The creators, stars and writers of three popular comedies—IFC’s Portlandia, Fox’s The Last Man on Earth and HBO’s Togetherness—gathered Thursday night at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills to talk about doing what they do in advance of June voting for the 67th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

Sounds like a huge panel, but its size was diminished by the fact that these series feature talents who wear almost all the hats.

Portlandia’s Jonathan Krisel and Carrie Brownstein, The Last Man on Earth’s Will Forte, and Jay and Mark Duplass of HBO’s Togetherness told Michael Schneider, executive editor of TV Guide and TV Insider, how they hold it all together.

After introductions (Will Forte’s “beard is back”), the panel jumped in.

There’s “never been a better time to do comedy on TV,” the group agreed, and there’s never been more freedom, as evidenced by the fact that none of these creators are part of traditional sitcoms. Krisel noted that now “you’re able to do things you wouldn’t have been able to do before. You’re able to be weirder, more awkward, and let things breathe a little bit.”

While the Brothers Duplass and Brownstein and Krisel represent cable, Forte is on network TV, noting that he thinks the success of shows like Portlandia (which also stars Forte’s similarly multi-talented Saturday Night Live compatriot, Fred Armisen).

“[Broadcast networks are] willing to try new things, because there are so many things happening on the cable channels. We’ve had a wonderful experience on Fox,” Forte said.

The Duplass brothers came up in movies, but have made the transition to TV fairly seamlessly, comparing Togetherness to making two and a half movies a year, “with complete ownership of it. Feels very similar to us. Jay and I write all the episodes, direct all the episodes,” Mark said.

On the subject of bingeing, “I like it a lot better than when they watch two and stop watching it,” Mark joked. “I’m just thankful people want to watch it. However they want to watch it,” Jay added. It also is a stress reliever for Mark, because with movies, there’s immense pressure on the opening weekend. With TV shows, people can discover it whenever.

Portlandia changed its format with season five, and will continue with season six, expanding from its sketch show origins into longer form stories starring certain characters. Krisel runs the audience through the mindset: “Why not? We can do whatever we want, let’s just go for it. It’s still a sketch show, even if it’s one short film for 22 minutes. It’s a way in which a fifth season of a show can get a spark, and it helped us a lot.”

On the subject of creative freedom, Krisel says, “our only limit is how much we can spend. We can kind of go wherever we want. We’re our own critics and note-givers, so that’s even harder.”

It seems like Fox gave Forte the same level of creative freedom.

“Fox made all these promises. We’re into this vision of this…the whole time I thought they’re going to break these promises, it’s going to turn into whatever, and throughout the whole process they lived up to their promises and let us make the weird show we wanted to make,” Forte said.

Forte and company wanted to make sure people really thought he was the last man on earth, and Fox stood behind them, which made the marketing challenging.

“It was tricky figuring that out with the marketing department. If they knew that Kristen Schaal was coming, this would make a lot of people want to watch the show. But Fox really stood behind our hopes to make it seem like I was the only person. It seemed to work, but who knows, maybe it would’ve worked better the other way. You never know, but they’ve been very supportive,” Forte said.

“The marketing department was your face,” Schneider said.

Forte also addressed his character’s likeability—or lack thereof—as the season progressed.

“When you start out, you want to be likable…you want to build this sympathetic character…[But] let’s take this ride, [see] where the scenarios take him emotionally. We thought it’d be interesting to change targets a little bit where the audience is not sure where they swear their allegiances to. It turned off some people to be sure, but others were probably okay with it. It’s the kind of thing I like doing and I’ve been proven very wrong with most things that I’ve done,” Forte said.

With Togetherness, season one was about the slow unraveling of a relationship, with characters going separate ways. Going in, “we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. When we came up with this idea, it felt like more than a movie, and it could keep going,” Jay said. They saw it as a “giant movie…long-form storytelling where we can really delve into the really nuanced, really subtle stuff. Trying to convey the subtlest form of plot that happens.” As Mark said, “it’s the lowest concept possible. It’s just two couples.” Jay jokes, “it’s Everybody Loves Raymond again.”

Asked how they handle the workload, Mark said, “we don’t have a social life. We have our children and we have our work, that’s basically what we do,” He continues, we’re “ruthlessly efficient with our time. We come into phone calls late and end phone calls early…We only work with friends that we like. We try to streamline the process as much as possible. Part of that is just the way we came up…it maintains that arts and craft quality that our Mom taught us. That leads us to doing multiple jobs…and we’re best when we’re doing multiple things.”

Is it difficult working on other projects? “It’s so easy. It’s so wonderful and easy,” Jay said. “I approach acting from a directorial standpoint…it’s great to do other people’s stuff and have that other perspective,” he added.

Running a show has presented a steep learning curve for Forte.

“It was a lot more work than I thought it would be. I just had no idea. I guess when I was writing on shows before I got on SNL, they were well oiled machines. [My] goal was a 10 to 5…[that was the] environment I wanted to create. All of a sudden I skip all these steps and become the showrunner and I had no idea what I was doing. Everything was new, just guesstimation and I’m an overthinker anyway. So I did not do a good job being efficient,” Forte said, peering wistfully to the Duplass brothers.

So his plan for next year?

“Kill off my character within the first episode,” Forte joked. Thankfully, he’s “definitely not going through this alone, I have so many amazing friends. You get to put the people in the writer positions that you want…more than 100 years of friendship in that room.”

When asked how she balances her music and scripted careers, Brownstein said, “I don’t know how I’m doing it.” The two separate worlds “don’t feel disjointed,” and she’s “super grateful” for them.

Krisel’s working on three shows simultaneously (Kroll Show, Portlandia and Man Seeking Woman), but it helps that they take place at different times of the year. For him, “work is a more interesting way to socialize. Small talk is overrated…this is how we have fun and how we work,” Krisel said.

Last Man on Earth has a lot of possibilities for season two. But don’t ask Forte about what’s next: “We have no clue. We have no idea. We have nuggets of ideas…we start up on Tuesday. Definitely a lot of fun ideas we’ve been thinking about, but still, definitely some questions we have to address. it’s a really exciting time for us, because there’s a lot of open territory. We’re not locked into really anything…we’re excited to figure it out,” Forte said.

In response to hearing all of the different things everyone else on the panel does, Forte apologized for himself: “I’m only doing one thing. I feel like an asshole.”

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