BEHIND THE SCENES

Darren Star

By Kristin Brzoznowski

Having created such hits as Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, Sex and the City and Younger, Darren Star has spent much of his TV career expounding on the nuances of the female psyche. Along the way, he has crafted a string of iconic characters and touched on universal themes such as sexuality, self-worth and ageism. His latest series, the dramedy Emily in Paris, tackles the expat experience of a twentysomething American woman from the Midwest who takes a job at a prestigious marketing firm in the French capital city. Star talks to World Screen about the vibrancy of Paris as a backdrop and the brilliance of Lily Collins as the eponymous Emily in the new Paramount Network series.

WS: How did Emily in Paris come about? STAR: I’ve been playing with this idea in my head for a long time. I’ve always been a big fan of France, and Paris in particular. I wondered what it would be like to live there. That was the germ of the idea, what it’s like to be an expatriate somewhere. From the time I had spent in France, I knew there was an idea for a show. In this case, it’s a real fish-outof-water story, about a girl who inadvertently takes a job there for a French luxury-goods marketing firm.

I felt it was a good time for a show like this because, in America, we’re so inward-looking. I thought it was a great time to live vicariously through a character who is taking risks [that come with] living in a foreign country.

WS: What is it about Paris that makes for such a vibrant setting? STAR: Paris is so beautiful—maybe the most beautiful city in the world. As a setting for a show, visually, it’s an amazing place to film. It’s also an amazing place to spend time. The values and mentality there are different than they are in the States. It’s more of a Latin culture; the importance is on living well, and our focus [in America] is so much on work and striving. That’s one of the things this character learns about: how to smell the roses a little bit more. Women are so expressive about how they feel. They are more verbal, and that’s why I love writing female characters. They say what’s on their minds, they express themselves, and they have such great self-awareness.

WS: The TV landscape has changed so much since the days of Sex and the City, which helped to plant a flag on HBO for original cable programming. How has the sheer volume of different platforms impacted your storytelling ability? STAR: TV is going through such an amazingly transformational time right now. Whereas HBO was at one time the main game in town, now there are so many opportunities for writers and creators and for the audience; the amount of wonderful product being made is off the charts. The idea of what a TV series is has expanded. The audience’s response to the shows that are out there really has woken up the networks—they are looking at it and thinking, it’s not a niche audience, it’s the audience and they’re responding to intelligent and complicated programming. It has created so many opportunities for writers.

I think the audience is really going to enjoy Emily in Paris. It is on the level of a great feature film. It’s exciting.

WS: What are some of the themes the series touches on? STAR: There are definitely culture clashes. Lily [Collins] plays a girl who is a go-getter, an achiever, and is thrown into a world where that is a priority but not the only one. At the same time, she is struggling to get by, dealing with the language and not reading all of the cultural cues correctly. It’s about her growing from this experience. Travel is so expansive for anyone; that’s a lot of what the show is about—how the culture changes her and how she affects the people around her. It’s a real cultural exchange.

WS: Did you have Lily Collins in mind to play the lead from the start? STAR: I didn’t have anybody in mind initially. Lily came to my attention through her manager. I met her and, of course, fell in love with her. She was perfect for the role. People will see a different side of Lily than they have before. She’s a terrific comedian, and she really gets to show her personality here. She’s done so many dramatic roles, but in this case, she’s very light and funny—she’s got this incredibly joyful spirit that comes through.

WS: With this show, and throughout your career, how have you approached writing female characters who are so multilayered and nuanced? STAR: It’s so important to cast the right person. Once you have the right actor, they bring so much to the role, and I can learn from them. Sex and the City creator Darren Star is behind the new series Emily in Paris, which launches on Paramount Network later this year.

While the rash of new SVOD services launching commands most of the media headlines these days, “the AVOD gold rush is here,” IHS Markit said last year when projecting the U.S. online video ad market would reach $27 billion in 2023. In North America’s competitive streaming space, Tubi has carved out a commanding position. It surpassed 25 million monthly active users last year, when it also announced plans to invest over nine figures in content acquisitions to supplement its library. Tubi is also aggressively targeting global expansion, launching in Australia last year and planning U.K. and Mexican rollouts this year. Backed by private equity alongside investors such as MGM and Lionsgate, Tubi is looking to expand its reach further and has targeted a new niche with the launch of a dedicated Tubi Kids offering. Farhad Massoudi, founder and CEO of Tubi, talks to World Screen about the platform’s gains and its plans for 2020. By Mansha Daswani

WS: How did you come to launch the platform? MASSOUDI: I started the business in 2011. It was called adRise and it was a technology platform behind the scenes, powering other video-on-demand services. Fast-forward a couple of years later, we saw a big opportunity for a directto-consumer brand that was entirely free. Even though adRise was the first AVOD business on OTT, Tubi became the largest overnight and continues to grow as the largest free AVOD service in the country.

WS: What’s driving that growth? MASSOUDI: Linear TV is in a secular decline. This is no longer a controversial statement. For years people didn’t believe me. What’s driving that? Subscription video on demand, at its core, but on-demand TV in general. When you look at the landscape, the number of subscription video-on-demand services launching every day is just getting crazy. The idea of an average viewer or consumer subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+, HBO Max, Showtime, CBS All Access—the list keeps going—it’s not going to happen. A few of these services are going to be very successful. Most are not going to be viable businesses. On top of that, when you look at what these services offer, they offer consumers access to a very shallow library of mostly original content. As a consumer, I [think], I’m going to subscribe to a handful of original libraries, how about everything else? That’s where the idea of Tubi came along. We decided to aggregate only library content. We will never do originals; we’ll leave that to others to do. And we will offer it at absolutely no cost. That’s what led to launching Tubi and here we are now.

WS: Tell us about the international strategy. Why Australia and the U.K. first? MASSOUDI: We launched in Australia, one of the largest markets for Netflix; they are very video-on-demand savvy. So is the U.K. They are both also very video-advertising savvy. Both are very good markets to launch in. We’re actively pursuing other markets. We’re looking for rapid international expansion. These two launches [in Australia and the U.K.] took a lot of work from our team.

WS: You’ve aligned with TV Azteca in Mexico. What kinds of partnerships are you exploring as you expand globally? MASSOUDI: We are looking for partners on several fronts. One, advertising—we’re looking for local media companies that can help us with ad sales. Second is on the content front. We want to have local content for the benefit of local audiences. And we want to help distribute that content globally if there’s an opportunity to do so. And lastly, distribution partners, whether that is on TVs, phones or elsewhere.

WS: How has the process of clearing the rights for global use gone? MASSOUDI: The good news is Tubi has been doing this for years now. We’ve been doing this for nine years. The technology, the distribution engine and the relationships with the studios are intact. We have incredible relationships. We’ve grown our business quite a bit. And we have deal structures with 200 media companies. So we plan to expand that to other regions. That’s a lot easier than starting from scratch, of course.

WS: What are your priorities for the next year? MASSOUDI: Our mission is to connect the world with premium content. We want to bring Australian TV shows, telenovelas, Bollywood content, Israeli dramas, to the United States and the rest of the world. And we want to make premium content accessible to every household around the world. That’s our mission. That’s why we’re here. We’re actively pursuing that on all fronts.