Sometimes the best way to get an answer is just to ask a question. That’s why Brief is starting a new Q&A series, kicked off by regular Brief writer Andrew Greene chatting with the creators and showrunners of HBO’s Getting On, Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer.

Olsen and Scheffer have a long-running relationship with HBO, having created and executive produced the premium network’s polygamy drama Big Love. They also have a long relationship with each other, having gotten married in the early 90s long before it was officially legal.

Together, Olsen and Scheffer talk to Greene about everything from their premiere-week superstitions, which range from stewing in tension to constantly refreshing Google in search of reviews, to how to market a comedy about aging and death. (Carefully.)

Let’s start serious. How do you guys like your orange juice: No Pulp? Some Pulp? Lots of Pulp?

Mark: I think people who strain out pulp are wussies. I do it for guests out of courtesy, trying not to show my true feelings about the subject. But for god’s sakes.

How long have you two written together?

Will: We’ve been together for 25 years.

Mark: I tried to make Will write with me much earlier on than he was prepared to do, about fifteen years ago, and it was just as bad as he thought it would be.

Will: We were playwrights when we started out. We wrote a musical that Mark dragged me into.

Mark: After that initial not so good outing, I walked into Will’s writing room one day and said, “I’m just telling you right now, if you won’t collaborate with me, I’m quitting writing, because I just can’t stand it.” And he did.

Do you guys have any superstitions or routines during premiere week?

Mark: I try and keep the sleeping pills and the klonopin to a minimum. I don’t try to rely on them. In terms of rituals, no. There’s a low-grade anxiety that starts to build. You’re not even aware of it on Monday or Tuesday of premiere week. You just think, why is Will being such a dick to me? Did we just have a fight? And we didn’t. It’s just this tension that settles in that you’re not even aware of until Wednesday.

Will: It’s that I should’ve had a V8 moment where you hit your head and you’re like, oh my god, the reviews are going to be coming out. In terms of superstitions, we just refresh the Google search. It’s OCD. You know how people say it’s about the work and how that’s bullshit? Because of course it’s about the work. But you want to be loved too. The work is its own reward, yes…

Mark: …But that does not mean you do not hold a grudge against everyone who has ever written a bad review and you do not forget it.

Will: Exactly. I feel like a lot of times were a little ahead of the curve. Our tastes are cultish and quirky, so we have become more able to accept that not everyone is going to love us.

Mark: Not me.

Will: I believe I try to let go of the results a little bit.

Mark: That’s true. You’ve come a long way from the fourth season of Big Love where you virtually had a nervous breakdown over reviews.

As you said, Getting On is a cult show. Did you ever worry about how HBO can market this? Or does that not faze you at all when you’re trying to create?

Mark: In the act of creation, we just kind of clap our hands and giggle with all these ideas, completely independent of how we think they may or may not be received. As we’re framing the pitch for HBO, we find things that we think will be the hooks of the show that they’ll be able to run with. But we were somewhat naive that the death would be a turnoff for people. We had just gone through that process with our mothers.

Will: And it was hilarious.

Mark: I wouldn’t say we necessarily enjoyed it, but this felt like, “This is life.” We were a little caught off guard by the difficulty of marketing that. I’ve walked away more sensitive to the needs of being able to market a show. Which is odd because, Big Love was polygamy, and if anything that should’ve been a turnoff, but it did perfectly okay.

Will: But they could sell that.

Mark: Maybe because that was sexy: 3 wives, a hot tub.

Will: That’s not really what the show was.

Mark: No, but you can market that.

Will: [Getting On is] about old women and women in middle age and there’s a lot of dying…but it’s funny. We’re heavily involved with every single aspect of our show, so we care a lot about the marketing. But at a certain point you can’t interfere in a network’s scheduling or plans for how they’re going to go about trying to get an audience for something that’s difficult.

Mark: I shouldn’t speak for them, but I think they were puzzled by how to market it. We all signed off on an under-the-radar approach for the first season. Let word of mouth build and let the show speak for itself. And then second season, it’s like, well okay, they’re… superheroes! However that landed. OK. It’s tough to market, I will say that.

Will: I think this year was the best year in terms of putting out a marketing campaign that we were behind, because it was thematically tied to what the show was really about.

Mark: It’s funny. In hindsight, I don’t know how you market it. I think the only way it’s receiving the reviews it is now, which are pretty damn good reviews all the way through, is simply that three seasons in, people know the show.

This is the third and final season of Getting On. What are you most proud of?

Will: We’re really proud of Getting On just existing on the air. It wasn’t easy, in any fashion, to get this project greenlit.

Mark: We’re wildly proud of our finale. The show is known for its heartfelt moments, but there is a comedy sequence that begins about fifteen minutes from the end that I’m deliriously proud of. As our UK collaborators said, “My god, this is just bonkers.”

The third and final season of HBO’s Getting On airs Sundays at 10 PM ET/PT.

Image courtesy of HBO

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