Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Rosie Cordero, Associate TV Editor at Deadline, and it's my pleasure
00:10to welcome you today to our Mr. and Mrs. Smith panel. Joining us today are co-creator and
00:18showrunner Francesca Sloan, composer David Fleming, executive producer and director Hiro
00:24Mirai, and casting director Carmen Cuba. Welcome, everybody. Congratulations.
00:30Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thank you.
00:35But before we begin, here's a look at Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
00:39Ah, just in the nick of time.
00:42Oh. Well, it is a little damaged. Maybe a 50% discount. I mean, that doesn't come out
01:12of you guys, does it? No. Oh, okay. Well, can I get you something to drink? Sure. Yeah.
01:21No, thanks. We've got other deliveries. Okay. Well, then the exit's through the back then.
01:27Thank you. Thank you.
01:29Susan, again with the salt. I've asked you three times.
01:50A cake? We're not supposed to talk about it.
01:53Yeah, I know, but... We're not supposed to talk about it.
01:57Excuse me.
02:01That better have been a delicious fucking cake.
02:03They're probably diplomats, and there's an ingredient in the cake that they can't get in the States.
02:07Yeah, but then why...
02:27Okay, so Francesca, this clip really sets up a small amount of things that go expanding
02:47throughout the entire season, element of surprise. They never have any idea what's going on.
02:53Going from the clip, can you kind of set up how these moments kind of pop up across
02:59the whole season and keep us guessing at every corner?
03:03Yeah, I mean, people keep saying that I coined this. This should go on record that actually
03:08Hero coined this, that our season of Smiths are sort of these students that are C-minus
03:15students in an AP course. And I think that sort of travels through the entire season.
03:22We wanted, as opposed to the film, which is a lot of fun, but it's like super glossy
03:26and stylized, we wanted our John and Jane to sort of be your everyman. Like anybody
03:31could sort of look and relate to that. And if it's not you, it could be your neighbor
03:35or it could secretly be your server or your mailman. And so the two of them kind of being
03:41in a situation that are super high stakes for the two of them, but also that becoming
03:46something that their relationship also then has to go through, it kind of makes them have
03:51to become closer and closer and closer, the more that they're dealing with all this chaos
03:55with each other. So Hero did a really good job at sort of making that surprise moment
04:00happen. But yeah. And Dave, right before your amazing score comes in too, we're like,
04:06let's have some fun. Right before Dave's music comes in.
04:11I hope you all appreciated how restrained I was at that moment.
04:17Hero, is there anything that you want to add to that?
04:20Yeah, I think, you know, from the beginning, we kept talking about what this genre's
04:26expectations usually are, which is, you know, effortless people doing like incredible things
04:32without sweating. And I think what was relatable to us was, you know, how do you put
04:40effortful, vulnerable, messy people in these situations, how they handle it? And that contrast
04:46is kind of a source of comedy and also, you know, tension in the drama.
04:51I want to go to Carmen because we keep saying people, the people, and there's, you guys
04:55got 16 nominations and there's a lot in the acting category. So Carmen, can you give us
05:01a little bit of insight into these auditions and hot play and why you thought that these
05:08people would all work so well together?
05:11I think what Fran and Hero said is really, you know, was extended throughout the process
05:17with casting. It was always a collaboration, a conversation, sort of how to match our tone,
05:24which is the Donald, Fran, Hero tone, but to expand it into a bigger palette with this
05:35idea of this existing IP. And so it was a lot of talking. It was like going so far,
05:41starting obviously with the Brad Pitt idea, right? So it's like, is it that what people
05:47at that level would work here? And basically the conversations just went role by role and
05:54sort of told us what the piece wanted to be. And so what expanding on what Hero said of
06:02just these sort of more ordinary people in these extraordinary situations, we wanted
06:08them to feel, we realized that we wanted them to just be as iconic as Donald is in his space,
06:14but for every role, you know, even like Sharon Horgan and her role and John Turturro, they
06:20all bring with them an audience that is specific and singular. And that's what I think was
06:28really the winning combination, but it did take a lot of calibration on our part and trying
06:34things that were outside of all of our comfort zones, thinking like, are we wrong to not
06:41look at this thing, whatever, just totally different version of anything we would ever do?
06:47Because this in theory, the show is something outside of what we would ever do, right?
06:52And I think all of us just found the way to make it our own and make it our voice
06:57and particularly Fran Hero and Donald's voice.
07:01David, we have Donald, a big music guy. I'm curious as to whether he was involved in
07:09composing at all, but also how you approach this project specifically because aside of
07:14how important the music is, we have explosions and mischief and all kinds of things going
07:20on at the same time.
07:22Yeah, I mean, well, we had a conversation really early with Donald and we were sort
07:27of, you know, getting into the nitty gritty of the characters and all that. And at a certain
07:31point he was just like, you know, and I just want the music to be cool. And that was the
07:36most terrifying thing he said because he's like the arbiter. Yeah, he's the arbiter of,
07:42you know, cool music. But, you know, the initial conversation was the most important
07:50thing, you know, both with him and Fran and Hero because they have such an interesting
07:57tone to their Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And, you know, they've all worked together a lot. And
08:03this is my first time working with them. And a lot of when you start working with someone
08:07is like trying to figure out their vocabulary. And Fran said something early on of like,
08:14what's the we're working on some crazy action scene. And Fran was like, what's the art school
08:20version of this? And so art that like, just lodged into my head. And I was like, okay,
08:26I get it. We're doing art school espionage is effectively like, we need to be we need
08:32to serve the genre. But but we can't lose like this really unique tone that that they
08:39all made. So it was mostly that it was mostly just trying to ride that. That that line between
08:48like, yes, these are spies. Yes, we're gonna have fun. But these are like, like Fran said,
08:54every man spies and so could never get too far away from that way. Whenever I did, like
09:01everyone would be like, Okay, no, no, we're going to spy. We're going to spy. We gotta
09:04we gotta stick with that.
09:06I wonder what to spy sounds like.
09:08You've heard it. That's the thing is. And that's and it's, you know, there's, there's
09:15movies that we've all grown up with that have particular musical tropes, just as well as
09:19they have story tropes. And but, you know, some of these some of these episodes, they're
09:24so beautiful. There's these amazing locations, you can just get sucked into the romance of
09:29Hey, if I was a spy, this is how I would want my soundtrack to be. But But the truth is
09:34my spy soundtrack would be also sort of a not a glossy practiced one. It's, it's, it's
09:45something much more like flying by the seat of your pants. So yeah, it was good to work
09:51with these guys. There's a couple couple scenes. There's this one scene with john
09:56Totoro, when he's sort of engaging in this crazy, fetishistic roleplay. And I did a piece
10:03of music that I thought was way too strange. And they were all laughing. And, and as soon
10:09as as soon as I felt like they got it, I was like, Okay, I get them. And then we were just
10:15having fun from there.
10:16I just want to give a shout out to Dave because we threw something really challenging his
10:21way. Like because we were still figuring out the tone ourselves. We're like, yeah, but
10:25it has to be funny. But you also have to feel like the relationship is the priority and
10:30that they're falling in love, but not too sappy, but also make it really exciting, but
10:35also not so exciting that you forget that it's a relationship. And he was just like,
10:39but he did. Yeah.
10:41David's music really kind of held the show together, like all the sort of tonal ambitions
10:46we had. It was like the last piece that made everything together.
10:51I want to stay with you hero really quick, because in addition to executive producer,
10:55you got a nomination for your directing. And that's for first date, I believe.
11:02Tell us a little bit about how you approach that episode.
11:06Well, I wish I could tell you, we had like a master plan that we executed flawlessly.
11:12But because of a lot of what we're talking about, there's just so many tonal experiments
11:18and we're playing with this IP and we have such a specific voice as a filmmaking collective.
11:25And so it was really, we kind of felt our way through it. It's like, what is our version
11:32of this genre? What does Donald and Maya look like in this role? Obviously, people are going
11:39to come into it expecting Brad and Angelina. How do you make it thrilling and exciting,
11:46which is what you want out of the genre, but still sort of grounded in a very like human
11:51sort of way. And what I loved about what Fran and Donald cooked up for the pilot was that
11:57it's sort of a red herring, you know what I mean? The episode starts and you expect
12:04it to be sort of a Bond film, but then you kind of settle into this quieter gear between
12:12these two characters who are getting to know each other and they're trying to feel each
12:16other out. And so that architecture, that script was sort of our Northern light to just
12:24kind of follow. And what I think is so great about that construction of that episode is
12:31the clip we just saw, which was the cake explosion, is the first time you really understand
12:37the stakes of the show. Up until that point, you're going, okay, maybe this is just about
12:43two bumbling people chasing after boxes and you're having a good time. Kind of the explosion
12:51gives you kind of the moral ambiguity of the organization they work for, the capacity for
12:58shock and violence and the real sort of reality of the world we're living in. And so those
13:06were kind of the marks that we're trying to hit while executing this episode.
13:14Francesca, I want to close with you. Best drama series. We were saying that all during
13:20FYC, we got to spend a little bit of time together during that period. And you know,
13:25I was really excited when I heard about season two coming. You knew I was coming for that.
13:31Where are you guys at with that? And can we expect to see Donna and Maya come back?
13:37We are currently writing season two. We're having the best time ever. We're writing in
13:42like a witch's cabin in like a tree house, which is like the craziest vibes ever. And
13:48we're literally skipping to work. We're having so much fun. Like we can't wait to be with
13:53each other and continue writing the show. We're having a blast. And what I can say about
13:59season two is that it's going to be great. And, you know, I'm usually one that's like
14:05super humble and scared to say good things, but people will be really satisfied in terms
14:10of casting and all of that. Like Carmen and I have some really good things cooking. She
14:14is I tell her every day, I'm like, I don't know how you're this good at this job. But
14:20Donald and I worked really hard on writing that cliffhanger. And we want to be able to
14:25give people the most satisfying version of telling what happens after that and doing
14:29it in an interview like this. No disrespect is definitely not the most satisfying way
14:33for the audience, for us. So we're going to just have to wait and see sort of how that
14:38story comes out later on. But we'll give it to you. People will be happy.
14:43Thank you. Unfortunately, that's all the time that we have today. I want to thank our
14:48panelists, Francesca Sloan, David Fleming, Hiro Murai and Carbon Cuba for joining us
14:53today. Good luck.
14:57Rosie, thank you. Thanks so much.