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The first thing I want to ask about is the genesis of the idea.
That was the genesis of it.
How many other ideas did you pitch?Matt Hubbard: There were a lot.
Boy, I think there was one where they were in charge of a preschool in Silver Lake.
We were all over the place.
It just was the fullest area to explore.
Was that pretty early on?AY: Very early on.
What ended up being made was very similar to our pitch, so we already knew that going in.
One of the things that made us the happiest about the idea was how slow it takes to develop.
But to slow play that was one of the few remaining surprising things you’re free to do.
I was surprised a lot by this.
Again, we hadnt worked on a lot of shows that did that in the past.
As we were breaking these episodes we were like, Man, some of these endings are really cool.
Amazon was completely onboard with hiding the ball, which is a real credit to them.
Whats interesting to me about this show is that its about people being resistant to change.
Yet the show itself changes.
It almost changes genres, especially in the third episode.
Why not have as many surprises as possible?
Thats another genre change in the middle of the entire season.
I thought that was really fun and exiting.
It was a huge risk.
Hopefully, we pulled something off.
When you do this world-building stuff, you gotta deal with a lot of that.
In our use of extras, other ghosts walking around was very spare and judicious.
Thats scary, but also, the other person is someone you should probably hold onto.
We wanted to convey that in this world.
Do you remember which specific films you were looking at?AY: Oh, absolutely.
From Lynch, a lot ofEraserhead,Blue Velvet,Mulholland Drive.
Theres a shot that I ripped off from a Kieslowski movie calledBlue, part of the Trois Couleurs trilogy.
You know, you gotta steal from the best.
There were elements of the show that also reminded me ofLost.
Am I off base or did that put in your heads at all?MH: It totally did.
They didnt know why there was a tiger or whatever it was in the pilot.
AY: Polar bear.
MH: Yeah, a polar bear.
All this stuff kept coming at them.
AY: I dont know that much aboutLost.
But I dont know enough about it to say that we ripped off that show that much.
Id say its an homage.
I didnt say that.
Dont ever tell Damon Lindelof I said that.
And none of the series are really the same.
This show reminds me ofThe Good Placein certain ways, but theyre all different.
Im just wondering, what was it aboutParks and Recreation?
I cant stress enough how important that is.
Just we had a great time.
MH:Those guys are just such class acts.
You also just learn a lot from them.
AY: You learn a lot about working hard, but also having humility.
Whats great about those guys is, you know, the best idea wins in the room.
Its not about your ego, its not about anything like that.
Im very proud of the fact that our writers room was fun.
Were all buddies, and thats how I felt on this show, onMaster of None, and onParks.
For the world-building aspect, did you talk to Mike Schur at all?
Because he had to go through that same process withThe Good Place.AY: No.
I ended up working on that show briefly and then directing an episode, too.
It was really fun.
We love that show.
I was like, Its totally fine.
Because the tone on this show is so radically different fromThe Good Place, I wasnt worried at all.
Do you know whether there will be a second season?
But it remains to be seen.
If we get the green light to do some more, it could be fun.
I spoke to Catherine Keener about that recently, and she said she didnt know.
I told her Id find out for her.
[Yang and Hubbardlaugh.]
When you were writing Kase, did you have her in mind?AY: We definitely did.
She was our number-one choice, the only choice.
Its a Catherine Keener bang out.
In the writers room, we just started calling [the character] Keener.
Then we went to Maya and said, What about Catherine Keener for this role?
Shes like, Oh, shes a friend of mine.
Maybe we could get her.
She called us back and said she wanted to do it.
It was a relief and it was awesome.
MH: Keener is amazing.
We had a table read early on, where we read all of the episodes.
AY: All eight episodes!
MH: Her first line is Hello.
Literally, she says hello when she opens the door.
AY: I think it might have been hi?
It was two letters!
Two letters, one syllable.
MH: You have to be very good to get that reaction from the word hi.
Is that a fair assumption?AY: We certainly had very wide-ranging discussions.
You wouldnt believe the stuff we talked about for episode eight.
We had all of these ideas.
MH: It was like, Okay, what powers does a ghost have?
There were times where it was like, What if they touched someone and they can see their memories?
It just started to become like they were gods, so it was all about restraint.
As far as Oceanside is concerned, how did you create that world?
Obviously, that ones for very clear reasons.
But this, we wanted it to be a little bit stilted and a little bit odd.
We wanted to toe that line.
They just fly a kite together.
MH: It was like, Is this Burning Man?
What is this place?
I think thats weird and eerie, and hopefully it came across.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
