A piece of the action: The TV comedy that is ‘extra’ special.
It’s a case of ‘leave your ego at the door’ when it comes to shooting the new TVNZ 2 comedy Life In Pieces, as Steve Kilgallon discovers.
Managing a big ensemble star cast around a quirky format could have been a tough issue for Life In Pieces writer and creator Justin Adler. It means some actors see almost no screentime at all in some episodes. The credits of Adler’s single-camera comedy (launching on TVNZ 2 on Monday) include James Brolin, Dianne Wiest, Colin Hanks and Betsy Brandt. But the format – which divides each episode into four short stories, told from the point of view of each branch of the three-generation Short family – means sharing the limelight can be tricky. “There are so many incredibly talented people here that, mathematically, trying to work out how to get everyone involved in one of the four stories is the biggest challenge,’’ Adler says on the Life In Pieces set at Fox Studios in Los Angeles: a complete mock-up of a family home, complete with plastic fruit in the bowl on the kitchen bench and an ‘outdoor’ garden where the cast gathers to meet the media beneath the studio ceiling. “We would be ‘breaking’ an episode and we would be so excited, and someone would go, ‘Uh, Dianne Wiest isn’t in this one’. So we would quickly break a Dianne story for her character, and quickly move and shift other stories into other episodes. So, organisationally, getting everyone involved was the biggest challenge. “The cast are such great team players. All these people could have their own shows, but they know they could be heavily featured for this intense period of time, but sometimes they’ve got to be extras in a scene. We have the most expensive extras in Hollywood. They are amazing about it.”
Wiest breaks in, drily, “It’s only when you’re in deep, deep background ... it gets a little grim.”
Adler says the biggest challenge his writing team faces is avoiding telling stories in “that traditional comedy-story style” and says instead the writers aim to “come in on the central-core joke or situation, diving into that, we go deep, and then we are out”.
“It’s really exciting,’’ says lead actor Colin Hanks (yes, son of Tom).
“The writers have to break 88 stories (for 22 episodes) so the burden sort of falls on them a little bit, but we are really excited about how we are going to be able to play it.”
Cast member Thomas Sadoski can compare Life In Pieces to his days on another, slightly more serious, ensemble piece – the Aaron Sorkin-led West Wing.
“Everyone is talking about those days when you’re an extra and hanging about. That was asked of us too (on the West Wing) and there is a definite similarity that you’re working with a cast you love and admire, you have absolutely no problem showing up to work just to walk back and forth in the background for eight and a half hours. In terms of the work itself, it couldn’t possibly be more different, but there is the same level of respect and admiration for the writers.”
The cast members say they don’t mind the way Adler’s format sometimes forces them into the background. Dan Bakkedahl – who combined shooting Life In Pieces with working simultaneously on Veep, where he plays foul-mouthed congressman Furlong – says, “It’s so much easier to check your ego and attitude and say, ‘We are a team’.” Like Veep, says Bakkedahl, the actors are encouraged to improvise their way to the punchline.
“That gives us a sense of play. I don’t think any of us got into this in the hope of getting rich – you would be insane. We do it because we like it and that we get to play at work means we are some of the most fortunate people out there.’’
And should Adler run out of story ideas, he perhaps could consult his youngest cast member for some tips on the increasingly difficult task of scriptwriting. Nine-year-old Giselle Eisenberg submitted one for this season. Adler laughs. “It had less (fewer) grammatical errors than mine.’’
“We have the most expensive extras in Hollywood.” – Justin Adler