For “Only Murders in the Building” showrunner John Hoffman and “Dying for Sex” boss Liz Meriwether, the fun of writing comedy lies in the unexpected, with both creators keenly attuned to the cathartic way comedy can interact with tragedy in their shows.
“I like the laugh that happens when you’re vulnerable and when you’re real and human and during the most sad situations,” Hoffman told Meriwether during a new installment of TheWrap’s long-form video series Visionaries. “Finding the connective laugh there will make me laugh in a way that is the only way I want to laugh.”
“It feels like a different kind of thing when you’re laughing in the middle of sadness, it feels like … therapy, it’s like catharsis, it’s a big laugh to me … an important laugh,” Meriwether said. “To be able to pull out a laugh out of real tragedy is great.”
There couldn’t be more moments of tragic laughter in Meriwether’s “Dying for Sex,” which stars Michelle Williams as a woman whose terminal cancer diagnosis prompts her to leave her husband and explore her sexuality, with the support of her best friend (Jenny Slate). After writing within the typical confines of comedy as a showrunner for network sitcom “New Girl” and then steering “The Dropout” with an emotionally avoidant protagonist, it was the big feelings that came with showcasing Molly’s journey — which was pulled from the real life story of a woman named Molly Kochan — that attracted her to the FX series.
While “Only Murders in the Building” embraces a more upbeat tone in each whodunnit over the course of the Hulu series, the fourth season saw the trio confront a murder close to their hearts as they investigated the death of Jane Lynch’s Sazz Pataki, the close friend of Steve Martin’s Charles after serving as his stunt double on “Brazzos” for many years.
Meriwether points to Season 4 moment when Charles finds his hands covered in Sazz’s ashes, which prompts some creative responses from Martin Short’s Oliver and Selena Gomez’s Mabel about what to do next, as a scene that successfully mixed tones of humor and grief. “It’s doing so many things … you’re playing with the form, it’s meta,” Meriwether said. “It manages to pull of off a wink to the camera but just full-on emotion and taking on loneliness and old age and love and finding yourself late in life … and it’s so stupid and silly in an amazing way.”
Touched by her bringing up the scene, saying “that description makes me proud, Hoffman revealed that was the moment in the fourth installment that impacted him the most, which he also happened to direct, as well as write.
“That idea of a friend having their hands in the ashes of their friend was the sweet spot in my mind,” Hoffman said, clarifying that “it’s an awful scene” but he was drawn to “the premise of ‘what do I do? I loved my friend.’”
“In a joke, you have a set up and a punchline — it’s comfortable because you know where you’re supposed to laugh,” Meriwether said. “But that sequence, it’s this beautiful thing of … I don’t know where I’m supposed to laugh … I’m laughing and I’m then I’m uncomfortable and then I’m very sad and then I’m laughing again.”
As Meriwether and Hoffman bonded over the struggle of keeping things fresh in longrunning shows (“New Girl” and “Only Murders in the Building”), Meriwether applauded Hoffman for never playing it safe as the Hulu series took big swings that brought the murder mystery series to a musical rendition in Season 3 to the city of Los Angeles in Season 4.
Meriwether also told Hoffman she’s looked to “Only Murders in the Building” as she writes her next series, which turns its attention to a female serial killer, asking him if he has any tips to thread a case with an emotional throughline. “I’ve made myself a hell,” he joked.
“What a pivot,” Hoffman said, adding “that is not where I thought you were going to go and I love that.”
“I’m in my pivot era,” Meriwether said.
To hear the showrunners share stories of directing Meryl Streep and working with Natalie Portman and how their Midwestern backgrounds impacted their Hollywood trajectory, watch the full video above.
Visionaries is produced by Jennifer Laski, Head of Video and Photography for TheWrap.
