(mellow music)
- Every one of the first three episodes
is basically a different kind of show
because it changes premises, like, three times
in the first three episodes.
That's a spoiler, kind of, but not really.
And then episode six has none of
the main characters in it, as well.
So, it's really, like, out of the eight episodes,
you just can't get a bearing on the show,
and that's one of the things I love the most about it,
which is that Amazon gave us a chance to
do something that is super unpredictable.
And in a world where, I think, a lot of times
when they give you notes, they want the audience
to know what the show is in the first five minutes
or even the first minute.
You know, it's like someone comes up, is like,
"You know, your father died, now we've gotta move
"in together and get along."
You know, it's something like that, right?
That's what they want at the beginning.
We should, this is the writers' room
for that show. - Who are you thinking
about as the father?
Who do you like for the father?
- I don't, Beau Bridges? (laughter)
- All right, all right, I see that.
- You know, we mined a lot of
my co-creator Matt Hubbard's life
because he's been married for years and years,
and I'm a single person, so.
I'm unmarried, anyway.
And there's an argument between Maya Rudolph's character
and Fred Armisten's character where, for essentially
20 years, he's been loading the dishwasher in a way that,
or she's been loading the dishwasher in a way
that she didn't want to. - Drive him crazy.
- And basically it was just tines up,
your forks being tines up.
And it was like, "Yeah."
He was like, "That's a real argument that me
"and my wife had, and it got ugly."
(laughter)
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On the last show I did on Master of None,
we did an episode where he is dating two women
at the same time.
65 year-old Asian man in southern California,
which is like a pretty rare story in television.
And we had lunch, we were eating some seafood or something,
and he was like, "So, I watched the second season,
"and I noticed you had an episode where I'm dating
"two women at the same time."
He's like, "I don't do that."
I was like, "Yeah, it's fictionalized.
"It's a comedy."
But he, I don't know.
I don't wanna imply that he did do it, but.
(laughing)
But I was like, "You're ballin' out, man."
- Okay, what is your most unusual pre-writing ritual?
- I always walk around the writer's room and,
you know, our writer's room for forever was really small.
And so, it's. - Yeah, ours is, too.
- I'm sure it was so annoying, but I'm walking behind
I get to do it because I'm the boss.
- My friend said its like Untouchables
with Al Capone when he's walking around,
it's like, people are gonna hit me with a baseball bat
'cause I'm just pacing around.
- On Parks on Rec
you hurt you foot-- - A very ironic sort of
yeah, punishment.
- But you were still scooting around?
- Yeah, but you know when I was writing this movie
I did the same thing, but I did it in New York City,
so no one could stop me,
so I would walk from my apartment
on like Houston 'til like the Met,
which is like 80 blocks away (laughing)
and it's just getting away from your computer and getting
away from your phone. - I used to work on South Park
and Trey Parker would do that.
He never stopped moving and he would like,
go off into another room. - Maybe that's where we got it
'cause I worked there briefly too!
I saw him do the same thing. - Yeah, he would just
walk in circles.
(mellow music)
- The best shows, the best films in history
have a very singular, clear, unique,
usually unheard of point of view.
Like a new point of view,
and whether that's comedic, dramatic or whatever.
But the thing that drives me crazy when watching something
is when it feels like it's written by a committee,
when it feels like it's cobbled together,
when it feels like every line was written by a writer,
if that makes sense, you know what I mean?
It's like no one--
- Do you ever sometimes feel that we go,
I do a joke that's so, but you're like,
"hey my joke got in!"
- Yeah exactly!
- You can see it, you can kinda feel it on a show sometimes.
- Or you can feel that it's like,
oh, that was done at three in the morning.
(all laughing)
- I did an interview once and they were like,
yeah, your first show Master of None,
you talked about race a lot,
and then in Forever, it's like,
why didn't you talk about race more?
It's like every show I have to do has to be about race?
That's insane!
Is it because I'm Asian,
my show has to be about being Asian?
It's like, and by the way, the show stars Maya,
who's biracial, and Fred, who is a million different races,
and just their existence by that very fact is like,
okay there are people in the-- - The fact that they're just
playing those parts and no one is talking about it.
- And by the way, there's an episode, episode six,
which is about a black man and an Asian woman
falling in love over the course of 30 years,
and they do talk about race!
I was like, is that not enough?
The whole show has to be, like,
it really opened my eyes to the expectations of
wow, you really think everything you ever work on
has to be about that?
It really doesn't.
You know, I'm happy to make more stuff.
I'm making a movie that has - You are, yes!
an all-Asian cast, but not everything I do is gonna be that.
(mellow music)