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Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle are joining us for a special Vulture Festival event.
Read a short excerpt from the conversation or listen below.
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I made him a very attractive, young, 28-year-old woman youre welcome, Dad.
Stand-up is a very specific skill set.
That dictated everything we do about Midges comedy.
She rarely comes out and goes, Who ate a grilled cheese today?
You know, Donuts: Why are they round?
A square donut would be just as delicious.
Dan Palladino:Thats funny!
ASP:I know.
I can do so much on square donuts, you have no idea.
DP:Such a great observation.
ASP:So more than anything else, that dictated the kind of stand-up that Midge has to be.
We wanted her to be in that moment where conversations were changing.
A lot of other stuff is a lucky accident.
Theres a great story about Lenny Bruce where he went to see Joan Rivers and she bombed.
He sent her back a note that said, Youre right, theyre wrong.
Thats a big deal.
So it felt like: Thats a muse to throw into the mix.
We never write Lenny Bruce stand-up, its always Lenny Bruce were not idiots, for fucks sake.
Thats where we have all these great working stand-ups we grab when theyre in town.
We write Midges stuff, because we are in her head.
And so we get a little help.
ASP:That was me.
DP:Even more.
ASP:If its dirtier, its probably gonna be me, weirdly.
It was very organic.
I write like a mental patient.
Im getting it all out.
I have literally no business being in this business.
I cant spell or do grammar to save my life.
I did not go to college.
I thought I was gonna be a dancer.
Im completely ill-equipped for this.
So when I write, its like a furious, bulimia binge.
DP:Its messy.
ASP:You dont want to be anywhere near it.
DP:Very few commas.
He created that and then had to die for other peoples sins.
ASP:Shes a truth-teller.
The shocking things she did in the pilot were to show that there was an ambitious brutality to her.
To pull back from that felt it would be kind of a cheat.
In club scenes, most of the cut-aways to the audience are of women, and women laughing.
Its unrealistic to say, Oh, men are just gonna embrace this woman in 1959.
Its not gonna happen, but the women could, because theres no one speaking for them.
