How Dan Fogelman designed his Hulu series with a fresh, dystopian twist

Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Paradise” section 1.

After “This Is Us” created creator Dan Fogelman NBC drama in 2022 after six seasons, he did not have an exact science to develop his next project, though he “certainly did not play with another family drama.”

“I’ve never been one to really have so much strategy behind what I was going to write next time,” Fogelman told TheWrap, adding that his well of family drama food was “probably a little dry” after seven years of episodes. “It was not a unified effort to go away from something and go against something else. I think I just naturally did it. “

“The essence of an idea” to his new Hulu series “Paradise” Was one that Fogelman was sitting with for a while, strengthened by his desire to explore a relationship between “someone with great power and a person whose profession it was to take care of and/or protect them,” eventually lands on The interaction between a secret service agent and a president who eventually transformed into Sterling K. Brown’s agent Xavier Collins and James Marsen’s President Cal Bradford.

“Paradise”, which premiered his first three episodes this week, follows Xavier as he finds Cal Dead during a routine morning control, and the subsequent murder examination that follows. Like how “this is us” woven not together his protagonists as family until the end of the pilot episode revealed “Paradise” that the president’s murder takes place just years after a mass extinction event, where “paradise” was an underground bunker that houses a utopian Society of 25,000 inhabitants.

“I began to think about what if this relationship was framed by world events being explored at the end of the pilot,” Fogelman said of his writing process, explaining that he, writers John Hoberg and Scott Weinger and his producing partner Jess Rosenthal ” Met with architects and sociologists and so terrible Ted talks that are afraid of the sketch out of us. “

They ended up finding inspiration from Stephen Markley’s novel “The Deluge”, which Fogelman calls a “masterpiece of American fiction” and hired Markley as author of the Hulu series.

“There is a long history of projects that draw in government conspiracies and apocalyptic language, but all research shows that this is our most present … disaster waiting to happen, but it can happen,” Fogelman said, adding that there was no “agenda” or intention to “educate” the audience with VRI. “The situation we present here is ultimately not at the forefront of what could hit the world. But hopefully it just keeps ether something that should be out front. “

When it came to casting, Fogelman admitted that he always had Brown, who played Randall Pearson in “This Is Us” in mind for Xavier, despite the “Paradise” character being the “complete opposite” of Randall. “(Randall) is” constant as an open wound that speaks its inner monologue loudly, “Fogelman explained, while Xavier is” very internal, very muscular, slightly old school “and a” rather quiet character. “

“He holds the screen like an old school movie star,” Fogelman said, noting that all the things that made Brown so successful as Randall is robbed through Xavier’s quiet in “Paradise,” but now he kills it in a completely different way. “” He reminds me of some of the old movies that I grew up with … the young Kevin cost goers, Andy Garcia and ‘The Untouchables,’ Denzel (Washington) and ‘Crimson Tide’ … It’s kind of a setback for him.”

Likewise, Fogelman also had Marsden in mind for the role of Cal. He remembered that he awkwardly approached him on Emmys about the show, as he said Marsden appreciated despite Fogelman, who told his wife “I acted like an idiot in front of James Marsden.” When Marsden officially got on board the pilot on the first day of shooting, Fogelman knew “We got our guy. We have a show because this guy can counteract Sterling in a really interesting way. “

“He is obviously the world’s most beautiful, most charming funny guy, and he does all that in the show, but there is a weight and a gravitas for him,” Fogelman said. “There is a maturity that he is in age where it is heavy and it is heavy and he makes a charm offensive, especially in that pilot, and it is a very, very tough thing to pull off.”

“Paradise” also crawls a little close to comfort through Julianne Nicholson’s character, a technical billionaire that is closely intertwined with the US government. While Fogelman noted that he developed some of the character long before the government’s current relationship with some notable tech numbers – “not that billionaires have not always had an impact on our government” – Fogelman noted that the character’s creation was “before it was this in our face.”

“I loved the idea of ​​taking one of the people who are on the seat of power and money and resource … and leave them tongue in the show, but also humanize them with someone who has softness and grace and is a Mother and with an actor who is unexpected in the role, ”Fogelman said. “Nightmares would have been this transformed into a kind of bart-twirling (villian) -You wanted it to be delicious and fun, and you wanted her to command the room in all the best ways a bad guy can. But if it got too curved, I was worried that it would fall on the face. “

“Paradise” episodes 1-3 now streams at Hulu, where new episodes fall every Tuesday.

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