Why Amanda Peet made Jay Duplass show skin at our airport
It takes about a minute to realize how close Amanda Peet and Jay Duplass are.
The two worked together on the HBO series “Togetherness,” which ran for two seasons in 2015 and 2016. Duplass served as the coshowrunner, co-writer and co-director on that project with his brother, Mark Duplass, and Peet was one of their stars. The two reunited recently to make “The Chair,” a filmed-in-Pittsburgh Netflix series debuting Friday. They reversed roles on that show, with Peet as the showrunner, writer and executive producer and Duplass in a lead role.
Peet said the show about the inner machinations of a fictional university English department was born out of her desire to write a workplace romantic comedy. But it turned out she also had another motive for wanting to work with Duplass again.
“A lot of it had to do with Jay and my relationship with him from ‘Togetherness,’” she told the Post-Gazette, “and the fact I really wanted him to take his [expletive] clothes off. ... Payback’s a [expletive].”
In “The Chair,” Sandra Oh plays Ji-Yoon Kim, the new English department chair of Pembroke University, a small New England liberal arts school re-created at Chatham University in Squirrel Hill and Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pa. Duplass plays Bill Dobson, a struggling professor who makes a mistake that brands him as persona non grata on campus.
This is the first series that Peet, mostly known for her acting work, has ever written or created. Duplass was drawn to “The Chair” both because of his friendship with Peet and the opportunity to play such a flawed character.
“It’s an actor’s dream to be put in the deepest hole you can be put in and commanded to climb your way out,” Duplass said.
“And to be guided by somebody so funny and sensitive and aware gave me the confidence to know we could climb out of the hole,” he added. “Amanda’s handling of the whole situation, she was constantly investigating the deeper realties of what was going on.”
Peet got her lighthearted revenge on Duplass during a scene that takes place early in the first episode of “The Chair.” Shot in a parking lot at Pittsburgh International Airport, the scene was the product of “two consenting adults agreeing on one man to urinate in a parking lot,” as Duplass put it. His entire rear end was visible on camera — and that was good enough for Peet.
“That was a moment where it was very, very critical that I was a female boss asking a man, ‘I need you to go over there really quickly and just drop trou,’” she said.
Clearly, the two trust each other enough to allow themselves to be put into vulnerable acting situations. That extends to the mess Bill finds himself in: He’s forced to grapple with the Pembroke student body’s perception of him and his own warped ideas about skating through life thanks to his privileged place in that community. Duplass recognized right away that how Bill reacts and grows is “what will eventually save him or do him in.”
Peet insisted that she “was not hell- bent on addressing the
culture wars” while writing “The Chair.” She was more interested in how Ji-Yoon navigated the pressures of her new job and knew right away that she wanted Oh for that role. Peet said Oh “shares the same kind of passion for authenticity” that she and Duplass do, and Duplass described her as the “sharpest knife in the drawer” in terms of the precision that defines all of her performances.
One of Peet’s inspirations turned out to be legendary writer-director Mel Brooks, who said he based the satirical song “Springtime for Hitler” in “The Producers” on the anti-Semitism he experienced in the Army during World War II. Peet, who is Jewish, ran with that concept for Bill’s storyline in “The Chair.” It’s another reason she tapped Duplass for the part.
“I really, really needed someone who had a wonderful sense of humor and who could sing a little tiny stanza from ‘ Springtime for Hitler,’” she joked.
Securing Chatham and W&J for filming locations “was like we won the lottery,” Peet said. Less ideal was shooting during a particularly cold and wet Pittsburgh winter. Peet said the erratic weather patterns created some continuity issues while filming, but overall, she found the Steel City and its filmmaking community to be “so easy and welcoming.”
Unfortunately, neither of them got to experience much of the city due to COVID-induced shutdowns. Duplass said the strict masking and social distancing protocols on set made shooting “The Chair” feel “like acting in an [ operating room],” and he relished taking off his “face bra” after the day’s work was completed.
“I’ve been joking with people that I legit risked my life to be in this show for Amanda Peet,” he said. “It really felt like that at the time.”
They’re both grateful to have finished “The Chair” when many of their friends’ productions weren’t so lucky. Duplass noted that it was his first time here.
“I loved Pittsburgh,” he said. “It was a weird time to be there. It was peak COVID, and we still had fun. I feel like everyone who shot in Pittsburgh wants to come back and enjoy the city more. ... It just feels like a truly original place.”