Stephen Root Explains How TV Getting More Real Led to Dramedies Like Barry
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The post Stephen Root Explains How TV Getting More Real Led to Dramedies Like Barry appeared first on Consequence.
Famed character actor Stephen Root’s newest project, the Freeform animated series Praise Petey, is very much a comedy. However, the actor has moved back and forth quite a bit between genres, though as he tells it, “it’s not so much a difference between comedy and drama. It’s a different take on good writing. I’ll always go back to that, and I’ll always go back to how much we support the writer’s strike because we’re standing there with our mouths hanging open without writers. And not electronic writers, real writers with real human emotions.”
Speaking to Consequence prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike, Root explains that when it comes to taking on new projects, “it’s not about so much the drama or comedy as it is about a piece of human condition that you’re interested in hearing about, and something that makes you interested in the character, which is the whole reason to do it. If you’re not interested in what this character’s going to do, you’re gonna turn off the show. So it’s more about if the story is interesting enough and are the characters interesting enough — whether it’s drama or comedy, or a nice mix like you have in many shows these days.”
Praise Petey focuses on the titular Petey (Annie Murphy), a New York City gal whose life gets upended when her father (Root) dies and she finds out that her inheritance includes a small Southern town… where her father had successfully created a cult that now looks to Petey for leadership.
“Rarely do I get to do something as well-written as, say, King of the Hill or something like that,” says Root, adding that “at this point in my life, writing is everything and the writing is great on this show. That’s what attracted me to it, when they said ‘Would you be interested in doing this guy?'”
He also said yes because of the cast: “I’m a huge fan of everybody that’s been in the show — Annie Murphy is one, John Cho is so funny. Amy Hill, who I worked with on King of the Hill, is so funny. Paget Brewster, everything that comes out of her mouth is funny.”
Because Petey’s father is dead as the series begins, Root’s character doesn’t have many scenes with the rest of the cast, mostly appearing in the form of taped messages to his daughter, guiding her through the particulars of running a cult. “I don’t mind the fact that I don’t necessarily get to interact with most of the people on the show,” says Root, “but I do intrinsically, just being there and saying what I have to say. So it’s okay. Plus I get to see ’em at table reads.”
Those table reads, Root says, were valuable, because “for a new show, you really want to get the people together as much as you can, even if it’s Zoom, to see how the personalities bounce off each other. We had table reads for most of the episodes, which I think was really helpful for the writers as well.”
In 2023, Zoom is still largely where those take place. “I obviously would love to work more in the style of an old radio show, where all four or five of you are in a circle and bouncing off each other,” says Root. “But that’s really hard to do these days. Maybe at some point, it’ll loosen up enough that you can get more than a couple of people in a room.”
While Praise Petey is, as mentioned, very much a comedy, it does feature some dark humor and real drama — not as much as another show Root’s on, though. At the time of our conversation, the Emmy nominations were still pending — unfortunately, Root was not nominated for his supporting performance in the Bill Hader-created Barry, but the show did pick up 11 nominations, including recognition for Outstanding Comedy Series. “I’m hoping that the show will be recognized, and that would be very, very fulfilling,” he says.
Barry’s ongoing Emmys success reflects how popular its subgenre has become, as Root notes. “I think that’s a newer thing, to have more dramedies on the air, like say The Bear or Barry or Succession or any of those — they all have an element of comedy in them, but they’re a lot more drama than comedy, for sure. And I think that’s okay, because that’s what real life is. Real life is drama that people are trying to get through, and the best way to get through it sometimes is comedy.”
It’s a trend Root believes started decades ago, as productions started getting more realistic in their approach to telling stories on television, which become more prominent as the years passed. “That kind of realism thrown into TV that hadn’t been in there before — NYPD Blue, that kind of real life [angle], the cameras moving all around. You’re seeing real people with real problems, and I think that since the mid-’80s you’ve gotten more and more reality within TV so people can relate more to it. And I think it’s at the point now where you couldn’t get away with the ’70s and ’80s storylines that you had then, because it’s not real. And you want it to be.”
Plus, the current day approach to storytelling on television means that a narrative can stretch out over “six episodes of a show, something like that. It gives you space and time to learn more and more about the characters and gives you a little breathing room. I think once you get into like 22 shows a season, like we used to have on terrestrial tv… I think you can tell a better story in a longer movie-type situation that’s on television.”
As Root describes, “Barry was specifically made as a comedy that had a separate violent side,” while Succession features “horrible people doing horrible things, but kind of really funny.”
Continues Root, “In a very slight sense, that’s real life — there’s a lot of horrible people doing stuff, and then there’s a lot of really good people trying to do something good.”
Praise Petey airs Fridays on Freeform, and is streaming now on Hulu.
Stephen Root Explains How TV Getting More Real Led to Dramedies Like Barry
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