In 2019, I was feeling pretty damn lucky when I found a snappy little parking spot available on Larchmont Boulevard during prime weekday hours after only my second pass through. Before getting out of my car, I checked my email on my phone — and my luck suddenly multiplied many times over.
“Hi! Would you have any interest in talking with Dan Fogelman and I about a series idea that Steve Martin has about three strangers who investigate a murder in their apartment building in New York? Steve plans to star with Martin Short. We need someone to show-run and co-create with Steve.”
I kept the car running and immediately typed back to Jess Rosenthal: “Umm … yeah, howdy.”
I kept typing — notes now, to myself — riffing crazily on this Steve Martin idea that was now making me think of true-crime podcasting and my love of New York’s prewar apartment buildings and Ruth Gordon in “Rosemary’s Baby” and — honk!! — a very New York moment on Larchmont — apparently, my foot was still on the brake and a lineup of several cars was behind the guy waiting for me to pull out of the spot I pulled into 10 minutes ago.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity — according to a Roman philosopher. At that point, my main preparation was a few decades of work as a screenwriter and as an executive producer-writer-director for several seasons of “Grace and Frankie.” This new opportunity, though, wasn’t only the other half of that Roman equation. This one came with a creative team in Steve, Dan and Jess — matched with a team at 20th TV and Hulu, all the way up to Dana Walden — who all completely embraced and made better the big swings we wished to make a part of this idea of Steve’s that might make a show beyond what many would expect. Now we’re talking luck.
Along the way came key moments that were far less predictable in a path to success. Ones that made it feel altogether magical. Selena Gomez arriving to form a perfect “classic meets modern” comedy triangle with Steve and Marty. A team of writers masterfully elevating the “only in New York” human comedy tonal shifts in our murder-mystery-mash-up. An ensemble of beyond-a-dream New York actors choosing to come out of their homes, when few of us were doing such a thing, to help make something that might bring some joy and understanding to the world with stories built on suddenly all-too-relevant themes of “connection” out of loneliness and isolation.
The two ‘Only Murders in the Building’ stars have been amigos for decades, so their conversations often become a game of funnybone tag.
The most key challenges for me, personally, were sourced in the various fears that can seize you up and keep you from getting the job done right. Chief among those were 1) how the hell am I gonna be funny enough to live up to this solid comedy gold cast that’s coming together here? and 2) how the hell am I going to be clever enough to keep a twisty-true-crime-mystery-loving part of our audience on their toes through 10 episodes?
The answer to both, it turned out, was … with a lot of help — and, most surprisingly, to not be afraid to incorporate one of the most profoundly personal experiences of my life. One that didn’t feel at all “comedy-ready.”
Shortly before pulling into that parking spot on Larchmont, I’d been deeply invested in a year-long, need-to-know quest to understand the truth behind the shooting death of my best childhood friend that occurred in Wisconsin in August of 2018. Mark was the brother I never had growing up. But we’d fallen way too out of touch when word reached me that he was found in his home with another person in what appeared to be a murder-suicide. The injuries made it seem Mark had been the shooter. Beyond the heartbreak, I just couldn’t wrap my head around this scenario.
I couldn’t imagine Mark shooting anyone, let alone shooting himself and taking himself away from his two kids. How did he end up here? I traveled to Wisconsin and met, for the first time, his beautiful family and began to slowly piece together a story I wished I’d known much earlier. I met with a local reporter and visited the home where Mark died, and I spoke with his neighbors. After a year, the final police report was released and, despite what the original injuries suggested, it was confirmed that Mark had been murdered — and the other person had killed himself. There was no victory here, but there was solace in knowing the gut feeling from the connection my friend and I made when we were young, and my understanding of what I couldn’t believe he was capable of doing, was affirmed.
As I said, not funny — like most true crimes — with real tragedy at the core. Yet, through my grief and need to understand, there was also much laughter. Between myself and Mark’s wife, and his kids. Necessary laughter. The kind I love most, honestly — the kind when you’re not supposed to be laughing — the kind I’d had when I was a kid with Mark — in church, or when someone falls ridiculously, the laugh it might be impossible to avoid at a funeral.
By pushing past my fears of sharing this seminal experience within my writing, and by not dismissing the true human comedy that can bond people, even amid tragedy — and with great encouragement from Dan Fogelman to go there — I found the voice of this show.
From the Oscars to the Emmys.
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