May 28, 2021 • 31 mins
The Shondaland powerhouses reflect on their experience making Bridgerton and how the beloved on-screen friendships mirror their own. Shonda and Betsy explain why their shows are anything but predictable “omg” moments, why the word “likeable” is a dagger into their hearts, and what truly makes a strong producer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When Bridgeton came out and it was like a huge success,
Like I thought Betsy was going to die. There was
just a moment when I was like, she was just like,
dear God, what are we going to do? Not because
she wasn't excited about all the work that was put in,
not because she wasn't thrilled about like all of the
things that had gone on, but because it was a
lot of work getting it to where it was. Yeah,
(00:22):
and season two means we have to do it again, right.
Welcome to Bridgeton the official podcast. In this special episode,
we're winding down with a really awesome conversation. Our first
season is going to come to a close. With executive
producers Shonda Rhymes and Betsy Beers So. Tucked inside of
(00:43):
Shanda's home across from each other at this grand, beautiful table,
the storytelling duo talk about how they rolled up their
sleeves on the Bridgeton universe and pushed the limits of
their creative partnership yet again. Over the last year. These
two powerhouses shared notes and got into editing all over
video conferencing. Hi Sanda, Hi Betsy, how are you fine?
(01:07):
We're very excited because we are actually in the same
room for the first time since the pandemic began. Literally
the last time I saw shann in person was March thirteenth, Friday,
the thirteenth, twenty twenty. We were both like, Okay, see
you in two weeks. That's never happened for us before.
So it's been a year and forever. It's been such
a long time, and I think the longest we've gone
(01:29):
before this is like maybe a month, like if that so,
But I think we've gotten actually strangely adapted the zooming
screen world. Yes, although I've got to say it's great
to see your head attached to your body. I know,
it's nice, and it's nice for me because Betsy generally
only like sort of leans off to one side, so
I just see like one eyeball or something. So now
I could see it our whole face and it never
(01:50):
freezes or anything. And you know what else we did
absolutely totally in the pandemic, of course, was we edited
all of Bridgerton Season one, which is frankly what got
us through the pandemic, right, That's what made the pandemic
not so traumatically horrible, and it was traumatically horrible matter what.
But it took some of the sting off of it
because just when you thought like life couldn't get any worse,
(02:13):
you got to see an episode of Bridgton. This sort
of normalcy of going through the editing process, which for
y'all who have followed shows with shan to Land for years,
is a gigantic part of that fun of the job.
And it's, you know, one of Shanda's many genius points.
We've got great composers and great editors and a great
head of post and so it was this weird way
of normalizing our life because everybody would sort of get
(02:34):
together and give notes and exchange experiences in terms of
watching the cut, but we were doing it remotely. It
just made us feel a little less remote. Yeah, and
the editing room is really like the real like the
final stage of storytelling, like don't real rewrite, and so
it felt like we were at least getting to tell
some story. So that was good, which was really really fun.
And I could have snacks and nobody could see that's true,
and I could do it all in my pajamas exactly. Okay,
(02:58):
so I leave the last time I checked. This is
a podcast about Bridgerton. It is about Bridgerton. Okay, see,
well I think then maybe don't you think we start
at the beginning? By that, I don't mean eighteen fourteen,
although I might have been alive in eighteen fourteen. Yes,
let's talk about Okay, let's talk about Bridgeton. Let's origin,
story of bridget origins of Yeah, that sounds like a song,
the Origins. So I was sick or I was in
(03:24):
a hotel somewhere I can't ever remember exactly, and I
read the first Bridgeston book, The Duke and I by
Julia Quinn. And I'm not a person who read romance novels.
I was not a person who was into romance novels.
I didn't know much about them. But there was a
book there and I needed to read something, and I
read it and I immediately went out and bought like
the rest of them, because it was a fabulous read.
(03:46):
I was very involved, invested, super impressed. And then I
was like, Betsy care a bunch of romance novels. I
saw you hit your head, Yeah she did. She strange
accident in the hotel room. She thought something was wrong
with being Yeah, these books, and I think they would
make an amazing show. You know it's funny because it
was exactly the same experience if you describe as I think.
(04:07):
I was initially skeptical because I wasn't familiar with the
series as a kid, and actually as a young teen,
I did read romance novels, so it was a genre
that ages ago I was familiar with, but I certainly
had not dipped into the world a period romance, That's
what I mean. Like we all read like the bigger
unineteen eighties. Everyone shoulder pads were huge, and than I
(04:28):
wore diamonds, some of our favorites, by the way, yes,
by the way, truly, but the period romance novels, I mean,
it wasn't Jane Austen. I didn't really know about it exactly,
And I mean, I'm not going to this Jane Austen.
I'm not an idiot. She might get upset, she might
roll over, exactly. It was so much juicier than Dan
(04:48):
Austin in terms of what it offered, because it gave
a just a different look at that world, less controlled,
less proper, because it was written by semity, by a
modern woman, versus being written by a woman who was
like stuck in the constraints of the age, oh, without
a doubt. And also I think the thing I found,
you know, immediately amazing was number one that I'd never
(05:10):
seen this side of Regents, England before, because in fact
the ton exists, or existed, Mayfair existed. This whole idea
that Jane Austen, who lives in this very sort of
pastoral society where everybody's in sort of oh you know,
I would say darker maroonish, grayish brownish tones in my head.
You know, it's the world is little muted. It been
more time in chapels and with large pieces of grass
(05:34):
swinging as they walk, they recycled their dresses more. This
was this amazing world of luxury and excess and this
sort of much more transportive world in a strange way
for me. Yes, And there was this incredibly crazy device
of this gossip columnist who was essentially pulling the strings
(05:55):
of everybody in the world, which as a concept was
so cool. It really was worked really, really nicely. And
then the icing on the cake was the mother who
has thousands of children, all of whom need to get married,
and all of whom she would like to marry for
love in a world in which that is not the
ruling concept. I mean, let's be clear, Julia Quinn's no dummy.
(06:15):
She really did build in like a perfect series like
Nobody Marries for Love back then. It was really smart
of her to come up with the world in which
that concept existed, and for us to get to play
with it was fabulous because it's the same family at
the core of it for so many books, you've become
attached to that family in a way that very often,
(06:38):
you know, at least in my experience with romance novels,
they were one offs, you know, or they would be
by the same author, or they'd have certain similarities in
terms of storytelling, but they didn't necessarily have this format,
which honestly felt a lot like a show, a community
where you could come back to people again and again
and check in on their storylines, and you're right, very
much like a show, all the while having a new
(06:59):
story at the center of every book, which was awesome,
which is incredible. And to close ended one, which I
was excited about because you have to allow people happy endings,
which was great, yeah, which I think we've rarely had
that opportunity, and I was thrilled at that. I mean,
at the end of the day. Like I was always like,
if you want to use them up, and they're no
more happy endings to give, no more ways to twist
(07:21):
and turn them, somebody has to die or something. I
don't know. You don't have to kill anybody. It's amazing.
I mean, this is obviously not the first time we've
had source material, right, because we've done this in different ways.
I mean, Judy Smith was her own sort of source materials.
Certainly when you did Scandal, Olivia Pope was inspired by
a real life person. Yeah, completely inspired by her job
and her world. But it's very different than having books.
(07:44):
I mean, for that sort of world, I got to
have someone's job and everything that they did be sort
of the nun that fodder for what I was building on.
But this really, you know, required so much more. I mean,
not only were we trying to be sort of historically
accurate with that, but we had these books that did
lay out a very clear map of where we were going.
(08:05):
And there are a couple of ways you can approach that.
You can approach it where you're going to be exact
and go like right along with the book. You know something,
you know, there's some books that you really feel like
you have to do that, and then there's the world
in which you can sort of go. This is a
jumping off point, and I think we chose somewhere in between. Really. Yeah,
I agree. It was great to get to do this
(08:27):
with her books too, because she's so enthusiastic about the
series and was so on board and so supportive. And
I mean, I don't know if any of you saw
her Instagram while this was being made, but she could
not have been more exuberant and more onboard and more
of a cheerleader for what we were doing, which was
so great. Oh and available, you know for absolutely everything,
(08:51):
which is you know, no mean fee when you're actually
in charge or you're you're running your own empire of literature. Yeah,
she could not be more to delightful, and she was
super supportive of all the actors and quite a force
of nature. So it was great to be able to
also have her as this constant resource and this constant
sort of place to go back. And we also were
(09:13):
lucky because we had and continue to have great consultants
both for the manners of the time, but you know,
everything from the dancing to how people sit, how people stand.
I thought That was fascinating, right, the idea that all
of those little pieces were existing and we're sort of
building that world. We'll be right back. Hey, you're listening
(09:43):
to Bridgerton the official podcast. I'm Shanda rhim Soon with
Betsy Beers and we're talking about all things Bridgerton. For
both of us, this was a very different kind of
producing job because it was one of the first times
we were both getting to work on a project together
at this same time. Now, generally, obviously everybody always assumes
that we're always working on a project together at the
(10:04):
same time, and usually we are, but that's when I'm
writing the series or creating the series. But when I'm not,
lottle work falls to Betsy and then I sort of
pop in it, you know, key moments to help out,
or whenever Betsy says, like, come over here and look
at this because I'm busy working in another series. What
was great about coming to Netflix was that we had
time now to really do the thing that we enjoy
(10:25):
doing the most, which has worked together. That's right, that's absolutely,
don't you think, And so we got to do this
in a way that was much more hands on for
both of us. So, like even building the story. Like
people always say, like I hear everything from this feels
very Shondaland to this feels very new for Shondaland, which
always cracks me up because that doesn't make the sense.
But I think it's because they think of Shondaland is
having tropes in terms of our storiely love triangles or
(10:49):
the OMG moments or whatever that make up our stories.
And you and I talk about this a lot, like
what actually makes our stories our character and emotional moments
and putting in things that you always call it people
putting people in impossible situations and saying how they're going
to get out of it, but also just making characters
that we want to watch. Yep, that's like our big
rule people, if you are a writer, just write characters
(11:09):
that you want to watch. I totally agree, and I
also think, you know, the second rule is people always say, well,
what makes a show that you want to be your
next show? And I always say the same thing, which
is something we really want to watch and something we
haven't done before. Yeah, some form or another. You know
it's And somebody the other day was sort of like, well,
what how do you make a hit? It's craziest question
in the world, because you can only make something that
(11:31):
you really like and you hope other people like it.
The way not to make a hit. It's just trying
to make the thing that you made before again in
a different way exactly. We were like, let's do Bridgetin
but in Georgian, I don't know whatever, It's just not
going to work. It's like, look, it's the same template,
which goes back to the tropes. Yes, and I think
sometimes people are surprised when the trope is not there.
(11:52):
Another thing pops up they like and it becomes a trope. Right,
it's not a trope. It just gets popular and then
it's true. As you can tell, I don't love the
word trope. We don't love the word trope. And I'm
also just going to say the idea of always having
to say a woman is strong, strong, smart women, strong,
department women the other phrase personally, I really hate his
things like you go girl moments, oh omg moments and
(12:14):
you go girl moments are the phrases that really hurt
my brain. The moll I forgot about want the word likable. Oh,
I really really have an issue with the word likable.
A note is a note that we've been getting for
eighteen years now. At some point in time, somebody gives
us the note that likes always about women. Nobody else
asks us from a man could be more likable? No,
nobody ever asking me if cyrus bean can be more likable? No,
(12:36):
not once. But Olivia Palmarner is one person with a chair,
and people are like, can she be more likable? Only
help one person, just one No, But seriously, seriously, everybody,
there's always a moment somewhere where somebody looks at someone
of the female characters and goes, it doesn't seem very likable.
And I think that's just the craziest thing. It's uh, yeah,
it really rubs me the wrong way. Let's just put that.
(12:58):
And by the way, everybody knows it now because if
the word comes out like I think essentially if you
can hear fire up or go out of your ears.
But since when is likable a goal? Like that is
not a goal of a thing to be. That's like saying,
can you be bland? Can you be like just blah?
I don't know, Like why is likable a thing? One
of the things I've always loved about the way you
(13:19):
tell stories is that idea of being likable, being likable,
being likable, And the great thing about actually investing in
a show is you earn the right to get to
know people, because like life, we meet people and you
see one thing, and you think about somebody one way
when you see them, and then as you get to
know them, these other aspects of this person pop out,
and first season and grade second seedon Grace. I remember
the example I always used to give us Addison when
(13:41):
we first meet Addison already hated Addison and poor Kate Walsh.
I sent into a store once to pick up some
clothes because I thought she liked the store, and they
ran her out of the store because she didn't quote
unquote Sony into Merenith. And there's this one episode where
Meredith is tending to a very grouchy woman at the
hospital who's heard the scuttle about the fact that Mereth
stole Addison's husband and doesn't want to be treated by Meredith,
(14:05):
and Addison stands up for her and I said, like
I didn't know the shell. Never forget, it's a little show.
It's called Grayson Anatomy. You might be familiar other than
to check it out, but it was this amazing moment
where everybody's opinion Masson changed. And I can point to
things throughout everything you've written, everything that we produced, there's
a moment like that with Lady Featherington that I really love.
(14:25):
At a doubt, you know that moment, And I don't
know if other people took it the same way I did,
But the moment when she takes her niece down to
the horrible neighborhood and stands her there and says, do
you want to end up like this? Like this is
what your future will be? I like, for me, I
completely had a different opinion of that woman and felt
for her in a very different way. It's the same
(14:47):
as like when her husband yells at her, like you
realize that no one's ever really seen her and that
she married that mean man so that she didn't end
up standing in some dirty, poor street like this is
her life. You feel the trauma of that, Like I
suddenly was like, oh, this poor lady, that's exactly right.
And it's the same way the word way you look
at Marina's dilemma too. But I've had these conversations. I
(15:10):
had one recently which somebody's like, Wow, that really seems
like it's a hard thing to sympathize with. Then they
got to the end of the series and they thought,
oh wait a second. You go through the dark Knight
of the Soul with her, yea to the degree that
you really understand what's fueling her. And that's the fun
of these sorts of stories. It's it's Simon in the
beginning when you meet him and you think this guy's
get a stick up his buddies, arrogant, and then you
(15:32):
figure out more about his childhood and you understand it
informs the way you look at people, the same way
as you get to know people in life, which is
why we hate the word likable. Okay, yes, don't use it.
Don't use it. We'll be right back. I'm Betsy Beers
(15:53):
and I'm talking to Seana Rhymes about all things Bridgerton.
Eloise is really awesome, and the friendship between Lady dan
Bury and Queen Charlotte's amazing. One of the questions that
we get a lot is why are these friendships so
enviable and such? Like, once again part of the Shondaland
style of storytelling. I almost never have an answer to
this because I don't think that just like we were
(16:15):
just talking about we're revealing character or we don't consider
it a style, we consider reality. They're born from our experiences.
If you're talking about reads England, if you're talking about
twenty first century, these are women that we know. They're realistic,
three dimensional women, Like I'm always surprised with people like
these friendships are so amazing, and I'm like, they just
seem like the friendships I have with people exactly. So
(16:35):
it's almost like the same way I'm frustrated by the
diversity question. Yeah, yeah, how do you make their shows
so diverse? Well, I'm making the world look like the
world that I know exactly. These are the kind of
friendships that I know, and so we're writing them. I
know what you mean because one of the things initially
that when we first started talking about story in general
years ago, was that you rarely see on screen a
(16:57):
depiction of what a real friendship is. And a real
friendship is tricky. A friendship is hard, a real friendship
is wonderful and terrific. If a friendship lasts, it's because
you go through hills and valleys. It's not a simple road.
And I think one of the things that's realistic but
also profound to me is very often the shows throughout
friendships at last, and I think it's an examination of
why do those friendships last? And I talk about this
(17:21):
all the time, and we talk about this all the times.
What continues to make a friend in any kind of relationship,
you know, it's what makes a bond continue and what
makes you not be able to bear that person anymore.
I think we do on a lot of our shows
try to explore the complex nature of what makes a
friend a friend. I mean, we've worked together forever as
(17:44):
partners in doing this for so long, and in a
lot of ways all of the things that you're saying
are what make our producing partnership so successful. Yeah, we
have the relationship I think that people think that these
friends have on the shows. Yes, because it's very complex
and it goes to its hills and valleys and we
fight it out and you know, all those things that
happen that make it possible for us to work together
(18:04):
so successfully. I think that's always this touchdowne you go
back to, which is we're informing with our own experience.
We do the work, like I think that there's work
involved in forming a good business partnership and making sure
that on top of the friendship part of it, that
you're putting in the work together to make sure that
everybody's both doing their part and feeling their part being
done and appreciated and stuff. And we've grown so much,
(18:26):
I think in all of these years together over it,
and I think as working professional women, I think that
is a thing that I always want to sort of
put out there, like, it's not simple, it's work. I
totally agree with that. I don't think you see many
long term female partnerships out in the world that you
can actually reference. And that's been said to me a
(18:48):
couple of times, and I kind of think about any Wow,
you said something at one point which is like we
really dedicated to when everything's got really hard. We're both
perfectionists and we're both incredibly fundamentally competitive people. Yes, and
what that does as it means even at points where
things have been difficult or we've been having hard times,
(19:08):
the thing which always keeps us going is the work. Yeah,
with the idea of making sure that the work is
the best of us. It's really important for it to
be out there that because you don't see this very much,
you can be two women who work for a long
time together, who are successful, who can serve both different
roles and support each other and succeed. And we've learned,
you know, Like I think we used to joke like
(19:29):
we've decided that you know only what it was going
to be crazy at a time, But that's not true. Really. Yeah,
we're both crazy at the same time, often all the time,
and we both want to quit often all the time
at the same time. But the reality of it is
is what I feel like we've learned, especially during this
pandemic Arris Producers, is we have to make an effort
to connect. Yeah. So, like, in a weird way, the
times I feel craziest, the times I must want to quit,
(19:51):
I'm like, well, poor Betsy's about to get a phone
call and we're about to hear all this crap. I
feel like I have a luxury that a lot of
people don't. I have somebody to talk all of the
stuff out with and discuss all of the problems with.
And Betsy's is interested and is willing to go through
the minutia of every Bridgerton angle there is. As I
am with pleasure, we can solve whatever the problems are.
(20:16):
Years and years and years ago. This is like ages ago.
I remember very early on I couldn't sleep, which is
a big thing I think for both of us when
something work wise is really bothering us. Independently, the next day,
I'll say, God, I had a really hard time sleeping,
and you'll go, God, that's really weird. I was up
thinking about X Y and Z. I developed this thing
in my head called Shanda. I think actually coined it
(20:36):
the barking dog, which is which is ironic because I
love dogs, and that's no slide on the dog. The
dog is warning me of something, but the idea that
there's a barking dog, and I know vaguely what it's about,
but I don't quite know what it is yet, but
I have to express my anxiety. And initially I remember
you sort of going, what's that about? And then the
thing happened, yes, and we both like, Okay, from now on,
(21:01):
rule rule, We're going to pay attention anytime you say
barking dog. We're not allowed to make fun of the
other person. We're just going to listen. And that, strangely
has been this other thing, which it sounds sort of
negative as I'm talking about it, but it's not No,
I solved problems before they happen, which is one of
Shauna's big things just say on now is is how
do you get ahead of something? Because I don't know
(21:22):
if you know this, but a few times in our
careers we are a little behind and we don't like that.
We don't like that at all. So I think the
whole kind of concept of being able to actually really
view as realistically as possible what the landscape is, what
is coming at you, still staying open for changes and
how things might pivot, but being prepared, certainly as a
(21:46):
producer and as somebody who's responsible for content, which is
essentially what we're talking about here. I think it's just
a key. Every time you kind of close your eyes
and hundred the covers, it's going to start barking act chat.
That's kind of like the definition of what being a producer,
a good producer is. That's that's what being a good
producer is. Frankly, I think that's that's absolutely right. What
(22:14):
are big parts of our jobs that you think people
don't think that we do in terms of like being
a producer, Obviously we find the material and we find
the writer, and we work on the story and development,
and there's tons of notes and scripts and shaping, and
there's casting, which I think we always think of as
the fun party, but like like the thing. I don't
know if you guys know, but Betsy is like what
I call the music guru in terms of like she
(22:35):
can help figure out what the score should feel like
for anything. She'll always know when it's right when it's wrong.
She'll help you find the right song, She'll help you
find the right tone. She can put into words the
way music should be to a composer, and she speaks
composer in a way that's really lovely. You do costumes really,
like really well, like Betsy's been. Maybe it's different, maybe
(22:56):
it's a show to show, but like I did. I
did a lot of the costumes on Scanal, but like
the costumes on Bridgerton are insane and that's like a
full time job. And Betsy worked with the costume team
for costumes on Bridgerton. I don't even know how you
did that ended all the other stuff you had to do.
So one of the things when I first met Shanda,
she had never edited a show before, and I'm going
(23:16):
to say I was pretty good I mean, I was
pretty I'd been in some editing rooms in my time,
and I was pretty freaking cocky about that ship. How
pissed was I when she comes in and like, in
ten minutes figures out absolutely and totally the best way
to tell her story in the editing room, with literally
like no training. We had a great editor, but literally
probably the most brilliant person in editing I have ever seen.
(23:39):
And then includes, you know, a slightly failing but interesting
career in the movies, but really really impressive in terms
of and also, by the way, just as we're saying this,
no mean shakes in the music department, because when you
look at something like Scandal, from the moment she listened
to Skin she saw Scandals, she knew exactly what she
wanted that music to like. So we collaborate a lot
(24:01):
on that. I'm going to be fair about that, because
you're you tend to have very very strong feelings very
often about what we call the old drops. So there's
songs that you guys hear playing in the back of things. Well,
what I think is funny is either I have very
strong feelings or I have no idea, And so it's
this very vague like oh like literally kind of moment
where Betsy's like, well, what if we tried this, and
(24:23):
what if we tried this and what if we tried this?
And I'm like, please just take it and go like,
just go to make it something. Well, the gay thing is,
you know, immediately, we recently were working on something and
I had an idea and I thought it was just
the best idea and best town and we put it
in and she was the first one to go, yeah,
I get the theory behind this, but this blows. I mean,
so that's the good part too. We can actually really
(24:45):
kind of dig into the other thing though, is like,
for instance, the music on Bridgerton, the way like the
choice to do those the songs and stuff, the way
you guys did that was just genius, Like that was
something that I would never thought I wouldn't have done
and worked beautiful, And that was an the idea actually,
because when we first started talking about the show, I
remembered that I'd heard a group years ago that basically
(25:06):
did this thing where they took they took a Flamenco
style music and they put current songs and played it
in Flamenco style music. And I remember talking to you
and sort of saying, what if we actually figured out
a way to take current songs that people would recognize
but play them as though they're from the period. I
think one of the things we've talked about a lot
with Bridgerton is the idea that we wanted it to
feel of the period and not take you out of
(25:29):
the period, but give you enough modern elements that you
could relate to it without it hitting you over the head.
And I think that the music is one part of it.
The slightly larger than like costumes is part of it,
The color scheme is part of it. Certain aspects of
the dialogue certainly part of it too. And I think
all of these different ways and our approach, certainly to
(25:50):
the world of Bridgerton, yes, the people we cast in Bridgerton,
and the fact that it's a more inclusive view of
eighteen fourteen, all of these should be ways that don't
pull you out of watching the show and make you go, oh,
look it's modern, but simply say, wow, I'm really engaged
in this, and isn't an amazing that this kind of
thing might have been possible in eighteen fourteen. So you know,
(26:12):
the music certainly I think grew out of that too,
as did the idea of hiring Chris Bowers to do
the score. Who's genius, Who's the total genius. We worked
with on one show before, and one of the things
we said to him really early on is we same
thing is we need it to feel like it's of
the period, but we need there to be elements about
it that, whether you realize it or not, are pulling
you into current day that make it more likely for
(26:34):
you to be able to connect to these situations in
a very modern way. That's a really great way of
putting it. Like the whole approach the show is how
do we take Regency England romance and make it both
modern but not mocking. This is a really interesting one
because this really came from you initially as a passion project,
(26:55):
you know, something that you loved, and because I think
the inception was so much your passion for this, you
were invested, so invested in it from the beginning. Yeah,
even though you did not pen the script, it was
so much about feeling as though we were both in
it one hundred percent from the moment it all started.
And the other odd thing for us is when we've
(27:17):
done Network series together. Usually the series shot in Los Angeles, right,
so there was a physical fluidity there where we could,
you know, sort of see each other. But honestly, for years,
you were, you know, as you said, you were working
incredibly hard to keep scripts coming out in time so
that we could actually get shows on the air. And
with the Netflix model, which you all know obviously because
we all binge watch, you tend to have a body
(27:38):
of work and then you film that. And what this
sort of did for us was, on one hand, we've
never actually had a situation where one of us had
to go to a country constantly and the other one
was here and it didn't matter, right because we were
actually working so closely together on it that the traveling
was the least of it, you know, it was. I
thought initially when we first started going, it was like,
oh my god, I'm gonna have to go to England.
And Shanna used to listen to me coming and go
(27:59):
I'm gonna go up, like it's a good way to like,
even though I've been to England, I love notting crotchety
about traveling. I just I just was like, yeah, I
was just old and bitched out about it. But it
had a delightful time. But this has been for every
single step of the way. It's just from everything from
inception to casting, to costumes to the way you know,
(28:19):
the sets looked to every Shaundes is just it's been
really really fun to do what we did when we
first started. It's been really fun because it is building
a world that we're both really excited about. Yes, I
don't know if you all heard this, but we're making
more so. Yeah, when Bridgerton came out and it was
like a huge success, like I thought Betsy was going
(28:40):
to like die, there was just a moment when I
was like, she was just like, dear cod, what are
we going to do? Not because she wasn't excited about
all the work that was put in, not because she
wasn't thrilled about like all of the things that had
gone on, but because it was a lot of work
getting it to where it was. Yeah, and season two
means we have to do it again, right. The first
(29:00):
thing I shared with you was a hint of terror
and despair at the idea of that you have the
largeness of the expectation which was ahead of us, and
we also have this thing where we make these shows
and we think like, well, this one will be the
one that nobody pays that much attention to, and then
it's never that way. I mean, and yes, we're very
lucky that it's never that way, but this is a
very loud, noisy hit that then we have to recreate, yeah,
(29:25):
and figure out ways to let it grow yet sustain.
What is great about it everybody wants to hear like, oh,
it just ends in the streets and skipped in the rain,
But the reality of it is is we understand the
work that goes into making these shows, and then, because
we are perfectionists who like to do everything right, the
work that's ahead of us in the future. When I'm
(29:45):
feeling that way or when Betsy's feeling that way, those
are the moments when I feel like we were best together.
We do manage to sort of help each other find
a way through. We just sit down and just start
drinking together. But either way it works. They're both different
coping neckness, but I think they're both incredibly effective depending
on the time of day. Thanks to a lot of
(30:06):
people watching, we definitely have the opportunity to keep building
this little universe, which we're excited about. Agreed, absolutely agreed.
It's really I could just got to say, it's like,
really really fun. It's more fun than I've had in years.
Probably in some ways, I don't know. It's been great.
So that's the sappy chunk. Shanda, this has been a delight,
Betsy's been amazing talking to you. It's been a delight
(30:26):
sharing our stories with all of you, and we can
hardly wait to see you on the other side with
bridget in season two. Season two. Thank you again to
Shonda Rhymes and Betsy Beers for being here with us,
and thank you listeners for returning to Bridgeton the official podcast,
and we hope that you will return again because we've
got more coming your way. We've got more from Shanda
(30:49):
and Betsy. Actually, they're going to be answering all of
those questions that you sent into us over the last
two weeks. And you've got to come back for a
one last round with writer Jess Brownell, Annabelhood and doctor
Hannah Gregg, Bridgeton's historian, so that we can talk about Bridgerton,
the universe, all of it that it meant to us
(31:09):
and looking forward of course to season two, three and four. Hello,
So make sure you come back and join us. Bridgerton.
The Official Podcast is executive produced by Lauren Homan, Sandy Bailey,
Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins. Our producer is Chris
van Dusen and our producer editor is Vincent de Johnny Bridgerton.
The Official Podcast is a production of Shondaland Audio. For
(31:33):
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or anywhere you get your favorite shows.
When Bridgeton came out and it was like a huge success,
Like I thought Betsy was going to die. There was
just a moment when I was like, she was just like,
dear God, what are we going to do? Not because
she wasn't excited about all the work that was put in,
not because she wasn't thrilled about like all of the
things that had gone on, but because it was a
lot of work getting it to where it was. Yeah,
(00:22):
and season two means we have to do it again, right.
Welcome to Bridgeton the official podcast. In this special episode,
we're winding down with a really awesome conversation. Our first
season is going to come to a close. With executive
producers Shonda Rhymes and Betsy Beers So. Tucked inside of
(00:43):
Shanda's home across from each other at this grand, beautiful table,
the storytelling duo talk about how they rolled up their
sleeves on the Bridgeton universe and pushed the limits of
their creative partnership yet again. Over the last year. These
two powerhouses shared notes and got into editing all over
video conferencing. Hi Sanda, Hi Betsy, how are you fine?
(01:07):
We're very excited because we are actually in the same
room for the first time since the pandemic began. Literally
the last time I saw shann in person was March thirteenth, Friday,
the thirteenth, twenty twenty. We were both like, Okay, see
you in two weeks. That's never happened for us before.
So it's been a year and forever. It's been such
a long time, and I think the longest we've gone
(01:29):
before this is like maybe a month, like if that so,
But I think we've gotten actually strangely adapted the zooming
screen world. Yes, although I've got to say it's great
to see your head attached to your body. I know,
it's nice, and it's nice for me because Betsy generally
only like sort of leans off to one side, so
I just see like one eyeball or something. So now
I could see it our whole face and it never
(01:50):
freezes or anything. And you know what else we did
absolutely totally in the pandemic, of course, was we edited
all of Bridgerton Season one, which is frankly what got
us through the pandemic, right, That's what made the pandemic
not so traumatically horrible, and it was traumatically horrible matter what.
But it took some of the sting off of it
because just when you thought like life couldn't get any worse,
(02:13):
you got to see an episode of Bridgton. This sort
of normalcy of going through the editing process, which for
y'all who have followed shows with shan to Land for years,
is a gigantic part of that fun of the job.
And it's, you know, one of Shanda's many genius points.
We've got great composers and great editors and a great
head of post and so it was this weird way
of normalizing our life because everybody would sort of get
(02:34):
together and give notes and exchange experiences in terms of
watching the cut, but we were doing it remotely. It
just made us feel a little less remote. Yeah, and
the editing room is really like the real like the
final stage of storytelling, like don't real rewrite, and so
it felt like we were at least getting to tell
some story. So that was good, which was really really fun.
And I could have snacks and nobody could see that's true,
and I could do it all in my pajamas exactly. Okay,
(02:58):
so I leave the last time I checked. This is
a podcast about Bridgerton. It is about Bridgerton. Okay, see,
well I think then maybe don't you think we start
at the beginning? By that, I don't mean eighteen fourteen,
although I might have been alive in eighteen fourteen. Yes,
let's talk about Okay, let's talk about Bridgeton. Let's origin,
story of bridget origins of Yeah, that sounds like a song,
the Origins. So I was sick or I was in
(03:24):
a hotel somewhere I can't ever remember exactly, and I
read the first Bridgeston book, The Duke and I by
Julia Quinn. And I'm not a person who read romance novels.
I was not a person who was into romance novels.
I didn't know much about them. But there was a
book there and I needed to read something, and I
read it and I immediately went out and bought like
the rest of them, because it was a fabulous read.
(03:46):
I was very involved, invested, super impressed. And then I
was like, Betsy care a bunch of romance novels. I
saw you hit your head, Yeah she did. She strange
accident in the hotel room. She thought something was wrong
with being Yeah, these books, and I think they would
make an amazing show. You know it's funny because it
was exactly the same experience if you describe as I think.
(04:07):
I was initially skeptical because I wasn't familiar with the
series as a kid, and actually as a young teen,
I did read romance novels, so it was a genre
that ages ago I was familiar with, but I certainly
had not dipped into the world a period romance, That's
what I mean. Like we all read like the bigger
unineteen eighties. Everyone shoulder pads were huge, and than I
(04:28):
wore diamonds, some of our favorites, by the way, yes,
by the way, truly, but the period romance novels, I mean,
it wasn't Jane Austen. I didn't really know about it exactly,
And I mean, I'm not going to this Jane Austen.
I'm not an idiot. She might get upset, she might
roll over, exactly. It was so much juicier than Dan
(04:48):
Austin in terms of what it offered, because it gave
a just a different look at that world, less controlled,
less proper, because it was written by semity, by a
modern woman, versus being written by a woman who was
like stuck in the constraints of the age, oh, without
a doubt. And also I think the thing I found,
you know, immediately amazing was number one that I'd never
(05:10):
seen this side of Regents, England before, because in fact
the ton exists, or existed, Mayfair existed. This whole idea
that Jane Austen, who lives in this very sort of
pastoral society where everybody's in sort of oh you know,
I would say darker maroonish, grayish brownish tones in my head.
You know, it's the world is little muted. It been
more time in chapels and with large pieces of grass
(05:34):
swinging as they walk, they recycled their dresses more. This
was this amazing world of luxury and excess and this
sort of much more transportive world in a strange way
for me. Yes, And there was this incredibly crazy device
of this gossip columnist who was essentially pulling the strings
(05:55):
of everybody in the world, which as a concept was
so cool. It really was worked really, really nicely. And
then the icing on the cake was the mother who
has thousands of children, all of whom need to get married,
and all of whom she would like to marry for
love in a world in which that is not the
ruling concept. I mean, let's be clear, Julia Quinn's no dummy.
(06:15):
She really did build in like a perfect series like
Nobody Marries for Love back then. It was really smart
of her to come up with the world in which
that concept existed, and for us to get to play
with it was fabulous because it's the same family at
the core of it for so many books, you've become
attached to that family in a way that very often,
(06:38):
you know, at least in my experience with romance novels,
they were one offs, you know, or they would be
by the same author, or they'd have certain similarities in
terms of storytelling, but they didn't necessarily have this format,
which honestly felt a lot like a show, a community
where you could come back to people again and again
and check in on their storylines, and you're right, very
much like a show, all the while having a new
(06:59):
story at the center of every book, which was awesome,
which is incredible. And to close ended one, which I
was excited about because you have to allow people happy endings,
which was great, yeah, which I think we've rarely had
that opportunity, and I was thrilled at that. I mean,
at the end of the day. Like I was always like,
if you want to use them up, and they're no
more happy endings to give, no more ways to twist
(07:21):
and turn them, somebody has to die or something. I
don't know. You don't have to kill anybody. It's amazing.
I mean, this is obviously not the first time we've
had source material, right, because we've done this in different ways.
I mean, Judy Smith was her own sort of source materials.
Certainly when you did Scandal, Olivia Pope was inspired by
a real life person. Yeah, completely inspired by her job
and her world. But it's very different than having books.
(07:44):
I mean, for that sort of world, I got to
have someone's job and everything that they did be sort
of the nun that fodder for what I was building on.
But this really, you know, required so much more. I mean,
not only were we trying to be sort of historically
accurate with that, but we had these books that did
lay out a very clear map of where we were going.
(08:05):
And there are a couple of ways you can approach that.
You can approach it where you're going to be exact
and go like right along with the book. You know something,
you know, there's some books that you really feel like
you have to do that, and then there's the world
in which you can sort of go. This is a
jumping off point, and I think we chose somewhere in between. Really. Yeah,
I agree. It was great to get to do this
(08:27):
with her books too, because she's so enthusiastic about the
series and was so on board and so supportive. And
I mean, I don't know if any of you saw
her Instagram while this was being made, but she could
not have been more exuberant and more onboard and more
of a cheerleader for what we were doing, which was
so great. Oh and available, you know for absolutely everything,
(08:51):
which is you know, no mean fee when you're actually
in charge or you're you're running your own empire of literature. Yeah,
she could not be more to delightful, and she was
super supportive of all the actors and quite a force
of nature. So it was great to be able to
also have her as this constant resource and this constant
sort of place to go back. And we also were
(09:13):
lucky because we had and continue to have great consultants
both for the manners of the time, but you know,
everything from the dancing to how people sit, how people stand.
I thought That was fascinating, right, the idea that all
of those little pieces were existing and we're sort of
building that world. We'll be right back. Hey, you're listening
(09:43):
to Bridgerton the official podcast. I'm Shanda rhim Soon with
Betsy Beers and we're talking about all things Bridgerton. For
both of us, this was a very different kind of
producing job because it was one of the first times
we were both getting to work on a project together
at this same time. Now, generally, obviously everybody always assumes
that we're always working on a project together at the
(10:04):
same time, and usually we are, but that's when I'm
writing the series or creating the series. But when I'm not,
lottle work falls to Betsy and then I sort of
pop in it, you know, key moments to help out,
or whenever Betsy says, like, come over here and look
at this because I'm busy working in another series. What
was great about coming to Netflix was that we had
time now to really do the thing that we enjoy
(10:25):
doing the most, which has worked together. That's right, that's absolutely,
don't you think, And so we got to do this
in a way that was much more hands on for
both of us. So, like even building the story. Like
people always say, like I hear everything from this feels
very Shondaland to this feels very new for Shondaland, which
always cracks me up because that doesn't make the sense.
But I think it's because they think of Shondaland is
having tropes in terms of our storiely love triangles or
(10:49):
the OMG moments or whatever that make up our stories.
And you and I talk about this a lot, like
what actually makes our stories our character and emotional moments
and putting in things that you always call it people
putting people in impossible situations and saying how they're going
to get out of it, but also just making characters
that we want to watch. Yep, that's like our big
rule people, if you are a writer, just write characters
(11:09):
that you want to watch. I totally agree, and I
also think, you know, the second rule is people always say, well,
what makes a show that you want to be your
next show? And I always say the same thing, which
is something we really want to watch and something we
haven't done before. Yeah, some form or another. You know
it's And somebody the other day was sort of like, well,
what how do you make a hit? It's craziest question
in the world, because you can only make something that
(11:31):
you really like and you hope other people like it.
The way not to make a hit. It's just trying
to make the thing that you made before again in
a different way exactly. We were like, let's do Bridgetin
but in Georgian, I don't know whatever, It's just not
going to work. It's like, look, it's the same template,
which goes back to the tropes. Yes, and I think
sometimes people are surprised when the trope is not there.
(11:52):
Another thing pops up they like and it becomes a trope. Right,
it's not a trope. It just gets popular and then
it's true. As you can tell, I don't love the
word trope. We don't love the word trope. And I'm
also just going to say the idea of always having
to say a woman is strong, strong, smart women, strong,
department women the other phrase personally, I really hate his
things like you go girl moments, oh omg moments and
(12:14):
you go girl moments are the phrases that really hurt
my brain. The moll I forgot about want the word likable. Oh,
I really really have an issue with the word likable.
A note is a note that we've been getting for
eighteen years now. At some point in time, somebody gives
us the note that likes always about women. Nobody else
asks us from a man could be more likable? No,
nobody ever asking me if cyrus bean can be more likable? No,
(12:36):
not once. But Olivia Palmarner is one person with a chair,
and people are like, can she be more likable? Only
help one person, just one No, But seriously, seriously, everybody,
there's always a moment somewhere where somebody looks at someone
of the female characters and goes, it doesn't seem very likable.
And I think that's just the craziest thing. It's uh, yeah,
it really rubs me the wrong way. Let's just put that.
(12:58):
And by the way, everybody knows it now because if
the word comes out like I think essentially if you
can hear fire up or go out of your ears.
But since when is likable a goal? Like that is
not a goal of a thing to be. That's like saying,
can you be bland? Can you be like just blah?
I don't know, Like why is likable a thing? One
of the things I've always loved about the way you
(13:19):
tell stories is that idea of being likable, being likable,
being likable, And the great thing about actually investing in
a show is you earn the right to get to
know people, because like life, we meet people and you
see one thing, and you think about somebody one way
when you see them, and then as you get to
know them, these other aspects of this person pop out,
and first season and grade second seedon Grace. I remember
the example I always used to give us Addison when
(13:41):
we first meet Addison already hated Addison and poor Kate Walsh.
I sent into a store once to pick up some
clothes because I thought she liked the store, and they
ran her out of the store because she didn't quote
unquote Sony into Merenith. And there's this one episode where
Meredith is tending to a very grouchy woman at the
hospital who's heard the scuttle about the fact that Mereth
stole Addison's husband and doesn't want to be treated by Meredith,
(14:05):
and Addison stands up for her and I said, like
I didn't know the shell. Never forget, it's a little show.
It's called Grayson Anatomy. You might be familiar other than
to check it out, but it was this amazing moment
where everybody's opinion Masson changed. And I can point to
things throughout everything you've written, everything that we produced, there's
a moment like that with Lady Featherington that I really love.
(14:25):
At a doubt, you know that moment, And I don't
know if other people took it the same way I did,
But the moment when she takes her niece down to
the horrible neighborhood and stands her there and says, do
you want to end up like this? Like this is
what your future will be? I like, for me, I
completely had a different opinion of that woman and felt
for her in a very different way. It's the same
(14:47):
as like when her husband yells at her, like you
realize that no one's ever really seen her and that
she married that mean man so that she didn't end
up standing in some dirty, poor street like this is
her life. You feel the trauma of that, Like I
suddenly was like, oh, this poor lady, that's exactly right.
And it's the same way the word way you look
at Marina's dilemma too. But I've had these conversations. I
(15:10):
had one recently which somebody's like, Wow, that really seems
like it's a hard thing to sympathize with. Then they
got to the end of the series and they thought,
oh wait a second. You go through the dark Knight
of the Soul with her, yea to the degree that
you really understand what's fueling her. And that's the fun
of these sorts of stories. It's it's Simon in the
beginning when you meet him and you think this guy's
get a stick up his buddies, arrogant, and then you
(15:32):
figure out more about his childhood and you understand it
informs the way you look at people, the same way
as you get to know people in life, which is
why we hate the word likable. Okay, yes, don't use it.
Don't use it. We'll be right back. I'm Betsy Beers
(15:53):
and I'm talking to Seana Rhymes about all things Bridgerton.
Eloise is really awesome, and the friendship between Lady dan
Bury and Queen Charlotte's amazing. One of the questions that
we get a lot is why are these friendships so
enviable and such? Like, once again part of the Shondaland
style of storytelling. I almost never have an answer to
this because I don't think that just like we were
(16:15):
just talking about we're revealing character or we don't consider
it a style, we consider reality. They're born from our experiences.
If you're talking about reads England, if you're talking about
twenty first century, these are women that we know. They're realistic,
three dimensional women, Like I'm always surprised with people like
these friendships are so amazing, and I'm like, they just
seem like the friendships I have with people exactly. So
(16:35):
it's almost like the same way I'm frustrated by the
diversity question. Yeah, yeah, how do you make their shows
so diverse? Well, I'm making the world look like the
world that I know exactly. These are the kind of
friendships that I know, and so we're writing them. I
know what you mean because one of the things initially
that when we first started talking about story in general
years ago, was that you rarely see on screen a
(16:57):
depiction of what a real friendship is. And a real
friendship is tricky. A friendship is hard, a real friendship
is wonderful and terrific. If a friendship lasts, it's because
you go through hills and valleys. It's not a simple road.
And I think one of the things that's realistic but
also profound to me is very often the shows throughout
friendships at last, and I think it's an examination of
why do those friendships last? And I talk about this
(17:21):
all the time, and we talk about this all the times.
What continues to make a friend in any kind of relationship,
you know, it's what makes a bond continue and what
makes you not be able to bear that person anymore.
I think we do on a lot of our shows
try to explore the complex nature of what makes a
friend a friend. I mean, we've worked together forever as
(17:44):
partners in doing this for so long, and in a
lot of ways all of the things that you're saying
are what make our producing partnership so successful. Yeah, we
have the relationship I think that people think that these
friends have on the shows. Yes, because it's very complex
and it goes to its hills and valleys and we
fight it out and you know, all those things that
happen that make it possible for us to work together
(18:04):
so successfully. I think that's always this touchdowne you go
back to, which is we're informing with our own experience.
We do the work, like I think that there's work
involved in forming a good business partnership and making sure
that on top of the friendship part of it, that
you're putting in the work together to make sure that
everybody's both doing their part and feeling their part being
done and appreciated and stuff. And we've grown so much,
(18:26):
I think in all of these years together over it,
and I think as working professional women, I think that
is a thing that I always want to sort of
put out there, like, it's not simple, it's work. I
totally agree with that. I don't think you see many
long term female partnerships out in the world that you
can actually reference. And that's been said to me a
(18:48):
couple of times, and I kind of think about any Wow,
you said something at one point which is like we
really dedicated to when everything's got really hard. We're both
perfectionists and we're both incredibly fundamentally competitive people. Yes, and
what that does as it means even at points where
things have been difficult or we've been having hard times,
(19:08):
the thing which always keeps us going is the work. Yeah,
with the idea of making sure that the work is
the best of us. It's really important for it to
be out there that because you don't see this very much,
you can be two women who work for a long
time together, who are successful, who can serve both different
roles and support each other and succeed. And we've learned,
you know, Like I think we used to joke like
(19:29):
we've decided that you know only what it was going
to be crazy at a time, But that's not true. Really. Yeah,
we're both crazy at the same time, often all the time,
and we both want to quit often all the time
at the same time. But the reality of it is
is what I feel like we've learned, especially during this
pandemic Arris Producers, is we have to make an effort
to connect. Yeah. So, like, in a weird way, the
times I feel craziest, the times I must want to quit,
(19:51):
I'm like, well, poor Betsy's about to get a phone
call and we're about to hear all this crap. I
feel like I have a luxury that a lot of
people don't. I have somebody to talk all of the
stuff out with and discuss all of the problems with.
And Betsy's is interested and is willing to go through
the minutia of every Bridgerton angle there is. As I
am with pleasure, we can solve whatever the problems are.
(20:16):
Years and years and years ago. This is like ages ago.
I remember very early on I couldn't sleep, which is
a big thing I think for both of us when
something work wise is really bothering us. Independently, the next day,
I'll say, God, I had a really hard time sleeping,
and you'll go, God, that's really weird. I was up
thinking about X Y and Z. I developed this thing
in my head called Shanda. I think actually coined it
(20:36):
the barking dog, which is which is ironic because I
love dogs, and that's no slide on the dog. The
dog is warning me of something, but the idea that
there's a barking dog, and I know vaguely what it's about,
but I don't quite know what it is yet, but
I have to express my anxiety. And initially I remember
you sort of going, what's that about? And then the
thing happened, yes, and we both like, Okay, from now on,
(21:01):
rule rule, We're going to pay attention anytime you say
barking dog. We're not allowed to make fun of the
other person. We're just going to listen. And that, strangely
has been this other thing, which it sounds sort of
negative as I'm talking about it, but it's not No,
I solved problems before they happen, which is one of
Shauna's big things just say on now is is how
do you get ahead of something? Because I don't know
(21:22):
if you know this, but a few times in our
careers we are a little behind and we don't like that.
We don't like that at all. So I think the
whole kind of concept of being able to actually really
view as realistically as possible what the landscape is, what
is coming at you, still staying open for changes and
how things might pivot, but being prepared, certainly as a
(21:46):
producer and as somebody who's responsible for content, which is
essentially what we're talking about here. I think it's just
a key. Every time you kind of close your eyes
and hundred the covers, it's going to start barking act chat.
That's kind of like the definition of what being a producer,
a good producer is. That's that's what being a good
producer is. Frankly, I think that's that's absolutely right. What
(22:14):
are big parts of our jobs that you think people
don't think that we do in terms of like being
a producer, Obviously we find the material and we find
the writer, and we work on the story and development,
and there's tons of notes and scripts and shaping, and
there's casting, which I think we always think of as
the fun party, but like like the thing. I don't
know if you guys know, but Betsy is like what
I call the music guru in terms of like she
(22:35):
can help figure out what the score should feel like
for anything. She'll always know when it's right when it's wrong.
She'll help you find the right song, She'll help you
find the right tone. She can put into words the
way music should be to a composer, and she speaks
composer in a way that's really lovely. You do costumes really,
like really well, like Betsy's been. Maybe it's different, maybe
(22:56):
it's a show to show, but like I did. I
did a lot of the costumes on Scanal, but like
the costumes on Bridgerton are insane and that's like a
full time job. And Betsy worked with the costume team
for costumes on Bridgerton. I don't even know how you
did that ended all the other stuff you had to do.
So one of the things when I first met Shanda,
she had never edited a show before, and I'm going
(23:16):
to say I was pretty good I mean, I was
pretty I'd been in some editing rooms in my time,
and I was pretty freaking cocky about that ship. How
pissed was I when she comes in and like, in
ten minutes figures out absolutely and totally the best way
to tell her story in the editing room, with literally
like no training. We had a great editor, but literally
probably the most brilliant person in editing I have ever seen.
(23:39):
And then includes, you know, a slightly failing but interesting
career in the movies, but really really impressive in terms
of and also, by the way, just as we're saying this,
no mean shakes in the music department, because when you
look at something like Scandal, from the moment she listened
to Skin she saw Scandals, she knew exactly what she
wanted that music to like. So we collaborate a lot
(24:01):
on that. I'm going to be fair about that, because
you're you tend to have very very strong feelings very
often about what we call the old drops. So there's
songs that you guys hear playing in the back of things. Well,
what I think is funny is either I have very
strong feelings or I have no idea, And so it's
this very vague like oh like literally kind of moment
where Betsy's like, well, what if we tried this, and
(24:23):
what if we tried this and what if we tried this?
And I'm like, please just take it and go like,
just go to make it something. Well, the gay thing is,
you know, immediately, we recently were working on something and
I had an idea and I thought it was just
the best idea and best town and we put it
in and she was the first one to go, yeah,
I get the theory behind this, but this blows. I mean,
so that's the good part too. We can actually really
(24:45):
kind of dig into the other thing though, is like,
for instance, the music on Bridgerton, the way like the
choice to do those the songs and stuff, the way
you guys did that was just genius, Like that was
something that I would never thought I wouldn't have done
and worked beautiful, And that was an the idea actually,
because when we first started talking about the show, I
remembered that I'd heard a group years ago that basically
(25:06):
did this thing where they took they took a Flamenco
style music and they put current songs and played it
in Flamenco style music. And I remember talking to you
and sort of saying, what if we actually figured out
a way to take current songs that people would recognize
but play them as though they're from the period. I
think one of the things we've talked about a lot
with Bridgerton is the idea that we wanted it to
feel of the period and not take you out of
(25:29):
the period, but give you enough modern elements that you
could relate to it without it hitting you over the head.
And I think that the music is one part of it.
The slightly larger than like costumes is part of it,
The color scheme is part of it. Certain aspects of
the dialogue certainly part of it too. And I think
all of these different ways and our approach, certainly to
(25:50):
the world of Bridgerton, yes, the people we cast in Bridgerton,
and the fact that it's a more inclusive view of
eighteen fourteen, all of these should be ways that don't
pull you out of watching the show and make you go, oh,
look it's modern, but simply say, wow, I'm really engaged
in this, and isn't an amazing that this kind of
thing might have been possible in eighteen fourteen. So you know,
(26:12):
the music certainly I think grew out of that too,
as did the idea of hiring Chris Bowers to do
the score. Who's genius, Who's the total genius. We worked
with on one show before, and one of the things
we said to him really early on is we same
thing is we need it to feel like it's of
the period, but we need there to be elements about
it that, whether you realize it or not, are pulling
you into current day that make it more likely for
(26:34):
you to be able to connect to these situations in
a very modern way. That's a really great way of
putting it. Like the whole approach the show is how
do we take Regency England romance and make it both
modern but not mocking. This is a really interesting one
because this really came from you initially as a passion project,
(26:55):
you know, something that you loved, and because I think
the inception was so much your passion for this, you
were invested, so invested in it from the beginning. Yeah,
even though you did not pen the script, it was
so much about feeling as though we were both in
it one hundred percent from the moment it all started.
And the other odd thing for us is when we've
(27:17):
done Network series together. Usually the series shot in Los Angeles, right,
so there was a physical fluidity there where we could,
you know, sort of see each other. But honestly, for years,
you were, you know, as you said, you were working
incredibly hard to keep scripts coming out in time so
that we could actually get shows on the air. And
with the Netflix model, which you all know obviously because
we all binge watch, you tend to have a body
(27:38):
of work and then you film that. And what this
sort of did for us was, on one hand, we've
never actually had a situation where one of us had
to go to a country constantly and the other one
was here and it didn't matter, right because we were
actually working so closely together on it that the traveling
was the least of it, you know, it was. I
thought initially when we first started going, it was like,
oh my god, I'm gonna have to go to England.
And Shanna used to listen to me coming and go
(27:59):
I'm gonna go up, like it's a good way to like,
even though I've been to England, I love notting crotchety
about traveling. I just I just was like, yeah, I
was just old and bitched out about it. But it
had a delightful time. But this has been for every
single step of the way. It's just from everything from
inception to casting, to costumes to the way you know,
(28:19):
the sets looked to every Shaundes is just it's been
really really fun to do what we did when we
first started. It's been really fun because it is building
a world that we're both really excited about. Yes, I
don't know if you all heard this, but we're making
more so. Yeah, when Bridgerton came out and it was
like a huge success, like I thought Betsy was going
(28:40):
to like die, there was just a moment when I
was like, she was just like, dear cod, what are
we going to do? Not because she wasn't excited about
all the work that was put in, not because she
wasn't thrilled about like all of the things that had
gone on, but because it was a lot of work
getting it to where it was. Yeah, and season two
means we have to do it again, right. The first
(29:00):
thing I shared with you was a hint of terror
and despair at the idea of that you have the
largeness of the expectation which was ahead of us, and
we also have this thing where we make these shows
and we think like, well, this one will be the
one that nobody pays that much attention to, and then
it's never that way. I mean, and yes, we're very
lucky that it's never that way, but this is a
very loud, noisy hit that then we have to recreate, yeah,
(29:25):
and figure out ways to let it grow yet sustain.
What is great about it everybody wants to hear like, oh,
it just ends in the streets and skipped in the rain,
But the reality of it is is we understand the
work that goes into making these shows, and then, because
we are perfectionists who like to do everything right, the
work that's ahead of us in the future. When I'm
(29:45):
feeling that way or when Betsy's feeling that way, those
are the moments when I feel like we were best together.
We do manage to sort of help each other find
a way through. We just sit down and just start
drinking together. But either way it works. They're both different
coping neckness, but I think they're both incredibly effective depending
on the time of day. Thanks to a lot of
(30:06):
people watching, we definitely have the opportunity to keep building
this little universe, which we're excited about. Agreed, absolutely agreed.
It's really I could just got to say, it's like,
really really fun. It's more fun than I've had in years.
Probably in some ways, I don't know. It's been great.
So that's the sappy chunk. Shanda, this has been a delight,
Betsy's been amazing talking to you. It's been a delight
(30:26):
sharing our stories with all of you, and we can
hardly wait to see you on the other side with
bridget in season two. Season two. Thank you again to
Shonda Rhymes and Betsy Beers for being here with us,
and thank you listeners for returning to Bridgeton the official podcast,
and we hope that you will return again because we've
got more coming your way. We've got more from Shanda
(30:49):
and Betsy. Actually, they're going to be answering all of
those questions that you sent into us over the last
two weeks. And you've got to come back for a
one last round with writer Jess Brownell, Annabelhood and doctor
Hannah Gregg, Bridgeton's historian, so that we can talk about Bridgerton,
the universe, all of it that it meant to us
(31:09):
and looking forward of course to season two, three and four. Hello,
So make sure you come back and join us. Bridgerton.
The Official Podcast is executive produced by Lauren Homan, Sandy Bailey,
Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins. Our producer is Chris
van Dusen and our producer editor is Vincent de Johnny Bridgerton.
The Official Podcast is a production of Shondaland Audio. For
(31:33):
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or anywhere you get your favorite shows.
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