Meet Your Maker: Bad Sisters creator Sharon Horgan on how Succession and Rosemary's Baby influence her work

For comedy talent Sharon Horgan, taking on Bad Sisters was a new challenge.

The new Apple TV+ comedy-thriller, which is based on the Belgian series Clan, follows a group of five siblings who plot the murder of their abusive brother-in-law. Horgan landed on the adaptation after Apple approached her following the end of the beloved comedy Catastrophe. "I had never adapted anything and I'd never written a murder mystery before, or a thriller, and it just all felt a bit scary," Horgan shares. After watching the pilot, she decided she was in. "It felt like the kind of thing I love to do, which is to cross the dark with the light, but it also felt like something I could make my own," she explains. Bad Sisters is the most recent example of Horgan's ability to infuse comedy into other genres — she also worked on the recent horror-comedy series Shining Vale.

For Horgan, blending genres is all about making sure the storytelling is grounded. "Even if it's sci-fi, murder mystery, or horror or comedy, for me, it has to be relatable. Then you can go wherever it wants," she explains.

Below, Horgan tells EW what has inspired some of her most popular shows, like Catastrophe, Shining Vale, and now Bad Sisters.

Richard Linklater's <i>Before</i> trilogy

Catastrophe fans loved the humorous verbal jousting of characters Rob and Sharon. Their communication style was partly inspired by Richard Linklater's work. His Before film trilogy, which tracked the relationship between Jesse and Céline's relationship, began with 1995 romantic film Before Sunrise. It was followed by 2004's Before Sunset and Before Midnight in 2013.

Created by Horgan and Rob Delaney, Catastrophe follows an American advertising executive (Delany) and Irish primary school teacher (Horgan) who end up with a baby after a six-day fling and have to navigate their new normal, which is equal parts awkward and humorous. "Rob and I used to reference [Linklater's Before trilogy] a lot. How they spoke to each other and that idea of following a conversation, the twists and [turns] that a conversation might take," Hogan says about Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline's (Julie Delpy) interactions in the trilogy. Horgan sees a naturalness in the way the film series' central couple were together, and that aspect of their dynamic was something they wanted for Catastrophe. "When they talk to each other and when they find each other funny, it feels like real people finding each other funny, which is what we tried to do on Catastrophe," Horgan explains.

<i>Rosemary's Baby</i>

Among the horror projects referenced in Shining Vale was 1968 psychological horror film Rosemary's Baby. Starring Mia Farrow, the film centers on a young pregnant woman who suspects her elderly neighbors are members of a Satanic cult who aim to use her baby in a ritual.

Horgan and Astrof wanted the horror-comedy to be scary, but also for "the comedy to have a certain knowingness to it." So, they looked to psychological influences like Rosemary's Baby. Shining Vale follows a dysfunctional family who moves to a small town after wild-child-turned-famed-raunchy-writer Pat Phelps (Courteney Cox) is caught cheating on her husband and moves into a house with a past full of terrible atrocities. They leaned into the uneasiness of psychological horrors, which they used to influence the tone of the series.

<i>Succession</i>

"Well, [Succession] just makes you want to be a better writer, really," Horgan says. The HBO hit series centers on the very rich and equally dysfunctional Roy family, and the Bad Sisters creator admires how Jesse Armstrong is able to balance the comedy through the characters. In the midst of corporate takeovers and family drama, the humor is often found in the way family, specifically siblings, get under each other's skin."It's an influence in that it's just very f---ing good because it makes you up your game," she explains.

<i>Mustang</i>

The 2015 Turkish film Mustang had an impact on Bad Sisters' aesthetic. Deniz Gamze Ergüven's feature debut is set in a remote Turkish village and follows five young orphans as they face their challenging upbringing in a conservative place. Horgan found her version of the film's wild aesthetic by setting her series in Ireland. "There is a real a wildness right by the coast. The geography of where we set it on feels ancient and controlled by nature," she explains. She even pulled inspiration from the way the young characters of Mustang lived without restrictions, which relates to the film's visual aesthetic. While the middle-aged women of Bad Sisters are older, they have held onto that wild feeling from their younger years in a similar manner to how Mustang's central characters lived.

Music

When Horgan begins writing a new project, she starts listening to a specific "realm of music." "For Bad Sisters, it was Appalachian folk music, Bulgarian choirs, and murder ballads," she says. The list also included the work of PJ Harvey, who ended up working on Bad Sisters as its composer.

Bad Sisters premieres on Apple TV+ August 19.

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