Reboot Cast and Creator on Making the Showbiz Satire: “It Felt Like, ‘Where’s Reality? And Where is the Show?'”
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The post Reboot Cast and Creator on Making the Showbiz Satire: “It Felt Like, ‘Where’s Reality? And Where is the Show?'” appeared first on Consequence.
The new Hulu comedy Reboot centers around a scenario that’s become very familiar in recent years: What if a long-canceled TV show was revived with the original cast, and updated for a modern era? As star Johnny Knoxville says, there can be a cynical motivation to it: “The executives think, oh, it’s safer than doing something new, which, you know, puts a lot of writers out of work.”
“There’s a lot of new material out there,” his co-star Judy Greer agrees. “We can’t just think that there’s nothing left, that there are no new ideas.”
“But thank God for other reboots, because we wouldn’t be talking to you today if there weren’t,” Knoxville says.
Reboot in essence is a new idea about old ideas, but one that comes from a very sincere place. “I hope this is not a cynical view of Hollywood. I don’t want this to be a cynical show. I really want it to be an upbeat, fun show about our business,” creator Steven Levitan tells Consequence.
Levitan, who previously created Just Shoot Me and Modern Family, knows a lot about the sitcom world, so for Reboot he created the multi-camera network comedy Step Right Up, about a blended family played by actors Clay Barber (Knoxville), Bree Marie Jensen (Greer), Reed Sterling (Keegan-Michael Key), and Zack Jackson (Calum Worthy).
Years later, everyone from the original cast is at a point in their careers where they’re open to joining a revival of the series, especially after they read the new script by young writer Hannah (Rachel Bloom), who’s bringing a darker edge to the material — much to the dismay of original series creator Gordon (Paul Reiser).
In speaking with Knoxville and Greer as well as Levitan, Worthy, Bloom, Reiser, and Krista Marie Yu (who plays plucky young Hulu executive Elaine Kim), Consequence got some in-depth insight into not just the show, but what it’s attempting to say about this industry.
Says Levitan, “I’m not so much making an anti-reboot statement — that, you know, TV has lost all of its originality and this is what it’s relegated to — because I think there can be a lot of wonderful work done in the guise of a reboot. And if there’s a legitimate reason to do one, because you’re gonna break new creative ground, I’m cool with that.”
Prior to working on Reboot, a few cast members already had direct engagement with revivals, though Greer says that when Arrested Development came back for a fourth season on Netflix in 2013, it didn’t really compare to the situation faced by the Step Right Up cast. “Arrested Development is special,” she laughs.
Reiser, meanwhile, reunited with his Mad About You costar Helen Hunt in 2019 for 12 new episodes of Mad About You, which originally ended in 1999. Reiser tells Consequence that he and co-star Hunt had spent years saying they had no interest in doing a revival of the series “not because we didn’t love it, but because we did love it. We loved how we finished it. We did every episode we wanted to do, we covered every story. We wrapped things up in a beautiful one-hour that not only wrapped things up, but told the future. We did that deliberately so we would never be tempted to come back.”
But when they landed on the angle of exploring Paul and Jamie’s relationship with their now-grown daughter, Reiser says the potential for stories was there: “The only thing that convinced us that it would be exciting and makes sense to do was because the story we could write had some substance.”
That was a unified theme in conversations with the cast: The idea that a reboot or revival’s value is driven by whether it has something new to say in relation to the original version. “I think reboots have the potential of being very special, bringing people together to be nostalgic and to maybe revisit a story where there’s more story to be told,” Worthy says. “I do think there needs to be a purpose behind it. I think it’s important for there to be a reason greater than just IP. I think there needs to be a story that needs to be told as well.”
“Authenticity Is a Really Good Backstop”
Reboot (Hulu)
While Hollywood is rich with examples of Hollywood satires, Reboot doesn’t take its premise over-the-top, which was by design. “It was just so important to me that we get it right,” Levitan says. “I worked for a brief period on The Larry Sanders Show and that was Gary [Shandling]’s big thing, ‘This should feel real. How would this be in real life?’ And that’s what I was trying to do here. I would say to our writers and our set designers and everybody, that this is what we do for a living, so we should be able to get it exactly right. There’s no reason that we got that wrong other than we were being lazy. So let’s not be lazy. Let’s try to show things how they are.
“And I think people will feel it, especially the people who work in the business. I care very much about what fellow writers and actors think about this show, directors, the crew — I want anybody who works in this business to recognize this and say, ‘Oh yeah, they got that right.’ Even the executives,” he laughs. “I think authenticity is a really good backstop.”
Scenes set in the writers’ room often rang the most true for the cast members involved, as many of them also had behind-the-scenes experience with that culture. “The amount of time and energy spent into ordering the right lunch, the discussions that go on — that’s really true and really funny to me,” Reiser says.
“We’re actors, so we’re not like stand up comedians, you know what I mean? We’re going to be given a page full of jokes in a scene, but we’re going to play this scene for real. So, because the jokes are in there and they’re so well written, we don’t have to push the joke — the writing’s going to take care of us in that regard,” Greer says. “Which is, I think why, like we get moments in every episode that are really heartfelt and really grounded and really real.”
Worthy thinks the grounded approach is the right one here because “I think we’ve seen the over-the-top version before — we’ve seen Hollywood where it’s overly gritty. We’ve seen Hollywood where it’s overly comical. And I think what’s nice about this show is it really is authentic and it does feel real. It’s the most honest take I’ve ever seen on working in television. And it doesn’t hold back, but it does tell the truth.”
For Worthy, who did actually start acting at a young age, “it was the first time I ever saw someone really find the essence of what it means to be a child, after growing up in this industry. We see a lot of the cliches, former child actors who are these tragic stories later on in life. It can be very heartbreaking. What I find is more common is a lot of young people who grow up on sets and, and don’t have the opportunity to go to high school while they’re filming, or college. So then it’s a weird transition going from child to adult when their environment doesn’t change, but they have to grow up.”
Worthy says that his experience growing up on set was pretty different from his character’s, since he was able to go to high school in Canada and have a relatively normal adolescence. “So it was a stretch, but it was a fun challenge because I felt very protective over [Zack] as well. I didn’t want him just to be a punchline. I wanted to make sure that we explored the reasons why child or former child actors can be a unique group.”
“I think they tried to be as authentic as possible, because frankly there’s no excuse not to be, you’re doing a TV show about a TV show. You have everything around you to make it authentic,” Bloom says. “And I think that, especially because the style of the show is so naturalistic, from the way it’s shot to the way it’s edited… They used our more subtle takes. If you’re going to do a show that’s so naturalistic, then you want the world to feel real.”
Bloom notes that her collaborator on the CW series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Devil Wears Prada screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, would say that for Prada, “fashion contains its own parody — the world of fashion is ridiculous. So you don’t have to necessarily heighten it, it’s already crazy. And I would say that for the world of show business, especially in a show like this, which is so about people trying to earnestly have a reboot in their lives, you don’t need to make it wacky. Show business and this type of workplace is surreal enough already. You just can just play it, play it real, and you’ll find good stories in that.”
When he’s asked by others if the show is too “inside baseball,” Reiser says that “it’s something to think about, but I don’t think it is. The setting is show business and the particulars are network executives and getting canceled and getting along with your coworkers. But all of that really applies in every world. You have to get along with your coworkers, you have probably somebody above you that can crush your dreams or that can let you go.”
“A Little On the Nose”
Reboot (Hulu)
Because of the effort to keep things grounded, Reboot storylines often blended with the reality of making a TV show. One Reboot storyline, according to Reiser, features a human relations representative speaking with the writing staff about acceptable and unacceptable topics of conversation.
“We do need to have a forum where people can feel safe and register their concerns,” Reiser says, “But we had a meeting like that before we started the show. And I remember joking with Steve Levitan — he may have already had the idea, but I said, ‘We gotta have that. We gotta have a scene where somebody comes in and tells us what we can and cannot say, and then we just keep asking questions.'”
Other surreal moments faced by Levitan and the cast…
Levitan: “There were moments where I was in the writers’ room, dealing with something, and then I had to run down to the set to deal with the scene that was shooting in the show’s writers’ room. One thing after another would happen like that. Where we were shooting was also where we were walking. Between our stage and our offices is where they walk — everything is just constantly turning in on itself. It was fascinating.”
Worthy: “When we were filming the sitcom within the show was interesting, because we had a live studio audience there, but they were also actors. They were background actors as a live studio audience. So it was like having a live studio audience, except they were really told when to laugh.”
Knoxville: “You know, starting off the series by me getting hit by a car is a little on the nose.”
Bloom: “Pitching the show — that just feels like what a pitching room is like. And the writers’ room — anytime we were in the writers’ room, it felt so like being in a writers’ room that I made sure that the board actually had real writing on it for whatever episode we were breaking next. So that if I had to do any improv, I could actually really be thinking, ‘Okay, so Episode 3, what’s coming up there?’ I needed to know those specifics.”
Yu: “I took COVID and quarantine very, very seriously. Like at one point I think, during Last Man Standing, I had goggles on. It took me a really long time to readjust. And Reboot was probably one of my first post-Last Man interactions with people, and I was just pretty much to myself and I didn’t want to test positive. I didn’t want to get anybody else sick on set.
“And there was this gaffer or lighting electrician who kept walking around with his cable and his big old muscles and his boots and his flannel, and he wasn’t wearing a mask. And I was kind of just like, ‘Huh, that guy’s really bold,’ because it was required at that time that we all wear masks. I was like, wow, like way to make a statement, dude. But then I realized he was actually a background actor playing a lighting person. And his mask was off because he was acting.”
Worthy: “There was also a moment with Johnny where we had to film a scene where we were talking in the parking lot next to our cars. And we actually did park next to each other in real life. So, we parked our cars next to each other [that day] and we were talking about the scene we were going to film, and we had some ideas and thoughts we were going to bring to it — and then we walked a few steps and then we filmed it right next to that. It felt like, wait a second, where’s reality? And where is the show?”
Bloom: “Judy’s character jokes about a bunch of Spanks being left in her trailer. Would they leave it without asking her? Yes, they would. They would do that.”
Levitan: “There was a discussion in the writers’ room one night. Let’s just say it involved a sexual position. And a debate started in the room about whether that’s something that happens in real life or whether that’s just the invention of porn — this debate started and I instantly thought, ‘Well, this is literally what has to go in the scene. This exact conversation.'” (No spoilers, but that exact conversation does end up happening in an upcoming episode.)
“We’re All Just People”
Reboot (Hulu)
Reboot joins a long tradition of shows about making shows — it’s a more common topic for television than one might realize, with iconic examples ranging from The Dick Van Dyke Show to 30 Rock. Why do so many exist? Who’s to say, but Worthy notes that while it makes sense for people in the industry to be exceptionally interested in the topic, “a lot of my friends who couldn’t be more removed from the industry feel the same way as well. They love shows about the industry. They love shows like 30 Rock, for instance. And I hope that they’ll also embrace Reboot in the same way.”
Adds Worthy, “I guess I feel the same way about shows like The West Wing or The Newsroom as well. Whenever you pull back the curtain of a workplace, you see some insight into it, and we’re always fascinated by that.”
Bloom also loves Hollywood stories. “I have even long before I was in this business. I didn’t grow up in this business, so to me it was always a mystery and anything that could give me a peek behind the curtain about what it was really like was always super intriguing to me.”
But, she adds, “I know that I grew up thinking it was this different world where the people who were successful and rich and famous had figured out something, had some sort of golden key to happiness and fame and success. And realizing that that’s not true, that everybody up to the head of a network are, you know, people — flawed, insecure people seeking validation and not getting fired — is fascinating to me and demystified it for me.”
Worthy observes that “Hollywood’s interesting because we do hold people that work in the industry up on this high level. But what I like about this show and a lot of shows about the industry is they they reveal that getting success in this industry doesn’t solve any of your problems.”
He laughs as he continues. “In fact, they can make them worse in a lot of ways. Some people, I think, think, ‘Oh, well, if I was a TV star, maybe things would be different.’ But you still have whatever baggage you come with, you just happen to have a job for a while. But everything’s temporary and nothing’s guaranteed in this industry and there’s a lot of volatility that we all experience.”
Plus, says Yu, “I think there is a beauty to the industry. It’s a lot of like bells and whistles and lights and glam, but I think this show in particular shows the underside of it all and everything that goes in that not everybody might necessarily know — that there’s so much hard work that goes into it all.”
Says Bloom, “Everyone’s just trying their best. And it’s far from the glitzy perfection of the show Step Right Up. People are flawed and complicated and there’s always room for a second chance, a reboot. I think that the debate of the show is, are these people up to the task for a second chance at their lives? A second chance at the relationships with the other people on the show? I think that’s the fundamental question.”
And that touch of humanity is key here. “I think the show also does a really great job at reminding us all that we’re just people,” Yu says. “I know it’s not reality, but we, as people within the show, are real and have hearts and get our feelings hurt and have life things happen that are harder. And I think it’s important for people to remember that.”
In the end, Levitan says, this show is a reflection on his years in the industry. “I’ve made so many amazing friends through the years, and I’ve met so many fascinating people, that it seemed like such a rich area for a television show, because what more do you want than a high pressure situation with larger than life characters? And that’s what this presents to me. So I hope it is a bit of a love letter to this to this business — or maybe a good-natured roasting.”
New episodes of Reboot debut Tuesdays on Hulu.
Reboot Cast and Creator on Making the Showbiz Satire: “It Felt Like, ‘Where’s Reality? And Where is the Show?'”
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