Limited Series Writers on the Impact of Casting, Writing Emotional Journeys, and Finding a Tonal Balance
'Dying for Sex' co-creators, executive producers and writers Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock knew that establishing the tone of the show was always going to be hard.
The limited series starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate is based on the true story of Molly Kochan, a young woman who is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Together with her best friend Nikki Boyer, the two start a podcast about her journey.
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Molly, played by Williams in the show, doesn't plan on having a sexual awakening, but she does. And as she battles her illness, she explores her sexual desires and fetishes, empowering herself. Speaking during Variety's A Night in the Writers' Room Limited Series panel, Meriweather said, 'We decided to focus on the humanity of the characters and really not try to think about genre that much.'
While the earlier episodes were structured around a comedic tone, Meriweather explained that over the course of the show, the tone got darker. 'The most important thing was honesty and allowing space for that,' Meriweather said.
Speaking about the sex scenes, Rosenstock explained that the sex was never gratuitous. 'The sex was always doing something for the character. It was always helping her heal.'
And while the showrunners wanted it to be hot and sexy, the North Star was that it was always doing something for Molly. The two revealed how they had discussed the idea of musical theater and how each song is used to move a character along. Said Merriweather, 'Every sexual experience she has is like a musical number. The song is supposed to take the character to a different place by the end.'
Rosenstock went on to explain how Molly's bravery needed to be reflected in their writing. 'Part of what this character is doing is that she has this radical acceptance of, 'Yes, all these different ways that sex can look like and feel like, and ways that you can experience pleasure.' So, we needed to have that bravery in our writing and in the filming of it.' She went on to explain that if they cut away in the way that shows have that tendency to, 'We are also having shame around what we are talking about and what we are showing. And we wanted to make something that reflected the character's outlook on that.'
Meriwether and Rosenstock were two of the writer-producers who spoke about their creative process on Thursday night at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. The limited series panel included Lauren LeFranc ('The Penguin'), Ian Brennan ('Monsters – The Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story'), Olivia Milch ('The Better Sister') and Nikki Toscano ('Long Bright River').
LeFranc spoke about 'The Penguin' and Cristin Milioti, who plays Sofia Falcone. LeFranc revealed writing the character meant a lot to her, but she hadn't pictured an actor. 'I just knew this voice and I knew what I was looking for and needed.'
When Milioti was cast, LeFranc knew she had her Sofia Falcone, and she could hold her own against Colin Farrell, who plays Oswald Cobb. LeFranc said, 'She's his antagonist in a lot of ways. And that this very complicated relationship and the character itself is very complicated. She has to be able to pull off something deeply emotional and you need to empathize with her, but she also needs a wit.'
Milch talked about adapting 'The Better Sister.' The series is based on Alafair Burke's novel and stars Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel.
Before taking the show out, Milch revealed that all eight scripts for the series had been written. It was a rare occasion, but it helped when bringing together the casting. 'There's a real gift in seeing the completion of that vision. But then that's where the collaboration starts with your actors, right?'
She added, 'When you start understanding who your cast is, then you build a relationship with them in terms of the act of creation of who the character is. So your ideas about it start to be infused with who they are, with their ideas about it, with what you're finding together. And that evolution and that living, breathing reality of the creative process, that's where the good stuff happens.'
In 'Long Bright River,' Amanda Seyfried plays a jaded Philadelphia patrolwoman Mickey Fitzpatrick in the Peacock limited series who searches for her younger sister, Kacey (Ashleigh Cummings), amid the opioid crisis in Philadelphia and sex workers being murdered.
In casting Seyfried, Toscano said the actress 'undeniably transformed into this.' When looking for someone to play Mickey, she was looking for someone who could be undeniably raw, and Seyfried checked all the boxes. 'She's really willing to strip down and strip away from everything else. And we needed somebody that could have that snf was bringing this weird sort of guarded cop to life.'
Toscano also made her directorial debut with the series, stepping behind the camera for episode 6. In discussing that experience, Toscano said she had been surrounded by an incredible group of women or men 'whose primary focus was to uplift women.'
She also praised her all-female department head, explaining that it was never the intention to hire an all-female crew. 'The women just won the fucking job.'
Brennan revealed how the labor strikes of 2023 impacted writing 'Monsters.' Netflix's nine-part series follows the real-life events of the Menendez brothers, Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik Menendez (Cooper Koch), who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989. 'The Hurt Man' episode was written by Brennan and focuses on Erik as he opens up to his defense attorney about the sexual abuse he experienced.
Brennan had noticed when watching the real-life court testimony on Court TV and the brothers were talking about sexual abuse, 'you literally can't look away 'cause it doesn't cut away…you can't break the tension.'
And so he was inspired to do the same. He had the idea that the episode would be a single shot. Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, loved the idea. Except he had to write it before the strike. 'It was the most challenging artistic thing.' Brennan couldn't sleep and revealed, 'I went downstairs and then like poured a very large glass of wine and wrote the episode in one sitting.'
Watch the full panel above.
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