The organizing principle in my mind for the tone and the comedy in [Only Murders in the Building] is “New York City.” New York holds it all: You can have something hugely dramatic happening when you step outside of your building in New York that’s upsetting and deeply concerning, and you have people grabbing onto each other that you never even knew before who are experiencing something as a unit. Once we squared on the tone of the show as New York City, you could have your cake and eat it too with these comedic geniuses. What if the cat is in the freezer? You can play a scene with Steve Martin discovering a cat in the freezer and having to pull it out and one of the legs snaps off and now he’s putting it in his pocket. But that scene has to be married with something deeply grounding: He then encounters Oliver in a very low moment where he’s going to sell the valuable poster of his hugest failure on Broadway. It’s absurdist, but both things are being held at once. It all has to be in good measure and give the audience what they want, but it has to be organically true to the narrative we’re building. That’s the joy of this show: It can go a lot of different directions, and you never know where it’s going to go from one moment to the next.
John Hoffman, 'Only Murders in the Building' Showrunner Explains How He and Steve Martin Found Humor in the Murder Mystery
Opening Night - Only Murders in the Building S3E10
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