Double Click

Writer-producer-directors Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino have traditionally flown under the radar with low-profile cult favorites like Gilmore Girls and Bunheads.

But from the moment The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel started streaming on Amazon, the mainstream acclaim and awards started pouring in. "We're a little surprised people are watching it," Sherman-Palladino admits, sitting with her husband in her lavishly decorated, pink-and-purple office near the show's Brooklyn set. "And that people have learned how to use Amazon. I can't get my mother to do that."

Yet the tale of the titular 1950s Manhattan housewife (Rachel Brosnahan) who stumbles into a career as a comedian after her husband (Michael Zegen) leaves her for his secretary has resonated with audiences of all ages. It also seems perfectly timed for the #MeToo era. One website even called it "the solution Hollywood needs."

"I appreciate that," Sherman-Palladino says, adding with typically rapier wit, "and I think those people should up their dosage." The couple spoke with emmy's Bruce Fretts about Sinatra, shrubs and their five-season plan.

How did you come up with the character of Midge Maisel?

ASP: I wanted to do another strong, female-driven show — but I didn't want to do kids. I had done kids. And also the idea of a period piece was very enticing to both of us. Existing in another timeframe might be our salvation.

How so?

DP: People's preconceptions of '50s New York match our natural writing style and pace. So it made sense to set it there as opposed to, like, Iowa. For a woman to do a solo stand-up act back then was really unusual, and she had to have a lot of fortitude, which led to a very natural heroine. Because weaklings do not attempt what she is attempting.

ASP: We didn't approach this as a show about stand-up. It's just this woman's story at a time when she decided to go down a path that even she didn't know was supposed to be cut off to her. It's such a weird, foreign world to her, and as she's learning about it, the audience can be learning about it, too.

How much research did you do on the era?

DP: We have a full-time researcher who digs deeply into the New York Public Library, because we're constantly looking for the reality of street life. Also, our production designer, Bill Groom, and our costume designer, Donna Zakowska, do a lot of their own research.

ASP: They're two crazy people with their research. In 10 minutes with them, it's like a crash course in 1958. They're so obsessed with it. They're both like mad geniuses. They're not people who go, "The audience won't really be able to tell." That shit don't fly with this group. Everybody here cares so much. The end result is, the audience can feel it.

Do you worry about anachronisms in dialogue?

ASP: We want authenticity, and we also want the characters not to feel like they're locked in time. We want young girls to see Midge and be like, "That's what my grandmother was, but also what I am. She's me, and I want to be her."

What particularly fascinates you about this era?

ASP: From a storytelling point of view, I'm tired of figuring out a way to put tech into it. Technology has disconnected people. We're more fractured than ever. We're less able to empathize or care about other people, which is weird because we have so much knowledge about what people are going through.

Yet there seems to be so much less human ability to be able to see past our own bullshit. To be able to go back to a time where we didn't have all that felt like a different way to tell a story about human connection.

DP: We discovered in our research there were no cellphones in 1958.

ASP: I know! It's so frustrating. How did people get in touch with other back then? I don't understand!

Have either of you ever tried stand-up?

DP and ASP: Nooo!

That must be one of the biggest challenges of writing the show.

ASP: One thing we had on our side was, Midge doesn't have to come fully formed. The whole show is about her evolution. What we needed was the potential that somebody could see, that this person would go on this journey.

DP: For Rachel, it's an acting thing. We had considered hiring a stand-up, but she would've also had to be a good actor. We had to find an actor who could convincingly play a stand-up.

You had to get the casting of Midge right for this show to work. What'd you have in mind when you created the character?

DP: It was, like, here we go again. It's a completely uncastable role.

Why do you say that?

DP: This character is really complex. She's supposed to be in her late 20s. You needed someone to play drama, comedy and convincingly do stand-up comedy. It was a really impossible bar.

ASP: For someone to have that type of confidence in their 20s in show business is really hard. It's a powerhouse kind of performance. It's difficult to find women actors who can be that forceful and be the leading lady and be looked at as a sexual figure. We went through it with Lorelai Gilmore before Lauren Graham walked in the door. It's one of those things where there will be one person who can blow it out of the water. We got lucky.

Were you familiar with Rachel at all?

ASP: We'd seen her in House of Cards. When her name came up, our casting director in L.A., Jeanie Bacharach, called us and said, "There's nothing on her résumé that tells you she can do this, but I believe Rachel Brosnahan could be your girl." Rachel literally walked in the door, sides in hand, and won the part.

And you knew Alex Borstein, who plays Midge's manager, because she was supposed to be on Gilmore Girls?

ASP: She was our original Sookie.

DP: We have a version of the pilot with her in it. She was great.

ASP: And completely different from Melissa McCarthy. But she couldn't do it because she was on MadTV. Ever since then, we've been trying to figure out how to get her in our stuff. Everyone knows how funny she is, but she's a really good actress.

How did you land Tony Shalhoub as Midge's father?

ASP: He had just moved to New York City and wanted to work in something he really loved. We knew when we had Tony that we had our anchor, because you need an ace. When his name came into play, we started breathing a little bit.

Amy, your father, Don Sherman, was a stand-up comedian. How much of the show's atmosphere is based on the memory of your dad and his friends?

ASP: The rhythms are very much my father's.

DP: Her father passed away a few years ago. He was always on. We had the opportunity to go on a one-week cruise with him and see him do his act, and he was masterful. Sitting at a dinner table with him was the same thing. He just riffed. It was a master class with a comedian of that era.

ASP: That whole New York–Jewish flavor is what I grew up with. It's something we've tried to instill in this.

Amy, you worked at L.A.'s Comedy Store in the '80s. How much are you drawing on those memories?

ASP: It's less about what I saw onstage than what I saw offstage. It's more the sadness of stand-up, how these people that go up on stage and are able to laugh through everything aren't able to do that when they're offstage. The insecurity, loneliness, complications and baggage that serve you so well when you're up on stage knock you down when you come off.

It's so hard to capture the essence of those clubs because you want it to be fun and riffy, and yet sometimes it feels very dark and sad.

How do you decide which real-life stand-up comics — like Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart and Redd Foxx — to bring into the story?

ASP: We're going to stay true to the time, but we didn't want this to become a Rich Little show — a bunch of people doing impressions. We put Lenny in the pilot, and Luke Kirby, the actor who plays him, is terrific, so we brought him back. His chemistry with Midge as a man who is not looking at her like a piece of meat but sees the spark in her, we just liked that.

Before I saw the show, I heard this was going to be a thinly veiled version of the Joan Rivers story. But it's clearly not.

DP: No, Midge is a composite. She's a completely made-up character in that time. We're not taking any specifics from anyone's life.

ASP: Joan Rivers had such an interesting life on her own. This is an homage to all of the female comedians who put their asses out there and barreled through a very male-dominated world.

Do you feel like you have more creative control over this show than you had with other series?

ASP: We had a lot of creative control over Gilmore Girls. We were very spoiled.

What we didn't have was the cash to not work Lauren Graham into an early grave or replace the wall of shrubs that was weirdly all over Stars Hollow.

DP: We had one giant wall of shrubs that moved around the set.

ASP: It's like, what plant is it? It's the crazy wall shrub.

DP: Why does Stars Hollow build their Main Street to just end in a giant shrub wall? Who planned that?

ASP: What we have here are the resources to really dig in and create a world. Because New York is just a different animal than L.A. We had three giant stages at Gilmore Girls on the backlot in Burbank. Here, we have one stage and New York City. So we're on location half the time, and we have total support from Amazon. That's the first thing a traditional network would've turned down: the idea you're going to film in New York City. They'd still be laughing.

How do you two break down the responsibilities of writing, producing and directing?

ASP: Cage fight!

DP: We're separate entities.

ASP: Which allows us to remain married.

DP: As far as the stories go, we work on those together, sometimes at the office, sometimes over breakfast on the weekend. We're a little workaholic. Sometimes we have an idea just walking down the street. Once we figure out the stories, then we tussle over who gets to write each script. After that, we write separately and decide how much we can direct.

ASP: Directing is the fun part.

DP: Directing for us is really an extension of writing. Writing comes first. Directing is bringing that to fruition.

ASP: Then you get to come out of your dark room and talk to people.

DP: After that, one is editing, while the other directs or works with writers.

ASP: It's good to have someone else's eyes on your stuff that you totally trust and know their agenda is only the success of the project. I can call Dan and say, "I'm shooting this scene onstage. I would love to have you come down and look at it and tell me if I'm crazy." Then he'll come down and say, "You're crazy." That's a very important part of why we click.

Do you have a number of seasons in mind for Mrs. Maisel's run?

ASP: We never go into any project unless we can see five years. We had a five-season plan with Midge. Doesn't mean it can't go longer. We like to have that groundwork laid out. We're just naturally following her progression.

At the end of the first season she had a seemingly ill-fated reunion with her estranged husband. Are they meant to be together?

ASP: We look at Midge and her husband like Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner — if they ever could figure it out, it'd be great. But they're always going to love each other and be in each other's lives until the very bitter end.

You've been on an awards-show roll. What would Emmy recognition mean to you?

DP: We're keeping all the awards in shipping boxes, in case they want them back.

ASP: The lovely thing about being invited to the party is what Rachel is doing is incredibly special, and what our crew is doing is moving heaven and earth to facilitate the madness, and I want them to know how good their work is. And it's a nice chicken dinner. It would be great for Amazon, God love them. This is not an easy show, and it is not a cheap show.

Let's be very honest here. It helps them feel their faith is being acknowledged. The awards mean a bunch of people who were walking around thinking they were crazy can sit for five minutes and go, "We were not crazy."

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, Issue No. 6, 2018