EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Jay Duplass Talks 2015 'Togetherness' Episodes, Working With HBO, The Success Of 'Transparent' & More!
Jay Duplass and his brother Mark have been taking over television and film over the years with successful and insightful projects that have hit a chord with countless fans. Their most recent venture into television is the HBO dramatic comedy entitled Togetherness, which premiered earlier in 2015 and was just renewed for a second season. In a new exclusive interview with Jay Duplass, we discussed what Togetherness truly means to the talented writer, director and actor, while also finding out what else we can expect from the first season's upcoming episodes. Plus, Duplass opened up about his working relationship with his new network, Puffy Chair, and his other show, Transparent, which just got plenty of Golden Globes attention this year!
How would you describe the show and the concept of "Togetherness" and how they relate?
That's a good question! Togetherness for us, at the heart of it, is really about what it means to be a good friend and be a good parent and be a good spouse and also to try to maintain your own personal dreams and how that, in life, in our lives, tends to have us an inch away from drowning at every second of every day. It seems to present a massive challenge and it seems to be bringing us to our knees. When we were creating the show, everyone was looking at us and saying, "Wow your careers are taking off, you have beautiful families, you must be so happy," and internally all we could think is yes, but we have eight-pound babies who are bringing us to our god damn knees right now. And we would just talk about stories like that and talk about how the concept of "Togetherness" matches that, in that we do try to be as close as possible and good to each other and good to our kids and our wives and how we are committed in that way. The deeper you go, it creates an antithesis feeling, which is "I got to eject out of this shit and just go to Barnes & Noble and read a book by myself," or whatever it is that you desire to do, otherwise so. Those opposing forces seem to be present always and it seems to create a lot of comedy as well and for us it just seemed like a perfect breeding ground for our television show.
How did Togetherness come together? Was HBO always the desired network? Was it offered to you?
Ever since Puffy Chair, honestly, we've been talking to HBO about the possibility of doing a show. Mark and I have always had some hesitation about jumping into TV. Our priority in life has always been writing and directing, even though we do quite a bit of acting and producing, and we didn't want to have our lives avalanched by a television show, but in this case we're so connected to the material, for us it's honestly, it's so germane to our lives and we know this stuff so well. It's set in the neighborhood that I live in, in Los Angeles on the fringe of the town, and we just sort of submitted and we're having a great time. We're basically writing and directing all of them, except for one this season, and it's like making two feature films a year basically. And we're having a great time with it.
Did you always have the 30-minutes episode structure in mind?
No, we honestly... the way it came up was we were hitting a sort of critical mass of, on Mark's and my side of the equation, all these stories about parenting and how these babies are like crushing you left and right. And on the other side of the equation, from Steve [Zissis]'s world, who we co-created the story with, pushing 40 and trying to get traction in your life romantically, professionally, follically potentially [laughing], and just them getting their asses kicked as well and each of us secretly being jealous of the other one's lives. Us being jealous of Steve's freedom and Steve being jealous of our families. I don't know, it really just started as an idea and then the mass of stories made us realize oh my god, this goes on forever and ever, this is a television show, this is a serialized television show, this isn't just a movie.
Is it as improvisational as your other work from the "Mumblecore" genre?
I mean Mark and I have always written full scripts and we've always felt weirdly disconnected from the whole "Mumblecore" thing because we write full scripts, we're obsessed with plot- albeit small, internal, dramatic plot, but we plot the hell out of our stuff and we find we are obsessed with characters who are unbelievably driven, even with Puffy Chair, he's nutso driven to get this stupid chair to his dad. But I will say, in the television form, we still improvise in the way that we encourage our actors to come off of the script and to re-say the lines and figure out how best to achieve their goals. But things definitely move a lot faster and I would say that the scripts are probably... the worlds are so much more complex and intertwined and we're going somewhere that's potentially four hours away in terms of programming, so we kind of stay a little bit more on the rails, but it feels really free on set to be honest. I think the biggest difference is that Mark and I are a lot more experienced in our careers and we can move at 50% faster, with comfort.
Will you ever act on Togetherness?
It's possible! We haven't written anything for me and we never really have that agenda. But I would definitely do something if the right thing came up; I think it would be fun. I definitely have discovered the joy of acting and being in the moment in the last year or two and it is really nice to let it rip. As a writer or director, it's so fulfilling, but it is stressful and you are holding entire universes in your arms and it definitely gets heavy after a while, so it is fun to get out there and actually just do something very in the moment.
What else can we expect as the episodes progress? Will it be more character development or relationship development?
There's definitely both. Obviously we do relationships, but I guess in a weird way ... Mark and I sort of view our stuff as mysteries and each of the characters as a mystery, not only to other people in the audience, but I think also to themselves and that's a big part of what we love to explore and unravel.
You're on Transparent, which just won some Golden Globes this year. It was groundbreaking for a few reasons- first of all, for being on Amazon, and then also for the transgender movement. As someone that is a part of the show, how does it feel to be a part of history in a way?
I feel unbelievably lucky to essentially have my first big acting gig be not only one of the best shows that's been on television in the last ten years, but to basically be the forefront of a civil rights movement. It's been really overwhelming to get messages and tweets and to have people come up to you on the street and say things like, "I'm alive because of you." I think the suicide rate is crazy high in the transgender world because there's a level of bias against them that is really, it's incomprehensible until you really dig deep and start to realize what's going on. So, yeah, it's profound, it feels really amazing and just lucky to be a part of it.
These days in Hollywood I feel like there's always reboots and sequels and prequels. Will I, as a fan of Puffy Chair, ever see that story continue in anyway?
Oh that's interesting. I don't know. All I can say is that Mark and I feel that what we're doing with Togetherness is as personal and as of the moment for us as Puffy Chair was for us when we were in our mid- to late 20s. At that time, we were in long-term relationships, a lot of our friends were and we were at that point where it's like "are we going to get married or are we going to break up?" And each option seemed terrifying, tragic, and thrilling, equally so. And we are now creating this show in our late 30s at a point where we are having that sort of critical mass moment with everyone, so it feels very Puffy Chair to us in a lot of ways. It's just older; I'm not even going to say more grown up.
Tune in for new episodes of Togetherness on HBO, every Sunday at 9:30 PM EST.