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CREATIVE ARTS | SHORT FORM JUNE 3, 2021

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“A HISTORY-MAKING TURN FOR DAVIS”

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Creative Arts 12

The Candied Appeals of Historical Revisionism Sensual period pieces are often mocked for their “more is more” ethos — sumptuous sets, sumptuous bodies — but they’re far from mere vapid indulgences. For genre-busting shows like Netflix’s Bridgerton and Apple TV+’s Dickinson, hyper-reality is indeed the point.

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A Battle Royale for Outstanding Limited Series One of the most competitive categories at this year’s Emmys sees these eight frontrunners vying for just five potential nominee slots.

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The Coronation of The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy At just 25, she has a résumé that already boasts star turns in The Witch, Emma and the upcoming Last Night in Soho. But it’s her award-winning role in the Netflix limited series that has made her one of the most exciting young actors in the business.

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‘This Scene Had to Be Pitch-Perfect’ Showrunner Mark Richard breaks down a scene from the pilot of Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird, in which John Brown (played by cocreator Ethan Hawke) enlists his two sons in the beheading of a proslavery settler in Kansas and sparks his abolitionist crusade.

20 ‘It’s a Wonderful Way to Pull People Into the World’

On portraying Beth in The Queen’s Gambit, Anya Taylor-Joy says, “It was painful because I really understood the way that she felt about herself, the way that she couldn’t quite connect with the environment that she was in [until she discovers chess].”

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MICHAEL BUCKNER/DEADLINE

WandaVision director Matt Shakman and composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez revisit the tall order of writing multiple TV sitcom theme songs — and giving Kathryn Hahn a chart-topping single.

A TRUE TOUR

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June 2021 Emmys 1

22 How to Make 130 Musical Numbers

outlandish styles without turning them into cartoons.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’s Emmy-winning choreographer Mandy Moore and DP Shasta Spahn reveal how they create and protect the show’s song-anddance charm: “You have to know it and feel it.”

28 Ringing in the New Saved by the Bell What does it take to not only bring back a beloved ’80s sitcom but also reinvent it for a new generation? The creator, crew and cast behind Peacock’s return to Bayside High reveal how the series pays homage to (and pokes a little fun at) the original while exploring modern issues.

24 ‘Let’s Make It Oversized Chanel’ The costume designers from four of TV’s hottest shows expertly interpreted conversation- (and trend-) starting fashion to portray compelling protagonists.

36 Building The Underground Railroad, One Edit at a Time Barry Jenkins’ longtime editor Joi McMillon reveals how she wove the trauma and fantasy elements into Amazon’s adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel.

32 Antebellum America on TV The production design teams behind Dickinson, The Good Lord Bird and The Underground Railroad share how they constructed ambitious replicas of the South during the 1800s.

26 The Great ’80s in Hair and Makeup The artisans behind these shows used some of the decade’s most

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With influences from such series as The Dick Van Dyke Show to The Twilight Zone, DP Jess Hall crafted a range of period looks for the Disney+ miniseries.

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38 ‘I Just Rip and Have Fun With It in the Moment’ Keke Palmer, who plays five characters on her Facebook Watch series, Turnt Up with the Taylors, opens up about her creative process.

CASEY DURKIN/PEACOCK

From left: Mitchell Hoog as Mac Morris, DeShawn Cavanaugh as Colt Cassidy, Dexter Darden as Devante and Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater on the new Saved by the Bell.

34 Creating Classic-Sitcom Camera Magic in WandaVision

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THE RACE

THE CANDIED APPEALS OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM

Sensual period pieces are often mocked for their ‘more is more’ ethos — sumptuous sets, sumptuous bodies — but they’re far from mere vapid indulgences. For genre-busting shows like Netflix’s Bridgerton and Apple TV+’s Dickinson, hyperreality is indeed the point BY ROBYN BAHR

T

his year, Regency romance Bridgerton bested The Queen’s Gambit, Tiger King and The Witcher to become Netflix’s most watched original program, hitting well over 80 million households within just a month of its debut.

This came as a surprise to the streamer, which had projected a smaller audience for the series, despite its Shonda Rhimes pedigree and racially inclusive storytelling. Sure, sweeping (and chaste) costume dramas have traditionally defined prestige TV, but it seems even populist Netflix underestimated the far-reaching charms of a good bodice-ripper.

Bridgerton’s inevitable backlash arrived almost as promptly, with detractors hoisting their proverbial glasses up the proverbial nasal bridge to declare the series — gasp! — historically inaccurate. Twitter threads and explainer pieces soon appeared scolding the show’s use of corsets-as-metaphor, its

ahistorically vibrant costuming and its characters’ implausible sexual innocence.

Such fussy dissections, however, miss the candied appeals of historical revisionism. Genrebusting shows like Bridgerton, Apple TV+’s Dickinson and Hulu’s 2020 Emmy-nominated The Great are not intended to paint an educational portrait of the past, but to satirize the literary pretensions of historicized art. Emmyeligible series Bridgerton and Dickinson act as both pastiche and parody, honoring the conventions of Masterpiece Theatre-style costume dramas while explicitly making fun of them.

Based on Julia Quinn’s series of romance novels, Bridgerton takes place in Georgian-era London in 1813, centering on the aristocratic Bridgerton family, their affluent peers and the hierarchical high-society bon ton culture that restricts their marital choices and, thus, their lifelong fates. Within the first few moments of the pilot, the teenage

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Bridgerton daughters and their best frenemies, the neighboring Featherington girls, are presented at Queen Charlotte’s Ball like prized pigs come to market, awaiting who the impetuous royal (Golda Rosheuvel) will declare the most eligible bachelorette of the social season.

While this event did occur annually, Bridgerton heightens the moment’s fairy-tale indulgence by emphasizing the princess-like quality of its delicate protagonist and the ugly-stepsister quotient of her inelegant sisters and acquaintances. Of course, the young beauty becomes the queen’s favorite little doll, and yet despite this validation through commodification, Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor) still wants to marry for love. Midseason, however, the fairy-tale illusion shatters, and Bridgerton succeeds in critiquing not only outmoded marriage plots, but the oh-so-honorable modesty of its TV forebears as well. (Even rare and farcical names like

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“Bridgerton” and “Featherington” ridicule American perceptions of British gentility.)

Dickinson, on the other hand, is an ethereal and comic take on the early life of mid-19th century New England poet Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld), a woman who changed literature forever with her expressive existentialism and creative punctuation — but not until well past her death. Instead of homing in on her domestic life and possible agoraphobia in middle age, as other writers have done, showrunner Alena Smith imagines Dickinson as a rebellious 20-something with a foul temperament and pulsing lust for her sister-in-law (as the real-life Dickinson may have had).

Rapper Wiz Khalifa plays Death himself, roaming Dickinson’s town in a black carriage pulled by spectral horses. They smoke weed together.

Dickinson amplifies the surrealism by incorporating historical footnotes into the dialogue, drawing pointed comparisons between the wellness and social media fads of the 1850s and 2020s and hiring cult performers like John Mulaney and Zosia Mamet to play absurd versions of real-life historical figures without shifting their modern personae. Where another creator might have stuck to the facts to retell the story of Dickinson’s emerging adulthood, Smith interprets her subject’s life with playfulness and transgression to remind today’s viewers that the younger writer’s internal struggles were probably no different from their own.

Thus, vitally, these types of programs hold up a fun-house mirror to our present-day culture.

Each is a study of female genius, and in toying with modern humor and language, they render the past more accessible to us. These stories are sensorial feasts, full of silken frocks, verdant gardens, propulsive tracks and simplified race and gender relations: In other words, they’re fantasies that allow modern-day viewers to relive and rewrite the injustices of history on our own terms.

BARYSHNIKOV: MICHAEL PARMELEE/APPLE TV+. ANDOH: LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX. STEINFELD: COURTESY OF APPLE TV+.

From left: Hailee Steinfeld in Dickinson, Adjoa Andoh in Bridgerton and Anna Baryshnikov in Dickinson.

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EMMYS 2021 FEINBERG FORECAST

A BATTLE ROYALE FOR OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES One of the most competitive categories at this year’s Emmys sees these eight frontrunners vying for just five potential nominee slots BY SCOTT FEINBERG

THE GOOD LORD BIRD Showtime This seven-episode series, based on James McBride’s 2013 novel, centers on John Brown’s attack on American slavery. Co-creator and co-EP Ethan Hawke received Golden Globe and SAG Award noms for his lead performance, while co-stars Daveed Diggs and Joshua Caleb Johnson were Critics Choice-nominated. The series rolled out in October and November, and it boasts a 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.

I MAY DESTROY YOU HBO Michaela Coel wrote, co-directed, executive produced and starred in this semi-autobiographical British series about a woman who was sexually assaulted. Released by HBO in the U.S., it was 2020’s best show, according to Metacritic, and earned a top Critics Choice nom to go with Gotham and Spirit wins and Coel’s SAG Award acting nom.

Its 98 percent RT rating is tied for best of this lot, but it rolled out the longest ago, in the summer.

MARE OF EASTTOWN HBO HBO’s late-breaking murder mystery — dropping this April and May, it’s the most recent on this list — is an acting tour de force, foremost by Kate Winslet (with Philly accent), but also a strong ensemble including Jean Smart, Guy Pearce and Evan Peters. It dropped too late for precursor awards, but it’s the one show of this lot with an RT audience rating higher than its critics score (93 percent versus 92 percent).

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT Netflix Scott Frank’s show about a chess prodigy dropped in October and became a cultural phenomenon during the pandemic. Netflix’s most watched limited series ever, with the highest audience RT rating of this group (95 percent), it spiked sales of chess sets, won top Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards, dominated the guild awards and earned star Anya Taylor-Joy Golden Globe, SAG Award and Critics Choice honors.

SMALL AXE Amazon Steve McQueen’s five-part opus about London’s West Indian community — each co-written and directed by the 12 Years a Slave Oscar winner — has been treated as a single film (named best of the year by the L.A. Film Critics), five separate films (some on year-end top 10 lists) and a limited series (with a Golden Globe win for John Boyega). Amazon rolled it out last November and December, and its 97 percent RT score is formidable.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Amazon Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s celebrated novel reunites him with Plan B and his longtime below-theline team and chronicles the brutal journey of a slave (hauntingly portrayed by newcomer Thuso Mbedu) as she is pursued across five states by a slave hunter (Joel Edgerton). It’s among the most recently unveiled of this bunch — the season dropped May 14 — and stands at 97 percent on RT.

THE UNDOING HBO This soapy mystery was written

by David E. Kelley, directed by Susanne Bier and stars Nicole Kidman as a woman whose husband (Hugh Grant) is suspected of murder. Its six episodes dropped last fall, with viewership increasing for each. It drew Critics Choice, Globe, DGA and PGA noms, but its RT ratings from critics (75 percent) and audiences (66 percent) are the lowest of this lot, and the finale disappointed many.

WANDAVISION Disney+ Disney+’s first MCU TV series, set after the events of Avengers: Endgame, was embraced by Marvel fans and novices when it rolled out in early 2021. Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Kathryn Hahn shine in the homage to sitcoms of yesteryear. The streamer’s most watched series premiere until The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it was nominated for top DGA honors and dominated the MTV Movie & TV Awards.

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BIRD: WILLIAM GRAY/SHOWTIME. DESTROY: NATALIE SEERY/HBO. MARE: COURTESY OF HBO. GAMBIT: PHIL BRAY/NETFLIX. AXE, RAILROAD: COURTESY OF AMAZON. UNDOING: NIKO TAVERNISE/HBO. WANDAVISION: COURTESY OF DISNEY+.

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EMMYS 2021 AWARDS CHATTER

THE CORONATION OF THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT STAR ANYA TAYLOR-JOY

At just 25, she has a résumé that already boasts star turns in The Witch, Emma and the upcoming Last Night in Soho. But it’s her award-winning role in the Netflix limited series that has made her one of the most exciting young actors in the business

BY SCOTT FEINBERG

A

gifted actress with a unique look, Anya TaylorJoy wowed many with her 2015 big-screen debut in Robert Eggers’ The Witch, for which she won the Gotham Award for best breakthrough actor and the Cannes Film Festival’s Trophée Chopard for the industry’s most exciting young female talent. She further impressed in films ranging from M. Night Shyamalan’s Split in 2016 and Glass in 2019 — playing the same character in both — to Autumn de Wilde’s Emma in 2020, which brought her a Golden Globe nomination. And now, at 25, she is a full-fledged star thanks to her acclaimed portrayal of a chess prodigy battling addiction in Scott Frank’s The Queen’s Gambit, for which she has won a best actress in a limited series Golden Globe as well as SAG and Critics Choice awards.

Where were you born and raised, and what did your folks do?

I was born in Miami, Florida, and raised between Buenos Aires, Argentina, and London, England.

My dad is Scottish-Argentine, and he was an investment banker and then a powerboat racer, and my mum, who studied psychology, was born in Zambia and raised in Spain, and she raised the six of us.

You wanted to act from an early age, but modeling entered the picture first.

I was wearing my mum’s heels for the first time because I had my first “grown-up party” to go to, and I wanted to practice, so I took my dog for a walk in my mum’s heels, and this black car looked like it was following me. I tried to evade the car, and it did chase me, so I ended up running. And this man stuck his head out the window and said, “If you stop, you won’t regret it,” and I just stopped dead. It’s ridiculous — my survival instincts are just not present at all. But no, inside the car was the head of a modeling agency, Sarah Doukas, who’s lovely, and she gave me quite a telling off, actually, for stopping. She was like, “Hey, this worked out this time, but please never do that again! And can you come into the modeling agency tomorrow with your parents?” I’d never thought I could model.

Because you’d been bullied in school about your looks (specifically, her wide-set eyes).

Yeah, terribly so.

So here was someone — who also discovered Kate Moss — saying, “You’re actually beautiful.” How did you compute that?

I’m not Superwoman — I’m

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insecure — but I just decided at an early age that I had to place my worth on different things. And so the second she said “modeling,” my first thought was, “I’ve heard of models who are actors. This is an ‘in.’ ” So my parents and I went in the next day, and I was very clear: “I want to act. This is what I need to do with my life, and if you could possibly help me out with that, then I will do whatever you tell me to do.”

As I understand it, you were still London-based and you were sent to a shoot at the property they used for Downton Abbey?

I remember that day very clearly.

I was studying for my GCSEs — very important exams — and I’d written to my modeling agency saying, “Hey, I really need to focus on my exams, so please don’t

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send me any jobs.” But they sent me this one job and said, “This is something you should do.” And I thought, “OK, I can study in between shooting or whatever.”

I get there, and the idea was to shoot the female models with the male actors from Downton and the female actors with the male models. But the photographers were so enamored shooting the male models with the female actors that they just weren’t getting to us. I remember being in the room thinking, “I can either be really, really upset about this, or I can just try and be helpful.”

So I started helping out with the lights and helping pick pins out of people’s hair and trying to make it work because I thought, “Well, I might learn something.” And eventually I sat down and started reading a poem I was going to be

tested on, “Digging” by Seamus Heaney. And the lovely actor Allen Leech, I think he was just really bemused watching this little blond thing run around trying to do every job. He was like, “What are you doing? What are you reading? Would you recite it for me?”

And once I did, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be an actor, and he put me in touch with his agent, and she’s still my agent today.

Was The Witch your first audition?

Oh my gosh, you just sparked a memory: My first audition was to play the young Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. Oh, I wanted it so badly. It was Disney, and I love Angelina. I look nothing like her, so I was never going to get it, but I was naive, and I thought, “Miracles happen.” But, yeah, not long after, I got asked to audition for The Witch, so I went in and taped but just never thought I would get it because the character Thomasin was described as plain.

I just thought, “OK, there’s a lot of things that I can do, but I can’t really change my face that much.”

But you were cast anyway by Robert Eggers, who was making his feature directorial debut.

You were 18 and playing your first sizable part. And the film premiered at Sundance. What was it like seeing yourself on the big screen?

Gambit, so I literally worked for a year. I had, collectively, a week off that entire year. But it’s the year that has most changed me. I just fell in love with my job again. I’d forgotten that the job feeds me.

I felt like I’d been feeding it for a little while, if that makes sense.

How did you hear about The Queen’s Gambit?

I was just told that Scott Frank wanted to meet with me on a project that there was no script for yet but that there was a book, and if I could read the book as quickly as possible, he was in London and

Anya Taylor-Joy as chess prodigy Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit. The Netflix limited series already has earned Taylor-Joy a Golden Globe, a SAG Award and a Critics Choice Award.

Rob showed us the film maybe two hours before the audience screening, and I was devastated.

I thought I’d never work again; I still get shivers thinking about it. It was just the worst feeling of, “I have let down the people I love most in the world. I didn’t do it right.” I’m quite verbose, I like to talk, I like to communicate. I did not talk, I just cried. I couldn’t handle seeing my face that large.

TAYLOR-JOY: DOMINIQUE CHARRIAU/WIREIMAGE. GAMBIT: CHARLIE GRAY/NETFLIX.

on a plane and started the next job. And I am incredibly grateful that that’s the way that I learned how to work. But these are pivotal years in my development as a person, and I had put all my energy into fleshing out other people. I suddenly got to a point where I had no idea who I was, trying to hold on to relationships and trying to build a home without having any kind of root or tether because I hadn’t figured out that I had to be that for myself. So I got Jane Austen’s Emma, and that really panicked me because it was a role that was

People might assume that in 2019, when Glass was coming out, you were thrilled with your career and happy with life. And yet I have read that you were ready to quit acting.

What was that about?

What it was about is it took me a second to realize that the people around me weren’t working the way that I was working. I thought everybody finished a job, got

supposed to be beautiful from the offset, and I hadn’t done that — I’d played creatures, outsiders, whatever. For some reason, I guess that triggered some childhood trauma, and I was like, “I can’t do it. There’s no way. I’m going to really let people down.”

I’d been talking to Edgar Wright about doing his movie Last Night in Soho for ages, but the only way that was going to work was if I had a day off in between Emma and Last Night in Soho. And then I read The Queen’s Gambit, and the only way that was going to work is if I had a day off between Last Night in Soho and The Queen’s

he wanted to meet me. I didn’t realize he’d come to London to meet me. I just devoured the book in a single sitting, and honestly I think the last time I felt that way about a character was Thomasin from The Witch. It’s almost like having a panic attack — the whole body is buzzing, and numb, and I just can’t think of anything else.

So I ran to meet Scott — physically ran to that meeting — and before he’d even said hello I was like, “It’s not about chess, and she has to have red hair! It’s just, that is the way it has to be!” Scott was like, “Yeah, great, I agree, sit down.” (Laughs.)

Why do you think you responded so strongly to the material? Is there a parallel between chess and something in your life?

Absolutely. A lot of her thoughts as a kid [the show tracks Beth from age 15 through 21] were thoughts that I had, and they resonated in a way that was painful, but it was painful because it was familiar. It was painful because I really understood the way that she felt about herself, the way that she couldn’t quite connect with the environment that she was in. And this constant feedback of, “I’m not right. There is something not right here.” And when Beth discovers chess, that feeling of, “Oh, there is a place where I can contribute. There is a place where I can put my energy.

There is a place where I will meet like-minded people.” That was literally the set of The Witch for me.

But the main difference between us, which I admire so much about her, is that she’s less of a peoplepleaser than I am.

The series dropped in its entirety on Netflix on Oct. 23, in the thick of the pandemic, when most people had little to do but stay home and watch TV. And 62 million households watched it during its first month on the service. What was that time like for you?

I was in Belfast, with Robert Eggers, filming a movie I’m very proud of called The Northman. I was isolating, alone in this apartment with nothing but my phone, and it was telling me information that I could not compute. Then, luckily, Kate came to stay with me — Kate Dickie, who plays my mom in The Witch — and every day just more information would come in, and I’d just look at her and I’d say, “I think it’s going well. I think people are liking the show.”

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Awards Chatter Podcast The weekly show, hosted by Scott Feinberg, features career-encompassing conversations with actors, directors, writers and other artists behind the top Oscar, Emmy and Tony contenders. Recent guests include Ben Affleck, Will Ferrell, Jodie Foster, Michelle Pfeiffer, Gary Oldman, Billy Crystal, Regina King, Sophia Loren, Riz Ahmed, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Fran Lebowitz and Sarah Cooper. Listen and subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

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EMMYS 2021 SCRIPT TO SCENE

‘THIS SCENE HAD TO BE PITCH-PERFECT’

Showrunner Mark Richard breaks down a scene from the pilot of Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird, in which John Brown (played by co-creator Ethan Hawke) enlists his two sons in the beheading of a pro-slavery settler in Kansas, sparking his abolitionist crusade BY TYLER COATES

Mark Richard

Co-creator and showrunner Mark Richard always saw The Good Lord Bird as a risky project because of its satirical tone and deeply heavy subject matter. This scene, he says, was perhaps the most dangerous, but Ethan Hawke assured him it was necessary.

Although the series is based on the novel by James McBride, this scene was original to the series. “How do you justify John Brown’s killing of this guy?” Richard says. “That makes him really hard to redeem from the get-go. Ethan, as an actor, was trying to figure out how he was going to play it, and he said, ‘We’ve got to go full throttle on this.’ ”

As much as Richard and Hawke adored McBride’s National Book Award-winning novel, there was still room to add scenes to carry the narrative through a sevenepisode series. “I would often send pages to McBride with my hat in my hand, and 100 percent of the time McBride would say, ‘Man, I wish I thought of that. Go with God!’ ”

From left: Good Lord Bird co-creator/star Ethan Hawke with co-star Joshua Caleb Johnson and novelist James McBride at the Winter 2020 Television Critics Association event.

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RICHARD: JEFF VESPA/COURTESY OF SHOWTIME. MCBRIDE: AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY IMAGES. BIRD: WILLIAM GRAY/SHOWTIME.

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“I have to give credit to Ethan for really driving the writing on this scene,” Richard says, singling out the speech that Hawke wrote to justify Brown’s violent actions against Doyle.

Brown points to Onion — whom he and his companions believe is a girl — and asks his sons to defend their sister’s honor. “It groups a relationship from a racial point of view into a humanity perspective,” Richard continues. “When he came up with that, I was going ‘Bingo!’ ”

“We did want to make sure that Doyle was complicit in slavery,” Richard explains, which complicates his killing.

“John Brown gets him to admit his guilt, and now we’re into a gray area: Doyle isn’t an innocent, and John Brown isn’t a murderer. John Brown knew he had to start the war and enlist his sons.”

“This could have gone south in a lot of ways,” Richard says of the series. “My hat’s off to Showtime and Blumhouse for seeing this through. It’s a dangerous show, and it’s an honest show, and my confidence started to rise [as we were filming], but in this pilot I was really unsure. This scene especially had to be pitch-perfect.”

Richard and Hawke needed the murder to be grisly and unsettling, especially as seen through the eyes of the show’s narrator, Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson). “We also wanted to get away from the white savior-ism of it,” Richard explains.

“John Brown was not there to save Black people — John Brown was there to save the white people from their mortal sin of slavery.”

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THE

DIALOGUE

‘It’s a Wonderful Way to Pull People Into the World’

WandaVision director Matt Shakman and composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez revisit the tall order of writing multiple TV sitcom theme songs — and giving Kathryn Hahn a chart-topping single

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

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omposing one iconic TV show theme song is difficult enough. Try making seven, each representing a different sitcom era and performed in an entirely different style. Oh, and they should all still feel unified … somehow. This was the task confronting songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez when tackling Disney+’s debut Marvel Cinematic Universe series WandaVision, a trippy exploration of grief that stylistically skips through TV history from the black-and-white 1950s I Love Lucy-era through early 2000s fourth-wall-breaking Modern Family-age. The duo, along with series director Matt Shakman, discuss pulling off the score and reveal some of their favorite themes of all time.

Robert and Kristen, you’ve been writing songs for major theatrical films. How did you get involved with the series, and what excited you about it?

that Matt directed and starred in.

I wrote the music for the songs, but the whole thing was done in the Yale swimming pool; it was the most echoey thing you’ve ever heard.

KRISTEN ANDERSON-LOPEZ Matt called out of the blue and said, “Do you want to be involved in this Marvel project?” We were just fascinated and thought we had to do it. For me, it was the perfect job because I can sing absolutely any TV theme song or commercial jingle from my childhood.

MATT SHAKMAN They sat in that

wonderful weird Venn diagram of people who understood big pop culture but also had a deep love for classic television. We needed something that would be perfectly authentic because Wanda had created a television show based on the DNA of all the things she grew up loving to watch, which were basically the same things Bobby, Kristen and I grew up loving to watch.

What were those early conversations like?

SHAKMAN The songs needed to

RÉSUMÉS Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez

Frozen II (2019) Coco (2017) Frozen (2013) Matt Shakman

Game of Thrones (2017) It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2007-17) The Good Wife (2013-14)

ROBERT LOPEZ I knew Matt from

college long ago, where we had done a production of The Tempest

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evoke a time and a place, but they also needed to do some narrative heavy lifting. Our first episode did what those classic ’50s theme songs do, which is to set the scene and tell you that a robot and a witch moved to suburban New Jersey. Later on, it became much more about setting the mood and reinforcing the romance and the love and the family, because we were trying to create this show that really was about hearth and home. But the main question was, “How would this not feel

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disjointed and too many songs?”

And we solved that by putting one theme (“wand-dah viz-zion ... ”) in every song. We wanted one thing to tie them together.

LOPEZ When Matt took us through the story, there were so many ingredients. There’s the bright happy sitcom, plus the underlying sense of dread that everything’s not right and beneath that, this underlying grief and sadness — not just for this story and character but for all of American culture that just felt like it was in a deep crisis.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ Without being able to tell the future, somehow they knew we were going to be in our own Westview situations during quarantine; enclosed in our own bubbles, dealing with emotions and our families. It was kind of amazing the way this project was for that moment.

It must have been tricky to have multiple theme songs covering multiple eras while avoiding sounding like parody.

SHAKMAN And then to connect the

musical theme of Wanda in each

LOPEZ: CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES. SHAKMAN: JESSE GRANT/GETTY IMAGES. WANDAVISION: MARVEL STUDIOS/DISNEY+.

By James Hibberd

LOPEZ Luckily the one show

ANDERSON-LOPEZ Years of the worst

I had watched was Malcolm in the Middle, so I had that musical landmark.

SHAKMAN I got a bottle of champagne from Linwood Boomer, the creator of Malcolm and the Middle, who reached out to say, “Thank you for honoring my show and capturing the spirit of it.”

TV just live in me! My favorite was one of Bobby’s because I had written a lyric, “You grew up with a vision of what life can be,” and Bobby was like, “let’s get both their names in there,” and did, “You wander the world with a vision of what life could be.”

Matt, what was some of the input you gave the team along the way?

SHAKMAN It was a wonderful

Matt Shakman

one in a way that’s recognizable, whether it’s the Modern Family/ The Office-inspired one or the Bewitched-inspired one — it’s a work of genius. Then for Kathryn Hahn to sing “Agatha All Along” and for it to rise above Cardi B and Justin Bieber on the iTunes chart …

ANDERSON-LOPEZ Kathryn Hahn was like, “What is happening!?”

While with the ’80s one, “Making It Up as We Go Along,” that became the theme song of our pandemic. Like, “OK, we can’t get toilet paper, so we’re (sings) making it up as we go along! The kids can’t go to school, so we’re making it up as we go along!” And as a

performer, it was so interesting to realize how we make sound with our voices has changed over the decades. Like, the way you sang in the ’40s is so open, and then you’re screaming in the 2000s.

Which was the toughest song to crack?

LOPEZ The ’90s one [“Let’s Keep It

Going”]. We went a bit too dark and lost our way a little bit lyrically. It took a few at-bats.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ This is in part due to us spending the ’90s listening to Sondheim musicals while everybody else was actually listening to ’90s music.

dialogue. Originally with “Agatha All Along,” we were talking about calling it “That’s So Agatha.”

Then we came up with “Agatha All Along,” which is a better way of coming to that reveal for Agatha as this presence who’s been there from the beginning, working her own agenda. Then Kristen was like, “OK, so what has she been doing all along?” And that led to spontaneous things where all of a sudden on set you have Kathryn doing magic and controlling Evan Peters. So it was a joy of finding it organically.

Which lyrics for each of you were a favorite or standout?

LOPEZ We had written a line at the

end of the Brady Bunch-style one [“We Got Something Cooking”] — “One plus one is three,” which made you think, “They’re going to have a baby.” But really it ends up being more as it’s going to be twins. Then the note came back: “Can you change that ending?

Because it’s not three and we don’t want to be confusing.” So Kristen came up with, “One plus one is family.”

Kathryn Hahn in Disney+’s WandaVision, which takes inspiration from classic TV. “It was the perfect job because I can sing absolutely any TV theme song or commercial jingle from my childhood,” says Kristen AndersonLopez.

Was a style of music considered but not ultimately used?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ With “Agatha

All Along,” we were going to do a “That Girl” idea. And I was like, “I don’t think it’s dark enough.”

I woke up one morning and thought, we need to lean into the goth and Addams Family and The Munsters because Agatha has some grit to her.

Given your deep dive into this subject, which TV show has your favorite theme song of all time?

SHAKMAN The Greatest

American Hero.

ANDERSON-LOPEZ I really love The

Facts of Life. Punky Brewster was great. Silver Spoons. And Cheers, of course.

LOPEZ And Friends.

There’s been a trend of moving away from having full opening credit sequences with an accompanying theme song. Now it’s often just a short refrain and a title card. How do you feel about that?

ANDERSON-LOPEZ I’m sad about it

as a songwriter. I think that a lot of great songwriters had a chance to build careers based on getting their songs in front of shows and also supplement with some experimental things in their own art with the income from writing one of these songs. I think it’s a wonderful way to pull people into the world: You’ve been out in the real world, you’ve been on your phone, come enter here, this is the lobby of the building you’re about to live in for a little while … (begins humming the theme song to Game of Thrones).

Interview edited for length and clarity.

THE

DIALOGUE

Mandy Moore

Shasta Spahn

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’s Emmy-winning choreographer Mandy Moore and DP Shasta Spahn, who collaborated on song-and-dance moves over two seasons, reveal how they protect the show’s look and charm: ‘You have to feel it and know it’ By Rebecca Ford

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t the core of NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist are the “heart songs,” which reveal a character’s inner emotions — and can be seen and heard only by Zoey (Jane Levy). For two seasons, these ambitious musical performances have been brought to life by the actors under the guidance of a tireless team that includes choreographer Mandy Moore and DP Shasta Spahn, who have collaborated on more than 130 numbers together.

The series, which shoots in Vancouver, has a warp-speed production schedule, requiring Moore and Spahn to work closely together in a unique dynamic with creator Austin Winsberg. The pair, who also each directed an episode in the second season, became so close that they even quarantined together during the pandemic. Recently, they hopped on the phone to speak with THR about how they work

together to protect the show’s look and feel, what they do when a director isn’t getting it, and the valuable lessons they’ve learned from each other over two seasons and 25 episodes.

When you first signed on to the show, what did you see as being the biggest challenge?

them, because you go from reality and to what would be, in simplest terms, a fantasy, and then you have to come right back out. Shasta and I had many a conversation with directors and with Austin about how to do that, because it’s really hard to just explain to somebody coming in. You have to feel it and know it.

SHASTA SPAHN For me, it was always the heart

songs — to do them with the right intent. That was hard because every director had a different vision for what that was. So I think Austin, Mandy and I really tried to keep that together.

What about you, Mandy?

MANDY MOORE I would 100 percent agree. I think the volume of creation when it came to choreography for my department was definitely difficult, but I knew that going in. But we talked a lot about the nuancing of how we get into these heart songs and how we get out of

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So how would you work with a director who you felt wasn’t really understanding how to make the heart songs work?

SPAHN As a DP, it’s really challenging because

you have to protect the show, but with grace.

You also have to say yes to the director. Every director has a different vision and a different ego, right? I feel like television directors are the most inconsistent in hiring. You’ll do a show and they’ll hire a director that has never done dance or comedy — they only come from

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MOORE: AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY IMAGES FOR LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL MAGAZINE. SPAHN: SERGEI BACHLAKOV/NBC. PLAYLIST: SERGEI BACHLAKOV/NBC/LIONSGATE.

How to Make 130 Musical Numbers

action. And it doesn’t mean they can’t do it, but there’s a learning curve. I had a great director who we loved, but he’s like, “Put the camera on the floor. I want this wide-angle shot.” Which is not the look of our show because we never do a music video look, but I listened and I was like, “OK, I’ll do it.” And then the showrunner, Austin, came up to me and he’s like, “That’s not the look of our show.” I’m like, “I know, but you don’t have to put it in the edit.” So sometimes you have to just appease the directors. You also just have to make sure you get the footage that’s really going to edit and work with the look and the style of the show.

MOORE Dance is tough — especially if you don’t know dance and you haven’t spent time around dance and maybe don’t understand how it’s created and the best way to shoot it.

On our show, we use dance as a vehicle for storytelling, so those were tough conversations sometimes with some directors. If you don’t know about dance, it’s hard to talk about dance in layman’s terms.

How do you work together? Do you sit down with the scripts and go over your vision?

MOORE So you would think that it would be

Jane Levy (center) stars in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which earned Moore an Emmy for outstanding choreography in 2020.

Shasta’s episode was right after we got out of quarantine. And, if I remember correctly, Shasta, we both looked at each other before we left for holiday break and I was like, “OK, let’s quarantine together because then we’ll get some real time together.” Shasta found this amazing home in Squamish that was up in the mountains and the trees. Every day waking up, you’d just be like, “How are we living here?”

And then we get to just talk about the show, create. We cooked a lot and hung out a lot and drank some wine and researched shows. Oh my gosh, we would watch all these shows and talk about why we liked things and why we didn’t, and it was really a special time.

that beautiful in the creation process, but no.

(Laughs.) I feel like through the whole process With such complicated musical numbers in Shasta and I became really dear friends as well every episode and an intense production schedas collaborators. The television workflow is ule, how do you work best with the actors? so hectic, and Shasta was in prep at the same MOORE Well, I get the lovely task of coaching time she was shooting, so there’d be times them through something that none of them where I just text her on lunch or I’d pass by have grown up doing, and it is one of the most during one of the numbers and be like, “I’m beautiful experiences of my life. From day one, going to send you a video. Let me know what we set a standard: “You’re going to come to you think.” Or we’d meet up on a Saturday. rehearsal, you’re going to love it, you’re going to trust us, and we’re going to make magic.”

SPAHN Mandy’s team worked from mornAnd I have to say, short of maybe a couple of ing until late night, through lunches, never times where they get cranky because they’re stopping because they were always a couple tired, they are really beautiful humans and of episodes ahead, and then trying to deal they love coming to dance. with the current episode. So a lot of times I appreciate that and I take that very seriwe would have meetings before a shooting ously because none of them call. We’d have meetings at are dancers and they’re lunch, meetings after wrap, putting themselves out there Saturday and Sunday meetin a way that is not someings. We always did great RÉSUMÉS thing they’re comfortable when we had more time to Mandy Moore with at all — so I get to see prep, but you just had to roll Dancing With the Stars all their neuroses and their with it. It was like no project (2015-2017) insecurities. To see them I’ve ever done before. You just La La Land (2016) evolve from, “I don’t know if I don’t ever stop.

So You Think You Can Dance can do this,” to, “I’m shoot(2010-17) ing this in a one-take and After COVID-19 hit, you two Shasta Spahn it’s going to be on national quarantined together in American Horror Stories (2021) television,” is really a special Vancouver before you could Kidding (2018) process. Shasta, you spend go back into production. What Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2018) 14 hours a day on set with was that like? these people, so that’s also a MOORE So Shasta and I got different experience. called up to direct, and

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SPAHN Yeah, it’s so different. In terms of dance

and singing, I think they did such a good job. I know probably technically Mandy could watch them and say, “That works, that didn’t work.”

But I would watch the performances and just think, “Wow, they’re so good.” I definitely felt growth in a lot of the actors. They really cared and tried so hard. The actors are all so different, so you learn how to communicate with them. I had a different dialogue for each actor and a different way I would speak to them just in terms of what the camera was doing. They were a lovely cast to work with and we had a lot of fun on the set, which I think is really important to do, while still executing at a high level.

What’s one thing you’d say you’ve learned from each other over these two seasons?

SPAHN I learned so much from Mandy — I feel

like I’ve learned a lot about dance and movement and bodies and how you want to see that and how you should film that, because I hadn’t shot dance before Zoey. I also learned a lot about prep, time management, being efficient and on a schedule like this one and still trying to execute at a super high level. And politics.

Mandy is also one of our producers and dealt with so many things on so many different levels with total incredible articulation and grace and humor, but could be firm. I learned a lot on the show — I learned everything.

MOORE I’m going to cry, oh geez. What did I not learn from Shasta? First of all, just seeing her lead a department as a strong woman who always carried herself with elegance and grace, and was kind to people — but also just a badass. I don’t know if I have ever said that to you, Shasta, but I remember when you had been putting together your pitch deck for the show to get hired and our producer at the time had shared it with me, and I just remember thinking, “Whose voice is this? This is so beautiful.” Seeing you every day on set, just doing your thing, everyone just loved you. I am forever grateful, and I just can’t wait to work together again.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

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Emily in Paris Netflix

The Flight Attendant HBO Max

Reuniting with Sex and the City creator Darren Star for Netflix’s Emily in Paris, Patricia Field continues to influence the way people dress while endearing viewers to the eponymous ingenue (Lily Collins). Working with Paris-based Marylin Fitoussi for on-theground authenticity, two-time Emmy winner Field uses her trés chic and never-ringarde approach to show the young marketing executive dressing for the high-powered job she wants. “Emily’s optimism and individual coordination shine through her wardrobe, as she is on a mission to show her boss that she can gain back a client for the company,” says Field via email from Paris, where the show is shooting season two.

As Emily lines up alongside established French influencers to be dismissed by a snooty Parisian, she wears a bold green and multipocketed Chanel Resort 2020 jacket with graphic Christian Louboutin booties and a melange of playful plaids: a vintage crop top, a Brandy Melville miniskirt and a Kangol bucket hat that caused a spike in online searches. “My inspirations were as usual: a mixed combination of patterns, resources and my personal applications,” explains Field. But, “the main challenge was reapplying the Chanel aesthetic to Emily’s aesthetic.” So Field transformed the stately jacket into a fresh if not audacious message, like Emily’s ultimately successful pitch.

“I thought, ‘‘ ‘Great! Let’s make it oversized Chanel.’ ”

Inspired by the romance and magic of a glittering Bangkok, Cassie’s (Kaley Cuoco) champagne sequin dress, which was worn for her fateful date with first-class passenger Alex (Michiel Huisman), appropriately kicks off the rousing HBO Max whodunit. “That was part of the departure point,” says Catherine Marie Thomas, punning on a call. But, like Alex, the show’s ensuing mystery and the self-destructive flight attendant herself, the sparkly dress turns out to be more than meets the eye.

The silhouette aligns with the design of the Imperial Atlantic uniform, which writer-showrunner Steve Yockey scripted as a Diane von Furstenberg wrap-style dress. “Cassie seems like she’s always keeping it so together in the way she looks, and then her world is unraveling around her,” explains Thomas of the show’s repeated imagery of “overlapping and crossing.”

Thomas custom designed multiple iterations of the lace-trimmed, fabric button-embellished and latte-hued underlying slip, which allows for Cassie’s physicality throughout the long and winding sexy evening, her discovery of Alex’s body and her frantic evidence disposal. “The whole show has a little bit of this noir vibe. I liked that the silk charmeuse slip harkens back to the ’30s,” says the Emmy nominee for 2009’s Grey Gardens. “It just really worked for the tone of the pilot.”

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EMILY: CAROLE BETHUEL/NETFLIX. FLIGHT: COURTESY OF HBO MAX. DESTROY, UNDOING: COURTESY OF HBO.

‘ LET’S MAKE IT OVERSIZED CHANEL’

The costume designers from four of TV’s hottest shows expertly interpreted conversation(and trend-) starting fashion to portray compelling protagonists

By Fawnia Soo Hoo

fter a FOMO-filled pandemic year, viewers are understandably drawn to aspirational style to further immerse themselves in the worlds of dynamic characters and stories, from Michaela Coel’s critically acclaimed

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exploration of sexual assault and consent in I May Destroy You to an ambitious, wideeyed American abroad in Emily in Paris, to twisty thrillers revolving around enigmatic New Yorkers in The Flight Attendant and The Undoing. Deft costume design infused

with fashion also supports a growing landscape of stories spotlighting complex female protagonists while building suspense for enthralling mysteries, journeys of self-discovery, or both — as four costume designers discuss below.

I May Destroy You HBO

The Undoing HBO

To depict a Halloween “dark angel,” as scripted by the HBO limited series’ creator and star Michaela Coel, costume designer Lynsey Moore continued her distinct mix of ’90s-referential high street and vintage that an impossibly cool but budget-strapped East London author turned influencer would wear. Arabella (Coel) reaches a crucial turning point that is illustrated through her costume, which is rich with dichotomous symbolism. “It was straddling something that looks amazing — and is this iconic silhouette — but at the same time: Is it believable that it’s somebody in the real world and not off the catwalk?” explains London-based Moore.

To “signify power,” Coel suggested an imposing headpiece, so Moore custom built devilish horns by sculpting paper and wire, covering them with a leather-like fabric and engineering the towering set onto a headband. “She’s charging at people, she’s taking people down,” says Moore. “But it’s misguided. She thinks she’s doing good, but she’s not.”

Moore found angel wings, which flap with a pull string, at a party store. Amid crowds, Arabella expands the wings to capture social media content, offering another allegory. “It’s about presenting to the world an image that you want them to see, and perhaps it’s not necessarily true,” says Moore. “That’s her mind-set: ‘I should be looking like this at this moment because the world needs to see me as this powerful figure.’ ”

To authentically capture the personalities of the one-percenter Upper East Side in HBO’s thriller, Denmark-based Signe Sejlund immersed herself in the rarefied enclave. “I got in touch with a lot of these ladies, and I had tea with them,” she says. To characterize Nicole Kidman’s Grace, Sejlund accented the old-money scion with luxurious yet restrained logo-free accessories and contrasted fabrics. “I always tried to put one shiny, silky, smooth and sensual piece with one piece that was more structured and solid,” notes Sejlund. “Grace is a smart and grounded person, but she’s also fragile, vulnerable and very sensual.”

Grace’s protective and vividly textured green coat inspired countless memes. “That green fabric has so many colors in itself,” says Sejlund, who custom designed the piece with a mysterious hood to evoke a children’s fairy tale. “This Little Green Riding Hood. She never put the hood up, but we could have done it.”

The shearling-like velvet was originally intended as a panel on another design, but an inspired Sejlund decided, “ ‘Hey, let’s just go all the way in.’ I’m not afraid to be quite bold in my choices.”

Working with the fabric proved a struggle but worthwhile — provoking more discourse than the demise of the mysterious Elena Alves.

“That world is really up my alley,” says Sejlund. “Fashion and, at the same time, classic and just good taste. So I felt very at home in doing The Undoing.”

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THE GREAT ’80S IN HAIR AND MAKEUP

The artisans behind these shows used some of the decade’s most outlandish fashions without turning them into cartoons

By Katie Campione

Snowfall FX When re-creating the style of South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s for FX’s Snowfall, Andrea Jackson and Debra Denson had to look no further than their own yearbooks for inspiration.

“Andrea, myself and [co-creator] John Singleton were all raised in South Central L.A. during that time. So, it was a little easy for me on this one because I lived this,” Denson, who led the makeup department, tells THR. While the decade may be remembered most for big hair and bright colors, that wasn’t the right style for the story they were telling. “It’s not a big glam show,” Denson says.

Details such as designs of tattoos, locations of piercings, length of acrylic nails and the size of a character’s Afro had to be precise to not only the time period, but also the region. The women printed out photos from their own pasts to give their teams an idea of the styles that would be appropriate for each character.

“I’d hand them pictures … and they’d follow it, and we’d bring the character to life like that,” Jackson says. “It’s easy to make it come to life when it’s your era.”

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SNOWFALL IDRIS: PRASHANT GUPTA/FX. SNOWFALL HYATT: RAY MICKSHAW/FX. ROCK: MARK TAYLOR/NBC. DIRTY: ISABELLA VOSMIKOVA/USA NETWORK (2).

Above, from left: Damson Idris as Franklin Saint, Angela Lewis as Aunt Louie and Amin Joseph as Jerome Saint. Below: Michael Hyatt as Cissy Saint.

Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story USA While Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story is based on true events behind the infamous 1989 murder of Dan Broderick, hair and makeup department heads De’Ann Power and Michelle Radow got ideas from more places than just the characters’ real-life counterparts. Game shows, talk shows and print advertisements all served as inspiration for the show’s styles.

“I would just watch them over and over and take screen grabs and just study real people from that time period,” Radow says of shows including Press Your Luck, The Price Is Right and The Newlywed Game.

The makeup artist even pinned a photo of one audience member from The Oprah Winfrey Show above her workstation to serve as a constant reminder of the look she was going for. “I would look at it every day because to me it just is the 1980s,” she tells THR. In order to tell the story accurately, Power says she and her hair stylists had to plot out a timeline for each character to understand how the time period and their individual journeys intertwined to create their unique style.

“One of the challenges early on was to get the timeline in order, and to visualize that,” she explains.

Then they pinpointed scenes where they could “bring a lot of license” to the looks. “A lot of ’80s sparkles were in those scenes.”

From left: Amanda Peet as Betty Broderick; Lena Georgas as Janet with Peet in “Scream Therapy.”

Young Rock NBC “Dwayne Johnson and I are both the same vintage,” Young Rock hair and makeup lead Katherine Brown jokes. “So we pretty much have the same ’80s experience.”

For that reason, working with the retired athlete to tell his life story allowed the pair to dig up old memories and photographs “and just have a little bit of a giggle” about them. Since Brown grew up in Australia and her experience of the decade was likely “slightly different,” she says she relied heavily on the references Johnson provided for that time period.

But while they were traveling back in time on set, the present created the most challenges for Brown and her stylists.

“Due to COVID, we didn’t have a lot of run-up time with some of the performers,” she explains, adding that she had to rely on other departments for help. They even asked the casting department to snag the actors who already had some of the hairstyles they were looking for, such as longer hair for men and women with curly locks.

“We basically just had to say, ‘Look, we don’t have loads of time with extras. Can you just make sure they don’t have these things?’ ” Brown adds. “So we gave them a list of all the modern sort of things that, you know, we definitely didn’t see in that sort of mid-’80s [time period].”

Bradley Constant as Dwayne Johnson with Lexie Duncan as Karen in “On the Road Again.”

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360°

RINGING IN THE NEW SAVED BY THE BELL What does it take to not only bring back a beloved ’80s sitcom, but also reinvent it for a new generation?

The creator, crew and cast behind Peacock’s fresh take on Bayside High reveal how the series pays homage to (and pokes a little fun at) the original while exploring modern issues BY CARITA RIZZO

THE SHOWRUNNER

‘EXACTLY THE KIND OF WEIRD THE SHOW WANTS TO BE’ Tracey Wigfield could have relaunched the sitcom by following its original teen characters as adults, but a fresh young cast and edgier comedy made it something more interesting Wigfield’s idea involved getting the original crew on board with poking fun at their iconic characters, a proposition that initially made her nervous. “I have a fifth grader inside of me, who’s in love with Zack Morris and Slater, so for me, it was like, ‘I hope they like me and this weird idea I have,’ ” she says. “There was definitely

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a fear of, ‘What if none of them have a sense of humor?’ But they all got it right away and were excited to come back and be these characters again.”

At modern-day Bayside High, the hallways look like time stood still, but within those corridors is a whole new world. Edgier, far more self-aware and single-cam,

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the latest outing at this fictitious school delivers those muchanticipated check-ins — Zack and Kelly are still married!

Jessie still can’t touch caffeine!

Slater teaches gym and is still in love with Jessie, natch! — but it also introduces viewers to a whole new set of characters who weren’t even alive when posters of

BTS, STILL: CHRIS HASTON/PEACOCK. KEYART: TRAE PATTON/PEACOCK. HASKINS: ALICE S. HALL/NBCU PHOTO BANK.

f you were a child of the ’80s, you more than likely spent your Saturday mornings obsessed with the intrigues of Bayside High. Saved by the Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993, seemed to transcend screens, fostering a generation of fans who loyally trailed Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Kelly (Tiffani Thiessen), Slater (Mario Lopez), Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley Lauren), Screech (Dustin Diamond) and Lisa (Lark Voorhies) from high school to college, a wacky vacation in Hawaii and that long-awaited wedding in Las Vegas.

One of those Bayside superfans was Emmy-winning 30 Rock writer Tracey Wigfield. “I have a crazy amount of fondness and nostalgia for Saved by the Bell, and I know I’m not alone,” she says. “It was a funny and kind of weird, sanitized and cartoony version of what high school is, but it really struck a chord in my generation.”

In reimagining the property for Peacock three decades after its original run, Wigfield knew she could take the loyal followers of the sitcom through the motions of some later-in-life shenanigans of the old gang — she just didn’t want to. “Reboots are obviously not a new idea, and taking a show that people loved and just making more of it didn’t seem like such a novel or, honestly, exciting concept for me,” says Wigfield. “The thing that I had never seen done before, and what seemed really exciting was: Can you take this multicam teen sitcom that we all remember and turn it into a completely different genre of comedy?”

From left: Tracey Wigfield (in black) on the set of the Saved by the Bell pilot episode; the new series stars Mitchell Hoog (in striped shirt) as Mac Morris, Josie Totah as Lexi, Alycia Pascual-Pena as Aisha, Haskiri Velazquez as Daisy; original stars Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Mario Lopez, Tiffani Thiessen and Mark-Paul Gosselaar return for the show.

their senior castmates lined the walls of tween rooms across the United States.

To really evoke a sense of the original, Wigfield populated Bayside High with characters who suffered from some of the — let’s be honest — tone-deafness of Zack and the gang. “I wanted to make Bayside a real place that existed in 2021, but you still had characters that acted like the characters in the original show, kind of thoughtless, a little privileged. Kids who get into high jinks, but their high school experience really doesn’t go any deeper than pranking their principal and their actions don’t have any real consequences,” says Wigfield.

The real transformation to this beloved property was juxtaposing the Bayside kids with a crop of students, who, thanks to Zack Morris’ poor budgeting and leadership skills as the governor of California, end up attending Bayside High when their own school is shuttered. “What happens if you take kids whose lives do have consequences, whose day-to-day is a little scarier for a bunch of different reasons, and what if they came into this environment and are like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ ” Wigfield

says. “It’s a comedically fruitful premise, but also, in L.A. right now, schools are very segregated and it felt like it was an interesting conversation to have.”

The biggest challenge, says Wigfield, became nailing the tone of a comedy that not only delivers on the nostalgia front but also tackles social injustice and gets the laughs. “Making sure that everything we were saying, we

were saying exactly right and not falling into weird stereotypes was tricky,” says Wigfield. “I think it was hard, even for me, to exactly pinpoint what tone I wanted.”

By the third episode — in which the A-story deals with a student from the underfunded school being accused of stealing electronic equipment, and the B-story tackles two Bayside boys pursuing the same girl without

THE INSPIRATION

THE SAVED BY THE BELL UNIVERSE

being able to figure out that they like the same person — Wigfield was confident that Saved by the Bell 2.0 had found its footing. “It felt like this is exactly the note we want to hit, with the simplicity of stories on the old show rubbing up against heavier, real high school stories,” she says. “It feels kind of weird, but maybe that’s exactly the weird that the show wants to be.”

NOVELS 21 novels were published by Boxtree Ltd. from 1992 to 1996. All were written

by Beth Cruise.

SPINOFFS Saved by the Bell: The College Years (1993-1994) and Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993-2000)

COMIC BOOKS In 1992, Harvey Comics published a seven-issue Saved by the Bell comic series. In 2014, Roar Comics launched a new series.

THE MUSICAL

TV MOVIES Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style (1992) and Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas (1994)

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THE ORIGINAL The original series ran Aug. 20, 1989, to May 22, 1993.

It was based on the Disney Channel series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which aired 1988 to 1989.

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Bayside! The Musical!, written and directed by Bob and Tobly McSmith, opened at NYC’s Theatre 80 in 2013.

BAYSIDE HIGH From the very beginning, production designer Joseph Lucky knew he was performing an upgrade to the school. “That hallway and staircase that you see in every opening scene of the original, and the red lockers and orange classroom doors, I maintained throughout the new design,” he says. “We also kept Belding’s office very much the same for Principal Toddman, with some of the same furniture elements. It felt like it was such an original, nostalgic part of the original series, and funny in he might be [like], ‘Hey, how come I never got upgraded?’

“A lot of the banners I recreated from the original series,” Lucky continues. “They’re all hand-painted on butcher paper because it kind of feels like high schools would do that.

We had guys painting those banners for weeks.”

Lucky says that the original series’ design was inconsistent, and so he created a color scheme for the school. “The Bayside logo is sort of that burgundy color, and that became a jumping-off point: We’ll go with red lockers and orange doors, and that brings some of the original look into the new look.”

Lucky was also tasked with adding scope. “I always want them to be able to do multiple scenes and multiple walk-and-talks,” he explains. “You can walk that school forever and never hit a wall. And the sight lines are never-ending. I kind of pride myself on that.” The stairs also go up to another level.

“There isn’t much depth beyond there, but there is definitely room for expansion if we wanted to play.”

THE PRODUCTION DESIGN

BAYSIDE HIGH GETS AN EXPANSION Production designer Joseph Lucky did not have access to Ken Johnson’s original designs, which meant he had to familiarize himself with the world of the original in order to bring Bayside and hangout The Max into the new millennium

THE MAX “My biggest challenge was keeping the entryway, the booths and the proscenium identical, to keep the integrity of the original series, and trying to figure out what the rest of it would look like to blend in,” Lucky says of the iconic hangout spot for Bayside’s students. “The Max is based on a Memphis design from the ’80s, which is based on a postmodern design movement.

I pulled inspiration from pop art periods and the art deco age, and I wanted to maintain the bold shapes and colors.”

Diehard fans of the original will no doubt recognize much of The Max in the reboot. “There’s a lot of the little details that make The Max complete: Some of those cutout shapes you see on the walls, the counter that the waitress would work off also has an interesting

design,” Lucky says. “The big trusses, throughout The Max, that were in the original, I tried to duplicate. Even the menu boards …

I think every part of The Max has a design element to it. That was the most fun about that set.”

Lucky admits he didn’t feel too limited in his design task, which required those nostalgic elements while also making it clear that this Max exists in our present day. “I think things blend into the original design, while still giving it a very fresh, modern and relevant look for the expansion that we created,” he says. “Even though I had to inherit a look, it was just a very small part of what I had to do. I accepted the original designs, knowing that what I was going to do after that was to become much bigger than what there was.”

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360° Totah (right) says her character Lexi’s gender identity brings a unique and fresh perspective to the popular-girl trope.

story. So, although it was important to us to recognize her gender identity, I didn’t want her entire storyline to be about that. I was very frank with Tracey. I was in the middle of my sophomore year in college, and in order for me to leave school it had to be a project that felt really right. The character needed to be authentically represented, and in order for that to be true, I would have to serve a bigger role.

THE RISING STAR

TELLING ‘THE MOST AUTHENTIC STORY’ Josie Totah brings a surprising depth to the trans character of Lexi, making this Saved by the Bell less of a cartoon and more like the world we live in

A

HIGGINS: CASEY DURKIN/PEACOCK. VELAZQUEZ, DARDEN: TYLER GOLDEN/PEACOCK. TOTAH: ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/WIREIMAGE.

s Lexi Haddad-DeFabrizio, Josie Totah rules the school.

Lexi is the most popular girl at Bayside High, and her take-no-prisoners wit means she often delivers the kind of biting punchlines that make or break a comedy. Aside from being assertive, beautiful and hilarious, Lexi is also trans. Here Totah, who also serves as an executive producer on the show, discusses the genesis of her groundbreaking role.

What were the early conversations about Lexi’s character like?

Tracey [Wigfield, the show’s cocreator] had these dreams of an aspirational character who was [like Mean Girls’] Regina George, but with a really authentic and unique past. I think her being trans, and her having this very unique experience, really gives weight to this trope in a way that you haven’t seen before. Seeing her meanness being rooted in her fear of vulnerability, and her fear of self-acceptance, makes the character more three-dimensional and more interesting.

Did you have conversations about not making Lexi’s a transition story?

She’s a character that has depth — but she’s still a Bayside kid.

One of the best parts about our show is that we’re able to touch on

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class. Having this clash of culture and class is really interesting when it comes to talking about people who are from marginalized communities. Lexi is a trans person, but she has been afforded this insane socioeconomic status where she hasn’t had to face a lot of the things that other people from different communities have to face. In some ways she can relate to being marginalized and patterns of oppression, but in other ways her privilege, and her passing privilege and gender identity, make it so she doesn’t have to deal with all that.

We had multiple conversations about this role. I didn’t really feel inclined to play a trans character that had her story told on the reboot of a fun ’90s sitcom. I didn’t feel like it would be an authentic platform to tell that sort of

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The first season features a scene where a brewing love triangle culminates in a kiss. How did you feel about that storyline?

I think we never get to see ourselves in those positions. Trans characters [are] always the best friend or the wingman, or the butt of every joke, so normalizing that is so important. I have to deal with my own qualms about that.

As a person who is trans, I think I wasn’t fully, and I’m still not … I think we’re all not fully accepting of ourselves a hundred percent until we are literally dead. But I had to come to terms with the fact that, “Oh, this is normal for me, too.”

What has the reception to your character been like?

It’s been amazing, hearing from people in my community that they feel seen onscreen.

One of my best friends called me, literally crying, and was like, “I never thought I would see myself in that type of role.” That is all that I would do it for.

It just made it feel so fulfilling. But also, our show is really fricking funny. I think hearing from the alt-comedy group, the Bowen Yangs of the world, made me so happy, because those are the people that I look up to.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

C R E AT I V E A R T S PRODUCTION DESIGN

Antebellum America on TV

DICKINSON

In the second season of the Apple TV+ series, Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) and her family go to the opera in Boston to see La Traviata. “It’s an important episode because Emily conflates the character Violetta with [best friend, sister-in-law and romantic interest] Sue. That became a big production design idea,” explains production designer Neil Patel.

“Sue’s set [her parlor at the Evergreens] echoes Violetta’s parlor in La Traviata.”

The ornate set was built in the lobby of Loew’s Jersey Theatre, a movie palace-style theater in Jersey City that opened in 1929. “It

was a real challenge to find this,” says Patel, who adds that they needed a location that resembled a 19th century opera house, with a horseshoe shape and the ability to build boxes with the appropriate eye lines — because “the ‘action’ is the boxes.” They also constructed the stage, replaced the orchestra floor and populated the space with seating. Patel notes that he gave the European-influenced look of the theater a rich color scheme with burgundy, gold and champagne tones while the set for La Traviata leaned on the palette of the set for the Dickinson house the Evergreens, which is greens, blues, antique gold and wood tones. He

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also placed a mural in the orchestra section of the space, to cover a window.

The backstage area was inspired by Paris’ Opéra Garnier. Notes Patel, “Lots of backstages are kind of boring, quite frankly, so I wanted to create something that was more of a fantasy and how Emily would see it, because she is so enraptured by this experience."

THE GOOD LORD BIRD

The set for Pikesville (a fictional slave-trading town in Missouri) in Showtime’s limited series The Good Lord Bird — following eccentric abolitionist leader John Brown (Ethan

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DICKINSON: MICHAEL PARMELEE/APPLE TV+. UNDERGROUND: ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA/AMAZON. GOOD: COURTESY OF SHOWTIME.

TH E PRO D U CTI O N D E S I G N TE AM S B E H I N D D I C KI N SO N, TH E G O O D LO R D B I R D A N D TH E U N D E R G R O U N D RAI LR OAD R E V E A L H OW TH EY B U I LT AM B ITIO US R E PLICAS O F TH E SO UTH I N TH E 1800S B y C a r o l y n G i a r d i n a

Hawke) — was constructed outside Richmond, Virginia, using some remaining parts of a set from Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

“We didn’t track historical accuracy as much as we tracked the story needs. The story needs in Pikesville in particular were really specific,” explains production designer John Blackie. “They had a slave pen behind the Pikesville Hotel and there was to be a hanging.

The position of the hotel and the windows and sight lines from the hotel to the slave pen and gallows were really important.”

Five new buildings, including the hotel, were constructed, and other structures were moved or restructured. “We tried to make [the hotel] fit in with the other buildings that were there, which were early Colonial. But we wanted to bring it up a little,” says Blackie.

“We used rough materials wherever we could and added small flourishes — like a tin ceiling — just to give it a bit more life and color.”

And the gardens that were planted behind some of the structures even resulted in a sweet surprise. Says Blackie, “We actually got watermelon before we started to shoot.”

TH E U N DE RG ROU N D RAI LROAD

For production designer Mark Friedberg, the slave quarters were the most challenging aspect of his work on Barry Jenkins’ 10-part Amazon limited series, which is set in the antebellum South during the 1800s.

Meticulous research included combing

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2

through period photos and visiting slave cabins in Georgia and other states.

In the end, they picked a location near Savannah in Myrtle Grove, Georgia, that was once a plantation. “I designed the cabins to weave in and out of the 150-year-old live oak trees, which might have been standing when this story was set, and gave these homes the refuge of cool shade,” Friedberg says.

“The cabins were laid out in a ‘V’ formation radiating out from one central cabin, Jockey the elder’s cabin. It was also the site of the biggest, oldest tree, which presented the impression that the tree had arms, which were embracing all the cabins,” he adds. In the quarter, they also built elements including a cookhouse, a smokehouse, a smithy, animal pens and a cane press.

Friedberg adds that a critical part of the design was texture. “We milled our own rough-sawn wood, took down barns and used reclaimed wood and painted and then stripped entire cabins, all to find the right patina — the right level of worn and abused and beautiful and proud. The noble humans who worked at this place were also somehow able to maintain a level of collective dignity. They endured and went on to build this country. That is as much the point of the story as their mistreatment. We wanted our set to show both the poverty of resource and also the bounty of will, endurance, stamina and creativity.”

1 The Loew’s Jersey Theatre was transformed into an opera house for Dickinson.

2 For The Underground Railroad, the production design team built slave quarters in Myrtle Grove, Georgia.

3 The fictional town of Pikesville, Missouri, was built near Richmond, Virginia, for The Good Lord Bird.

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C R E AT I V E A R T S C I N E M AT O G R A P H Y

Creating Classic-Sitcom Camera Magic in WandaVision WITH I N F LU E N C E S F R O M TH E D I C K VAN DYKE S H OW TO TH E TWI LI G HT ZO N E, D I R E CTO R O F P H OTO G R A P H Y J E S S H A LL C R A F T E D A R A N G E O F P E R I O D LO O KS F O R TH E D I S N E Y+ M I N I S E R I E S B y C a r o l y n G i a r d i n a

T

1

With the desire to use the “vocabulary and period instruments” available at the time, Hall researched vintage lighting fixtures. “With my gaffer John Vecchio, we looked to the early Mole Richardson fixtures, and we found this [vintage] Softlite.

We’d go around various kinds of old studio warehouses and collect enough of these,” Hall says, noting that overhead rigs were built to suspend these fixtures over the

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set to create even, soft lighting.

Hall also used custom lenses, created with Panavision and its vice president of optical engineering, Dan Sasaki. “We started testing a bunch of early lenses from the ’30s, ’40s … but they were very fragile and there weren’t very many of them,” the DP relates. “We ended up starting from scratch and basically rebuilding new lenses to kind of evoke the look of old lenses.”

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The cinematographer also created a custom Look-Up Table (a sort of blueprint of how the color would be processed) that would allow him to monitor how the color images would look in blackand-white while shooting, and he adds that the final color grading stayed true to that intended look.

Each episode required this sort of care. Episode two (“Don’t Touch That Dial”) delivered a look inspired by series like Bewitched

WANDAVISION: MARVEL STUDIOS/DISNEY+ (3). HALL: COURTESY OF SUBJECT.

o prepare to shoot Disney+’s miniseries WandaVision — which follows Marvel characters Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) through a series of sitcom environments from various decades — British DP Jess Hall admits he watched a lot of classic television, even digging up film prints from the original negative of a couple series like Bewitched and having them projected.

In creating the nostalgia of these periods, Hall describes the look of WandaVision as a hybrid of very different looks, though also “something coherent because that’s one story.”

To do this, he chose to use one type of camera, ARRI’s Alexa LF (large format), to shoot the series and then “create the different looks by using other elements of the cinematography, a combination of lighting, color science, framing, all of that.”

Episode one, appropriately titled “Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience,” drew inspiration from The Dick Van Dyke Show (which initially aired from 1961 to 1966) and other period sitcoms that were lensed in black-and-white before a live audience. “We actually did, on that episode, shoot on a stage in front of an audience,” Hall explains, noting that he re-created the period-specific black-and-white, the 4:3 aspect ratio and even the approach to lighting. “I was looking at a lighting strategy that could really accommodate the actors. In that episode, there’s a lot of moving between the kitchen and the living room, the dining room, and because we’re doing it live, that all needed to happen in real time.”

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3

(1964-72). “Dick Van Dyke and series around the ’50s were shot on 5231 — a black-and-white Kodak film stock — which is kind of a low-contrast, softer kind of film stock, but they were moving into a high-contrast film stock in the ’60s, I think influenced a bit more by film lighting,” Hall says.

“Particularly I think of Elizabeth Montgomery, who was kind of quite fetishized in [Bewitched].

It looks amazing. I was thinking

about that in relation to Elizabeth Olsen’s lighting — looking at the vintage lighting, but a different kind of style of lighting.” He used a Big Eye 10K — “the main kind of lighting tool that I saw popping up in that period. So that’s what I used for my key light, but I kind of softened that with [period] diffusion because on the digital camera, it’s a little bit harsh.”

He notes that the nostalgia is disrupted in a couple of instances

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during this episode, such as the nighttime appearance of a beekeeper or when the ladies gather at the pool and a water glass shatters. “The camera starts to move a little bit and we go into a more cinematic mode. My influences were things like The Twilight Zone, the work of David Lynch.”

The looks continue to evolve with each period. For episode three (“Now in Color”), Hall devised an early color film look;

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1 WandaVision’s first episode, inspired by black-and-white classics like The Dick Van Dyke Show, was actually filmed before a live studio audience.

2 Later in the season, episodes employed a more contemporary, “familiar MCU” look.

3 For the series’ darker moments, DP Jess Hall found inspiration in The Twilight Zone and the films of David Lynch.

4 Hall (pictured) notes that WandaVision’s modern sequences give Marvel fans something they “could connect to.”

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later in the season he created a modern-day “familiar MCU” look, including through camera movement and framing. “We did actually modify the lenses to our specific requirements, but they’re similar to what was used on [Avengers: Endgame],” he says.

“I liked this idea that, in a way, even if it was subconscious, when you saw the modern footage, there was something that the fans could connect to, that felt familiar.”

C R E AT I V E A R T S EDITING

Building The Underground Railroad, One Edit at a Time BA R RY J E N K I N S ’ LO N GTI M E E D ITO R J O I M C M I LLO N R E V E A L S H OW S H E WOV E T H E T R AU M A A N D FA N TA SY E LE M E NTS I NTO A M A ZO N ’ S A DA PTATI O N O F C O L S O N W H ITE H E A D ’ S N OV E L

By Carolyn Giardina minimal. The sound design really shines.

And I think the edits are very careful because the performances were so nuanced. We never wanted to take away or detract from anything that these actors were giving us. It’s such a delicate episode. One of the reasons I really appreciate “Mabel” is that it talks about mental health, which is one of the things that I don’t think a lot of Black people are given the space to talk about. There’s a disconnect because we were kind of taught you just take on the weight of the world and just forge ahead. But you should, as a Black person, have the ability to seek out care for mental health, because you’re carrying a lot of weight of what it’s like to live in this country as a Black person.

How did you approach the 10-episode arc?

What was the most challenging episode to cut?

The thing we wanted to be sure of was translating how inventive the novel is to the screen.

Our approach was one episode at a time — what’s the tone of the episode, and how should it flow together so that when you step back and look at all 10 episodes as a whole, it makes sense? Even though chapter one (“Georgia”) and chapter 10 (“Mabel”) were the episodes that I worked on first, having the ability to go back and being informed of how the episodes were going to play out was really great. I think it was actually “Mabel” (which follows Cora’s mother) that set the stage of what the show was supposed to be, because the tone of that chapter is so specific.

[The ninth episode,] “Indiana Winter.” The challenging thing about that episode was to see something that a community has built up so beautifully, and then to see the destruction of it was so devastating. The challenging section was that [attack at the] church scene, and to convey that devastation. At first when I was tackling it, I was making quick cuts … kind

J

Editor Joi McMillon will next work with Barry Jenkins on his Lion King movie for Disney.

How so?

That was the episode that when it came together, Barry and I were like, “OK, this is what the show is.” In “Mabel,” the score is very

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of action-sequence editing. And I remember Barry watching it and being like, “Take your time.” Because if you’ve ever been in a car accident or if you’ve ever experienced something so traumatic, it does feel like time slows down.

And the thing that was so sad is these people are trapped in this church and they’re just so vulnerable. One of the things that’s so stressful are those silences between [the assailants] loading the shotguns. It was one of those sections where sound design and editing really emerged and merged together. We wanted to convey that to the audience and have you feel like you’re in that church.

Would you talk about telling the story through Cora’s range of emotions?

Thuso was outstanding. If she wasn’t believable and wasn’t actually grounding the audience in her point of view, the show just wouldn’t have worked. One of the things that she had the ability of doing is being so vulnerable one moment, and then so stubborn and strong at another moment. As an editor, I found it super helpful to be able to pull from these performances when crafting the moment of her finally letting her guard down and feeling comfortable and safe, and then the next scene on guard. There’s so much happening with her eyes. Throughout the series, we kept checking in with Cora, because that’s your throughline. And we wanted to make sure that, even though we made stops on the way where we were introduced to these other characters and learned a little backstory on them, that we did not miss a step with Cora.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

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UNDERGROUND: ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA/AMAZON. MCMILLON: DIA DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES.

oi McMillon — the first Black woman to earn an Oscar nomination in film editing (alongside fellow editor Nat Sanders for Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight) — recently reteamed with her Florida State classmate Jenkins for his powerful Amazon limited series The Underground Railroad, based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The 10-episode series follows Cora Randall, played by Thuso Mbedu, a slave who flees her Georgia plantation using an underground train system. McMillon, who led a team of editors that also included Alex O’Flinn and Daniel Morfesis, spoke to THR about her biggest challenges, exploring Black mental health, and using Cora as a throughline.

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EMMYS 2021 Q&A

‘I JUST RIP AND HAVE FUN WITH IT IN THE MOMENT’ Keke Palmer, who plays five characters on her Facebook Watch series, Turnt Up with the Taylors, opens up about her creative process as she balances many projects and roles BY CHRIS GARDNER

K

eke Palmer had a message for her friends and 10.5 million Instagram followers on May 25 about the content she’d been creating. “I’m so excited about presenting it all to you guys and I’m just trying to give it all of me so it can be as perfect as it needs to be,” she posted.

“Nothing brings me more joy than to entertain! Sometimes the ideas keep me up at night!”

Sleepless spells make sense after examining even just a fraction of what the 27-yearold actress, singer, author and producer has been cooking up.

Over the past year, she released back-to-back albums (Virgo Tendencies Part I and II), became the first Black woman to host the MTV Video Music Awards, starred in and executive produced the upcoming drama Alice, booked a lead role in Jordan Peele’s untitled new film and churned out TikTok clips for nearly 6 million followers on her main account and on Southern Belle Insults, a popular experiment showcasing Lady Miss Jacqueline, a character who serves up insults in fashionable ensembles.

Then there’s the Facebook Watch series Turnt Up with the Taylors, a satirical take on the reality genre about a family navigating the future of their Taylor Time reality show after daughter Chelsea “Barbie” Taylor (a character Palmer created on Instagram) decides to break free for solo fame. Palmer plays all five parts in addition to co-creating, co-writing and producing the eight-episode shortform comedy series, which she developed in partnership with production company Kids at Play and Facebook Watch after pitching

the idea. Palmer opened up to THR about how she came to inhabit all five parts, what she loves about producing and how she feels about working for Peele.

How did you dream up these characters?

I always am trying to dive into deeper topics with any of the stuff that I create, especially when it comes to comedy, because I feel it’s so awesome when the punchline is a bigger theme. For this character, Chelsea “Barbie” Taylor, what I like to say is, we have so many ideas of what a Black American is, what they should be like, what they should listen to — hip-hop, et cetera — and I thought, what if you have this character that lived her life as if she grew up in Beverly Hills?

What if she lived in a totally different culture than the one that is expected of her? That was the original formation of the character and how I found her voice and what she’s into. From there, I collaborated with Facebook to build it out and create a world where I also got to explore other characters. That was awesome because I love playing with and coming up with new characters.

What was the shoot like when you’re playing five characters?

I try to work pretty quickly. I feel that you don’t need to overbeat it — you just need to know what you’re trying to get before you go in. The hardest part, obviously, was changing into each character. The shoot happened very fast because I had very little time to do it because I was also filming [Good Morning America’s thirdhour show with Michael Strahan and Sarah Haines in 2020] in New

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Keke Palmer appeared in 2019’s Hustlers and hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in August.

York. I came back to L.A. to film [Turnt Up], so it was a bit crazy on the schedule. But once I get on set, I morph into the character I’m doing. I go into laser focus, do it to the best of my ability, and make sure to get whatever shots we need, and then I move on. I had Chelsea’s voice before I had anyone else’s — even before I knew what she looked like — and the rest of the characters just followed based on the narrative.

Slowly, as we were writing and getting it together, their voices started to come alive and become something on their own.

You wrote it with a creative partner, right?

Yeah, Max Wyeth. I met him

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when I was doing Scream Queens and he was doing social media stuff. He and I really hit it off and had a vibe. He saw that I really wasn’t exposed to [social media] on my own yet and he was always looking to produce, so I started doing a lady named Jacqueline that became Southern Belle Insults. From there, we became producing partners, and we continue to create content for social media and just have a lot of fun doing it.

Do you stick to the script or allow yourself to improvise?

I don’t always stick to the script.

When I’m acting in other people’s projects, I try to stick to the script out of respect unless I’m told to

out how to tap more into that, whether it’s for that particular project or another.

otherwise. For my own stuff, because it’s so alive in my mind, I come up with stuff on the spot all the time. I just rip and have fun with it in the moment.

What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic?

As a producer, has the process encouraged you to create more original content for yourself?

If you could describe your five characters with one word or a quick description, what would you say about Chelsea, Lil Thad, Miranda, Rick and Gammy Tay? Oh my gosh. I’ll start with Chelsea.

She is oblivious, ironically oblivious. Gammy Tay is hot under the collar. I would say Miranda is all goodness. Thad is a good time.

That’s the best way I can explain who he is. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, he’s just a good time.

And Rick is a loyal family man — he’s trustworthy.

I hate to ask because you created them all, but do you have a personal favorite?

Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it beyond belief. I can’t wait to do more of it. One of my favorite things to do is produce. I’m so happy with it. It’s also that much easier when it’s you because you know what you need to do and you can depend on yourself. But I would love to eventually get to the point when I can produce for other actors and I don’t have to be in the project. Just being a part of putting creative [content] together and [fostering] a big collaboration — that’s the best.

Where do you get this energy to keep creating these characters?

I love them all in their own way. I feel like it would be unfair not to say Chelsea because she was such a character that she helped to create a whole world. I’m going to give it to her, but if I had to pick a close second, it would be between Thad and Miranda.

Digital creators say they love the format because it allows for such a quick turnaround and you can almost engage with the audience in real time. How much did you take what you read in the comments section to heart?

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When I first started doing these characters, I started to realize how easy it was on these platforms to really get my work out.

You can give it directly to the audience and correspond with them. I love to create. I’m just so happy that it’s become something that I’m able to do as a job. I’m really, really thankful to have come up in the traditional way, but now we have this social media space where you can directly connect and put things out.

And when I saw the responses I was getting on Instagram, I was just so excited to get to do it on Facebook in a kind of bigger way. I was excited to see what [the audience] thought of how we developed everything out. I like to see them having fun and pick up on what they respond to.

I take notes, too, and try to figure

I think from when I was a kid.

I don’t think it’s something I’m even that aware of. Sometimes people make a joke on my team, like, “Oh my gosh, you always work, work, work and create characters for yourself.” I don’t know how to stop. I’m not even trying to turn it into anything, but I think just the repetition of growing up in the entertainment industry and seeing up close and personal how to put things on and how to do a production makes it seem a lot more accessible to me. So, when I do have an idea, why not shoot it?

I’m very grateful, obviously, for how young I was when I got into it because it makes me feel like all the ideas that I have are a lot less intense. Instead, it’s like, why not just do it?

That I don’t spend enough time alone and I need to spend more time alone. I don’t think I realized how much I need that because I’m always giving out so much energy without even knowing it.

It’s part of who I am, especially when I get around people, because I get excited and I have such a good time. But I realized that, hey, alone time is good for me. It makes me more creative. It makes me better. I realized that I want to put more emphasis on that.

You were cast in Jordan Peele’s new movie. I’m not going to try to get you to reveal the story or who you play, but instead I’ll ask this: How does it feel to be one of the actors who gets to play in his universe?

Oh my gosh — it’s freaking insane. I’m such a huge fan of Jordan. I got to work with him once when I was a teenager when he was doing Key & Peele. Then, obviously, when I saw Get Out, I was absolutely mind-blown to the umpteenth degree. I feel like I’ve been waiting 20 years for something like this. I say 20 years because that’s how long I’ve been in this business, and for him to be in this position to create something for me to be a part of, it’s amazing. This is the biggest film I’ve ever done. My past films have been amazing and had an impact, but none has been on this scale.

For [Jordan] to do what he’s done and to give me an opportunity to be a part of it, it’s amazing.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Palmer in character as Gammy Tay in Facebook Watch’s Turnt Up with the Taylors.

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Other Shortforms in Fine Form These 4 bite-size series (with episodes of 15 minutes or less) are vying for Emmy attention

DICKINSON: PARTY LIKE IT’S 1859 This behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the second season of Apple TV+’s hit includes revealing insights from creator Alena Smith, and is competing in the shortform animated category.

AUNTY DONNA’S BIG OL’ HOUSE OF FUN Netflix’s six-part sketch series, produced by Ed Helms, stars Australian comedy troupe Aunty Donna — Broden Kelly, Mark Samual Bonanno and Zachary Ruane — and features a slew of guest stars including Helms, Ronny Chieng, Jack Quaid and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

TOONING OUT THE NEWS Executive produced by Late Show host Stephen Colbert, this toon series features animated characters (led by an anchor named James Smartwood) parodying news stories and launched on Paramount+ in April 2020. A second season kicked off in March.

POSE: IDENTITY, FAMILY, COMMUNITY Submitted in the shortform reality or nonfiction category, this video series serves as a companion to the hit FX series Pose, which premiered its third and final season May 2.

91 Years of THR Memorable moments from a storied history

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Bob Mackie’s First Emmy Was a Trip to Wonderland The first Emmy ever awarded for costume design went to Bob Mackie and his late partner (creatively and, later, romantically), Ray Aghayan, for their fanciful designs on NBC’s 1966 TV movie Alice Through the Looking Glass.

They had been nominated a year prior for CBS’ Wonderful World of Burlesque II, which featured Lucille Ball in an elaborate butterfly costume. For some reason, the Emmys awarded no trophy in the category’s introductory year (then called “Individual Achievements in Art Direction and Allied Crafts — Costume Design”), but Looking Glass did win in 1967 (and was the only nominee). The production’s starry cast included the Smothers Brothers as Tweedledee and Tweedledum; Agnes Moorehead

and Nanette Fabray as the Red Queen and the White Queen, respectively; Ricardo Montalbán as the White King; Jack Palance as the Jabberwock and Jimmy Durante as Humpty Dumpty.

Mackie and Aghayan put Alice (Judi Rolin) in a sky-blue mod dress, in keeping with the street fashion of the era. Mackie got his start sketching at Paramount in the late ’50s. He was quickly assigned as assistant to Aghayan (Mackie was 21; Aghayan, 32) and his talent was noticed by the likes of Edith Head, working at Paramount at the time. It was Mackie’s collaboration with Mitzi Gaynor in 1966 — he created every costume for her residency at the Riviera in Las Vegas — that launched him as the go-to

designer for daring, eye-popping creations that could move easily.

Legendary partnerships with Cher, Ann-Margret, Diana Ross and Tina Turner followed. But he was equally skilled at visual gags and wearable comedy — as evidenced by his work on Looking

Glass and, later, on The Carol Burnett Show, where it was his idea to include a curtain rod in Scarlett O’Hara’s dress in a Gone With the Wind parody. Mackie has been nominated for 32 Emmys; he’s won nine competitive Emmys and one honorary. — SETH ABRAMOVITCH

The Hollywood Reporter, Vol. CDXXVII, No. 21A (ISSN 0018-3660; USPS 247-580) is published weekly; 40 issues — one issue in May and July; two issues in October; three issues in September and December; four issues in January, February, June, August and November; and five issues in March and April; plus 22 special issues: 5 in January; 1 in February; 2 in March; 1 in April; 7 in June and 6 in August — by The Hollywood Reporter, LLC, at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.

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EVERETT COLLECTION

From left: Robert Coote, Nanette Fabray, Agnes Moorehead and Ricardo Montalbán in Alice Through the Looking Glass. Inset: On Nov. 8, 2002, THR covered Bob Mackie’s TV Hall of Fame induction.

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