. So yeah, it was really fun and, and I was excited to help out.

MEJ: Now what were the marching orders following the pilot – because obviously, the pilot establishes a bananas world, and what was the goal of episode two? I mean, you know, you had to play off that she found herself there incorrectly –

AY: Well, the whole season I would say was kind of broken as this… very cohesive, almost movie-like single narrative, and that is – so much of it comes from Mike’s brain. You know he had the pilot, I believed he pitched not only the pilot but a good amount of the first season when he pitched the show, so when he came into the room it was a fun – just a fun group of people, a lot of old Parks and Rec people, you know I worked on Parks and Rec for the whole run of that show as well, so it was a lot of old friends and y’know, a lot of what was in Mike’s brain – so he sort of had kind of the ending, which is you know, crazy twist ending.

MEJ: Mmhmm.

AY: And then along the way it was very important to him, you know, some of the inspirations for this show – and I think he said this before – were some of these Damon Lindelof shows and these buddies were ____ (?) , so like Lost and The Leftovers and stuff like that, and so each episode it was important not only to establish the characters – and there’s a lot of character combis like there was in Parks and Rec, The Office, but a lot of cliff-hangers and so the cliff-hanger at the end of episode 2 was the start of many, many, many cliff-hangers to come.

MEJ: Oh my goodness yes, cliff-hangers including some brilliant cast that were discovered, found, searched for, gathered by Allison Jones and Ben Harris. Part of the magic I think of these people is that they weren’t household names prior, these were people I think specifically of the character of Jiayu – later Jason Mendoza – that’s a person we have to buy as someone who could be a silent monk, right?

AJ: Yeah.

MEJ: If that had been an actor that we’d seen on The Office or Parks, you’d go, ‘I’ve heard that person talk before, I don’t – ’

AJ: Yeah.

MEJ: He’s gonna talk eventually, right, he’s the gun over the fireplace (?) or whatever. Tell us everything that goes into finding geniuses.

AJ: The writing first of all.

MEJ: Okay.

AJ: It starts with the writing, period, in every, every occasion. Secondly, it is in pilots – there’s a lot of legwork involved where you’re meeting a lot of – you do what’s called a breakdown and you send out agents a description of the character and you read many, many, many people, hoping to find a new face in TV pilots. That’s always the best thing to do, Mike Schur loves to do that, Mike Schur loves a challenge.

MEJ: Mmhmm.

AJ: That one required a lot of leg work and a lot of pre-reading and a lot of guys, and I was not sure of many of the future actions of these particular characters, especially him being a silent monk…

MEJ: Right.

AJ: This one was fun because he was actually supposed to be an idiot, so it was really funny to read them and then have them do the stupid dialogue.

MEJ: Mmhmm.

AJ: Which was truly funny, we had about 5 great guys for that, Ben and I remember reading Manny in our office –

BH: Yeap.

AJ: And Jordan Rodrigues and all these good guys who once they opened their – they looked pious and serious

BH: Rene Gube.

AJ: Rene Gube… they looked pious and serious but then they could do the dumb really well.

MEJ: [Laughter]

AJ: Which is always a delightful thing to cast.

MEJ: That was the step of not only “I don’t always want to be a DJ in Jacksonville…”

AJ: Oh my god.

MEJ: “Maybe I’ll be a DJ in Tampa.”

BH: Yes.

AJ: Yeah we heard that a lot, yeah.

BH: A lot.

AJ: We heard a lot of those, I don’t know if you were in it, you weren’t in on the pilot initially…

AY: No, not for this show, for other shows I’ve been –

AJ: It was terribly funny, we went with a lot of different diverse choices blah blah blah blah, but you really want someone to believably be a Thai monk…

MEJ: Mmhmm.

AJ: And it was just delightful having to find someone who could get the comedy, and also do it without seeming fake.

MEJ: Now the – Alan, do you remember, at all, if you put anything in the stage direction at one point, still as Jianyu he comforts Ted silently, he comforts the character of Michael and sort of puts his reassuring hand on… Were there any thoughts that you offered the character, like what he means to be saying silently?

AY: I think there was a lot of stage direction for Manny because he doesn’t even have lines for a long time! We were putting stuff in the script to get him stuff to do but you know he also – he, he made that character something really great, especially y’know, after the reveal happens, and – and man it was really fun writing those dirtbag Florida lines. I know there was a lot, and later the Jacksonville Jaguars stuff.

MEJ: Oh the Bortle stuff.

AY: Yeah, the stuff that happens in season 2. It’s really funny because then the Jaguars got really good.

MEJ: They got good, somehow.

AY: But yeah –

AJ: – The budhole was my favourite –

AY: – yeah exactly! And it ended up in Many and Joe Mande going to Florida, going to Jaguars games and playoffs, which was great.

BH: Aw right!

MEJ: I saw that.

AY: But yeah just a delight to write for him, and – and man working with him on set was great. You know season 2, I was on set more so it was really, really great to work with him.

MEJ: The… it was it deserves lauding, his ability to you know, convey so much silently because it, it would be tempting as an actor, I tell you, to really ham up those lines and sort of be doing a lot of facial-ness as though you’re saying like, ‘this bank is being robbed please call the police’ you know, like trying to convey a lot with your eyebrows, and he was so subtle and great. About some of the other characters I – it’s my understanding from Mike that you saw everybody in the world for Janet, it could have been a child, it could have been an old person, is that true?

BH: Yeap, very much so. I mean just for – actually just for Mike we probably auditioned 50 people?

MEJ: Is that right?

BH: And that’s, you know, then we’d also pre-read, just Allison and I in our office.

AJ: It’s also years of trying to find funny women who didn’t have to be gorgeous. With all due respect to D’Arcy, ‘cause she’s pretty –

MEJ: Sure, she’s very pretty (?)

AJ: But we didn’t have to have the funny gorgeous woman. We didn’t have to have – we could just have the woman who was the funniest.

MEJ: But a very ef–

AJ: So we thought that would be easy, and it wasn’t easy.

BH: It was not it was actually the most –

AJ: No, ‘cause there were so many good women.

BH: – difficult role to cast.

MEJ: I can’t imagine.

AJ: Mmhmm.

MEJ: It’s my understanding that from D’Arcy that it the breakdown didn’t even include sort of a Siri or Alexa kind of thing.

BH: No.

AJ: They didn’t want anybody to know –

BH – that it was robiotic

AJ: – anything about those points

MEJ: Interesting.

AJ: Yeah.

MEJ: But often oftentimes the breakdown includes like, gender and an age range kind of thing, and that wasn’t – you were saying you were told to go find what?

BH: It was pretty all over the –

AJ: Funny.

BH: Yeah it was just, we were just looking for funny.

MEJ: That’s amazing.

AJ: And for us, that’s the dream.

BH: Yes, that is ideal.

AJ: So we were, like can we bring in 10 more women for you please, yeah. And out of that group we have cast a lot of the other people on the show too.

BH: – and I –

AJ: Because we, we’ve seen, Mike always remembers who he likes.

BH: – and I think –

AJ: And will use them again.

BH: – with the pilot, Mike had written dummy sides.

MEJ: Right, fake.

BH: Right, fake sides for –

MEJ: Little bits of script that aren’t really going to be in the show.

BH: – and with Janet instead of saying Alexa – I, he had her being a, I think it was like a ph- an operator.

MEJ: A helpline.

BH: Yeah a helpline, and that was I think how he tried to get the Alexa or Siri.

AJ: We even brought in JJ Totah, who then went on to star in NBC’s Champions.

BH: That’s right.

AJ: And he was hilarious and Mike was going to use him for something, but I believe that’s a part that possibly you got instead.

MEJ: Is that right?

AJ: Yeap!

MEJ: I like that.

AJ: One of the bad guys.

MEJ: I’m happy with the recasting.

AJ: [Laughter]

MEJ: So it’s my understanding as well that Jameela, I know that she was a BBC presenter but not an actor prior to this, what… how did you, or had you been aware of her prior?

AJ: Oh god no, that was a, that was a tough one.

BH: That was also ___ (?)

AJ: that had to, that was pretty specific, a British-Indian beautiful actress and so we did a breakdown and read quite a few women, and she came on a Saturday – ‘cause in pilot season you’re frequently working on Saturdays, you can read people on Saturdays ‘cause they’re not working on other things.

MEJ: Oh wow.

AJ: And she came in and she was this giantess, personality-wise and physically and –

MEJ: [Laughter]

AJ: I think she intimidated everybody in the waiting room.

BH: Very much so.

AJ: And she was, she was great, I think she freaked out everybody when she first auditioned, Mike’s like, ‘woah!’ and then it was basically, how do you say no to Jameela ‘cause she was delightful.

MEJ: She is, she is a force of nature.

AJ: Oh my god.

AY: It’s hard to know where Jameela ends and Tahani begins.

AJ: Yeah.

AY: Because in the show she knows everyone famous, and then in real life she like – I, I –

AJ: Same thing.

AY: I know! I directed this Jay-Z video last year and I was talking to Jameela about it and she’s like, oh I know Jay and Beyonce and then, and then this – I went to this, I went to this party that, this Oscar party that Jay-Z and Beyonce threw and I walk in and Jameela’s there and…

AJ: No way!

AY: Of course I’m like, oh there, there you are and she’s like, she knows everybody there.

AJ: I didn’t know that.

AY: Her boyfriend is James Blake the singer and like yeah, she’s regularly hanging out with these people so alright.

BH: And I believe she told me this, I think it was her first audition like for –

AJ: I think it was.

AY: Well, good for her!

AJ: I didn’t know, I don’t know what a presenter is.

MEJ: A host.

AJ: I always am asking my British friends ‘what is a presenter’ and ‘do you look down on them acting wise’ and they’re like, ‘yes we do!’

MEJ: [Laughter]

AJ: I asked this great British casting director Lucy Bevan, ‘Do you know Jameela Jamil?’ and she said, ‘I looked her up, I think she’s a presenter’ and I don’t even know, there are so many of them on British television…

MEJ: Right.

AJ: But she is instinct, her timing is incredible, her comedy timing is incredible.

MEJ: She’s also fearless, like I saw her interviewing Russell Brand and she mopped the floor with Russell Brand.

AJ: Yes, I’m sure she did.

MEJ: Which is not an easy task.

AJ: She has more of an Essex accent, like she has a great London, East London type of accent naturally I think, and so she – she caught the posh accent for Good Place and it really works.

MEJ: Mmhmm.

AJ: I forget what the reason was for why she has the British accent though, on the show, and nobody else does.

AY: There is some in universe lore for that, yes, there an explanation.

AJ: I know there is an explanation, yeah.

AY:  I think, I think it’s if you want to sound like that you can, I think the theory was she wanted to keep it or something.

MEJL It’s mentioned?

AY: Yeah, I think so.

BH: Yes.

AJ: Yeah.

BH: They address it.

AJ: ‘Cause we interviewed some great British actresses for that over there, and here there’s, there’s a number of them and they were great, but she was just a, a force of nature and funny and sort of shocking, and she’s pretty dirty in person. She’s pretty dirty-mouthed, potty-mouth, yeah…

MEJ: She’s a bit of a dude.

AJ: Oh, yeah.

MEJ: Yeah, I think that’s why we hit it off so well immediately. I mean all of these people are, are delightful. We, we talked before, we in recording, you know Mike has a policy – like Mike curates just great people, cast and crew.

AJ: Yeah, mmhmm.

MEJ: There doesn’t appear to be a lot of drama. William Jackson Harper, how did he come across your desk?

BH He was –

AJ: Same thing.

BH: Yeah he was out in New York.

AJ: Yeah, his agent taped him in New York.

MEJ: Did you know immediately?

AJ: No, never a shoo-in.

MEJ: Is that right – is that a, across any –

AJ: I have to say – that’s… to dispel that myth. For me it’s never a shoo-in.

MEJ: That’s fascinating.

AJ: They’ll say it is but it, it never is and if a director goes ‘that’s the one I want!’ then it’s probably going to tank.

MEJ: That’s the kiss of death, really?

AJ: I don’t think the kiss of death but I don’t, I don’t ever think someone is a shoo-in. I never would have thought he was a shoo-in for that.

MEJ: Interesting.

AJ: And Mike and Alan, you all see what you want – what you like in the character and then how you can fit that into the world you’re creating. William Jackson Harper was just a damn good actor when he came in. Really good. He had some stiff competition, too.

BH: I’ve said besides Ted and Kristen…

AJ: Yeah.

BH: Everyone else all those other roles that we would actually test and find a new face. They were all – it was not an easy decision.

AJ: No, Mike – Mike, he was tortured a bit.

BH: Yes, very much so:

AJ: Yeah, ‘causewe got some good choices.

BH: But after the test I think it was, you know, Mike was –

AJ: He had us over there one night to talk about it.

BH: Yeah.

AJ: And we couldn’t help him on that one.

BH: It was, it was a laden night.

AY: You might say a Chidi level of indecision.

BH: Yes –

AJ: Yes.

BH: – Very true.

AY: Agonising, it was causing chest and stomach pains…

AJ: Completely, absolutely.

AY: Yeah. William – William was as skilled an actor you know, he’s able to do the dramatic stuff and the comedic stuff and you know sort of working with him reminded me of Adam Scott on Parks and Rec where he’s really able to do the straight man stuff, but also be so – so funny and yeah he really, he’s really been great in the show.

AJ: Mike’s always been willing to see someone who is not particularly right for the part, and who may not knock you out at first, and then you think about it and he’s like, ‘that’s who I want to write for’. I have to assume writers look at this and say, ‘who do I want to write for?’

AY: It’s al– I always feel like the best stuff is when the actors own personality starts imbuing the character.

AJ: Yeah.

AY: And sort of informs the character.

AJ: Yeah, especially in comedy.

AY: Especially in comedy and especially in television where it’s a long developing role, and you’ve seen that in, in a lot of the stuff that I’ve worked on, stuff with Mike especially. but you look at how Nick Offerman informed Ron Swanson you look at how Chris Pratt informed Andy Dwyer and all of it, all of the actors on that show – but as you’re doing 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 episodes, you would be a fool not to draw from the characters experiences, and then that’s how it was on Master of None too and then and these are all sort of shows in the same family. But yeah, I mean those characters are just the actors on some of these shows so you just pull from them, their assets (?)

AJ: I know, I agree. And always in TV you find new faces, just don’t even – just find the new faces and the payoff is much, I think much bigger creatively and also for an audience.

MEJ: It keeps it from being one note I suppose, you can – especially playing someone dumb or you know an __ character like a grumpy separatist (?)

AY: But yeah, the specificity makes it real, right. The specificity makes it real and the realness makes it funnier, because there’s nothing better than the real stuff, man! There’s nothing better than the real life experiences, so I like meeting with actors and talking with them about their lives and it really informs a lot of the stuff I have written.

AJ: I try to have the role fit the actor, not the other way around. They don’t try to squeeze the actor into what they have in their head, they’re open to – I mean they ____ and Larry David and ___, Alan Yang, and Aziz (?) and Mike Schur and Greg Daniels, it happened in the past – in the casting and the pilot as well, they see what they have there and then how they can work them into the role, vice versa.

BH: Exactly.

AJ: They don’t care about line readings, they want someone who is going to be good to write for., who’s sort of fascinating to watch, and who’s just inherently funny – in any different way they find funny, inherently funny.

AY: We write, we write to the person.

AJ: Like William – yeah.

AY: We write to the person.

AJ: William Jackson Harper is not funny in the way Ted Danson is funny, but he’s funny.

MEJ: In a completely different – I think about Will that you, you believe he’s having a stomach-ache.

AJ: Oh god, yeah!

MEJ: He’s not playing – it’s not, it’s not something he slips into, like he looks tortured.

AJ: His agony is… yeah.

MEJ: He looks, yeah, his agony is palpable through the screen and –

BH: And while the roles of Chidi and Tahani and Janet, the – you know, those were all three had such stiff competition, but it’s very difficult to imagine anybody else now.

MEJ: Forget it.

BH: Yeah.

MEJ: I mean –

BH: You can’t imagine it.

AJ: Bad Janet is everyone’s favourite character.

MEJ: Oh, I I hosted an Emmy panel of – the other day and never got to this but on my list was to say that I adore D’Arcy, I love janet, I love love Bad Janet.

BH: Yes.

MEJ: I mean for her to get to sink her teeth into something like that…

BH: And I’m sure the writers love writing for Bad Janet.

AY: Idiots and mean people are always, always fun to write, yeah.

MEJ: I think it was in the episode of season 2 that you directed that we did a no– Shawn and Bad Janet did a no-look high five hand slap, that was pretty amazing.

AY: Oh yeah that’s right, we did a couple of oners too, that was fun. I remember getting Marc to do that.

MEJ: Pretty great. Alan, do you share Mike’s hatred for Florida and Arizona?

AY: I don’t know what’s up with that, man, I don’t know what’s up with that@ I think it’s, it’s fun because Florida’s one thing, but also just jokes about Arizona, you don’t just – you don’t just see that many of them, so it’s nice to, to get that, although I did watch this other thing this other day where Charles Barkley was making fun of the food at the Phoenix Suns Arena, it was very, very specific but yeah, no… I – it’s, it’s funny you know, like, ‘cause you, you wanna – I feel like one thing you wanna do is, is play some jokes where there ain’t. You know, ‘cause like Arizona jokes, but – Florida jokes may be lower hanging fruit but it’s, it’s more fun to do original jokes than to play on well tread ground.

MEJ: I feel like the audiences imagination could fill in some blanks after the pilot about how bad a character on earth Eleanor Shellstrop was. Was it difficult – what are the things did you consider, how did you arrive at her ditching her duties as a designated driver over and over again in these flashbacks?

AY: Yeah, that was a real push-pull ‘cause that’s the kind of thing that a writers room is good for, I think, because you wanna hear people’s opinions on how far to push the line, and you know that first season I think I always was pushing for Eleanor to be a little worse, a little worse, a little worse, you know, ‘cause there’s, there’s more comedy that way. You want – you know, also for the eventual twist where you want her to be really bad, so… But Mike has a really great instinct which I think was borne out in Parks and Rec and, and somewhat on The Office too you know, where he has this fundamental humanistic sort of optimistic generous view of humanity that I think comes through in all of the shows he’s created, and I, I honestly – like that has been influential on me as well. I’m a more optimistic happy person, as is all these guys now and so, so that comes out a lot but it’s not always comedy comedy, you know.

MEJ: Right.

AY: It’s the common thing to do in comedy, is to make your people real asholes.

BH: If they’re despicable, they’re despicable.

AY: Yeah, exactly, and it’s just, it’s just some… Somehow its, it’s a little easier to write sometimes to make people good people, so that I don’t know, there’s always a push and pull in the writers room about how far to push the line, right. It’s the same like how dumb do – do we make Andy on Parks or you know, it’s like that kind of thing where, where you talk about it.

MEJ: There’s a fun bit on the bottom of this episode 1X2, where it appears as though she’s learned her lesson and is cleaning up the neighbourhood in secret by herself, and then of course she’s instructed Bad Ja– instructed Janet to put the garbage in in someone else’s – Antonio’s bedroom or whatever.

AY: Yeah, yeah.

MEJ: Pretty terrible. Eleanor struggles to be a good friend to Chidi, as you will hear in this clip.

WJH: Tell me one fact that you know about me – and we spent the whole day together, you must remember something. What country am I from?

KB: Is it racist if I say Africa?

WJH: Yes! And Africa is not a country. I am from Senegal. Do I have any siblings, where did I go to college?

KB: Trick question, you didn’t.

WJH: I was literally a college professor! Do you not remember one single thing about me?

KB: Dude, things have been nuts around here! I bet you don’t know anything about me.

WJH: You were born in Phoenix, you went to school in Tampa, you were an only child, your favourite show was something called The Real Housewives of Atlanta and your favourite book is Kendall Jenner’s Instagram feed.

KB: How did you know all that?

WJH: Because you are constantly talking about yourself! You’re the most self-obsessed person I’ve ever met!

KB: You should see Kendall Jenner’s Instagram feed.

WJH: Okay, this is my fear about you, Eleanor. You are too selfish too ever be a good person.

KB: Well, I think you’re wrong1

WJH: What country am I from again?

KB: Sen…sodyne.

WJH: That is a brand of toothpaste.

MEJ: This clip comes from episodes found on Amazon, Google Play and iTunes, and watch recent episodes on the NBC app. Did you receive promotional consideration from Sensodyne toothpaste?

AY: Lifetime supply, baby! It’s just every day, grab it for lunch and dinner, Sensodyne.

MEJ: It’s such a, it’s got to be such a fun puzzle to try to you know, have her try to improve and fail so miserably over and over again.

AY: Yeah I mean that’s another thing that I think Mike is really skilled at doing, is you want there to be change in the characters but you can’t progress them so rapidly that you’re left with nowhere else to go, and one thing I think he’s been really good about doing is having characters grow and change over the course of the season, and then still having room to progress and that’s really difficult, and I think, I think season 1 you know they, it just – the plot moved, it moved really quickly and that is not easy to do so.

MEJ: It’s got to be difficult to accomplish because as you say you want them to progress not too fast but you still want to be ahead of the audience, you want to surprise them.

AY: Yes, and there are a lot of charts and graphs in the writers room.

MEJ: Is that right? How many writers are there, who’s in the room?

AY: Man, season 1 got… man, I can’t even remember, like 10 or so…? I could be wrong, I don’t remember how many exactly it was, some 8 to 10, something like that probably, and there literally was a graph of a chart showing the 4 main characters and, and just how they were torturing each other and because of the eventual twist that they were in the Bad Place was oh , how is each one specifically torturing someone else and there’s a lot of talk about you know, circles of hell and all that stuff which is really crazy. I don’t think it happens in a lot of sitcom writers’ rooms.

MEJ: Oh, I’d imagine that.

AY: Lot of talk about Aristotle and Jeremy Benthan and John Stuart Mill, John Rawls…

MEJ: And did you have any background in this prior?

AY: …so it was a lot of fun. I took a class or two in philosophy in college but I didn’t remember any of that. Who remembers what they did from college? I was a biology major, I don’t remember anything, so yeah.

MEJ: I would guess that Mike Schur remembers a lot of things from college.

AY: He was reading a lot of books, man! He was reading a lot of books, that bother. He gave me some packets, I was like, ‘yeah, I’m gonna read these.’

MEJ: What goes into casting the afterlife and when you’re, when you know at this point in the show’s trajectory, we all believed that that was indeed the Good Place and it was you know, a utopian society full of frozen yoghurt, so you want it to look like planet Earth presumably. What… what were you offered as guidelines for that?

AJ: Funny.

MEJ: Okay.

AJ: Funny and my – Ben’s and my instincts are always to go with people who could do more than what they’re given in the first episode, because these people do come back.

MEJ: Sure.

AJ: And they all sort of have a comic identity. Susan Park has her own identity, Amy Okuda has her own identity, Steve Berg, all good improv people, all – definitely good improv people, John Hartman, the one who plays the, the guy asking her for money in a flashback and she says smell my farts or something…

MEJ: Eat my farts.

AJ: Yeah, eat my farts, great because they have a lot of reactions to do as well, which is hard to do and everybody that Mike seems to pick that we like brings in – including yourself – is a great reactor as well, which I think also helps Kristen and Ted but it also defines the character and the afterlife. I think it was all sort of, I of course probably didn’t remember as much as Ben did, that they were actually demons.

MEJ: So you did know that at least.

BH: We knew.

AJ: Yeah, we knew, and I guess I, I knew and with a few lines somebody who can make a difference and somebody who is cheerful looking I literally really truly – cheerful looking…

MEJ: Yes, of course.

BH: Well, I think at this point –

AJ: ‘Cause Jorge and Steve both a cheerful couple, yeah.

BH: All, all – I mean Susan Park and Amy Okuda, I think, they are funny was first and foremost, I think. Second, at this point, the audience doesn’t know yet that they’re demons, right, and so I think we were looking – or I think Mike was probably looking for the, the positivity and you know levity.

MEJ: This happens later, but he definitely hits it with Tiya Sircar, you know she comes in and saying like, ‘Chidi don’t!’ then when he goes, ‘Vicky, stop’ like, she can turn and be like, ‘aw man!’

AJ: Yeah, definitely.

MEJ: It’s really satisfying.

AJ: That’s what D’Arcy can do.

MEJ: Oh, for sure.

AJ: Even in like episode 3, where she just – Michael had told her not to be flirty with somebody and she turns all pouty and nasty, it was hilarious.

MEJ: Yeah have, have you found that improvisation is something newer for the past ten to fifteen years in casting? That like, it, it’s a different skill set, it like –

AJ: 100%, yeah.

MEJ: It’s, it’s fairly recent, right?

AJ: I would say since I started working with Judd (?)  Judd sort of brought that into the fore in my, you know, career, I would say that used to be you could deliver a joke and if you went off the lines, people were horrified.

MEJ: Right.

AJ: Like, oh my god, he can’t remember the lines!

MEJ: That was the case in my – I’ve lived in Hollywood for about 17 years and I can remember I came from the second city, I came from an improv background and I would spice things as I saw fit and some people would go, ‘did you, were you handed new pages?’

AJ: Yeah exactly.

MEJ: In a ‘how dare you’ sense.

AJ: Yeah I was never – I never thought that was gonna transpire until I was doing one pilot where Amy Sedairs who was from (?)  Chicago and she ad-libbed and she was funnier than anything that was written, and the late great Chris Thompson said, ‘I like that girl. She’s funny.’

MEJ: Yeah.

AJ: And I was like, ‘but she didn’t stay within the lines!’ ‘Nope, she’s funny.’ And she got the part and that was probably 25 years ago, but I think Judd with the onset of hiring people like Steve Carell where they’re funnier than anything anybody could write definitely stated the trend, in my minimal casting section. Now everybody should – everybody wants to know if they can improvise, and most people can.

MEJ: Right, that’s so interesting.

AJ: In comedy.

MEJ: And I’m thankful for it because I think it does – and I can tell you as an actor, it’s a quicker way to showing the writers and producers and directors what I might bring to the role. Forget what’s on the page right now, but this is who, this is how I find funny and here’s something I hope you can rewrite to – at some point.

AY: Exactly and, and tying back to what we were talking about earlier about writing towards the actor, certainly for the larger roles on Master of None, we would have, we would do the scenes and then we would just have a scenario and say like, ‘okay you are hooking up with Aziz and the condom broke, now just improvise this scene and just do it for 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and…’

MEJ: See what you find.

AY: Yeah, exactly, see what kind of person that is, and then if you end up casting them like we ended up casting Noel we just hung out there a lot and tried to rewrite for her. So I think that’s just so valuable because you just know more about the person. It’s not, it’s not the case with every role, you don’t need it for every role necessarily, but sometimes if you got those – also if you got those Gatling guns, use them! You know you would be a fool not to let them go in some scenes, you know they don’t do it in every scene but some of the scenes where it’s like, ‘hey let’s do one where you guys are a little looser and you know they give us stuff that we again, could never have come up with on our own.

MEJ: In the writers’ room, did you have a lengthy and epic conversations about what heaven might be like? What perfection might be like, because I don’t know, that I feel that must be very universal because it definitely strikes a chord with me. I would love to fly.

AY: Yeah I think flying was always up there. .It was at one point – I believe the episode was going to be about gardening, and we were like no it’s not going to be gardening that’s crazy that’s –

MEJ: That’s not heaven.

AY: Yeah exactly, so whatever, it’s flying, everyone wants to fly so yeah I think there are some pretty… Look, the, some of the difficulties with a show like this where your world-building is man, there, there – because there are no limits, you can really talk about it forever. It can be anything so… so that in some ways, sometimes the constraints help you, right, because you can just spiral off into madness and so yeah I mean, totally.

AJ: Art direction and set direction. I mean, kudos to their art director…

MEJ: Crazy, right.

AJ: Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah. I would love to live in the place where they live.

MEJ: Me too.

AJ: I would love to live in – I would even take –

MEJ: A clownhouse?

AJ: Yeah the clownhouse, no, I would, I would…

MEJ: You mean the town square.

AJ: Take a lot of Jameela’s furniture – Tahani’s furniture, for sure.

MEJ: Oh I mean it’s (an) epic mansion.

AJ: Yes but as opposed to most television shows, this one is really a product of some incredible visual imagination.

MEJ: And Mike talked about that in the last episode of this podcast, to say that it was important to them – as in the writers room – to exploit the infinity possible, you know, that they wanted everybody to be in stripy clothing, to have giraffes walking through, and madness – shrimp falling from the sky because you have that ability so pull that trigger.

AY: Yes, it’s a kind of like the problems of the premise right, if you’re gonna do a show like this, you know, make use of what you have, otherwise it would just could just be another show of people sitting in an office or friends hanging out watching TV, so…

MEJ: And I think of another example of the brilliance of the balance in the show is that you have that you know, unlimited anything that you want and then the specificity of Eleanor’s thing that brings her joy being people puking on rollercoasters, or that you know, cups – to go cups where the lid fits so tightly it doesn’t leak at the seam, like that’s so earthbound and specific.

AJ: That’s my favourite thing in the show in three seasons, because like I come out of my favourite coffee place, Go Get ‘Em Tiger, and I have drips of coffee all here and I’m like, why can’t they figure out a coffee cup where the water doesn’t leak out when you drink it? It pisses me off.

MEJ: Right.

AY: I would say this –

AJ: And I thought that was genius – was that your thing?

AY I would say this – I don’t think that was, but there’s, but it is you know, a good balance of observational and absurd, right. Like you want, you want the imaginative stuff and you want the real granular Seinfeldian observational stuff so – by the way, great shoutout and slam of Go Get ‘Em Tiger.

BH: Yeah, that was what I was about to say as well.

AJ: Exactly.

AY: You love it, and hate it.

AJ: Yeah, but also for example, great slam and shoutout of season 8 of Friends too.

AY: Yeah.

AJ: That stuff is what’s great about that show.

MEJ: Another thing that I love about this is that early on establishes so much about Eleanor, I think that she is a person who would say ‘in my defence…’ and then say something about herself completely damning. You know like, ‘in my defence, I did it ‘cause I’m selfish’ right, ‘cause basically you know she kind of comes off as…

AY: Very little self-awareness. Also by the way, very different from Kristen Bell in person.

AJ: Oh yes, yes.

MEJ: For sure.

AY: That’s an example of a character being different from real –

MEJ: She is, she is fairly saintly.

AY: Yeah she is, you know she sets a good tone – her and Ted both really are just, just being super professional and generous and kind and you can’t say that about everybody, so really want to shout out those two. No slam, just a –

BH: No slam, only positive (?)

AJ: I want to shout out to you, Marc.

MEJ: Please.

AJ: Just as a as a (?) to Mike Schur’s appreciation of humour, you tested for – and I didn’t know you until we tested for the cop role…

BH: Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

AJ: In Brooklyn Nine-Nine pilot and you were outstanding, and it was another thing where he talked and he chidi-like talked and talked and talked, ‘do we go with Joe or do we go with Marc, do we go with Joe or do we go with Marc?’ Either way – and he, he basically extrapolated what your character would become in the first couple seasons as a cop and what Joe would become and he went with Joe for whatever reason but –

MEJ: Because Joe is Charles Boyle. I mean, it’s like he’s the Chidi of the – like there is no other way…

AJ: Exactly, but then he started using you all the time.

MEJ: Thank you, yes.

AJ: He did not remember you, and you were one of the rare things that comes in: someone who’s – you were not known before, you were in your early 30s or mid 30s and you freaking killed it.

MEJ: Thank you.

AJ: Yeah but it was a totally different version of the character.

MEJ: I would tell you that, that’s true, I tested for the role opposite Joe Lo Truglio for Charles Boyle on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and did what I can do like, that character was written as kind of sad-sack, kind of slobby. I am C3PO and cannot do that, it would be foolish for me to try.

AJ: And he said that that you were the opposite of how he thought of that role.

MEJ: Right, Mike Schur wrote the kindest email to my then-manager and said, ‘Just want to let you know, Marc couldn’t have done anything different or better, this – he, you know, was just 180 degrees from what, how the character’s written but we kept bring–‘ Like, and my manager wrote, forwarded it to me and said, ‘I don’t get these a lot.’ Like, Mike’s a special type.

AY: Marc, you are Mike’s, you’re like Mike’s favourite actor, you’re in everything he’s ever done. I’m pretty sure if he did a movie next year, it’s between you and Daniel Day Lewis, he’d be like Marc, man, Marc’s my man, Marc’s my dude…

MEJ: I’m certain. What movie are we doing next year? I’m available, I’m available.

AY: I don’t know, I bet he would though, I bet he would, man, he loves you.

MEJ: Oh that’s so kind, thank you.

[What’s good?]

MEJ: Thank you all so much for being here today, we like to finish off with a segment that we call What’s Good, something that makes you happy, a charity you support, the feeling of otters holding hands, that sort of thing. Anything come to mind and – something positive, something optimistic, something Mike Schur.

BH: My little niece, Mary-Ann (?)

MEJ: Oh that’s nice, how old is she?

BH: She just turned two.

MEJ: Very cool. Has she chosen a college?

BH: She… They’re, she’s between Harvard and Yale.

MEJ: Oh okay, she can commute (?)

BH: Let’s see if Alan Yang has anything to say.

MEJ: For you, anything come to mind?

AJ: Yeah, the instance where in the Harbour (?) fires just north of California recently, and that man jumped up and down and risked getting on fire himself to save the bunny.

MEJ: That little bunny.

AJ: That killed me.

MEJ: There was a video.

AJ: I thought that guy was heroic.

MEJ: It was on a roadside, he had gotten out of his car to rescue a wild hare right?

AJ: He couldn’t prevent himself, he saw the little hare in pain and he rescued it.

MEJ: I love that.

AJ: Yeah.

MEJ: Alan?

AY: I guess something way more indulgent (?) We were talking about – right before we started the podcast, there’s a restaurant in downtown LA called majordōmo that my friend Dave Chang does and Ben was talking to me about it so… yeah. Go there and get the lamb or get any of the large __(??) dishes, make yourself happy.

BH: Yeah, that –

AY: Do something good for yourself.

BH: Treat yourself.

MEJ: Allison Jones, Ben Harris, Alan Yang, thank you so much for being with us.

AJ: Thank you Marc Evan Jackson.

AY: Thank you very much.

MEJ: This has been The Good Place, the podcast, I’m Marc Evan Jackson. Now, go do something good.

[Closing music]

DC: Hi there! The podcast is over. I think what I’m feeling is… sadness.

TD: Oh, don’t worry Janet! This podcast is the most perfectly engineered invention since the paperclip.

DC: Fun fact, the man who invented the paperclip is in the Bad Place. For tax evasion!

TD: It’s available on Apple Podcast, and all major podcasting platforms, or wherever you get podcasts.

DC: Stop saying podcasts!

TD: Hosted by Marc Evan Jackson.

DC: Produced by Graham Ratliff (?).

TD: Written by Lizzie Pace.

DC: Music composed by David Schwartz. Yay!

Ding!

what’s good?

majordōmo 

A restaurant in LA serving California cuisine inspired by the different food cultures present in Los Angeles and the bounty of Southern California products. Located in 1725 Naud St. Los Angeles, CA, 90012.

#the good place #the good place the podcast