‘Paradise’ creates Dan Fogelman addresses plot twist of new series

Spoiler Alert: This story contains plot points from the first three episodes of Paradise at Hulu.

After dropping the first episode of Paradise On Sunday Hulu made episodes 2 and 3 of the thriller available to the audience who should have given one little More context to the mysterious VRI at the end of the pilot.

Here, creator Dan Fogelman talks about what inspired him to write the thriller with Sterling K. BrownJames Marsden and Julianne Nicholson, and why we had to wait for the premiere to finally learn what he has been working on since he wrapped up his NBC drama This is us In 2022.

Deadline: Before we get in on ParadiseI will start at the moment after This is us. Did you wonder if you developed a reputation as the creator of triple Hanky ​​family dramas?

Dan Fogelman: I was pretty exhausted. It had been a long six years to make a lot of TV. The last few years had been filled with the pandemic and I have always done really these different things. A few of them really hit big, and then some of them have bombed really badly, but they have always been different. I always got the feeling when you hit big, people would ask that question. I did Cars and Crazy stupid lovebut This is us A kind of swallowed they all, at least for me personally. I did not actively say that I will not write another family drama that has tears in it. It wasn’t something I deliberately thought of, but I think was a little dry for me. So when I started thinking about what I was doing next time, I did not go consciously, “I could be pigeonhole.”

I’ve had the core of this idea for a very long time, well over a decade. I had this idea of ​​the people in the world who have great power and the people whose profession is to take care of them and how it can be encapsulated by a secret service agent and a president of the United States. I had the big idea for the show and what was going to happen in the show for a while. I had considered writing it before I had done This is usand I was running writing This is us. So after This is usI took a little break. I produced Only murder in the building In New York and I thought about what my next show had to be and that the core of the idea had stuck with me. One day I sat down and just started writing it.

Deadline: When did you pull in sterling?

Fogelman: I wrote the manuscript and I was like “Oh, I really like this but I’m not quite sure where I go with it yet,” which is usually not my mo I was actually afraid to give it to someone because I was worried that someone might do it before I really knew what it was. So I sat with two of my writers on the show, John Hoberg and Scott Weinger, and my producing partner. We fought for it for a few weeks, talked to a lot of experts in many different areas. And then I felt I had it, and at that time I sent it to my studio, Disney and Hulu, and they would do it. Everyone started asking: ‘Sterling must be so excited. Is sterling excited to play a role? ‘I was like, no, I haven’t given it to Sterling. I didn’t know my brain was even there. More and more people said that. Then I realized, “God, I have has depicted sterling all the time. “But there was no way that Sterling would like to do another TV show with me. So I had this moment when I was like, “Oh, if I send it to Sterling and he passes or is not able to do it, I just can’t do it.” But then Sterling read it in less than four hours and called me, and he said, “I’m in.” So we were on our way to the races.

Deadline: You mentioned to do a lot of research.

Fogelman: We investigated deeply about everything from political conspiracies to if you hypothetically pulled up a government from scratch, how would you hypothetically rule it most effectively to keep the people peaceful and happy? We got sociologists to write papers for us. We did a lot of research on architecture. Our instructors went everywhere. They got a special tour of the sphere in Las Vegas. A huge amount of thought went into it.

Deadline: I guess the cool part of TV is that you don’t really need to explain how you dug up a mountain under Colorado to create a new community.

Fogelman: In this particular case, we just said it would be almost impossible unless you had an incredible amount of wealth and resources that this group of people had. That’s how we did it. The science behind it is that they potentially found a nail inside a mountain that gave them access to this kind of cave. I don’t know if I should talk about it. I don’t know how to talk about this TV show yet!

Deadline: Why hailed by secrecy when you first threw the show? No logline was released when it was sold to Hulu.

Fogelman: There are two mysteries in the show. There is the mystery behind the greater conspiracy of what is going on in the world and what has happened in the world. And then there is the mystery of who killed the president. So there are two different mysteries and I think it’s a complicated thing. When This is us Started there was a VRI at the end of the pilot, and it was another era with the internet and how spoilers are now headed. I’m a big one Survivor fan. I still see Survivor And it makes me crazy when I on one of my timelines, I want to check my phone and they put the image of the person who got voted out before I have been able to watch the episode. There is a shot of secrecy when you have turns. You want the audience to experience it fresh and don’t have to close their eyes every time they see something about the show, as a great journalist writes. It’s a complicated dance where you kindly just have to close your eyes these days and hope for the best. The days of being able to see The Sixth Sense Four weeks after it came out and doesn’t know what the secret is, unfortunately, unless you are actively playing defense against spoilers. So the big holster of secrecy was because of course there was a big vri at the end of the pilot, and I wanted as many people as possible to experience the fresh as the early viewers would.

Deadline: You seem to like twists and turns at the end of pilots. Is that your signature moving now?

Fogelman: I don’t think so. I swear that I am not thinking about twists and whatever. I love storytelling that turns things upside down, whether in the middle of the episode, the end of a first episode or halfway through a series. I think part of the fun of TV in this streaming model is to be able to click the next episode or have to wait for the next episode. And then I like when you are sent in a new direction at the end of episodes. With the first episode I had the opportunity to do it. I have only made a few real twists in my life. This is us was one of the craziest. I’ve had some kind in the middle, but it’s definitely not something I am actively hunting, but it’s definitely something I really like. It’s fun to surprise an audience, especially if hopefully it is well baked and it’s like “Oh sh*t.” I think TV can be fun and progressive.

Deadline: As a showmaker, do you want it to be your responsibility, or is it important to consider the political climate before creating a show like this?

Fogelman: Ironically, even if it’s about a president and a secret service agent, there really is no policy in it at all. I have made other shows that are not about presidents that have more politics in them. And again, I don’t know it was a conscious choice, it’s just not what it’s all about. There are other things that are sleeping and eventually not sleeping at the bottom of this show going on in the world. When I wrote This is usI wrote a lot about my family and especially about my mother that I lost. But it wasn’t like I sat down to write, “Oh, I have to write something about my mother.” I just wrote kind of what was on my mind. I think it looks like here. There are some timely things in here, but it was not an active choice. I’m not a politician or a political one. I try not to say anything. That’s just what’s in ether right now.

When I wrote it, we stopped in the middle of the author’s strike. We were in a very different political climate now than we were when it started shooting. The world is moving in a variety right now. So trying to say something with the time it takes to do something is almost impossible. So I was just trying to write a good story that had some things that I felt were timely, but I didn’t want it to be a homework task for someone to see it.

Deadline: You have some really unique cover music in the show.

Fogelman: Correct. It is very much explained in the eighth episode, the soundtrack for our season. It is part of the greater mystery. But it is fair to say that James Marsen’s character had a great love for the 80s and the early ’90s rock, and that is the music that was the soundtrack in my early years. These songs do not necessarily sit on the top of Mt. Rushmores of Songs, but they are meaningful and fun for me. So we were thinking of getting covers of those who went the opposite way.