Creating comedy in 'Catastrophe'; Mayer Hawthorne's Detroit roots; CinemaCon Day 1

Horgan: It was absolutely the natural trajectory, because the first season was supposed to be the marriage — that's what Rob and I had pitched, and that's what we absolutely wanted to write about. But when we presented our script to various execs, they said, "There's a whole other story you could be exploring," which is the pregnancy, the getting to know each other. So then when we got to the second season, we were just desperate to dive into the family aspect of it, when things get really tough, because the other stuff is like child's play compared to that.

Delaney: There were some things like episode four of the first season, when there's a serious potential health obstacle in Sharon's pregnancy — when we were able to do that episode and have it be funny in addition to heartfelt, that gave us the confidence to go to darker, more difficult areas in season two.

Horgan: Definitely. And also on top of that, there was the confidence to write for our other characters. Initially, we were very interested in the dynamic between Rob and Sharon, and then we looked around and saw that we had all these great other characters and actors, and it felt like an opportunity. Of course, having worked with those actors in the first season, we knew what they were great at and we were able to write specifically for them.

Horgan: I mean, it could be because it originated as a British comedy, and that's less of a thing there. There's a lot more nudity on TV over here, so it could be that.

Delaney: I think another thing is that I really enjoy looking at naked people's bodies, it's up there among my favorite things to do, but when I'm looking at them, that's all I'm doing. So in a comedy, when a naked person shows up, I'm like, "Whoa, hey, hold up, everyone gather around and look at the naked!" That can really take me out of the story, but it's okay if it's my silly, hairy, white butt that shouldn't be televised.

Horgan: Butts are funny.

Delaney: Butts are funny, but if you turn around then people will be pausing, taking screenshots, measuring, sending those screenshots to my mom... I don't want that. [laughs]

Delaney: People have said that to me. More than once. My favorite, of course, is couples who say, "It's the only thing we can watch together!" But then there was one person who told me, "I won't let my boyfriend watch it, because I don't want him to learn any of your tactics. I don't want him to do those things to me."

Horgan: Really? Whoa. I've never had that, I've only had people say it's one of the few things they can watch as a couple.

Delaney: [laughs] I pay more attention now to other people's lives for source material. The other night, a friend of mine was telling me about something he's doing, some sort of real estate deal he's doing. There's a little creativity in it, but it's mostly legal... not that that means it's moral. But he was like, "You can't put that in the show." I was like, "Buddy, that's at least two episodes of next season. It's mostly going to be that now. Sorry." [laughs]

Horgan: Yes, if you came to my house for dinner, every story that you told might end up somewhere, but I'm very transparent with that. If a friend tells me a story, I'll say, "I'd love to use that, would you mind if I used it?" Of course, we fictionalize it, but I've definitely had friends who've seen an episode of something and gotten in touch with me after 10 years of not seeing each other to say, "I recognize that! Was that me?"

Horgan: We weren't trying to have fun with that. I think what we were trying to do was tell a story about something that had specifically happened to us, that we felt like we had something to say about. First of all, we felt that if you can be very truthful about something like that in a TV show and people who have been through that situation can watch it and get something from it, that's great.



But also we thought that it would be a huge challenge, to deal with a subject like that and make an episode funny, or make people laugh through it. We were incredibly nervous about it, but ultimately we're really glad we did it. But the sobriety thing...

Delaney: Yeah, it's funny, because I'm the sober person here. I stopped drinking 14 years ago because I realized I really shouldn't, and I've been sober long enough that that's not the first thing I think about myself when I wake up in the morning.



But Sharon thought it'd be a good idea to put in the show, so I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'll check it out." And then it's become massively important as the show's gone on, so I think it was wise to include that. It turns out that it is interesting, even though I forgot that it was. [laughs]

Horgan: I think that, if it's truthful, then it's from the heart and it makes me feel less nervous about what we put out, subject matter-wise. There's no way people can call it cynical, but it doesn't always work. We were just talking about this earlier — just because it's true does not mean it's funny or interesting, so it's just down to subject matter. We're not just lining up our truths and putting them in, we're deciding what we want to talk about.

Delaney: There's a trend now in the comedy realm to do storytelling shows, and now when I get asked to do them I just don't. I don't like sitting through other people's stories — because they think it's true, they think they have a right to say it through a microphone? No way. I'd rather go to any improv night — if you're going to talk, I'd better laugh. It can be true after that, but it'd better be funny. [laughs] Enough with the storytelling shows!

Delaney: I thought Benny Hill was funny.

Horgan: I thought Americans loved Benny Hill!

Horgan: But I do think there used to be a bigger divide between UK or Irish humor and US humor. But it doesn't feel like there's so much of that now. I guess there's a difference between production values and all of that, and we tend to make stuff smaller and cheaper, and you can see it's a bit warts and all, but just in terms of subject matter and tone, there seems to be such crossover now. Also we're lucky, because we have one Irish person and one American person, so it doesn't feel like a British show to me. It feels like a weird hybrid, and we've peopled it with Scottish people, Australians...

Delaney: And even a Canadian.

Horgan: Even a dirty Canadian. So yeah, hopefully it doesn't feel like one thing or the other.

Delaney: [laughs] We did a couple episodes about that, but we canned them.

Horgan: [laughs] No we didn't. It just wasn't of interest to us, and it felt like the most sitcom-y thing. It felt like there was much more material in them just trying to infiltrate each other's lives, even though they barely know each other but have something as intimate as a pregnancy scare when they should really just be having dinner together. That felt much more interesting to us than getting things wrong because of cultural differences.

If ComicCon is a way to seed the clouds and get fanboys interested in upcoming superhero movies, CinemaCon is kind of the same thing, but it's a broader spectrum of movies and it's trying to get theater owners excited about the upcoming slate of movies.



Theater owners are also going through a trade floor, they're looking at new flavors of popcorn seasoning, new seats for their stadium theaters, new projection systems ... so it's a bit of a trade show, but it's really a pep rally for theater owners.

There are about nine presentations by different studios, and while those are largely the major studios, there are a couple of new studios and distributors that are here as well. I just came out of a presentation by STX Entertainment. They're a new studio that was founded about a year-and-a-half ago and they were showing footage from their new Matthew McConaughey movie, "Free State of Jones."



Disney's showing the new "Captain America" film. Lionsgate will be showing a sequel to "Now You See Me." But most of the films that are shown are just trailers, scenes or incomplete footage. There aren't a lot of finished films, but there's a lot of footage for films that go well into the year.

The big takeaway this year is that, without China, the movie business is in a little bit of trouble. The Chinese box office was up 49% last year from the year previous, which puts it about $6.8 billion, making it by far the second-biggest market in the world [after the U.S.].



If you look at the domestic numbers, they're pretty good — up 7.5% to $11.1 billion, which makes it the first time that domestic sales have ever gone over $11 billion. Together, that makes a pretty good year, but if you look more closely at admissions, especially domestic admissions, they're either flat or trending down.

The idea behind Screening Room is to essentially release movies through a streaming service into your home as soon as they're available in movie theaters. This is something that other companies, like Netflix and other streaming sites, have done, but the difference here is that Sean Parker is aiming to share some of the revenues — it would cost $50 per movie to watch it in your home — with the theater owners.



The National Association of Theatre Owners, which is putting on the convention, has been kind of circumspect about this, but the issue did come up indirectly in the presentations by John Fithian, the head of NATO, and Chris Dodd, the head of the MPAA. This morning, Dodd said "the best experience is in your theaters," and I think we know what he was talking about, while Fithian said that new distribution models "will be developed by distributors and exhibitors" — meaning not third parties. There are some theater chains that have been a little warm to this, and some filmmakers have supported it, but I think very few major chains will get onboard.

The songs that I write ... a lot of times it's literally what happened to me that day, like "Get You Back." "Get You Back" starts with, "When you spoke, you were throwing those words at me. I didn't even understand what I did wrong. I got on a plane to Miami and when I got back you were gone." I wrote that song as it happened, and some of those stories are not easy to tell. It's heartbreaking. There were moments that weren't fun for me, but that's what people connect with. It's real. 

I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and there's been so many cool music people that have come from Ann Arbor. You know, Bob Seger and Iggy Pop, and Andrew W.K. was my next door neighbor growing up. I have photos of me and him as kids partying hard [laughs]—and, obviously, we're 25 miles west of Detroit and everything comes from there. 

I got super lucky that both of my parents are big music people. They had a big record collection. And my dad still plays bass and sings in a band in Detroit—he's 66 years old—and they gig hard. He knew how difficult it was to make it. It's nearly impossible. The chances of you being a successful musician are really slim, and he knew how hard it was. So he was like, "Yo, you better get that degree, bro." 

I studied computer science at the University of Michigan. 

[Laughs] I mean, every day I have those thoughts of, "What if I just went back to being a computer programmer," or, "What if I just got a job in real estate." I would make a lot more money [laughs]. 

The way that I write songs is I never sit down and try and write a song. I write all my songs when I'm either driving around or when I'm in the grocery store. A song will pop into my head like a bolt of lightning out of the sky, and then I gotta check my cart and run out to the parking lot and sing into my voice-memo recorder. And everyone looks at me like I'm a crazy person. 

I've always gotten mixed reviews on everything I've done, which I think is great. Honestly, I make the music that is dope and I make the music I wanna ride around and bump in my car. If I'm the only one who wants to listen to it, then that's cool, man! 

I think that comes from growing up in the Motor City. The thing to do after school in Ann Arbor was to post up in your car—whoever had the dopest car, which was not me [laughs]—we would post up underneath the arch of Huron High School where you got the best echo-y acoustics underneath the tunnel there. You blasted what you thought was dope and everybody would just hang out and battle like that. 



There's always gonna be that Detroit soul, hip-hop and Iggy Pop mentality of not giving an eff in everything that I do, but I gotta make music that I love, that's it. You gotta be genuine. People can hear it, people can tell immediately if it's genuine or not.