Author: Danielle Turchiano

ABC

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the “Blind Spot” episode of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat.]

Since its premiere on ABC, Fresh Off the Boat has attracted a diverse audience because of its blend of heart and humor in its storytelling — and the fact that the series never treats its characters as “different.”

From Jessica Huang (Constance Wu) and Louis (Randall Park) to Eddie (Hudson Yang), Fresh Off the Boat boats unique and fully formed characters who accept each other for who they are. For showrunner Nahnatchka Khan, creating guest star roles in that same vein is equally important. Enter Oscar (Rex Lee), the gay man Jessica thought she was dating in college, who actually thought he was dating Louis.

Read more Constance Wu: ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ Will Tip its Hat to ‘All-American Girl’

Oscar is an out and proud gay man who is comfortable in his skin, and refreshingly, everyone around him on Fresh Off the Boat was, as well — despite some pride being momentarily hurt over not actually being in the relationship they thought they were years earlier.

The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Khan to discuss an episode close to her heart and preview what’s next as the rookie comedy’s freshman season winds down.

In many ways, the idea that Jessica doesn’t realize the guy she thought she was dating in college is actually gay says a lot more about her than it does about him. How did that idea even come up?

We always knew that we wanted to bring in Jessica’s ex-boyfriend and that she was not able to determine he was gay. Even in the pilot, there was an exchange about it between her and Louis that we had to cut for time. We always thought that would be a funny [area] for Jessica. It evolved as we got a pick-up and talked through it in the writers’ room, and it became about her experience with everybody [who was gay]. So, we set it up in a previous episode where she sold a house to a gay couple and thinks they’re best friends. We wanted to set the table for an episode where we bring Oscar to town to use it as a reflection of Jessica’s blind spot but also Louis’ blind spot. He can’t tell when people are into him. So it told a different kind of love triangle that you haven’t necessarily seen before.

And he also isn’t really coming out in a traditional sense. He assumes everyone knows he is gay, and he is just who he is, which is refreshing to see on television at any time, but especially for a character living in the ’90s.

Exactly. He’s completely comfortable with who he is. It’s not a coming out story; he assumes everyone knows, and he’s surprised that Jessica doesn’t. We made that choice because we’ve seen a lot of versions of the coming out story, and we’ve also seen a lot of people not accept it when people they know come out as gay — or it takes them a long time. We wanted to jump that. What if that’s not the issue? What if we look at this gay character coming into the Huang family as more of a reflection on them? There was a really important scene with Louis [where] Oscar [was] saying, “I see what you and Jessica have and I want that for myself someday” and for Louis to be completely supportive to say, “He’s out there. You’re going to find him,” it was inclusive. And I think that goes to the kind of comedy we do on the show [in general] and the kind of feeling we always said we wanted to do with this show.

What was the discussion around showing how the general Asian-American community looked at a character like Oscar, especially in that time period, and did you draw from your own experiences?

David Smithyman, who wrote this episode, is also gay, and he and I and the rest of the writers never approached it [like that]. We made a conscience choice to go away from some of that typical story and look at it from another angle and ask how it reflects on Louis and Jessica as a couple and also getting Oscar’s opinion in there. Oscar is who he is. The gay aspect is not the focus in terms of its own entity; it’s just accepted. The Huangs are very loving and very accepting in their own way, and that maybe because they’re having a hard time adjusting and they’re being judged on many levels, they check that. It’s not a part of how they react to things — certainly not to someone they’ve known for their whole adult lives. A lot of people probably wish they were more accepted back then for who they were, or wished they had the courage to be who they were the way Oscar does. I remember in the ’90s meeting my first out gay friends and just being so impressed by them and respecting their choices, feeling like, “Wow, they’re not afraid to be who they are.” There’s always those leaders. Even before the ’90s, there were people who said, “Here’s who I am, and not everybody’s going to like it, but I make no apologies.” And that is what our show is about. We’re not trying to represent every experience; we’re not trying to represent every person. We’re telling one story, specifically in this episode, and we’re not apologizing for it.

Read more ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ Showrunner on Working With Eddie Huang, Going Beyond Race

As mentioned earlier, this episode showed some new facets of both Louis and Jessica, who for a large part of the season haven’t intersected in many of the stories. How did you find evolving them individually, as well as as a couple?

The first episode you see them really working together as a unit was “Success Perm” when they have their family come to visit, and that, to us, is so relatable because nothing bonds you like trying to impress your family; you’ll do whatever it takes! It was an early episode, and it was great to get to write the characters on the same page, wanting the same thing, and from there that opened a lot of different avenues for us. Louis has moved his entire family [to Orlando] for this restaurant that’s not all that successful, so he’s on that track, and he’s got to make it work; there’s no option to fail. And Jessica wants the same thing, but she has to find a new place. In an early episode she tries to get involved in his business and sort of micro-manages everything to death, and he kicks her out of that a little bit, which leads her down another path with the real estate thing. We were really just trying to follow the characters and see where they led us and what were the most interesting versions of them. And not just real estate [for Jessica] but how she comes to it: the fact that she goes to open houses for free A/C and accidentally sells a house.

Despite critical praise, the series remains on the bubble. Did you write the season finale to double as a series finale?

You never know how many chances you’re going to get to tell stories. We had 13 episodes, and if that’s all we got to do, we wanted to tell the story of this family and the evolution of all of the characters. We really looked at it as going back to the first episode and putting up all the characters that we’ve met throughout the course of this season on the board — even Nicole [Luna Blaise] next door, Honey [Chelsey Crisp] and Marvin [Ray Wise], the principal at the school [David Goldman], people at the restaurant. We kwent through, character by character, to see where we wanted to leave things for everybody and came up with a really cool way to have the Huang story feel not wrapped up but in a way paying off a lot of stuff that we set up at the beginning while still leaving the door open for what could happen in a second season. We wanted to make it feel satisfying for people who were watching, knowing we had a for sure 13. So in these latter episodes we’re going to see very specific stories having to do with their culture but also very universal stories about them figuring it out in terms of really making their place.

Fresh Off the Boat airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC. What did you think of Oscar? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Twitter: @danielletbd

TV Land

Sex and the City‘s Darren Star returns to cable television with another female-driven comedy set in New York. And, just like his experience with HBO, TV Land’s Younger is going to help define what the Viacom-owned network does.

Younger comes at a time of reinvention for TV Land. The network will say farewell to Hot in Cleveland — its first-ever scripted series — when its current sixth season ends and, in its place, the cabler will dive head first into single-camera fare including Younger and its upcoming Jim Gaffigan comedy, among others.

TV Land has always been aimed at the 40-something demographic, but today’s 40-somethings are not baby boomers; they are Generation X, or as former network president Larry W. Jones — who greenlit Younger — likes to call them, the “original MTV generation.” That’s where Star and Younger fit in. The comedy centers Liza (Sutton Foster), a 40-something who pretends to be in her late 20s in order to re-enter the workforce after a decade-plus hiatus spent raising her daughter.

“There is pressure, but it’s also nice,” Star tells The Hollywood Reporter of being part of the network’s reinveniton. “When Sex and the City aired its first season, people didn’t know about HBO as a place for original series. People weren’t saying, ‘Oh I’ve got to watch Sex and the City!’ They found it later. In some ways, it helped change what people thought of HBO. And the way people watch television has changed so much over the last few years: people think of shows first; the shows are what define the networks they’re on.”

Younger, like Sex and the City, also boasts a strong female ensemble. Representing both generations alongside Foster are Hilary Duff, Debi Mazar, and Miriam Shor. Here, Star talks with THR about Younger‘s themes, characters and the balancing act Liza has to perform in the first season.

Foster has a lot on her plate here: portraying a woman who can physically pass for being significantly younger than she is as well as embodying the spirit of someone having grown up during a different time.

I don’t know that we would have done this show without Sutton. I don’t know that we could have. In the same way as Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City, I don’t want to think about the show without her. That was always the question going in: “Is there somebody we’re going to believably cast?” I didn’t want to cheat in too big a way; I didn’t want to cast a woman who was 33 or 34, that would be too much cheat for the audience to play 26. But I think she is a stand in for women — at any age — who don’t feel their age. It’s not just how you look; it’s how you feel.

Liza’s professional world on Younger is publishing, but the commentary and what she has to do to get the job feels very meta for the way the entertainment industry values youth culture.

That concept is baked into the show, but I think it’s more about what are those generational differences? I do think it’s in every industry, not just entertainment, and I know a lot of women who have said they’re going to take time off, and then when they want to go back into the workforce, no matter what your industry is, if you take 12 years off, no one’s looking to rehire you. I think a lot of it is just perception. Anyone in their 20s is just going to have the facility and the ease and the grammar of the technology. If I’m hiring an assistant, yes please, I want to hire an assistant who’s been raised with it, rather than having to learn it. And I think that generational difference between the skill set is being shown now. Now, people in their 20s are being valued higher, and I think that’s really interesting. 

How caught up will Liza become in this new world? Experiencing the world of 20-somethings today is very different from 20 years ago, which was when Liza actually was a 20-something.

What I love and what’s really fun to write about this show is how age is like a construct in your head and what you bring or project to people. It’s how the idea of a number allows you to behave. That’s something that people can relate to. Surely, I can relate to it! It’s just a number, and part of what the show is about is blurring that distinction, but at the same time, there are real generational differences between women in their 20s and women in their 40s, and we tackle those head-on comedically.

The culture of the girls in their 20s is a big culture, and the show is all about how she’s able to navigate it [even with] the culture clash. It’s great to dip your toe back into — especially in this time that we’re living in. But at the same time, there are also some things that are terrifying, and [Liza] is put in those positions, too.

Sometimes she does go too far, and she can sort of get confused about what’s real and what’s not real. I think she does get carried away by some of the craziness of being in your 20s, and we talked about it in the writers room of, “OK, she’s doing this for a job [so] how far does she really have to go?” We do keep that in mind, but there are moments where she’s actually having fun and letting herself have experiences that she never got to have when she was actually in her 20s. She had her daughter young [and] didn’t really get to experience her 20s in this kind of way [so] this is her time to do it. It’s where she is in her life.

Liza does have a daughter who could be dipping her toe in the same world. How much story comes from that kind of shared space?

It’s not a mother/daughter show. I will tell you that the daughter does not play a big role in the first season. That’s not where we’re going, and that’s just not what this is designed to be. This is designed to be much more about a woman in her 40s who is awakened by having to live in this 20-something world but still has to hold onto her identity at the same time.

Liza was in the publishing world years ago, and now she has re-entered with her same name but a new date of birth. It’s a small industry with a lot of potential for her to run into people she knew from back in the day. How long can she keep her secret?

We have to live in the reality that she would run into people from her past, and it’s another conflict. The edge of every episode is not trying to keep her secret. It definitely comes into play, but it’s not what drives the series. It’s also not really a workplace show, though we do spend about half the time with her there.

What is the balance like in each episode between stories of Liza at work versus with her new friends versus with her longtime friend Maggie (Mazar)?

The blessing and the curse of the 22-minute episode with so many great actresses and characters, you want to take so many different directions, but you have to focus on your lead in a big way. I would say you see a lot of Hilary Duff‘s character and her world, and her friends as well. We have a terrific actress named Molly Bernard who is relatively unknown playing Hilary’s best friend. She pops up in the pilot, and she’s in the first season a lot; she is kind of an unofficial series regular. Maggie is there to be her anchor in terms of back to adulthood and reality. She is the keeper of her secret and someone who has known her the longest. She’s a force Liza can lean on.

In the pilot, Liza meets Josh (Nico Tortorella), who seems to be the only real male perspective in the show. What does that relationship add to the show?

A lot of the emotion [of the show] comes from the connection [Josh and Liza] make. It becomes increasingly more of a dilemma, also just being in a relationship built on a lie. Certainly, that’s an issue for her. And [Josh] is immature in some ways and surprisingly emotionally mature in other ways. Their relationship actually grows into something very real. Nico is a find; he is so good! We exploit him to death!

The television industry has changed a lot recently, and every generation — every demographic — watches differently these days. How do you want Younger to be viewed?

It’s definitely got a serialized aspect, and we are conscious of staying one step ahead of the audience when it comes to storytelling. I kind of feel like this show is the perfect show to be binge-watched. It’s certainly designed that you want to watch them one after another, hopefully in an addictive way.

Younger premieres March 31 at 10 p.m. on TV Land. Will you watch?

Twitter @danielletbd

Fresh Off the Boat, ABC’s family sitcom based on Eddie Huang‘s memoir, is not only delivering the first Asian-American series on network television in two decades, but the series is also hitting home for audiences of many ethnicities thanks to layered individual characters who deliver humor and heart in every episode.

Read more ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ Showrunner on Working With Eddie Huang, Going Beyond Race

As the comedy’s freshman season has gone on, network television newcomer Constance Wu has broken out as one of the season’s best scene-stealers, with her shrewd side-eye, devotion to Stephen King, aggressive approach to the sex talk, and of course, her musical chops. With more stories placing her in the spotlight before the season finale, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Wu about her Fresh Off the Boat experience thus far.

Eddie admitted he didn’t know what made now the right time for a show like Fresh Off the Boat to be embraced by a major network, let alone a mainstream audience. Why do you think it took so long, and why do you think it’s resonating now?

Audiences are smarter than we think, and the nature of television is changing with our digital era. There’s so much content out there that when you use the same tried and true formulas from great sitcoms like I Love Lucy, it can get old because people are recycling formulas and forgetting the things that made shows like that so great. It wasn’t the formula that it had; it was the spirit that created that formula. … I’m not relying on standard comedic turnarounds and practices and schtick. I try to make it come from a place of truth, universal family and love. To have that, and to have the lens flipped — instead of having a white person looking in on an Asian perspective, it’s an Asian perspective looking out into a white world — that’s new and relatable because it’s born of the same truth that existed in those great sitcoms from before.

What kind of response have you gotten from Asian-American communities?

People are embracing the thing that made them different growing up instead of letting that thing elicit shame. It is from our point of view, so just to have a show that allows you to celebrate that, I think has been powerful for our audience.

How do you feel ABC and Fresh Off the Boat have helped usher in a diversity push in general?

Networks are now seeing that people want to see the real world reflected in their television screens so that they can have a real community experience with their stories. Networks, because they are now seeing that when things reflect the real world, people tune in and people respond to that, they are responding, too. People’s passions and desires for authenticity are strong. Some people may think it’s politically minded, but I think at this point the audience response and the financial response show it’s more. Authentic programming that shows the outside world garners authentic interest.

Read more Eddie Huang Gives ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ a “B”; Pushes for Domestic Violence Arc

Now that you’ve been in the role for a little while, showrunner Nahnatchka Khan has really fleshed out Jessica’s character. How did the character evolve; was it a collaborative process?

I did not pitch any ideas to the writers; I just took what they gave me and tried to give it a lot of layers. There was one [time] well after we shot that I emailed [Nahnatchka] and asked to use a specific take of one of my lines. It was at the very end of the “Phillip Goldstein” episode, right after “Drop the mic.” “Who’s Mike?” “It means you did good, mom.” In the other takes I had been really clever; I had some improvd some really funny repartee with Hudson [Yang], but on the last take I heard him say, “You did good, mom,” and I just thought as a mother, it would be something really touching. So I didn’t improv anything after it and asked that they use that one. Obviously, a lot of Jessica’s mannerisms are things that are not necessarily written into the script, like when I sort of wave away the woman who’s giving me samples in the grocery store; that was just something that intuitively happened to me when I was in character.

The show has introduced Jessica’s family, and it’s diving more into her back story before the season’s end with Rex Lee guesting as an old college friend. What new dynamic will that bring? (Watch an exclusive clip, above.)

It’s delightfully misguided! We show some photos of our younger selves, and we do talk about our younger selves, but we don’t have flashback scenes. It adds layers and depth to a character, which is very important because when you do a comedy, you run the risk of just trying to be funny. That can work in short form, but if you want to draw a fan base, I believe the humor must come from a place of humanity and some sort of universal truth. The more you know about somebody’s back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body, instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after awhile, cleverness is just really obnoxious! We know you’re cute; we know you’re smart; get over yourself!

Read more ABC’s ‘Fresh Off the Boat’: What the Critics Are Saying

Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian-American comedy since All-American Girl with Margaret Cho in the ‘90s, when this show is set. Do you think it’s important to reference that as something the family may be responding to culturally at the time, but also for the show itself to acknowledge what came before?

There is — it’s in a later episode. There is a scene in which we are actually watching All-American Girl. I do think it’s important to start a conversation about the fact that it did take [20] years — not to get mad about it but to start a spirited conversation so that it encourages people to express their voice about wanting to see the real world on their screen. A lot of people think Eddie Huang is really outspoken, but if you’re not going to speak out for yourself, then who will? We’ve gotten pretty far in terms of socioeconomic status, but not necessarily in media, and at some point you needs to be outspoken. This starts a dialogue. And the louder your voice is, the more people will hear you.

Fresh Off the Boat airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

Twitter: @danielletbd