John Hoffman (‘Only Murders in the Building’ showrunner): ‘Let’s just triple down here and… be a bit ambitious’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“Let’s just triple down here and go for something of scale that we haven’t tried to hit before and be a bit ambitious,” declares John Hoffman about going all-out for the third season of multiple Emmy-nominated “Only Murders in the Building.” For our recent webchat he adds, “everything about the setup was was theatrical in its nature. So, a heightened ambition felt of a piece with what I was hoping to make happen with the story and with the execution of the season for sure.” We talked with Hoffman as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&A event with 2023/2024 awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above.
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Hoffman co-created “Only Murders in the Building” with comedy legend Steve Martin, who stars in the series alongside fellow comedy legend Martin Short and recording artist and actress Selena Gomez as three strangers with a shared interest (or obsession) with true crime, who suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one. After a suspicious death occurs in their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building, the trio begin their own investigation and start their own true crime podcast. The series is gorgeously rendered and often hilarious as the trio become entangled in the goings on at the exclusive Arconia building, soon coming to realize that a killer might be living among them as they race to decipher the mounting clues before it’s too late. After a hugely successful two seasons, the trio returned for Season 3, in which Oliver Putnam’s (Short) career comeback is in jeopardy when a murder disrupts his Broadway play, and it seems almost everyone involved is suspicious. This third season features new all-star cast members including Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd, Jesse Williams and Ashley Park.
“She has this wonderful gift of popping that grand bubble for everyone she works with in this very beautiful real way and she really looks to connect,” Hoffman says about the magic that Streep creates on set. When looking back at his first meeting with her, he recalls that he “had this remarkable synchronicity moment with her on the character,” explaining that “I had in my mind for a while about how we introduced her character on a stage, but being a ten year old girl in her first Broadway visit with her mother from St. Louis. I walked her through on Zoom, just this ten year old girl seeing a production of “No Strings” in the sixties,” he says. “I didn’t get any further than that. She said, ‘I saw that production with Diahann Carroll‘ [and] she started to sing the song that opens our season. And I said, ‘okay, I’m going to pass out Meryl, because I need you to stop this for a minute and understand. I’m going to send you episode one after we hang up this Zoom and you’re going to see on page one, the lyric you just sang!”
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