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I had made a documentary film.
I shot it on 16mm and I cut it on 16mm.
And I still didnt get into Tisch!
So instead of going to film school, I went to the video store in my neighborhood.
I went through all of John Cassavetes.
What was it about Cassavetes that stood out to you?Itfeltdocumentary.
I love watching a film likeLove Streams.Hearing those kinds of conversations that sound likerealconversations.
Hearing somebody say that seeing dirty dishes in the sink in the morning makes him wanna throw up.
I had never heard anybody talk like that in a movie before.
Total hero, Cassavetes.
Its fascinating that you tried to get into film school with a documentary.
I wrote an episode set in Chicago this season.
I also wrote an episode for New York.
I couldnt go to either place.
For Chicago, we shot downtown L.A.
When we got into [the editing], I realized I needed more.
Same thing with the airport in that first episode.
Thats the airport in Oakland withthis big, giant fucking stained-glass wall.
I was like, Ugh, God.
Everybody is gonna know this isnt Chicago.
And then Im like, Fuck it!
You bought it, didnt ya?
Yeah, I did.
Does it bug you that you dont have a big budget?Not always.
I have Turner Classic Movies on a loop, religiously.
On my show, any time you see a TV screen, its always on TCM.
My show is set in a world where people love to watch old movies.
You know how movies were more frank about things back in the 1930s before the Hays Code came in?
Well, sometimes I get restrictions, too.
So I just pretend Im working under the Hays Code and think outside the box.
No Target, no Big Lots, no K-Mart.
Then I drove past this weird old pharmacy in Burbank.
I walked in there, I scouted it myself, and we ended up shooting there.
In the drugstore, you exchange point-of-view shots between your daughter and a homeless woman.
Why did you include that?I like details that are not, as they say, on story.
In the store, Sams got three carts filled at this point.
You know Max is about to go into her life, and meanwhile, heres this other woman.
Who evenknowswhat her life has been like?
Where did that come from?That happened with me and one of my daughters.
And I was like, Seriously?
The whole fucking playnow?
Its ten oclock at night!
Instead of freaking out, Sam takes a breath.
She just dropped her off daughter at college.
Her plane was literally on fire she had to make an emergency landing.
Finally she gets home and theres 40 people downstairs that she doesnt know.
It still gives me chills to think about it.
And that play is so good.
A magical little thing that fits right in.
Episode two has the weed-saturated dinner party.
Being home and having a whole village there is a big part of my life.
I like to see that onscreen, but shooting it is very difficult.
I said, We cant all fit in the dining room.
Lets stick us in the living room.
We moved furniture around.
You gotta be able to go,Can we just blow up that whole wall?
Can we put this over here?
Thats where you would smoke weed if you were a teenager, right?Yes!
But it doesnt even have to be explained.
If they sneak off to the garage, especially if they donthaveto, thats funny.
One of my favorite shots in the season is when they leave the garage after smoking that powerful weed.
You stay on them as theyre going back to the house while the garage door closes.
Theyre getting smaller in the frame, and youre hearing them but barely seeing them.I love that shot.
That came about because we had to contend with the timing of the garage door opening and closing.
We liked it, so we went with it.
In episode three, how about the confrontation at the elementary school?
Do you know how many kids you almost hit?
Sam Fox is living out Pamelas fantasy.
Sam is like me in a cape.
Do you have kids?
My wife and I have four teenagers in the house.Holy shit.
So to me, this show is a documentary.
Im going through it right now because my kids are all getting older.
Its like what we said in the girls night out at the restaurant:Were obsolete.
You just know theyre all rolling their eyes at you.
Constantly.And Im like,I see you, you kids.
They still want and need shit from you.
So its all a bit frustrating.
I like showing how love still exists in the middle of all that.
About the fourth episode …Oh, boy.
Where did the idea for this episode come from, where Sam dreams about her ex-husband raping her?
Thats disturbing stuff.Well, yeah!
Without context, thats quite a statement.I know!
But it turned out great.
It led to Sam going into therapy and to Matthew Broderick being on the show.
[Director of photography] Paul Koestner got off so hard on that I mean in terms ofshootingit!
That place was so cinematic.
I wanted it to feel like we were watchingAmerican Gigoloor something like that like a Paul Schrader film.
The sex, the danger, the mystery.
It was hard to have it feel more mysterious than salacious, you know what I mean?
The neon light in the bathroom added another element to it.
Its a gorgeous sequence.
A weird, nighttime, sex movie thing.
In the next episode, Sam gets a colonoscopy.
As an actor, are you way past being uncomfortable on camera?
Scenes like that are much more comfortable than the hotel scene we just discussed.
Id much rather be on the toilet than writhing around on a bed in my underwear!
Are you ever yelling at the crew from the toilet?
Move that light over here!All the time!
I wonder if Clint Eastwood ever has moments like that.Maybe onPlay Misty for Me.
Tell me about the moment in the Easter episode where Sams mom talks about getting older.
She says that when youre attracted to somebody new, the question changes from Are you married?
to How married are you?That came from one of my writers, Robin Ruzan.
The point of that scene is the women.
Theres a lot going on there.
Thats putting it mildly.Yeah!
A lot of your show is not easy to navigate for viewers.
People make bad and sometimes alarming choices.
Sams ex-husband Xander is a dark presence.
Xander giving Duke a cell phone just for talking to him, that seems kind of inappropriate to me.
Which is what a child molester would say.Yeah, exactly.
But thats one of the things that I like to do, filmically.
Make people not know quite how to feel about things?Yeah.
Oh, come on.No, I really mean that!
I dont pretend to always know what Im doing or what the effect is gonna be.
An auteur is what people call me, but I dont know how I feel about that.
It helps that I know how to get yeses.
I can get past a lot of no.
The two words that I say to my crew at the beginning of every season are human interaction.
Thats everything for me.
And thats why this is a show about moments.
It doesnt have to be the obvious moment.
That was something that my internet had to get to make it understand my style as a filmmaker.
At first, they would give me a note that wasnt right for the show.
He says, Will you help me with the girls?
And then Sam stands up and leaves, and I keep the camera with Xander.
The web link note was, We want to leave the scene with Sam because its more powerful.
Luckily, [FX] is a place that gives notes but doesnt mandate them.
So I kept the camera on Xander because I wanted to see what that guy was thinking.
Thats not how that sort of scene is usually played.No, it isnt.
But it was more interesting to me to play it that way.
It erupts all of a sudden, and its obviously been simmering for a long time.
Why that scene, and why there?I dont know.
They want to know, Why is Sam behaving this way?
Why is Frankie doing this?
And youre like, What?
And then you realize, Oh, right, its over.
And now were on to the next day.
And you gotta deal.
In that same episode, after Max experiences a major breakup over the phone.
Sam puts aside her own stuff and decides to be funny and disarming.Same kind of thing.
She sees her daughter in peril and makes up a funny song.
The kids, theyre having conversations with six different people at the same time.
All that stuff on the show is just symptoms of the way we live today.
If Im sitting talking to one of my daughters, Im like, Hi, hello.
Can you look up here, just?
And theyre like, Theres something going on, Mom, you dont understand.
And theyre on their phone as theyre telling me this.
And Im like, Well, whats goingon?
And theyre, Mom,stop.
It could be a really important thing, or it could be a nothing.
Do you agree with her?Oh God, yes!
Are you kidding me?
It was an experiment to see if I could find the voice of the show.
In season three, I realized it was time, so I brought it out of mothballs.
This is aBetter Thingsthing.
Stuff youre not supposed to say.
I still cant believe some of the stuff that came out of their mouths.
The friend who has twins tells Sam, I like one of them.
And Sam says, I like one of mine, too.
Im not naming names.Yup.
These are the dirty little secrets that we all walk around with.
How much do you worry about Sam being perceived as Super Pamela?Do you think she is?
Do you agree with that?No, I disagree.
I think shes really doing the best she can.
John Lennon?Yeah, Beautiful Boy.
In the season finale, Frankie runs away after years of challenging her mothers authority.
Sams reaction is … well, ultimately, she adapts to it?
Sam is a single mom.
Shes checking up on her daughter.
There are texts about Frankie sightings.
All of Frankies friends are keeping Sam in the loop.
Its only Frankie whos not.
Frankie is taking control of her life.
Sam can only be there to the extent that Frankie allows her to be there.
You need your shit together to pull something like that off.
Why do you think Frankie wanted to hurt her mother?I dont know.
We never really know whats going on with our kids, even if we think we do.
And this kind of thing happens when youre a single mom.
Thats how they test the strength of the bond.
Thats the dilemma of the single parent.
Thats what Im trying to portray.
It must be cathartic for you to do this show.FX is paying for my therapy.
Better than the other way around!Way better!
Because its not justmytherapy.
Whats the best reaction toBetter Thingsthat youve gotten?I have this writers assistant.
He said, Ive started calling my mom more.
