Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne were not supposed to come back for season 2 “Platonician”, according to the creators

Seth Rogen is the king of Apple TV +, with his starred star series The studio Recently taking control of EMMY. A program that deserves so much media threw, however, PlatonicThe series of comedies acclaimed by criticism with Rogen and Byrne pink Like the best ultimate platonic friends. Although the final of season 2 clearly set up the possibility of many more shenanigans for Will and Sylvia, it was not always supposed to be the case. Believe it or not, the successful Apple TV + series was supposed to be an anthology, with a distribution and a completely different story for future seasons.

Platonic creators Nicholas Stoller (Which appeared as himself The studio) And Francesca Delbanco were delighted that season 2 obtained the greenlight, but realized that the show would work better if Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne (who had previously worked together Neighbors And its suite) would resume their roles.

During this conversation with Collider, Stoller and Delbanco decompose what it was like cracking the code for season 2, why they decided to give Luke MacFarlaneis Charlie a crisis of her forties, and how they managed to continue Will and the history of Sylvia.

Collider: I love this show so much. It just means a lot for me because I have the impression that we do not see these types of stories enough told. You are co-creators, but you are also married. What does the other bring to the table in a creative way that you cannot imagine doing the show with someone else?

Nicholas Stoller: From a very fundamental point of view, it is a spectacle on a man and a woman, and therefore it is written by a man and a woman, and I think it is a large part of that.

I would generally say – and correct me if I am wrong – I would say that I am the person with my foot on the accelerator, and it is the person with their foot on the brake a little would be the means to describe it. I think I’m just throwing crazy bad things and saying to me: “What? And that? And that?” We usually have this kind of dynamic. Francesca looks a lot like, “does it make no sense. And that?” But we both have a sort of finding together.

Francesca Delbanco: I would say that Nick has a very fast capacity to do something funny, which I respect and really admire. When we talk about plots and stories, I see the form and I try to understand how we could transform this into an episode. Before even doing it, Nick said four different ways to know how it could end up being a huge and incredible play of comedy. So I would say that the speed of your ability to offer comedy is really something that helps us a lot on this program.

Stoller: I don’t remember anything that happens in any episode and she does it. It is therefore also very useful. A memory of what we are talking about in general.

Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco said that the creation of scenarios of season 2 “had taken some time”

“We had to design a way to bring them together.”

I loved season 1, and what I really liked was so complete. I was delighted when he was renewed, but I was really curious to know where to go the story was going. What was the most difficult part to crack the history of season 2?

Delbanco: Everything would be the answer. The show was initially designed as a series of anthology. We thought that each season, we follow a different set of Platonic friends and an entirely different circumstance. We thought that we would then have an period play like the 1970s when the colleges became implemented. We had all kinds of really different ideas, but really in our hearts, we wanted to make the show with Rose and Seth forever. But we just didn’t think that if we approach them and say, “Do you want to be in a television series that continues and in the open ends?” that they would necessarily connect. So we have written this season for them and it’s a complete story. The first season was like a start and an end and an end. And then halfway by turning the first season, we worked our courage to see if they want to be ready to start again, but the season has already been written. So we pulled it and that was what it was. Then, when they signed for a second season and Apple gave us the green light to make another, we really told their story. It was therefore very difficult when we returned to the writer’s room for season 2 to understand, you know … They had the happy ends that we had set for the best of our capacities, like Rose’s career problems and Seth’s romantic problems. And they lived a hundred kilometers from each other and said to themselves goodbye. We therefore had to conceive a way to bring them closer, to bring them back to the life of the other and to make them so that the total and the damage complement again. Took some time.

The creators `platonic ” had to understand Charlie’s goal in season 2 and his relationship with Sylvia

“What is a way to change your wedding that is not incredibly tragic?”

Another, one of the most remarkable parts was with the character of Macfarlane, Charlie. Season 1, he had in a way the type of husband type jealousy, you know, of course, then he really kisses their friendship and just himself. He continues so much trips. How was your approach to Charlie? It seems that you have made a concerted effort to really give him his own show in the show.

Stoller: The way the spectacle works structurally is both Will and Sylvia have their own distinct stories, then they help each other in the life of the other, and we therefore had to give Sylvia a kind of challenge in his life. We had already told the story of trying to resume the labor market in the first season. We started talking about it and we said to ourselves: “Oh, one of the things she probably wrongly thinks is that her life will never change, that her marriage will never change.” than these. What is a way to change your wedding that is not incredibly tragic? Or, something that would not be repairable by a friend or would not be something that could help him. And we said to ourselves: “Oh, if Charlie is a character who is so sure in himself and so sure of everything, with each choice he made, if he is suddenly thrown into an existential crisis for the first time in their marriage, it would be a fun thing for certainly Luke, who would play a brilliant and super funny interpreter, but also would give stuff Sylvia who would not be for her.

The episode “Bachelor Party” allowed Will and Sylvia to explore taboo subjects in season 2 “Platonic”

“Can you talk about it with a friend of the opposite genre?”

Image via Apple TV +

Francesca, you made the episode “Bachelor Party”, which, seeing this name, you might think that it will be crazy. I love the way it changes everything about the public. I’m sure it was exciting to examine a background frame for Will and Sylvia, because we bring a new character played by Beck Bennett, who is fantastic. How was it to create this background for the third person of its dynamics?

Delbanco: In the first season, we told a lot of stories that we somehow assumed that we would like to tell for these two characters. We arrived for the second season and we said to ourselves, what remains? What did we not do? And one of the things that came very quickly to the writer’s room was this idea of ​​… who are their other friends and what happens to their dynamics, that we know so much? When you introduce a foreign element, when they are a trio instead of one? And we felt like we had a million inherent tensions and fun dynamics with which playing, especially because, who is the friend, it will be two against one. We have a sort of rejoice in some ways that it is like the guys against the girl and sometimes it moves in a way. But we had the impression, as in real life, you are one -way with a person and you are another way with another person. We thought it would be fun because we somehow define the kind of show thesis that Sylvia and Will are most of them when they are with each other. What happens when there is another in there who knows them as well as they do it both? Where does the tension go?

Stoller: But when we wrote this episode, he started the most cliché, “let’s have a bachelor party that goes crazy”. And we were just as, it seemed completely false, that the character of Beck Bennett would fall from a balcony or something else, as everything would happen. We are all of the middle age, really, and also, even when you are not, as how many crazy things have happened to us in our lives? So we started to be like, wait, it would not happen. It took a while to understand. But at one point, we were like, wait, all the joke would be that she would think that something was going to happen and literally nothing would happen. And that’s how we built it. And then it has become a story also about sex and spoken of sex. Can you talk about it with a friend of the opposite sex? It really has become the kind of spine of history.

Thank you very much for your time and another big season. I hope there are more!

Delbanco: Thank you very much! We do it too!

Release date

May 23, 2023

Network

Apple TV +

Writers

Francesca Delbanco