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00:00Hi, everyone. I'm Rosie Cordero, Associate Editor of TV for Deadline. Today, it's my
00:09pleasure to welcome you to Hulu's Only Murders in the Building panel. Joining us today are
00:16songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, composer Siddhartha Khosla, and choreographer John
00:24Carafa. Welcome, guys. Congratulations. But before we begin, here's a look at Only Murders
00:31in the Building.
00:32You're making a mess of things all over.
00:39She's right. You better listen.
00:41Listen up, daddy.
00:42You got too much stress?
00:44Uh-huh.
00:45Let it go.
00:46Yeah.
00:47You're a mess.
00:48Too much stress.
00:50Ah.
00:51The show.
00:52The show.
00:53Can't go on.
00:55Stop.
00:56Stop.
00:57Stop.
00:58Please stop.
01:05Three little babes in their bassinets.
01:08Angelic little triplets.
01:10Or triple threats.
01:13They might have fooled the others, but they won't fool me.
01:17It's time to get these teething seething free.
01:22The Third Degree.
01:28Which of the pick-wick triplets did it?
01:30Who of the crew would commit this crime?
01:32Might a little brat make a pony go splat?
01:34It's a story pretty gory for a nursery rhyme.
01:36Which of the pick-wick triplets did it?
01:38Which of the spawn had the brawn to kill?
01:40Will a baby get tried for bad trust?
01:42Aye.
01:43Coochie-coochie-coo.
01:44Time for you, you, you to admit it.
01:46So quick as a whip.
01:47Got a pick-wick's pick-wick triplet did it.
01:51Oh, my God.
01:52I love that song.
01:56Before we even tackle the song or, you know,
01:59and everything else that you guys did,
02:01season three of Only Murders in the Building
02:03is probably one of the best seasons of television
02:05I've ever seen.
02:07And it has a big part to do with all of you
02:09and your contributions to the series.
02:12I want to know how much fun you guys had working on this,
02:15because we had a show within a show.
02:19Too much.
02:20Too much.
02:21Yeah, Justin and I have described this as being like
02:24going to theater sleepaway summer camp
02:27and like it being just the best summer of our lives.
02:30It really was one of the most joyful experiences.
02:32It was so collaborative.
02:34It was so joyful and so fun.
02:37And John Hoffman, who's the showrunner
02:40and co-creator of the show,
02:42just leads with such enthusiasm and such heart
02:45and such joy.
02:49And it really is infectious, I think, in every department.
02:51And we just had a blast doing it.
02:54And I think that that joy that we all had in creating
02:58shows up on the screen as well.
03:00What insight can you share into the creative process
03:03of creating these original songs?
03:05Well, you know, we had the chance to,
03:08as Benji mentioned, John,
03:09we had the chance to meet with the writers' room
03:13of the show before the season.
03:15As they were sort of cracking and breaking the story,
03:18for season three.
03:20And we all talked about what is this musical,
03:23this fictional musical, Death, Rattle, Dazzle, going to be?
03:26It was sort of born of that, the last shot from season two,
03:29where Paul Rudd died on stage or kind of died on stage.
03:33And they sort of said,
03:34okay, what is this musical going to become?
03:37And we met with the whole team and sort of, they said,
03:40okay, we're going to plan out this fake musical
03:42and here are the characters, here are the stories.
03:44And we started to plot out what are the crazy song moments
03:47that can happen.
03:48The plot was absurd.
03:50It was these three triplet infants.
03:52They were going to be accused of murder,
03:54possibly murdering their mother.
03:56It was an absurd plot only to be thought of by Oliver Putnam,
04:01played by Martin Short.
04:02And then from there,
04:04it was just the amazing experience of getting to collaborate
04:07with all the folks who work on the show,
04:09including our other colleagues on this Zoom,
04:13who these guys had worked on this.
04:15John, you had worked on this show.
04:16I know Sid obviously has worked on the show.
04:18John, you've worked on the show as well before.
04:20So I'm curious sort of how their experience was.
04:22I'm sure it was a very different experience taking what you do
04:27and then translate it into this whole.
04:29We had the crazy experience of coming on
04:31and being a part of this wonderful, wonderful show.
04:34You had the experience of,
04:35now suddenly we're doing a musical in the middle
04:38of our already great show.
04:39And we were like,
04:40we don't want to mess up your great show.
04:42You were probably like,
04:43please don't mess up our great show.
04:46I'm interested in the answer to that question.
04:48Thank you, Justin.
04:49I think from my perspective,
04:52so I'm the composer of the show.
04:54So I write the original score.
04:55And so this was sort of like the first time the show had
04:59original songs in it.
05:01Cause this was basically score.
05:04And then occasionally we'd sort of license some songs here
05:06and there for the show.
05:08For us, it was really exciting.
05:10Cause I mean,
05:11also I knew when I heard that Justin and Vince were coming in
05:14to basically write this musical,
05:16I mean,
05:17I'm a huge fan.
05:18So for us,
05:19it was like,
05:20oh my gosh,
05:21this is like,
05:22they're really bringing in sort of like the A team on this.
05:24You know,
05:25we have like Meryl Streep and we have Justin and we have Ben.
05:27I mean,
05:28so we just had this incredible,
05:29it just lifted the season and the show,
05:32frankly,
05:33I think last season may have been our best season,
05:35you know?
05:36And it's because there was this whole other element to the
05:40show that Justin and Ben brilliantly brought to the process.
05:44You know,
05:45I'm,
05:46I wrote the theme and I write the original score,
05:48so I don't write the songs.
05:49These guys are the ones who write the songs.
05:50But for us,
05:52it was,
05:53I knew that,
05:55you know,
05:56knowing John Hoffman,
05:57who's such a,
05:58you know,
05:59musical head and,
06:00and,
06:01and is so,
06:02and understands it on a,
06:03on a level that Justin and Ben do.
06:06And I knew that what they would bring would be,
06:10something incredibly authentic and beautiful and real.
06:13And you can tell by the specificity of that song,
06:16you know?
06:17The fun of it for me was that,
06:19you know,
06:20Justin and Benj and I were sort of roughly coming up on Broadway around the
06:24same time.
06:25I mean,
06:26I did you're in town around the time they had their first show.
06:28So it always felt like in one of these days,
06:31our paths were going to intersect.
06:32And it was just ironic that it ended up happening to be in,
06:35in television and not on a Broadway show.
06:38But,
06:39and the fun of it for me in this project was that I got to be involved
06:42fairly early in doing what a choreographer does in helping to shape,
06:47shape the music.
06:48And that's really rare,
06:50you know,
06:51in most of the television that I do.
06:53And,
06:54and a good example is the piece you showed Oliver's dream.
06:57John Hoffman came to me.
06:59I'm not sure how much you know about this,
07:00Benj.
07:01I think you,
07:02you must know the story that John Hoffman came to me.
07:05He's like,
07:06well,
07:07you know,
07:08we don't really know what to do.
07:09And I said,
07:10this person's a song for this dream sequence or write something.
07:12We don't really know what to do.
07:13And I said,
07:14it's a Fosse sequence.
07:15You don't need to write anything.
07:16We'll take Sid's themes from the show and we'll build something.
07:19Right.
07:20I told John,
07:21right.
07:22Write some text and we'll do some percussion and we'll use the SIDS
07:25piano plank theme.
07:26And we'll build like a Fosse.
07:27Ooh,
07:28ah,
07:29you know,
07:30kind of classic Fosse breakdown.
07:32And that's,
07:33I think I'm,
07:34I'm most proud of it.
07:35It's just a,
07:36it's a,
07:37it's a really cool piece.
07:38And I'm really proud of this.
07:39So,
07:40so yeah,
07:41we'll see what happens.
07:42I want to thank you so much for sharing your story.
07:44And that's awesome.
07:45And thank you so much.
07:46And thank you,
07:47thank you so much for your time.
07:48Thank you for doing this.
07:50Yeah.
07:51That's awesome.
07:52And I'm glad to be part of the music,
07:53musical process of creating that.
07:54I'd love to know how you guys all work together,
07:56collaborating when you're working on any specific number,
07:58because you guys seem to have a great relationship.
08:00I mean,
08:01I don't even know why I'm here right now.
08:02Oliver's dream, how that was more about how that was created, I feel like.
08:06Yeah, I mean, I went into the studio.
08:08I also have to address something Ben said, which was in terms of the comedy.
08:12And I learned this also on You're in Town, which is a real comic musical,
08:15was play the stakes 100 percent and don't try to be funny.
08:20You know, do play because it's written with very high stakes.
08:24It's a murder mystery.
08:25So you don't have to do anything to try to be funny.
08:27But to answer your question, yeah, I went, John, you know, I said, John,
08:31give me some stuff, Sid, give me some stuff.
08:34And then I went into the studio with three dancers and and started creating
08:38this piece exactly like Fosse would.
08:40And ironically, I saw Fosse make some of these numbers
08:42because there was a window in the studio above A.B.T.
08:46when he was making all that jazz.
08:48So this is, you know, based based on a number and all that jazz.
08:51So I went to studio and I with Justin and Benj, we would I would send them,
08:58you know, versions of it and send it to John Hoffman.
09:01And I think John was also showing it to Steve and Selena.
09:04And so everybody weighs in.
09:06I'm you know, I'm in the studio every day sort of tinkering.
09:09And we're passing around videos mostly of what we're doing and getting notes back,
09:13you know, specifically about what, you know, because Justin and Benj were also
09:19and I guess it to looking at the overall musical,
09:24you know, voice of the whole show.
09:27So whatever I did had to sort of fit into what they were doing.
09:30So, you know, we were passing stuff around a lot.
09:33We're in different cities mostly. Right, guys?
09:34I mean, yeah. Yeah.
09:36I mean, that's the miraculous nature, I think, of of theater and TV
09:41when everyone is, you know, all of these different departments
09:44all have a unique job.
09:45But when you watch the thing, it's all speaking as one voice.
09:48And that takes a lot of collaboration.
09:52And it starts again with like I think we're all just in love
09:55with John Hoffman, who really is just so positive and all,
10:02but also really thorough and really so hard forward, but really rigorous.
10:08And someone who facilitates really organic collaboration.
10:12And I think when you feel like your voice can be heard
10:14and you want to contribute to something greater
10:16than what you're able to do on your own,
10:18you know, you're just you're really trying to make something better
10:21that that you couldn't that you couldn't do individually.
10:24And so we all had a really, really organic, lovely collaborative process
10:27that felt really, really joyful.
10:30So I want to hear a little bit more from you being the composer,
10:33because we went from season one and season two, which, you know,
10:35we had our music.
10:37But then you go to season three where it's like this whole musical.
10:40What was your reaction to that?
10:41And kind of how did you go into, you know, your attack
10:45across the whole season?
10:47Well, I think the
10:50you know, I started early on.
10:52I heard sort of demos of of the songs that Justin and Benj were creating.
10:57John would share them with me.
10:58And I just I remember even like the song that they wrote for for Meryl.
11:04There was a little demo that we got that had Sarah Bareilles singing it.
11:08You know, the one that you guys wrote that with Sarah.
11:10And I just remember being just blown away by what I heard.
11:15And then John.
11:16And do you remember thinking this feels like it was inspired by my score
11:20because it was?
11:21I didn't think that.
11:22I mean, you tell you say that.
11:24And that's very generous of you to say.
11:25It just seems like I think the only similarity is that you just had
11:30like just a quirky piano, you know, sort of like like like, you know, progression.
11:34And I don't I think that you sort of I think what was brilliant
11:38about what you did was that you subtly captured
11:41the sort of essence of the sound of the show
11:44and and just and made it into like this beautiful song.
11:49And it was pretty you did that pretty effortlessly.
11:52And I just remember hearing these early pieces.
11:55I heard all the demos and I was like, this is, you know, and John,
11:59John and I would chat about it.
12:00And John's like, how are you going to?
12:03Dance around this with the score, like how is that going to work?
12:06How are we going to go from song and to score?
12:09Because the score is its own sort of thematic material.
12:12It's its own thing.
12:13And then there's a whole drama of the show and the melancholy and the emotion,
12:18all the other stuff that I'm still scoring in in the show,
12:20like I like I did for the first two seasons.
12:24But then what we found was that the songs
12:28were able to sort of they were so good and and and so grounded
12:34in what we were seeing that they could also sort of like cover montages
12:38for us when we needed to, like, for example, pick wicks.
12:41I mean, there's an entire sequence.
12:42It's not just Steve Martin performing it.
12:45You see the sort of mystery unfolding
12:48and how they're figuring out stuff and clues and with the split screen
12:52that was so beautifully edited by Shelley and Peyton.
12:57The songs could also carry montages, which was really special to see.
13:02And so my role was scoring the show like I normally do.
13:07And we felt like we could sort of like keep them in a way independent of each
13:11other because they were because they they felt like they'd always been there
13:15together. You know, that's why it worked.
13:18I really wish we had so much more time to talk about this.
13:20They've been trying to wrap me and I'm like, no.
13:25But really quick for anybody who's coming back for season four,
13:28who wants to tease to me kind of what we can expect that maybe
13:32teases something about this.
13:33I'll just say Justin and I don't know because we did the Broadway.
13:36Tease us. And now we're just back to being regular old fans.
13:41So tell us. We want to know, too.
13:43There is a murder.
13:48Always, always all the fun sort of meta thing,
13:54which is just all of the craziness and beauty of John's brain, is that
14:00we have Hollywood has come a calling
14:03and they want to make only murders in the building.
14:07The movie inside our show.
14:11And Eugene Levy has been cast to play
14:14Charles Hayden Savage to Steve Martin's character.
14:17Zach Galifianakis has been cast to play Oliver Putnam's character.
14:22Oliver Putnam and Eva Longoria is playing Selena's character.
14:29And I mean, that's all you need to know.
14:31And it's it's absolutely hilarious.
14:34It's funny. It's dramatic.
14:36It's very cool.
14:38And we just we're now almost at the end of mixing all of season four.
14:43So it'll be coming out end of August.
14:44But I've been seeing the tagline, a major murder picture,
14:47a major murder picture. Yeah, I can't wait.
14:51And we're losing sass to Jackie.
14:53But Jane, I talked to Jane when she got her Emmy nomination
14:56and she's like, I had so much fun that she's ready to die.
15:01Benj, Justin, Siddhartha and John, thank you so much for chatting with me
15:06about the best season thus far of Only Murders in the Building.
15:12New season coming out in August.
15:14Thank you so much.
15:16Thank you so much. Great to see you all.