Hi, everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to work in Progress, where I talked to people who inspire me about how they got to where they are and where they think they're still going. I don't know if you've all watched Dead to Me, but if you haven't, I actually need you to pause this episode, go and watch the first season of the series, and then you can come back and listen to this, Okay. I sat down with Liz Feldman. She's the creator of the show. She's worked in comedy since she was sixteen years old, starting with All That while she was in high school. She went on to work for Ellen and wrote for Two Broke Girls. Liz has been in this industry for over two decades, and we talked about writing likable characters, the lessons she learned from Ellen, what led her to create Dead to Me, and what we can expect from season two. You're welcome. I just love her so so much, and I think that you all will too. Hi. Hi, he's so much for coming, my pleasure, Thanks for wanting me to come. No, I mean I'm just going to get this out of the way actually, so that I can then ask you questions. Not behaving like a psychopath. But I mean, I've been so aware of your work and loved your comedy and your jokes and like truly especially when we talk about this space of network TV, Like I just think Two Broke Girls was so groundbreaking because you put women in this space that they've sort of never been allowed to be in in sitcom before, and you've been so unabashed in that like foul ingenious humor. I was just a cog in that machine. But thank you. But I feel like now having seen dead to me and this is where like the embarrassing family comes out, because I've seen the whole show start to finish three times. Everything's fine, everything is yeah, I did we were talking about being night Owl. I like did one of those things where I was like, I'm gonna watch one, maybe two because you know, it's a half hour. It's fine. I can just like it'll be one hour before bed, and then four hours later. I was like, well, I'm probably gonna have to do that again tomorrow. But seeing that, I see how like some of the things that I liked the best on the sitcom, I'm like, I know what jokes were lizes you know people, Yeah, maybe you do. I mean it's I mean, look, it was working on two bro girls was definitely like a great and formidable experience in terms of, you know, writing a show for two female leads who were super unfiltered and like could talk like, you know, quote unquote like guys, do you know? Which is really how I talk? And I'm definitely a girl, so you know exactly, and you know, it was it was a permission to write you know, raunchy, unfiltered women who like want things like sex and money and you know, so so you know, I know, the horror, but like in its own sort of subversive way because it was also sort of just a silly sitcom. It was you know, putting young empowered women on TV in a way that hadn't been seen before, you know, maybe since like Livered and Surely, which you know, I don't know how empowered they were actually, but but at the time, at the time, yes, it's just the fact that there are two women living alone was like this incredible groundbreaking moment in television. I feel like that was impactful for me even as a kid watching like nickd Night reruns and growing up being obsessed with Mary Tyler more Brown. Yes, so I think generationally, we've had women who are breaking ground for wherever women have been at the time, Yes, exactly. And and progress is slow, always slower than you wanted to be, but it is I always think it's going to speed up. And it just I mean, like, well, it's I mean, just by evidence of what I have conversations I've had to have about my own show that exists in you know, in this Me Too movement, like the fact that I'm still having the conversations about, like, you know, something we were just talking about, which is likable women. I mean it's almost like you want to bash your head against the while tin. That is a word that fills me with like instant the waters boiling in the pot, like seething righteous rage I get. I mean, like you know, the it's I'm I'm lucky, and that I have gotten to write for a lot of like strong female characters, but they do have to be likable, and I don't really know, I never really know what that means and what the parameters are that make a person likable. And I think that a great lesson I've learned through Making Dead to Me is we are a lot more accepting as an audience than I think networks or executives or you know, studio folks would would would have you believe. You know, there's a lot of fear around what makes a person palatable, and it's you know, we are any normal person in your life has darker colors and lighter colors and shadow sides, and you know, wonderful human moments and then moments where they're like terribly flawed. And you know, I think that what I've learned by making dead to me is that like you can actually present a three dimensional character who makes choices that you wouldn't make, but that you understand why they made them and you love them anyway. And when you actually allow people to be three dimensional, others recognize themselves in those people, whether or not you'd make the same choices, because you're recognizing someone else's humanity, and by witnessing humanity, it reminds you that yours is okay. To this idea that like we're meant to be these two dimensional sort of you know, phone screen creatures doesn't make sense to anyone, and I think plays into what we're seeing happen in society, where like everyone's more and more depressed the more and more time they spend on their phone, and then shows like yours very true people actually get to be people who are beautiful and fucked up and emotional and curious and angry and heartbroken and and who make mistakes. The world goes yes and flocks to it, and then you know you've got and I can't imagine to know how hard their jobs are, but you have these sort of you know, executives who have been trying to figure out likability going, well, how did that happen? You know, And it's like, just let us creatives make more of this stuff because it works. Yeah, And you know, honestly, And first of all, thank you for saying what you said about the show, and thank you for watching it three times. That's such a huge compliment. I really it feels very nice to hear that. And you know, I think, you know, I like, you come from network television, and it's a very different experience. And I'm really grateful for, you know, the time I had working in network television, because I think it actually it did give me an idea of what a mass audience will flock to and you know, will be able to digest on some levels, you know, And so I think I was able to take some of that and then forget some of that, and you know, take some of those filters away and just make something that was coming from a place of feeling and not from the expectation of what people are going to think about this, Like, you know, I think that in network television, anytime I've developed a pilot or worked on a show, it's always like, what's the audience gonna think? What's you know, how are people gonna like this character? I really never even thought about that when when developing Jen and Judy and the other characters and in debt to me, I really was just like, how would a person behave if they were in this situation? And you know, totally all basically unbeknownst to myself, I was writing two versions of myself and so I and you basically psyche kind of, I mean, certainly like peppered with you know, inspiration and qualities of other women I know in love in my life. But I really thought I wasn't writing anything even close to personal or autobiographical. And then about halfway through writing the pilot, I was like, oh no, they're both me and you know, like and we all have that duality inside of us, which is I think, you know, maybe why these characters were are so resonant for people is because I was really writing from like a real open, vulnerable place without even totally realizing it, so, you know, and then also that to be able to make a show for Netflix, you know, you know, at the risk of sounding kiss assie, they let you do what you want to do, Like they they bought the idea for the show and then picked up two series a show that they knew was going to be, you know, rife with you know, women making terrible choices and you know, creating this like very weird friendship that should have never happened and moving through life from a real place of pain and you know, like grief and like none of that you would think spells success. You know, no, no, no, there's no equation in there where you're like, and that'll be a hit, you know. So so the fact that you know, the show has been so well received as like a slightly mind blowing. I think almost everyone involved because we were like, okay, like some I think women will hopefully like it, you know, I think some certain women going through certain things will hopefully like it. And it seems to be much more universal than that, which is a great lesson in just like you know, creating work from a real place, like from wanting to connect from a real emotional uh place and not be super concerned with you know, the result. Basically, I love that. I love too that you said you were talking about writing the show, and it was one of the things I actually pulled that you said that as you speak on how you realized you were writing this from such a personal place that the facts are not true, but the feelings are real. And and that was the feeling that pervaded your writer's room, where everyone got to put their personal versions of grief or anger or frustration or loss or whatever into this and you create this permissible space for experience. And you said it, it's not often an experienced women have been able to have there. There's always been the odd couple. It's always been the guys. You know, guys can be these angry old men or or sort of you know, carmogeney characters or people who do unsavory things and we go like sexy, you know, and and to flip that idea on its head doesn't seem like it should be so wildly new, but it's wildly new. And you know, I have a guy friend who's an actor. We were talking about the show and he was like, oh my god, it's so good and I'm just I'm obsessed with it in these women are so brilliant, and I watched him have this moment where he was like, but you know, like I just think I might have done something different with James's character. And I started laughing and I went, Oh my god, you're having the experience that all the women always have, which is like your subconscious wishes you'd booked that job because there's like the one woman on every show, and now there's this one guy on the show and you're so mad you didn't get the part. And he was like, oh my god, I feel attacked. And I was like, but that's what's happening, and he was like, no, you're right. I mean James Marson's brilliant. He's so good looking, and I am jealous, and I was like, this is so crazy. You know, we were just like giggling, laughing because it doesn't often happen the other way. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like you know, it was It's funny, like so much of the show really does come from or an organic place that it wasn't you know, it wasn't like my grand design to sort of make this the tertiary character like the guy, do you know what I mean? Like, which is of course, like it's always the woman who's sort of the third lead, you know, or or or the fifth lead, and you know, and and so it is really interesting and I and what's interesting too is that, like when I wrote the character of of Steve, which is James's character, into the pilot, I wasn't even really sure like how much I was going to use him, and I just like knew that I wanted to make an appearance. And then when we got into the writer's room, we saw, you know, an opportunity to tell, like in a more interesting story about you know, dynamics between men and women and how women can sort of help each other through that and away from that sometimes and um, you know what's interesting as I'm working on the second season is that we're sort of continuing, you know, that line of thinking in terms of like leaning into if you will thank you. That was a totally unintended pun and I'm pretty excited about it, but like leaning into the idea that like this is this is a show about two women, and yeah, there's some men in their lives, you know what I mean, like and those men are important, but they're the key relationship you're watching is always going to be these two women. Yeah, And I will say how refreshing it is also to see a woman who is in a relationship that is rife with these toxic dynamics where her partner treats her sort of like an accessory rather than a partner, and she has a friend who looks at her and goes, what the funk are you doing? You deserve better than that, because we've all had that friend, but we don't often see that represented in entertainment or in in scenes. And so I think about it. I look back at you know, they always say, hindsight is on my kindsight is fucking eagle eye sharpshooter vision, Okay, And I look back and think, I don't know that. My friends and I, when we were young and each of us was in a version of that position, felt the permission to say, this person is really bad for you. We've we've grown up and learned the hard way that you've got to do it more quickly if you see it and you have to figure out how to do it kindly and you know whatever. That's a separate conversation for a separate day. But I think it's also such a teaching moment. And I love a teaching moment in a show or a film that doesn't feel like a teaching moment, that isn't like heavy handed. It's just a reminder of, yeah, that's good friendship. Even in this world of this show where like everything is a little crazy and the friendship that starts does so in a completely inappropriate way, there's still this real chance to look out for people. Yes, well, yeah, I mean I think because you know, the friendship starts from a place of Judy seeking true altruism. Like she she's like, her purpose is to be a friend to this woman you know who you know spoiler alert, she has wronged and you know, if you haven't watched the show, a what's wrong with you? Be pause this podcast and come back when you see you And I but yeah, I mean, it's like I think, I think because like really her sort of season long, you know goal was to just be as good of a friend to this woman as possible. It gave us permission as writers to be like Okay, what would you do if you were like a really good friend? And and you know, Jen needs this person in her life so badly. You know, though the ways in which she comes into her life are real fucked up, but you know that that that they're they're really actually are perfect for each other. They are the friend that the other one really needs. And you know, I've been really blessed with some incredible friendships that started in a in a more you know, natural and holistic way than this one did. But you know that it's you know, we were definitely drawing upon our own friendships and you know, yes, sometimes the things you wish you had said to your friends, but but also like you know that true friendship should hopefully be, you know, two people holding a mirror to each other, you know, and reflecting back what they see, you know, for better or for worse. And because they're also you know, Jen specifically is in such a place of grief, you know, which really makes a person pretty unfiltered, you know, like, what would that unfiltered friends say? And and you know it was again like we never meant it to be, like, oh, this is a very special episode of Dead to Me where they discussed you know Judy's toxic relationship. It's just like, you know, this is what they this is what gen sees, and she's going to talk about it. It's just what's happening, and you're not being precious about it. You know. It's not a like the more you know kind of moment. It's just an unfolding dynamic that people are being honest about. And I find that really refreshing. And it happens to be very funny that too. It's very funny and very twisted and very dark in that kind of humor, and I love it. Thank you. It's a lot of things. It's a lot of you know, it's a it's a it's a lot of it's a it's a genre nonconforming show. I like to say, I like that genre nonconforming. And you didn't call it a dramay. You call it a traumay? Was that that that? I didn't coin that term? I wish I had, but somebody else did. I'm going to give you credit for it, Okay in proxy? Sure? But yeah, I mean I think actually I almost want to say, like like Linda came up with it, but it was like like traumay feels right you know, it's like, yes, this it is comedy coming from a place of like deep trauma. And but to me, like I think that because I was writing a show for Netflix, I was like giving myself permission to not do that very sick comedy thing where it's a comedy so like every third line has to be funny and like yeah, it has to end on a hilarious moment, and like we don't want to get too deep because we don't want to you know, bum people out. I just sort of like allowed myself to write a show that reflected how I look at life, which is sometimes should is really sad. Sometimes it's really funny. And sometimes things happen where you're like what the fuck? Like I would have never seen that coming, and if I told you that happened, you would be like you wouldn't believe me, you know, and like I couldn't write this it's happening. How many times has that happened to you? Where you're like no way, Like how did that just happen? And you know, for me, I see those things maybe a little bit more quickly than other people because I am I'm an observer. I'm a writer, and so I'm always looking for, like what is the weird ship in life? But I just was like, you know, I want to write a show that like feels to me a little bit more like life and not slice of life, but like life in a heightened way, because that's often how I experience life. I do find life to be pretty heightened, and like, especially right now in this moment that we're all living in, where where literally the headlines make you think, what, like what is happening? How how are we letting this happen? And every day and every day? And it's like the sort of incessant roller coaster of like of what the Fox basically and so like that I think is also in the DNA of the show, an incessant roller coaster of what the Fox. I like that. The tagline, that's the tagline first season two. You've done it. I did it great. I gotta go okay, I'm so glad you can't. Okay. So we know we know where we are today and we have the show, and we do have this very strange world that we're living in. I'm always curious how people became the people they are sitting in this room. So I'm curious, Like I know, that you were born in New York as as a girl, like, were you this tiny, strong, attracted to darkly funny things child? Where? How did how did things start for you? Tell me about where you come from. Yes, I mean, I'm from a funny Jewish family and Brooklyn, and comedy in our family is definitely currency. So you know, it's it's the thing that will get you noticed. It's it's the it's the thing that will you know, get the attention in the in the room. And I come from a pretty big family. I'm the youngest of three, and my parents were both professionals. They were doctors, so like, I had a working mother, you know. And I credit my mother with so much of you know, my own whatever you want to call it, success or you know, just becoming the person I am, because she worked really hard. You know, she was a good mom. And she also taught me that whatever the hell I wanted, I could make happen if I could visualize it. So you know, there's that. But then my father's like this really funny, tough guy who loved comedy, and I think, you know, is a frustrated performer and actually, at the age of seventy nine, wrote his first play, so you know, was was was there. There was a writer in there that whole time, and so you know, he introduced me to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers, and you know, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him because he was a workaholic. So those moments were so concentrated to me and so magnified. So it's like, Okay, he's gonna show me comedy. He was like, comedy. I mean to get into comedy so that I have something in common with my dad. You know, I think that's subconsciously what I was doing. I also think, you know, listen, some people have, you know, propensities for things. And I think I was a funny kid, you know. I mean I told my first joke at the age of three. It wasn't a good one, Yes I do. It was thank you for asking. It was there were again, three years old, there were the you gotta start somewhere, You gotta start somewhere. There were three little pigs and the big bad wolf and they put him in the washing machine. Great. You know, I think, imagine I'm three years old, a little bit cuter than I am now. You know. So it was something and I think, you know, my family, I'm just getting you as a tinier version of yourself. This same haircut. Yeah, it was pretty much the exactly the same. And yeah, so I think I I think I just identified really early on that like comedy was like this thing that I could have in common with my dad. And you know, I I do think that when you become obsessed with something, you get better at it, you know. And you know, I don't think you can make an unfunny person funny, but I think you can start to understand comedy maybe from a certain you know, organic level. So I think I got into that. I was really always obsessed with show business for some reason. I had an aunt who was like really really obsessed with show business though she had nothing to do with it. And at the age of ten, I asked my parents for an agent for my birthday, like so it was like it started early, yeah, and they were like, I don't know how to what Nope, And so they said to me, you know, you can start pursuing that when you're old enough to take yourself on the subway to the city. You know. I'm from Brooklyn, So at a thirteen when I was allowed to take the subway, I started answering ads in Backstage magazine and I just like started doing it. Yeah. And then you know, I had a mentor early on who had been like a like a theater director of an off, off, off, off off Broadway show that I had done. And she saw an ad and backstage for kids who do stand up, who write and and perform their own jokes. And I had never done that. But my my mentor, Hillary Skarl, was like, you could do that, like you have that in you. And I was like, I don't know if I do, but I tried, and so I I went an auditioned for this like comedy showcase at the age of sixteen, and I got in. And that's how my stand up career and my comedy career started. Holy sh it, Yeah, I don't. I'm like trying to think if I was doing anything worth my time at sixteen, and I think I was like working for my dad in the summer and so piss because all my friends were hanging out at the mall and I was like on these photo shoots holding reflectors in film. And then I got he caught me running from the studio across five lanes of traffic to A and I the photo lab that used to be on Highland instead of like walking up to Santa Monica or down to Willoughby to use the crosswalk. And literally I was like, he's going to kill me, Like this will be the end of my life. But then, you know, now as an older person, I understand that. As the only child, my dad was like, do not risk your life, Like what's wrong with you? Okay, So sixteen you start doing stand up? Yeah? I started doing stand up, and um, I was involved with this like manager who did this showcase of kids who did comedy, And pretty quickly he started having me punch up the other kids jokes and I think, like, you know, I don't know, It's just one of those things, like I I guess I just had an ability from an early age to to write a joke. I mean I had been sort of studying comedy unbeknownst to myself, I guess, up until that point. And then when I was about eighteen. It was right around when I was graduated from high school, Nickelodeon spotted at me, I think, doing stand up and they were looking for a new cast member writer for all that you know that show? Do I know that show? Were? I have so many questions? Were you in a were you in the writer's room? Were you on set? So how does this happen? Are you like hanging out with Keenan? Well? Sure, but yeah. So so it was a really weird thing because I here's what's really strange is that I didn't really have cable growing up, so I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't have Nickelodeon. I didn't know what all that was, and I mean, thank god, otherwise how would you have kept your cool? I knew it was like something, but it's also this is pre internet. This I didn't know what it was. I just knew it was a TV show. And I was supposed to go to college. I was. I was like enrolled to go to Vassar and my mother was thrilled because it's like a school she could brag about. And I got this job like writing and performing on all that, and because they asked my manager like who wrote her material? And he was like she did, and I, you know, I think that's probably I guess that's pretty rare for a teenager to be writing comedy. So they hired me to be a writer performer on the show, and I'm instead of going to college, I moved to Orlando, Florida. My mom took me down there, but I moved by myself, and I had my own apartment and my own car for the first time. I totally crashed it on the second day on the job because I had no idea how to drive because I'm from Brooklyn. We don't really most teenagers don't drive there. So it was a very you know, intense and formidable experience. I shared an office with Neil Brennan. Yeah, so crazy. Also in the room was Steve Holland, who is now the showrunner of Big Bang Theory. Like, it was a very crazy time. However, I was the only female writer and the only performer who was also a writer, so I wasn't I wasn't like one of the main cast members. I was sort of like a tertiary, you know, re member who would just appear in certain sketches, good Burger and all that. But it was, you know a bit of a dark experience for me because the head writer sexually harassed me quite a bit, and you know, he's sort of a well known inappropriate It's such a ship thing too, and it's your first job and you just have to deal with deflecting energy all damn day. And to be honest, I didn't even really understand what was happening. I was so young. I mean, I was a child. I had literally just turned eighteen at the end of May, and I think I moved there in July. You know, so I was a kid and had never had a real job, let alone a television job in a writer's room, and it was you know, at first, I just was like, oh, I think this guy is really like like taking to me, like he likes me. And I always had guy friends, so I sort of mistook it for that, And you know, I was also in the closet and certainly, you know, it's like I'm not gonna you know, it was before Ellen came out, so that tells you everything. So it was just it was really tough experience, and I didn't even I didn't I don't even know if I understood that it was inappropriate what was happening until there were there were two women who worked on the show, you know, in like a like a production coordinator kind of role, and they pulled me aside and they were like we're worried about you. We think he's obsessed with you. And I was like, oh, that's what I really didn't know. I was so young. I had never had any kind of experience with like an older man or anything like that. And so once they kind of said that, I was able to sort of like look at it from a different perspective and go, oh, that's what's Oh got it, that's what's happening. So him telling me to take my broth in the writer's room, it's not just a joke. It's coming from some other place, you know. And then you know, that's a that's a lot to digest when you're a kid, you know. And so the way in which I sort of process that was I don't want to be a writer. I don't want to be in that position ever again. So I well I was fired. You can guess why I wouldn't do certain things. So you know, I also probably was terrible at my job because of what was you know, I mean like, there's no way for me to be successful, you know in that position, though I had a lot of you were great at your job, but when you start to be backed into a corner and you start to shrink and you start to try to make yourself smaller to avoid the attention. Acting, comedy, writing, all of it require as being expansive acquires being relaxed. It requires your body being able to be in flow rather than be tense. And I just I commiserate with you deeply. I've been in the experience where everything gets tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, and you can't do what you love, nor do you love existing. Right, Yeah, it was a pretty miserable experience. It was just for a season and I don't even think I made it through the whole season. And you know, it was devastating, you know, like you know, I was, I was fine. I wanted to leave, but I'm not I I even wasn't a quitter back then, and so but it it was you know, when I as a forty two year old woman looking back, I feel so bad for that kid, you know, because it was her dream to do something like that, and it was, you know, really shattered in many ways, and so so much so that I didn't right again and I wouldn't even put myself out there as a writer for another eight years because I was like, that's I don't want to do that. If that's if being in a writer's room means being the only woman getting picked on in that way, that's not for me, you know. And so being made to feel like an object rather than a human when you witness every other human in the room being treated as a human. Yeah, terrible feeling. What did you? What did you do? Did you? Did you wind up going to ask her? Did you? So? No, I didn't because they didn't have a program to accept freshman in January, because I so now I'm like halfway through the year. So what I did was my best friend from high school is the actor Dan Fogler, and he was going to Boston University, and I was like, I just started visiting him up in Boston. And one weekend I was there, he was auditioning for the improv group on campus, which was called Spontaneous Combustion because that's what you call an improv group on a college campus. And I he was like, come with me, Come audition with me. And I was like, I don't even go to school here. He's like, who cares? Just come, So we go and we both get in and the you know, the people on the on the improv group are like, you know, if you went to school here, you could be in this group. And I was like huh. So I literally walked into the admissions office the next day, applied like sath there, filled out an application, didn't interview, and got in. And so I started going to Boston University just to be in the improv group with my best friends, and you know, and that really did. It's such a sort of a dumb reason to spend all that money to go to college. However, I can't say I don't use it every day. I mean, I really it is sort of what I've ended up making a life of. So I I went to school, got a B S and TV. Literally, I mean, you can't make this up, Like that's a joke in and on itself, thank you. It's a little on the nose. But yeah, And then I moved out to l A and I started doing the groundlings. You know, I was pursuing, you know, a career as a performer and you know, and like doing doing pretty well at that. But I think I got to a certain point where I just I don't. I've never been somebody comfortable with struggling, like the whole like struggling artist thing. Like was just not that interesting to me. And you know, I think also, you know, having parents who were such good role models and that they were very successful, I wanted to be successful at something. And it occurred to me at a certain point like I'm a writer and I could maybe try to make a life at that if I could sort of redevelop the confidence to try to do it. And so at a certain point, around twenty six years old or so, I was like, I had a manager who I still have. Her name is Christie Smith. She's the best in the biz. Eighteen years we've been working together, and I said, I'm I want to try writing. I want to I want to start writing again. And like, just as the way things work sometimes at the universe, when you're kind of aligning yourself the right way, like literally within a month, I had my first job again. Because even then, because now we're going back like about sixteen years, there were so there were not a lot of female comedy writers. It was crazy. So I got a job working on Blue Collar TV and I was the only female writer. And was that a better experience? It was a better experience, you know. There it wasn't perfect, you know, there was definitely not amongst the writers, but amongst other people involved. There was some homophobia that I had to contend with and I wasn't Again, I wasn't out to everyone because it didn't feel safe. So you were observing that kind of behavior, yes, that with that without them knowing that I could take it personally. Yeah, So, I mean this is so common. I mean it's not that not to excuse it or make it okay, but like you know, just like as a as a woman in the business, you're just so used to taking certain ship and as a gay person in the business, it's very similar. And it just happened to last a lot longer because you know, our rights were not really respected or given to us until fairly recently. So and still working on it actually very much so. So it's such an interesting thing to me because I remember I got my first fight at school on the playground. You know. I I grew up in l A in a very blessedly diverse community. My father's a photographer. Like you can imagine, I was like surrounded by every like fabulous like gay man and drag queen and cool like. It was racially diverse and diverse and sexual orientation and diverse and gender and and because I think my parents saw what so many of the models went through, My parents were really specific about talking to me about the treatment of women in any arena in which you know, popularity, entertainment, success, beauty, whatever came into the conversation. Him and I remember getting into a fight. I hit a kid at school who was being homophobic, like on the playground by the swring set, just like, you don't talk about my uncle Jeff and my uncle Winston like that. I mean, I was like and and And what I realized in hindsight was, you know, we have a lot of conversations about privilege right now, and we should be. We should be talking about economic privilege and white privilege and all these things. I realized that I had the privilege of exposure because of the community I grew up in, where nobody was ever treated differently and everyone was celebrated for their quirks and their love and their whatever. And it was a really wild thing as a kid to realize that the people who weren't exposed went in the other direction. And so I'm always really struck when people talk about their experiences of discrimination, because it's so rampant and it's a very rare experience. Yes, And I realized that. And I also realized that I had the experience, which is such clear proof that hate or prejudice, whatever word you want to use, is taught. It's not a given. And it's it's an interesting thing to me because so many people, especially now, think that our industry is like this super tolerant, super fluid, and it's like, no, it's still just like all the other industries. It's pretty white and pretty sexist and pretty rough if you're a woman, and especially if you're a queer woman, like so, yeah, it's wild. It's just wild to think about your experiences having been colored by both gender discrimination and discrimination for your sexual orientation. Yeah, and I and I don't think my experiences is rare, you know, I just but what what it's sort of taught me was, you know, when I was working on Blue Collar TV, I wasn't out, and I wasn't you know, wearing my pride you know if you will, and I wasn't you know, being my full authentic self. And as soon as I started to be that person to be myself, which is around when I started working for Ellen, which was my next job, after that, you know, working for her sort of gave me the example that I could be myself, you know, and that like there was room for me and I could be yeah, for my for the my full expression of my of myself. And as soon as I started fully being myself and just like you know, not filtering any part of myself, that's really honestly, when my career started taking off, which is which is a good lesson. Now I'm also blessed to be of this time, you know. I mean, like we're talking, you know, I went to work for Ellen in two thousand five, so yeah, it's you know, she had already suffered the consequences of being our you know, of being our pioneer, you know, and you know, because she had a show. She came out in April, I was nineteen, and but for two years after her show was canceled, she was a total pariah, like she could not get hired. And she really took a massive bullet for our entire community. And you know, I don't think I realized that completely at the time, but I you know, looking back on it, you know, it's I really wouldn't be my self and I wouldn't have the career I have if she hadn't done that, and if I hadn't had the opportunity to work with her and sort of see her example, how did you go from blue collar TV to working with Alan? Well, so, when I was a blue collar I got an agent, and I decided that if I was going to be a writer, and if I you know, if I wasn't going to sort of get to say my own words, that I was really interested in aligning with a show and a person whose beliefs more closely aligned with mine, you know, And you know that I was interested in putting something good out there and interested in feeling feeling good about what I was putting out there. So, you know, Ellen's talk show had only recently started, and I was such a huge fan of hers that even before I had the opportunity, you know, to even submit to work for her, even before I had an agent, I was such a dork and literally writing monologues at home as her just to see if I could, just to see if I could like write in her voice. And I knew every joke she had ever told. I'd seen her do stand up live, you know, many times, and so I was just more of an exercise as as a joke writer to see if I could do it so that when then I'm working up blue Collar and I hear, oh, they're looking for writers at Ellen, I was like, oh God, like my dream of my life. I was like, you know, obsessed with her since I was a teenager and you know, as a young gay though in the closet teenage comedian blonde. You know, I was compared to her, not nearly as good as her, but like you know, just of course the comparison would be there, so you know, I just was. She just was always this person who I idolized, who I dreamt about. I mean it was like I was like full on, you know, super super obsessed. So I jumped at the chance to submit. And I literally took out those monologues that I had written at home like a dork and you know, brushed them off and punched them up and submitted and got to go in for an interview and I was told she won't be there, so and I was like, because I don't even like, could you a mad? I mean, I'm so obsessed, Like it's like you know, I for anyone listening at home, it's like getting to like meet Michelle Obama. You know, I mean it's like for me, it's like the like the greatest, like the queen of life. So I'm show a person who you can't speak around. I mean, it's just it was ridiculous. So I show up for the interview and I'm told she's not going to be there. And I walk into the room and I like, there's this enormous life size teddy bear sitting on the couch and I and see like human legs coming out from under it. And if you know Ellen, you know she likes to surprise people. And so literally I walked in the door and she jumps out from under the teddy bear and she's like hello. And I was like, I mean, I nearly fucking choked to death. Un't have a heart attack. I might have. I might have. I might have been in a full just like a minor cardiacara. Yeah. And and then but something happened where I just was like I just something clicked and we just hit it off like we were you know, we there's a you know, sometimes you just have a thing with a person though you've never met. And I wasn't going to blow this chance, you know, so we just kind of hit it off and like she had really liked what I had written, and like, I you know, it's one of those you know, I get the chills like talking about it now and anyway, so so you know, I got the job and it was, you know, really an incredible it was, you know, to talk about manifesting, you know, you're and and visualizing. I mean, that's something I had visualized. That's something I had really tried to manifest and it worked, and you know, it was It wasn't like the craziest thing. I mean, I am a comic and a writer, Like it made sense that it was very talented. You're like getting hired as a teenager to write on shows, you know, but but yes, I'm all right, and so yeah, I mean it was just this amazing moment and you know, and I learned so much from working with her, and I just so savored every moment of it. And when you say that, I just feel like, especially for people listening who have never been in a writer's room or on a set, like what does that mean when you talk about working for somebody that everybody knows, like and you think about what you learned from her, Like what are a couple of of practical things you can tell people that you learned. I mean, in some ways, she gave me permission not just to be myself as a as a as a you know, your person. But I have always been like a perfectionist, and I've always, like, you know, wanted things to be as close to you know, infallible as possible. And she's the same way. And she's the same way, and look at where she is, and so she you know, it's just her in some ways, it was just her example of working that hard and not settling for just okay. So you know, working for her means, you know, I would either write the monologue that day, or I would write that sort of thing that she starts talking about when she sits down after the monologue and she's telling you what's on the show today. You know, maybe there's a bit with some videos or something like that. So you know, it's generally one of those, you know, bits I was writing. But when I would write a monologue for her, you know, I you have very little time to do it. So first of all, you just get better at coming up with ship because you have no time, and you don't want to disappoint her. And she's hard, you know, she's she's not easy to please. And I loved that because I'm the same way, you know, and you know, back then, I'm in my twenties, like who who do I get to be, you know, a perfectionist with other than myself? And then there she is saying, I think you can beat that joke. And she would always like pick at least one thing in in whatever I would present her and say you could beat that, like basically like don't be lazy, like let's let's do better. And I always took that as a challenge, and I, you know, obviously I wanted to, like, you know, please her so much, and you know, literally I would run back to my office and I was sitting from my computer and I would just bang out, you know, hopefully you know, seven better versions of that joke and run it back to her. And I mean run because you have very little time when you make a show every day. So I feel like I learned how to work fast and how to work harder from working with her. And it makes you sharp, and it also like makes you look at one subject when you're writing a monologue about, like let's say, moths, which I think I actually wrote two different monologues about moths. Please you remember a moth joke? I mean I the one moth joke I remember is well, I mean that would say, you know the obviously, the moth is the poor man's butterfly. And it's like a It's like a butterfly that's been through the wash. You know, it's like you know, very you know, very like rated, but it's true. It's g rated, but it's so true. Also tangentily side note, have you ever done the moth the like night of storytelling? I have done many a storytelling show. I've never actually done the mom I feel like you would love it. Oh, I totally yes, I have many friends who have done it. But I've done like unfictional and I've done you know, some of those other We got to figure out when the next moth is. We all have to go, great, let's do it. Let's do it. Back to monologues. Okay, we're in back to so you know I she got me to to look at one subject and think of every possible funny thing about it, and that's just like a good mental exercise for a joke writer. And the other probably most important thing I learned from her was how to be funny and kind at the same time. It's really easy to be funny and mean, you know, it's really easy to make fun of people, you know, as as a as a as a way in to laughter, and she doesn't do that, and it is much harder to be funny and clean, and it's much harder to be funny and nice, so you know, and and also like, yeah, I really respect that her comedy is aligned with her paradigm, her her you know, she's she is that person, like she doesn't want to make bring people down, she wants to lift people up. And so that's like a huge gift I think that I got from from working with her. And then also just the confidence to go, oh ship like Ellen thinks I'm funny, you know, and like her Obama telling you you're smart exactly, like yeah, I mean truly it is like you know, and you know, it's like Beyonce being like you're cool, you know, and I would die, I would spontaneously combust. But yeah, so you know, sometimes, like you know, when you're coming up in this business, just the just the stamp of approval from somebody that you respect so much, you know, infuses you with this like sense of self and confidence that you know, for me, I I really I I to this day, I'm like, well, I must not be a piece of ship because I don't thought I was funny, you know. So I always have that, especially in a business that is so filled. It's funny because people on the outside see it and assume everyone's like making all this money and go into a word shows and happy and successful and being told they're amazing, and they don't know that most of the people in most of our unions are like living paycheck to page, super stressed out, getting rejected three times a day during pilot season, you know, and almost every day every other month of the year. It's like the business is built to make you feel worthless just by percentages of success versus failure. So I would imagine that something like that, that that that that stamp that meant so much to you, It grounds a confidence in you that most other things probably wouldn't be able to Yeah, I mean, like everything is pretty fleeting, you know, even even compliments in this business, you know, and so like, you know, especially like when you're an artist person and that's your mentality, it's like, you know, it is. It's hard to take that stuff in and like really have that inform how you feel about yourself. But yeah, it was. It was a real gift. I mean, you know it working for her, you know, you know it really for me it changed everything, and and it was hard, like I had, I did choose to leave her that job because at a certain point I felt like, okay, like I got I got everything. I think I can possibly get out of this. I could see myself getting very comfortable working for her, but I knew that I wanted to do something more personal and like something to tell my own story, you know, And she was really supportive and uh, you know, and then I ended up getting into you know, multi camera television first and and writing pilots and things like that. And I did end up developing a show with her, and that was my show called One Big Happy on NBC, and she was my executive producer, so I did get to continue working with her, which was also, you know, really awesome and a great experience. Though brief and what was that show about. It was based on my relationship with my straight guy best friend. So Alicia Cuthbert played me and Nick Xano played my friend and It was about a gay girl and her straight guy best friend fulfilling their agreement from long ago to have a baby together. I love that and a little progressive for network television and that was only four years ago. Yeah, so I did I want to make that show now, I know, right, it did get to air, and you know, it was like, you know, making a show for network television. There are so many filters that the show had to go through that ultimately, like you know, it wasn't exactly the show that I wanted it to be. It often gets very sanitized. It was very magic gets washed out. Yeah, it was a bit because it hetera washed if you will. And and like, look, I'm really grateful to have even had the chance to have a show with the lesbian lead character on network television. It was the only it was the first time that had happened since ellen show was canceled eighteen years earlier. I'm grateful to have had that opportunity. It is what it is, and it was what it was, and it put me in the place that I could be, you know, ready to do the show dead to me, you know, I could have said that better, but you know what I'm saying, No, I get it. It It really tied you up. It made you a creator and a showrunner, and that's huge. Yeah, it gave me the chance to be a show runner, and it gave me the chance to see a vision that I had had come to and that was a huge opportunity. The show was really short lived, but the experience of making it was incredible. Yeah, And I think that's a really important thing to be reminded of in this business. But I imagine in any that, like, sometimes it isn't the length the doing is the wind. Like to get a pilot sold, let alone made is nearly impossible, and then to make it, to get the budget to cast the people you want, and to do just that or four episodes or eight episodes or whatever, it's like you are breathing the most rarefied air, and sometimes you forget to enjoy that it got made in the first place because you're wanting it to continue. I think that culture wants us to like always be getting somewhere, but then we're just playing catch up with ourselves forever. I know, at least at this stage in my life, I'm trying to really celebrate the winds as they happen and let that be enough. Well, I think, yes, I couldn't agree more. And like, I think that's sort of like constant lesson I'm learning, which is not It's not about the result. It is about the experience getting there, you know. And I think because life's the journey, exactly mean it is, and and and and as as sort of like, you know, it's not a platitude, it's just true. It's like, for example, with One Big Happy it was short lived and I only got to make you know, one short season. The making of it was incredible and I really enjoyed that time. I loved working with those actors, you know, it was a really wonderful, enriching experience. And I forgot that when it was canceled because I was so crushed and you know, sad and heartbroken that it was gone, that I forgot to sort of focus on, well, you know, you spent more time actually making it, you know, and that really was the precious experience of it, you know, which is why I think when I was starting to write Dead to Me, I wasn't even thinking about the result because I was like, I don't know what the hell is going to happen with us? I better just enjoy the process forces you to learn non attachment. Like weirdly, the beating, the beating and the anxiety that you receive and are forced to endure in this business kind of makes you a bit of a Buddhist. You're like, I can't be attached to anything. I mean, it's true. I've had that same conversation with Christina Applegate, who's to start of judge me, Like, you know, when we were just waiting to see what happened with the show, and before the show premiered, she was like, whatever happens, I don't know. Like I've just learned not to get too excited and not to put too you know, many expectations into it, and you know, and then maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised. Yeah, something I do want to do because I'm a big data science nerd, and something that feels really important, just to highlight for a second, because you brought up a stat that I think will probably shock people. You know, I think, because we're having all these cultural conversations finally in the forefront, everyone assumes there's more equality in a lot of these spaces, and especially in the entertainment space than there really is. You know, people look at TV and there they don't understand why we're fighting for more presentation for women, and for gay characters, and for people of color. But I just want to read a couple of statues. You said that your show was the first time there had been a lesbian lead character in eighteen years on the air. Females accounted for fewer than a third of speaking characters and eleven hundred films released during eleven consecutive years ending in according to the inclusion initiatives Ann and Berg did. However, both relatively low budget and high budget films with diverse cast members earned more at the box office than those without diversity among its actors. People of color spent more on tickets than white people, according to CIA's examination of theatrical film releases. The number of women and people of color directing episodes of entertainment TV shows for the second consecutive year has hit a record high, but it's still insanely small. There are only seventeen percent of all shows on television that have one black staff writer. It's like women are crazy. Women are over represented, of course, a script supervisors and art coordinators and production coordinators, and among the non actors who are covered by the union's contracts. Men are still more likely than women to snag new weekly contracts to perform lead roles and plays musicals and television shows. It's like the gap is still so big, and I think there's this idea that because like Ellen is on TV or Ava du Verney as a director, or you know, Blackish is on like yeah, like Queer Eyes on TV. What what do you want? And it's like, well, but there's still not characters and there's still so many spaces where like there's the one woman where there's the one and we would just we would like more. I would like more dead to me, that's what I would like more of. So if you could just make four more of those, I'm sure you have so much spare time. That's what's so weird is that, like again, like I wasn't in making a show with two female leads. It didn't feel like I was doing anything that special, you know what I mean. It's like it's a store and there's two women in it, Like what is the big deal? But the way in which has been received and kind of celebrated as like oh my god, finally like two women in their forties, but I think there's such a large part of me that's like that should not be a big deal, but it is, you know, And I'm happy to have contributed and to give that representation on television. It is a privilege to be able to do that. But my god, it should not be a headline. It just shouldn't. It just should There just should be so many more shows. Yeah, I mean, I could go on and on, but for me, you know, right now, seven of my eight writers or women, and I haven't booked all my directors, but I'm aiming to book all female directors for this season. Last season it was all female and or LGBTQ people. So I take my responsibility very seriously as a female show runner. As a show runner, you know that it is my job to elevate and employ people who, for me want I want to see their names in the credit. Yeah, and it isn't. I just want to clarify for people, it's not about like some sort of preferential treatment or like damn the man. It's like, this is what it takes to create any kind of equality. We have to be intentional about it because the system isn't built for it. And if you know, sevent of directors or men Like I'm in the d g A. I want to direct more. It requires somebody being intentional about hiring us as women, because there's just the system where they hand stuff to the boys, and there's all this unconscious bias and it isn't the guy's fault. I've worked with amazing male director, so I was just telling you how much fun I had. The one experience I've had with Netflix has been not easy with Joe Swanberg and like one of the best experiences I've ever had in my career. You know, he's my favorite. I'll work for him forever. But I also to work with incredible women and incredible lgbt Q folks in front of him behind the camera, Like those those things are priorities for me because I want to make sure that the stats that we were just looking at change. And that's the thing is that because if you're already I mean, I don't know what the percentages now, but like it's also a very high percentage of male showrunners, and I get it, like you're gonna, you're gonna. I like to work with people who I connect with. I like to work with people that I feel that I have something in common with. For me, that's women or gay people. And you know, it's my prerogative to do that. And if I was a white dude, I would probably in many ways connect with other white dudes. There's no inherent like issue with that. It's just that in order to create equality, you've got to put yourself in the position to empower other people. Once you're given the power, you know, which I am really lucky to have, it's my job now to give that other women. How does that? I mean you talked a little bit about your writer's room. What is your sort of hiring process like for that room? What are you looking to represent in that room? So you know, first and foremost, I read the scripts you know, that are submitted to me, and I'm looking for I'm looking for a sympatico voice or tone that I feel I can translate to dead to me. You know, it is a very specific show and the tone is very very unique, and so I'm looking to see, Okay, can I see that style of writing, you know, adapt itself to what I'm looking for. You know, obviously I'm looking for women because the lead characters are women, and the show is a very feminist show and its soul. I'm looking also than when I'm meeting with writers, for people who are willing to be open and vulnerable and give their personal stories to the show. And I think that that is in part why the show is connected with many people, is because it's really written from a real place of feeling and authenticity of experience. And so often the writers in my room have experienced some real level of loss or trauma or fertility struggles, you know, myself included. So that and then of course I'm looking for people I want to be in a room with, because so much of being a writer in a room is spending time together and enjoying that time. So you know, those are the basic parameters. I'm also, of course, I'm looking for experience. Like I have a certain experience which is very sort of comedy heavy. You know, I've written on a lot of multi camera shows, I've written for comedians and you know, so so I feel pretty confident in the comedy space. So my first season in the show, I was really looking for people who had done hour long or you know, cable comedy, you know, just a different experience level. I'm always looking to learn from the people i'm in a room with. I don't need to be the smartest person. I don't want to be the smartest person. I want to be awed by the people I'm working with. And so I'm often, you know, just looking for people I really respect and admire. And I've been really lucky, you know, in terms of being able to hire those people. And then of course, like I want a range of life experience too, so and it's important to me obviously always have you know, as much diversity as I can, whether that's with other LGBTQ people or people of color and so on, so that that's sort of how I do it. That's so awesome. You talked a lot about how you were, you said, and I think the quote is pretty great when you figure out what the circumstances are. You said that your life had a lot of twists and turns in the moment when you were pitching dead to me. Over the course of one week, you had your milestone birthday, learned of your cousin's death, found out your best friend was pregnant when your cousin's funeral, found out your other best friend was pregnant, and then learned the very next day that you were not that's a big week. That's the like, if you wrote it, nobody would be how do you have that week and walk in to a group of executives at an entertainment company and sell of this show? Like how do you do that? Because well a lot of people are wondering how to pick themselves up off the floor of a really bad week and go out and do the thing that they dream of doing, Like yeah, I mean it's I you know, I can I can tell you with perspective how I think I did it. I mean, for me, I'm a little behind myself. Sometimes I'm just trudging through the day, you know, when I'm in sort of a harder or darker moment in my life, and then later on I go, oh, that's what was going on with me. I was feeling this or that. So I've always been like that since I was a child, just totally behind my feelings, which maybe in some way serves me so that I can sort of function. And then I'm like, oh God, how did I have function? But so you know that all happened, and you know, I am somebody who has always sort of buried myself in work, work as my savior, my outlet you know, the thing that I feel safe as doing. And so you know that I had that week and then it was like really shortly after that, I had had this meeting on the books to go here a pitch. I wasn't told to bring a pitch. I was told, you're gonna go sit, you know, with these producers, and you're gonna hear a bunch of pitches for a two female lead show. And if something sparks and you think of something, you know, and you can bounce off each other, like you you see how it goes. But you don't have to have anything prepared. So that's why I agreed to do the thing because I was like, all right, I don't have to have anything prepared like so I wasn't like, okay, all right, I had this great idea, like I had nothing, and I showed up to this meeting and honestly I had to haven't even told this part of the story because it seems just like layer of unbelievable, but it's a true. I was really sick that day. My God. I had just come from earth Bar where I was on an ivy of vitamins just to get myself to be able to get to this meeting. So I go to this meeting and I'm like, not well. And I sit down and I'm clearly the last writer there, and they are They've been talking to people all day about these ideas. And I sit down and they're like, well, you know, we're sick of our ideas. Do you have any plot twist? Yeah, there's a plot twist. And Luckily, like I said, I come from this place of being an improviser, and so I started improvising because I had nothing prepared. So I'm like asking questions and I'm just trying to get an idea of the kind of shows that they like, and you know, blah blah blah. And I think I only realized after because of the emotional place I was in. I just was like, all right, I have sort of an idea. And I normally would never pitch something this early in its concept, but I had no choice. I had to pitch something. So I was like, one of them is a widow, and the other one she meets the other one at a grief group, only her guy didn't die, he just broke up with her. And like I I it came literally like from the ether into my head that's where I have no ideas. That's it. It wasn't like I was like, hmm, I wanted to show, but I have no idea. It just came into my head and they were like huh and I was like yeah. And then like she finds out like halfway through, but like they've already kind of become from you know, you know, and I was just like, like, honestly came both from the ether and straight out of my ass at the same time. And they were like, we like you. And I was like okay. And then I kind of like left and I just was feeling so ill. I went home and I had a hundred degree fever. Oh my god. So it was a fever pitch a literal Yeah, it was real nuts. And and then I just kept thinking about it. I just kept thinking about the idea, and that's the origin where it came from. But it's so interesting because I wonder, like, you know, in the ether and the subconscious, how all of the things you were witnessing and experiencing in that moment fueled that experience or fueled that idea rather because you you know, you said earlier that you realized in the writing of the show that you were writing these two versions of yourself. And when I think about, you know, the show dealing with these themes of shining a light on things that we often don't talk about, pregnancy, loss, the death of a loved one, and the conflicting experience of grieving that person and also having lost that person when you were so angry at that person, when that person who's making you suffer. You know, these awakenings that that Jen Christina Appwet's character goes through in the show, finding out who her husband was, what he was doing, Like I the first time I watched it again, if you have not watched the show, please turn this off. It's like, I don't want to ruin this moment for you, but I need to talk to Lizabeldman about it. Okay, When I watched that show in the car, when Judy says he killed you and Jen finds out that her husband told his girlfriend that she had died of the breast cancer that she had actually had and beaten, like I was like jaw on the floor, so glued and fascinated and also devastated, like I don't think I've ever been completely still and completely in tears at the same time, because like I'm a like heaving, crying crier person. And then I rewound it and I was like, I gotta watch it again. And I I rewound the scene three times and watched it through. I was like, I have to look at every moment and every cut, and Okay, they were in the front seat, and they were outside the car and they were in the back seat, and this was the whole thing. And how did these women shoot this in so many angles? They did it so many times. Like I was having a full blown, like creative, grateful, inspired meltdown. I just lost my ship and it was so cool. And you just don't see that. You don't see those conversations, and you don't see the kind of duality we often on TV see one feeling or one idea. And for you to let things be simultaneously true love, loss, rage, grief, you know, even even for Linda, for for Judy's whole thing of like she does not know how to process all of these miscarriages, and so she goes to this grief group and and and if she feels safer ascribing the death to her fiance and pretending he's dead, then she feels to tell people she's been miscarrying because there there's all this other shame for women around fertility, and I just was like, this is brilliant. What's happening, you know. I'm like, I'm like, we gotta get like Esther Perell's thoughts on this show, Like I bet she has a whole thing. It's really thank you. It's like it's just so amazing. And I get what you're saying that it's not like some you know, intentional like torch carrying to the issues, really not at all, but you you have not shied away from them. And I would imagine it's because you carry some of some versions of those things of your own onto the page, of course, so you want to be honest, and the writers in your room carry their own versions of those things onto the page, and you want to be honest. And I think sometimes just sitting in a raw honesty with people and not sanitizing, not doing like the network wax and wash on it, it makes all the difference. It clearly did, I guess. And I think also part of that is audiences have so much experience watching television now you know there are four be and audiences are really sophisticated and savvy, and they're so smart and really smart, and the same old stuff isn't going to penetrate. And I've also been writing for so long, I didn't more to write the same old stuff because I'm not interested in that, and I'm interested in you know, it's it's it's a show, you know, about the sort of power of female friendship to get us through the fucking twists and turns of life. You know, Yes, I was coming from a place of like, I mean, listen, even with my own personal twists and turns, my life has been incredibly blessed compared to the vast majority of people on the planet. But that doesn't mean that your pain or trauma. It doesn't. It doesn't. And you know, the way in which like I experienced my own loss and trauma definitely colored how I chose to, you know, like represent the loss and trauma of these women. Again, the facts are not the same. But you know, any woman you know, for example, who has been trying to get pregnant and not succeeding for years on end, you know, whether it's miscarriage or you know, whatever it is, Like honestly, like every month you you get your period is a loss and that's just not something you ever see on television. I'm afraid to say the word period, let alone miscarriage exactly exactly. And I didn't take every literal thing that happened to me and you know, translated for television. But I took those feelings of like just the deep dark loss of not really being able to talk about the thing that you are struggling through, and I think, you know, infusing that into those characters. And also, you know, so many of my writers having similar experiences, you know, if you like statistics, I think it's like one in three or four women who have a miscarriage, you know, and it's this really common thing that we don't talk about because it's so painful, you know. I don't think it's just because it's uncomfortable to talk about. It's really painful to talk about it. And it was really hard to watch Linda in those scenes, you know, where she stands up in the hospital and you see that she's had the miscarags, Like, I didn't even realize how hard it was going to be to to watch it, to go through it, And so there were times where I literally had to walk away from the set just to take myself away from it. So I was, you know, so much of what the writing is is almost like my own catharsis and therapy. And I think that when as an artist you are open enough to hopefully go be able to like share your pain in that way, it resonates with people. And you know, it was a really good lesson for me because I'm you know, I'm a comedian. I don't want to be vulnerable. I don't want to like you know, like I don't want to open myself up in that way and show that I have a mushy heart and all that. But like I had no choice to at a certain point, you know, like you go through things, and I had gone through a lot of loss. It wasn't I did turn forty and on the day I turned forty, my cousin did unexpectedly pass away up a heart attack, and that was really you know, difficult and painful, and he had two young kids, and it was all very like, what the funk? Why would that happen? But I also, you know, prior to that, had like three dear friends passed away in their thirties, like you know, over the course of a few years. And you're like whoa what what? What? Why would we why would that have to happen? So, you know, I think I don't even know what my point is. But my point is, like, if there's anybody out there who's like, you know, how do you like make something good or how do you make something that connects to other people? So I would say, look at the place inside of you that is most uncomfortable and look at like, find your like, find your wound, and try to find a way to express it and bring your whole self to the conversation. Yeah, because I think there's this you know, this great like screen fed lie that we're supposed to be perfect all the time. But so many of us are worried that if we talk about our pain or struggle, or we inform our creativity with reality, that it will make people turn away, it will make them uncomfortable. But all that ever happens is people lean in and go, oh you too, Yeah exactly. I mean, look at the people that we admire the most. You know, Oprah for example. You know, she's a very vulnerable person. She's a strong woman, she's incredibly powerful and you know, brilliant. But she talked about, you know, being sexually abused as a child, and she talked openly about her struggles with weight and law, you know, like and and she's she's an open book, you know. And I think there's a reason why people feel so close to her and love her and trust her because you feel like you know her. You know, she's not pulling one over on you, right, She's being her authentic, She's being vulnerable. And you know, I'm like super into Burnet Brown, you know the best. And you know she talks a lot about vulnerability and about how like that is courage and that is like bravery. And I think women were are programmed to be the surface or you know, like this sort of surface version of like put together and we have it all and like I'm a working mom and look at me and like everything's great me, I'm a superhuman and I drink green juice every exam. I sleep for eight hours. I'm like, no, you don't write not and and and I think that had had I think what I should say is that if women start operating from a place of more authenticity and vulnerability, like that is actually where our strength is, you know, our strength is not in putting forth an image that everything is okay and perfect. Our strength isn't showing our flaws. It's so interesting because I'm looking at you and you're you know, we're gesticulating. We're in here, and I just like saw as we were just saying, you have to bring your whole self to the table, and you're talking about strength. If you're bringing a fractional part of yourself to the table, that would be like physically using a fraction of your body. Right, that's not your your strength. Your strength comes from your totality. But I think, and I met, I wonder if you would agree, because we've often been told to only be the good parts. If that's why societally there's a tendency for us to strength because you've even spoken about writing this show and to your point, like Netflix is the most hands off, great partner, but they're one bit of pushback for you. It wasn't from Netflix, who was it from? That was from my studio? So Netflix is perfect, bless you, you know, like they really Netflix really did let me do what I wanted to do. But there was you know, there were a few you know, the executives from the studio and like, look, they're used to making shows for network television, right, this is their job. And their feedback and then and the feedback was, you know, they were scared the Jen was too angry and that it wouldn't be likable. And I asked them to give me specific examples of where they felt that she was being too angry and then therefore not likable, and they kind of couldn't. And so I think that sometimes And these are good people. These are you know, these were women giving me well And by the way, these are women who have consistently through their lives been told kind and even keeled. And you're going to get somewhere if you don't rage or whatever. So and so we get it. I don't blame the note, I really and I expected it quite frankly. So how did you manage that? Because obviously Jen Jen's character is angry? I said, no, I said, I think that it's important. I think she has every right to be angry. Look at what's happened to her, Look at all the information we found out, look at this conversation in the car where she learns this thing. You know, I mean, how could you not be angry? And why is angry unlikable? Yeah? Why is anger bad? Yeah? I mean human emotion. Yeah, age, you know, leading to violence isn't likable unless when she's wielding a golf club though, yeah, unless it's called for, you know, But I mean, I think, you know, I also do sometimes think that we are meant to be challenged as human beings. And you know, the person who gave me that note like stands down now and totally understands. You know, We've had really good conversations about because I've talked openly about the note and I've written about it, and you know, I never did so to shame the person who gave me that note. They were doing their job, but you know, and it's understandable. Listen. I was, I was, I was scared. I wanted her to be likable, but at a certain point I just kind of knew, like, no, this is how this person would be. If I'm writing from a place of like I always want these women to behave like real women, How could her response not be anger? Yeah? How could it be anything? But how you know, I just decided like she's an angry person. Of course, she's an angry person. That is how she's processing her grief. And she's a tough person, and like that's just you know, it is a part of her and there's nothing wrong with that, you know, And you know, so I think we've all learned that it's okay. You know. Do you think that for you in writing it, and for that executive and seeing it succeed, and for everyone else involved in a way, Jen being able to be the leader, the representative of female anger, it's rightful, her righteous anger. Really, did that give you more permission? Did that give all of you more permission to own that in yourself? Well, it's it's funny you should ask that because I wrote this column with a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, where I talk about getting this note and how like I've never considered myself an angry person and as a you know, a girl growing up in the eighties, like again that same thing of like we were not raised to be able to express dissatisfaction, anger, frustration. You know, everything's supposed to be okay all the time. And so I never thought of myself as an angry person. And then I write this character, and I even didn't think of her as an angry person at first, but then when I was really exploring where she would be emotionally blah blah blah. Like I was just saying, like, oh, she's a angry person. Then I get this note and like something happened to me, where though I had never been a confrontational person before, I literally was like, can you can you tell me? Like can you go through the episode and like sort of point out specific thing. And I became really confrontational for myself. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who could be more confrontational, but because in defending Jen, you were defending I was defending myself and I was like really in touch with my It made me really angry to get that note, so much so that then we were in sort of like this bigger meeting with Netflix in the studio and everybody, and you know, they were asking me sort of about the characters because they were beginning to think about marketing and that, and they were like, tell us about Jen, and I was like, well, she's an angry person, and I was like talking to me about I was like, and she has every right to be angry, and like, I think we're scared of angry women, and I understand the fear, but I think we've got to embrace it, because I just was like, all of a sudden, I was like, oh, I guess I'm now like the poster girl for angry women, even though I didn't even know that I was an angry woman myself. Yeah, yeah, I get that. And I think it's interesting too when it comes out. I certainly experienced that, being the kind of person who was kind of always in the tug boat like a good workhorse, I'm gonna get this done. I'm gonna be a good leader. What's going on here, it doesn't matter, look at the whole ship, like this is the point. There was a lot of sort of looking outward to take care of community. And eventually I was like, oh, when we stuff our reactions and just press them down and you pressurize a tube, that's called a bomb. Yeah, yeah, you know. And when I finally admitted that I was really fucking angry, people were like, oh, god, you know why, and you're generally so happy. I was like, well, in this moment, I'm really fucking upset, you know. And And the interesting thing was that it was like such a power almost because I realized I hadn't been in my body because I was ignoring part of my body, and I had to process it to not carry it anymore. And I think it's important for all of us to give ourselves that permission. And it makes me curious, you know, just like as a fan, I wonder where Jen goes like she because she's experiencing her anger, she's processing her anger. She is, you know, kind of kicking the ship out of this circumstance in her life deservedly, and I'm so curious where that leads her next. You know, you're just gonna have to wait to find out. I mean, I have a hunt. You're all aware that I'll be watching it, wouldn't it be weird? Of was like, no, never forget good? Yeah, I think you know you will see you will see some of that being addressed, and h you know, we're obviously really aware, you know. I just I don't even want to say anything you'll see, No, don't give any of it away. So the final question I always like to ask everybody. You know, the podcast is called work in progress, and again I think a lot of people on the outside looking in assume that leaders creators have it all figured out right, you know, But but I so I always like to ask people who are in those sort of idealized positions. What in their life right now feels like a work in progress, all of it, honestly, all of it, you know. I mean, there's no such thing as perfect, and you know, I'm constantly learning, you know, And so even making the first season of the show was such a huge learning curve for me because I had never made a show like this. I've never made a single camera show. I've never made a non multi camera you know, I never made a non broad comedy show. And you know, I'm I'm now in the learning curve of how do you do that again? You know, and you know, and and beyond you know, creativity, it's you know, I'm I'm still, you know, sort of thinking about what I want my family to look like. And you know, I have an incredible wife named Rachel Cantu, and you know, she and I are figuring that out together. And you know, I think that in some ways when you you know, I'm really lucky in that I've been able to manifest so many things that I have dreamt about. And there's an interesting thing that happens when you get to that point, which is now what you know and so what it's done for me, is made me really think about what's going to make my soul happy, you know, and like looking towards wanting to just be a happy person, you know. I mean, like it seems so simple, but like you know, sometimes like i mean, like it's it's a very existential question you're asking, so it's a little bit sort of hard to give a clean answer to. But I'm a very like journey oriented person, you know, and I'm like, I'm I never think I'm done, and I'm just like always interested in like evolving as a human being, as a spirit and as as a creative person. And so you know, I'm hoping that that that evolution will include, you know, having a child for me, but sometimes you know, that can come in different forms, so we'll see. This show is executive produced by Me, Sophia Bush, and sim Sarna. Our supervising producer is Alison Bresnick. Our associate producer is cait Linlee Alright. Editor is Josh Wendish, and our music was written by Jack Garrett and produced by Mark Foster. This show is brought to you by Brilliant Anatomy