"The Americans" showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Field on the joy and surprise at getting the Emmy nominations that long eluded them; Emmy-nominated hairstylist Amanda Mofield shares her secrets for creating hundreds of looks for Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele on "Key & Peele;" "Ghostbusters" screenwriter Katie Dippold defends her movie against critics
'The Americans' showrunners 'recalibrate' their self-image in light of Emmys
The Emmy nominations have put the FX Cold War spy series “The Americans" into a bit of an identity crisis. Albeit a welcome one. The critically beloved show which has a fervent, though small, fanbase finally got the Emmy recognition that has eluded it. The 4th season has been nominated for Outstanding Drama series. Its lead actors, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, were nominated as well. “The Americans" also received a writing nomination for its two showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields.
Weisberg is credited as the creator of the show. He and Fields are executive producers and have run the show jointly since the beginning. The series is currently on hiatus. The Frame reached Weisberg and Fields by phone while they were on vacation in upstate New York and Ottawa, Canada respectively just hours after the Emmy news was announced.
To hear the interview click the play button above.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Your series is a critical darling with a devoted fanbase but it's not what you'd call a ratings juggernaut but, more important, up until today, it’s never gotten an Emmy nomination for best drama series. How are you guys feeling right now with 5 Emmy nominations in the major categories including Outstanding Drama Series? Joe?
JOE WEISBERG: We don't know what to do. We were totally reconciled to that fate. We were never going to get an Emmy nomination. We would go down in history that way. People would say, Yes that's another one of those shows. It's a really good show but it never got an Emmy nomination. So that's how we thought of ourselves. So this is like a whole new way to think of ourselves. I don't know. It's hard to know what to think.
FIELDS: I am equally confused. But joking aside it's been a pretty great day. We're thrilled to see Matthew and Keri recognized...and for a long time we've consoled ourselves I think rightly we feel great with the people we work with. We feel great with the creative work we're doing and with how the critics have responded to the show. And their drumbeat has been steady and gotten louder but, boy, it's nice to have the trumpets of the Emmys join in aswell.
I want to ask more about the critics because the narrative around the show has been “it’s the best show no one’s watching.” And I think the critics have certainly done the "best show on television" part but what is it going to take to get people to watch the show? And was there ever a point when you were worried that you wouldn't get this far as having four seasons? Joe?
WEISBERG: We're very fortunate to be on the FX network where they made us very comfortable from the beginning. They said, Don't stress out. Don't feel too much pressure. Don't worry about the ratings. We love the show. The show is great. The critics love the show. You're making it better every year. The show's going to stay on the air. So we weren't really working under that kind of pressure...and I think that helped us really make the show better. And you know, in a sense, you know "nobody watches this show" is really relative. I used to write novels where the numbers were a lot different. But you know a couple million people watch the show. What is "nobody?"
That's true. It's not chopped liver.
WEISBERG: It's not chopped liver.
You are recognized for season four for best drama series. Does that mean seasons one, two and three weren't as good? What happened? Why was season 4 recognized for something it wasn't recognized for in seasons one, two and three?
WEISBERG: I want to say, first of all, we think seasons one, two and three weren't as good. We think that is true. We think it got a little bit better each season so we aren't ashamed to say that. You know it doesn't mean they sucked. We think they were good strong seasons but we think this is the best one yet. So we'll take that.
FIELDS: Yeah, I think we set out every season to make the show better. And so I think there is some truth to that. And I think there's also some truth to the fact that there's a swell of attention around the show. And it's mind-blowing because as Joe said we did not expect it this year.
So you have these nominations...if it's generating a new conversation around the show because you're no longer the show that's never been nominated for best drama series.
FIELDS: We've got to recalibrate our own self-image since we've always thought of ourselves as the show that never gets nominated. We'll see but I think our hope really is that more people tune in and sample the show and join us.
The woman who made 'Key and Peele' such a hair-raising show
There are dozens and dozens of Emmy categories, so we scoured beyond the headlines for interesting nominees in other areas.
And there it was: nominated for Outstanding Hairstyling for a Multi-Camera Series or Special is Amanda Mofield. She was the Department Head Hairstylist for the Comedy Central show, “Key & Peele.”
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele played so many nutty characters on that show — and sometimes they played multiple characters in the same sketch. That’s a big challenge for a small-budget show on a cable network.
So we tracked down Mofield — who also worked on the ABC show Secrets and Lies — today to ask what it was like working on the series.
Interview Highlights:
How is the work you did on “Key & Peele” compared to other gigs?
Oh my gosh, it's so different. The hair that I did, I did everything and anything. In one week we had 84 different looks just on those two guys, and that's not even counting the other people that were in the show. After that week, I quit counting. And that was season three.
I want to play a clip from an early skit from the show. This is called East/West College Bowl, and it’s several dozen college football players introducing themselves with increasingly ridiculous names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss
I love this skit! One of the jokes in this are the increasingly elaborate names and looks of all the different characters. You just have the two actors and you have to do 30 different looks?
Thirty-two.
How do you pull that off?
We did three of those [sketches], so I had [96] of those characters that they had to be. So whatever hair I could find, we would throw it together. I did extensions. We'd cut the extensions and I'd braid them. When we were going into that scene the first time, it only took us two hours to shoot. One [actor] would be in my chair, one would be on set shooting their [part], and then they'd switch back and forth. I had two long tables set up with all of the wigs and all of the hairpieces all laying out so that they could just go up and pick which one they wanted to be for that next person they'd be shooting.
What’s the process for coming up with the looks of the characters? Have they written physical descriptions in the script or are you pitching the guys how you see the characters?
Before a [shoot], we would go into a meeting and we would sit and talk about what the characters should look like. They would tell me what they were thinking they were supposed to be. If I had ideas I would give them to them. I had the idea of the "Air Marshal." Have you seen that one?
Yes!
The "Air Marshal" — I wanted to do that to Keegan on season one and he [said], I promise we will find [a character] to do this on. So finally, on season five we got to do it on Jordan, and it was amazing — the hat hair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiWIOKKuyGE
Describe the hat hair and what the inspiration was? I think you saw something on the street, is that right?
Yes. Just this random person. It's Afrotex is what it's called. I just kind of manipulated it into the shape of a ball cap. Jordan sweats [a lot]. He gets really hot and it's not easy to keep that hair on, so making that and making it look real — you know, because I'm just molding it with my hands. It's not a form or a wig or anything. Then cutting it into shape and making it look natural.
Actors, especially ones who do period films, will say that wardrobe can really help them discover a character. Can hair and makeup do the same thing? And is it a little bit different in comedy?
Oh yeah. I would see Keegan and Jordan change into the person once they got that hair on. And makeup as well. Scott Wheeler and Suzie Diaz, they were amazing as well.
Screenwriter Katie Dippold aims to balance nostalgia with originality in 'Ghostbusters' remake
The "Ghostbusters" remake — starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon — finally hits theaters this week.
But for months the film has been plagued by Internet trolls complaining about its all-female lead cast. Some of the criticism came from people nostalgic for the original movie, but much of it had crudely sexist and misogynistic undertones.
"Ghostbusters" co-writer Katie Dippold tried not to let the noise get to her too much as she worked on the script. Dippold actually co-wrote the screenplay with director Paul Feig, who she's worked with before on “The Heat." Fieg and Dippold are also working on its sequel, "The Heat 2."
We spoke with Dippold via Skype when she was already on set for her next project.
Interview Highlights:
Where are we reaching you today?
I'm in Oahu. We're shooting a mother-daughter adventure-comedy with Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer.
What is the genesis of this story?
My mom, a lovely, wonderful, kind woman — I just felt as she was getting older, I feel like she's gotten less adventurous. To her credit, she's like, I'm retired, I'm happy, I'm fine. Back off. So I started daydreaming what would it be like if I just took her to some crazy trip that took us off the beaten path just to shake things up. So I just wrote that, but I will take her on a vacation right after this, I promise.
Is there a different satisfaction or challenge about doing something purely original, like this story, compared to writing a movie like "Ghostbusters" or "The Heat" sequel, intended originally as commercial enterprises? Whereas your new movie is something personal that you're trying to tell.
I'll be honest, there's nothing I love more than the beginning of the summer [and] going to the movie theater — that big studio movie and getting popcorn. I don't know what that says about me, but even the mother-daughter movie is a big adventure movie. It's them going through the rain forest. It's a throwback, because we all love "Indiana Jones." It's just kind of something I tend to lean towards.
I wonder if when you are hired to write the "Ghostbusters" reboot, if it was a little bit like the women in the film finding a real ghost. First, total excitement, and second, complete panic?
Oh yeah, when [Paul Feig] first brought it up, I was really excited for a billion reasons, but I also knew this could be really, really hard. And I [was] maybe setting myself up for a very painful time up ahead. But I just loved it so much I couldn't say no.
You're doing a total reboot, and at the same time you're trying to pay homage to the original. Are those things sometimes at odds?
Yeah, that was a really tricky dance. That was the thing we debated first and foremost. It was most important to Paul. He said he wanted it to be new characters and a new story. Then if we can do that, then allow ourselves the treats of the original movie. Also debating at what point does it feel like it's just doing the same thing and at what point it's things we want to see again as super-fans ... there's a reasonable complaint that it's too much from the original, but at the end of the day we just wanted to see all those things. When we did Dan Aykroyd's cameo, it was such a magical night, it was so much fun and it just took me back to being a kid again that we wanted to have as much of that as possible.
When Paul came to you, was the idea already set in place that these would be women ghostbusters?
I think for him it just let his brain set it further apart from the original ... But still we would talk about it, that this movie would hopefully work even if it were with male actors. But a lot of it for me I guess is just wish fulfillment. Like with "The Heat," I always wanted to be an FBI agent and then I would see these movies where these guys were awesome and they were so funny and they were joking back and forth. I remember seeing "Running Scared" where Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal had this montage to the song "Sweet Freedom" by Michael McDonald, and they're riding around the Caribbean and there's a different hot girl in the back of their moped every time it cut back to them. I just thought, I want to be driving the moped, I don't want to be on the back of it. For this, too, I would love to find a group of weirdos that I can go hunt ghosts with. It's just the wish fulfillment, really.
There are a couple lines in the movie about not paying attention to what Internet trolls have to say. That proved unfortunately highly prophetic, but what was the original motivation in writing those lines, because they were put in the script before you got trolled?
Some of the backlash started before we started writing the script, so it was just deep in our heads. We weren't trying to intentionally attack it, but at the same time you just kind of write the world around you. I think one of the main messages to me for this movie, with the underdog spirit, is going after what you believe in and being passionate about it and not caring what the outside world thinks.
Part of the conceit of the movie is that these women can't really be ghostbusters, that they're not up to the job or they're imagining things. And the movie itself, for whatever reasons, will probably be judged a little bit about whether women can lead a movie at the box office. Is it possible for you to step back and not worry about the movie being a referendum on any of those things, other than what it is?
I would love that. I would love to be a super chill person that didn't think that way, but I wish this could be judged on its own merit. It's been so long of this discussion, it happened with "Bridesmaids." I remember when I was thinking about doing "The Heat," I kept hearing from people, Well, don't pitch that — wait to see how "Bridesmaids" does, or They're just not going to buy any more female comedies. Which is so crazy to me because it was not that long ago, but it's still a question. It's crazy to me. I feel like there's a lot of pressure right now on the actors. There's just not a great a lot of great starring roles for women out there. So if for some reason that movie doesn't do well, then that actor is back to being the guy's wife with her hand on her hip telling him he's a troublemaker like a bunch of other movies I never want to see again. All I'm trying to do is just help that cause.