March 24, 2023 • 46 mins
Welcome to the Up Here Down Low, where we look behind the scenes of the new Hulu musical romcom Up Here! We know that Hulu released all eight episodes at once, but we like to do things a little more traditionally around here. What can we say? We’re romantics! Every week we’ll be talking with the cast, crew, and creators of the show about how they make musical TV magic.
This week we talk with co-creators and songwriting power couple Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson-Lopez about how much of the show is based on their real life love story, the process of collaborating with a partner, and of course, the stories behind the songs we hear in episode one. And we talk with stars Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdez about their own meet cute, how they relate to their characters, and what it was like preparing for the show.
Hosted by Madison Cross and Julian Goza.
From Straw Hut Media
This week we talk with co-creators and songwriting power couple Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson-Lopez about how much of the show is based on their real life love story, the process of collaborating with a partner, and of course, the stories behind the songs we hear in episode one. And we talk with stars Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdez about their own meet cute, how they relate to their characters, and what it was like preparing for the show.
Hosted by Madison Cross and Julian Goza.
From Straw Hut Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the up Here down Low, the official companion
podcast to Hulu's musical rom com up Here. We're your hosts,
Madison Cross.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
And Juliene Goza, two friends and theater kids.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're the Baker to my Baker's wife, and you're the
Roxy to my Valma. No, I'm Valmama.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We'll talk about this later.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And we're here to look behind the scenes with cast,
crew and creators on making musical TV Magic, Musical TV.
Magi told you not to sing. On this episode, Julie
and I introduce ourselves as hosts and recap episode one,
(00:49):
titled Lindsay.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We'll speak with stars Me Whitman and Carlos Valdez about
their characters Lindsay and Miguel, and hear stories from set.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We'll talk with co creators and songwriting power couple Bobby
Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez about how much of the
show is based on their real life love story, the
process of collaborating with a partner, and of course, the
stories behind the songs we hear in episode one. Oh
(01:18):
my god, wait, we should talk about this. What musicals
have you done? We're both theater kids ps. What musicals
have you done and who did you play?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I well, my senior year, I was shafted when we
did Aida and I was just the king that comes
out for like literally a scene. He didn't even have
a song. I was like, they totally like dissed me
on this. And my drama teacher was like, don't worry
when senior year comes around, because that was my junior year.
She was like, when senior year comes around, I'm gonna
give you the best part. And I was like, oh
(01:47):
my God, like, finally gonna play Stanley Kowalski and I
show up that day and she was like susical and
I was like, I'm a cat in the hat, Like
I don't know, I love Susical, But were.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You the catin hat?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
For sure, Well, you'd be a great cat in the hat.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you, thank you. Oh and you told me i'd
be a great Seymour.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I'd love to be Seymour.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, what have you done?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Everything under the sun, darling? Well, I believe it or not.
My first musical was in the sixth grade was Gypsy,
the one about strippers, and I was the balloon girl.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Wait, Gypsies about strippers?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes, about Gypsy rose Lee.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Wow, take my gay cart away. That is the fact
that I thought they were like show girls.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, I mean it's like burlesque.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So were you Mama Rose?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well no, first I was the balloon girl. Oh right, right,
And then I did it again a year later and
I was Mama Rose. Then I did a million other things.
Did hair spray? Was Tracy turned out?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Of course? Wow, that's a fun one.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I had a lot of fun doing that.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'd love to be the mom.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, you'd be great at that. And it turns that
and God, I've done I did Merrily We Roll Along,
and it was Mary. I've done Into the Woods twice
once is Cinderella.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
The taste in the programming on the West Coast heavy?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I know, Oh my god. And I got to be
Eponine and Li.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Miz that's right, you've told me about your Eponine. Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I smoked my first cigarette when I was one of
the prisoners in a out like local theater production. Oh
my god.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I got my first kiss backstage of Little Women.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Anyway, Why did you? Why am I here?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Okay, So we were watching up Here, which is Hulu's
new musical rom com. It's written by the Lopezes, who
are known for Frozen and Avenue Q. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they're amazing, and I'm to understand that this is about
how they met and fell in love.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I love that. I remember my my young nephew was
like I don't get musicals, like why are they singing?
And I'm like, well, it's only a good musical if
they need to sing, and he was like ah. I
was like, yeah, motherfucker. Ask me another.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well that's what they say, right, But in a musical,
it's like it's so the emotion is so high that
you can only sing about it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Let's recap episode one. It took me like a good
twenty minutes to realize that that's us. Maddie.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Wait, which one the couple or yeah, the couple or
I was gonna say this Robert, oh yeah, oh yeah,
but we're.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Not in love. No true. But I am Latino, that's.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
True, and I am white.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You are white and a woman.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well let's talk through. So let's just quick recap what happens.
So we meet Lindsay and she's in this life with
this fiance who can we say, like, I mean gay?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Am I wrong? I don't think that was like projected.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, I took it to mean that he's capital G
gay with the matching pjs and the only high fiving
and the like that's true.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh wow, I didn't necessarily pick up on the fact
that she wasn't like getting getting it and she wanted
to get it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She remembers. She said she wrote a short story about
never having had an orgasm. It's very possible that that
was not their intention.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
No, I think I just wasn't. I'm not as perceptive
in audience members. You, so this could be a nicee
you in in a yang.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay. So she's unhappy with her possibly gay but maybe
not boyfriend, and she moves to New York to become
a writer, moves into an apartment with what's arguably like
the hottest, coolest girl in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. I loved the use of that space though. She
was like, it's not a closet, Like, yes, and that's
weathered that young life in NYC.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Seriously, we both have had that before. I live in
a shoe box.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, I had a bathroom where you couldn't even close
the door.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So she moves into this apartment yes, and discovers that
she didn't win a weekly prize. She won the weekly Prize,
which is like a gift card.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
The Wheely Prize. Yeah that sounds like the MacArthur Genius.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Seriously it does. So then she gets a job at
the bookstore.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I felt bad for her when he was like, oh,
ceremony was meant ironically.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And then her roommate convinced her to go out, get
out where we both laughed at those little girl pajamas.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I have not thrown out my little girl pajamas? Have
you thrown yours out?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I literally just had a slumber party for my thirty
first birthday.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You were there, Julius, where everyone wore little girl Everyone wore.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Little girl pajamas. She goes to the bar with her roommate,
very excited to get out, feel.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Adult, wear some leather pants for a change.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes the last step she said, stick love the matrix.
Yeah yeah yeah, with her little buns. And she goes
out and she meets Miguel. She makes some meet cute
jokes about them, you know, reserving a s to fuck
in the bathroom, which work.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I love hostess talk.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And you know what, we love a raunchy meet cute.
We do. We love it, and then they talk about
death on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So they go off and the water therapy ca you know,
I perked up with that as a pisces.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And then they hook up. He tries to put his
hands into those little tiny pants and it looks like
she is about to have her forced organism.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Then he starts crying.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I feel like usually in media it's the other way
around that the ladies I was about to come and
the lady cries. That's certainly my experience.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's not just in the media, honey. And then we
learn that not only does Lindsay have voices in her head,
but so does Miguel, who would be your voices in
your head.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I immediately related to the parents being the voices in
her head. Yeah, which you've also pointed out to me.
It's like, I think you have an understanding of yourself
through the prism of your parent's understanding of you. And
I was like, oh my god. I was like, what's
your venmo.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I do liked it therapy a time or two.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, I think mostly or like projections of like lovers.
I'm using air quotes right now, like people that I
think view me a certain way. Then I take that
narrative and like internalize it, and then it becomes part
of like my way of operating the world totally, which
is fucking sad. What are your voices?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I mean, I think parents are like something that's in
your head, like X's certainly exists in my head. And
then I don't know, RuPaul.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, I'm just so proud of Len's for doing that step.
The journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step,
I know. And I want to see where Miguel is
coming from, because I get the impression that I don't know.
He said he likes competition, so that's one thing he
likes about investment banking. But immediately I was like, it's
not a fit.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I felt like his mother. I was like, it's no
good for you me. I don't know why she was
of Mexican and Jewish, but good for you me.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I also think it's the moment that you start telling
people you're a writer is terrifying. Like I remember first
starting to say that I was a writer and was
really really nervous and scared about it because there's a
really long time that it's like not your.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Career, especially people that live in big cities or are
like adjacent to the industry, They're like, Okay, what have
you written? Yeah, whereas like if I go back to Texas,
They're like, wow, you're a real life actor. I'm like,
you're in a car commercial.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, totally. I also can hear so much of the
Lopez' sound in that, like totally used to really know
someone really. It felt very Avenue Q to me.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yes, and that's also as someone that does do musical improv.
The first thing I noticed was, Okay, the first song
is actually a want song. It reveals itself to be
like what she wants, which is to be a writer
in New York. Even though it's first about like this
pattern and it's really nice. Actually it's not so nice.
Actually I don't know this person at all, which then
leads her to I want to go to New York. Yeah,
(10:08):
I can't wait to see his one song? Yeah, what
you know? What makes you take me go?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well, it looks like because the first episode is called
Lindsay and the second it's called Miguel. Julian was having
such a hard time when we were watching taking it
as if it were like exact fact of your guys lives.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It was like, I wonder what corporate jaw Bobby was working.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Is there any trepidation and anxiety about this coming out
and people thinking like Julian did when he's like, oh wow,
I can't believe she's being so vulnerable to talk about
this sex party that.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
She was, you know, I was like, that is so brave.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Is there any fear of of well, now there is oopsy?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I've been telling my family, and I've been telling my
ex boyfriends, and I've been telling everyone i can on Facebook.
This is it's a writer's room. Stephen Levinson was the showrunner.
These are fictional characters. Yes, we poured aspects of ourselves
into them, mostly much smaller, less interesting things that felt
(11:24):
just as big to us. But because of TV, we
wanted to make it a little more interesting the outside story,
but none. Bobby never cried from hand stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Am I right in saying this is based off of
a musical you two had originally written previously, You'd be.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Somewhat right, And yes it was a musical called up Here,
and yes it did have the concept you know, it
was ultimately about the existential question of can you ever
really know someone as brought up when you meet your soulmate,
and the concept of like getting inside one person's head
was there, But everything else has changed. The characters are changed,
(12:06):
the character names are changed, the world has changed. How
we use the head characters has changed. Stephen Levinson came
in and really helped us take that concept that worked,
but just revamp it, simplify it, and build it for
this rom com streaming genre.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Was that moving from having done musicals and then obviously
frozen feature was it? What was it like wrapping your
head around making it into different episodes as songwriters?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
That was honestly, that was the thing We were most
excited because we had never done it before. And we
you know, we grew up loving TV obviously, and we
only love it more now. It's one of the things
we love to watch and because we watched, we grew
up watching it and we kind of thought we could
do it, but then we realize, like, oh, it's a
whole other thing, and.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Obviously it has been on our bucket list.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
Part of what solved it when we were saying, well
what does it mean to make a musical for streaming?
Was when Stephen and Danielle came back, having sort of
taken the ball to run with for a little while,
and said, Okay, what if every single episode is a
mini musical, and then that they all all ate in
the first season will add up to a sort of
(13:18):
larger musical, and then in success, if we do well
and get picked up for more seasons, the whole thing
can have a grand arc and each season can be
an act in the longest musical ever written. But you're
only ever really writing one episode at a time, which
is a manageable thing to do that all of a sudden,
(13:39):
we got very excited to be able to tell so
many stories.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Bobby, I will I will say not to correct you,
but we always knew we were going to need to look.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
At the architecture of a musical for the whole season.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So we always knew we were gonna need an opening,
and we're going to need those building.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Blocks that we use for every musical.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And I want song, an act break, eleven o'clock number
of finale, and they're all in there at the same time.
Within each episode, they always had to have a beginning,
of middle, and an end, so it's kind of like
Russian dolls.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
It was really fun.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
Yeah, I think when you listen to all the songs
in a row, it sounds like you're listening to a
cast album from a probably show.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I know a lot of times they are. The was
the vocals recorded on set or was it pre recorded?
Speaker 7 (14:28):
Well, it was all the band was recorded at a studio.
And then Disney wisely told us that we should really
build our own studio for vocals in the in the
place where we shoot the show, so on the second
floor and what used to be an old wardrobe closet,
we said we built. We had this vocal booth and
(14:49):
this was the recording studio of what we called up
Here University. We had that recording studio. Across the way
there was a rehearsal room where actors could practice and
learn the music. And then downstairs there was a dance
studio where wow yeah, where selling a Taye. The choreographer
would be testing out the numbers and building building them
(15:11):
into dance pieces. So a lot was going on at once.
It was kind of an exciting time in that pre
production time didn't didn't feel like pre production because we
were producing a lot of a lot of tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The fascinating thing with doing TV musical like this is
that you get most of the cast album before anyone
has said a line of dialogue or filmed a single scene.
And it's totally the opposite of how you would develop
a musical, where you usually do the cast album as
(15:43):
the very last thing, after you've done years of workshops
and you've been in previews, and you've done doing you know,
seventy shows, and it opens and then you do the
cast album.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
This was a different order.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Do you find that added pressure?
Speaker 7 (15:58):
It added pressure, But it was all so really exciting.
You know, when the actor would come in their first day,
they would have to record their songs. So May came
in before she had really gotten a chance to put
her coke down. We were having her record What if
everything was a little bit rushed. That's the charm of
working in television. And then after everything is filmed, you
(16:19):
get to have some control during post you can smooth
things around, you can snip things, you can change a
few things here in there. That's where you have the control.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll have stars. May Whitman and Carlos Valdez share the
story of their own meet cute, how they relate to
their characters and what it was like preparing for the show.
And don't worry, we'll be back with the Lopezes a
little later in the episode to talk more music.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'll go first because I'm the prettiest to quote the
Brady Bunch. Okay, so how did you first hear about
up here? And what was that audition process?
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Like, I was trying to get a job and earn
a paycheck and support myself. So I heard about it
basically just through my reps and I went into or
I submitted a tape for it, and then they had
me come in and that's when I met Tommy and
Bobby and Kristen and Lev. Yeah, and the feeling was
(17:31):
pretty palpable, I think from the beginning, like I really
loved working with them. I really liked getting to know
what their process was like. And then they were like,
we're going to come back to you. They basically like
I didn't hear from them for like months. Yeah, it
must have been like three months later. They were like, yeah,
(17:53):
so we've cast May Whitman. That's me in the role
of whoever that is.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
And if you were begging for it.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, they were like, I don't know if you've seen
Saving Grace.
Speaker 6 (18:03):
It's called State of Grace. You are so rude. You
didn't read my Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Page before this.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
That is what it says on that's really It also
says I went to Whitefish Bay High School, which God bless.
I'm like, I don't know where that is and why
you did this to me, but well played, that's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So yeah, they were like, we want you to come
in and test and it's like a chemistry.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
I had like same kind of thing where like my representation,
who I adore, like sent me this project and I
feel like the concept of like auditioning is so unbelievably stressful.
You just I mean, I've been doing this for like
thirty years and I'm still terrified and stressed out and
panicked every single time. Like it's just and there's usually
like anxiety and you feel like technically it should be
(18:47):
like a chance to see if you guys work well together,
but it's like, which shouldn't be stressful, but it always
feels like this weird like begging for validation or this
or that, or you're like begging for something. And I
felt like immediately, I know notice this difference where there
was this sense of like true like respect for each
other and like actual genuine like interest in who the
(19:08):
person was and how how your process is connected and stuff.
So already I was like, well, I want to do
this just because I love the people and I love
the feeling that I'm getting. I don't feel scared. I
don't feel like, you know, like some raging anxiety. And
talk to Thomas Cale, who I adore. We have like
we speak the exact same language. It's like trying to
(19:28):
keep up with us as like a nightmare. We speak
very quickly, many jokes, very fast to each other. But
immediately I was like, okay, I love him. And then
it was basically like, yeah, come to New York and
try to sing these songs in front of a table
full of the best people in the industry with a piano,
acting like you know what you're doing. And I was like,
(19:49):
I'm gonna go ahead and do that in about one
month because I'm scared. And so that terrified me. And
I worked with my vocal coach, Doug Peck, who is
the literal He and Lauren Graham are the reason I
got the job because they Lauren Graham I was like,
I can't do it, and she like was like snap
out of it, and like was like, go in there
and get it, you idiot, basically, and like you know,
(20:11):
more loving words. And Doug really like taught me how
to feel confident in my body doing something like that,
because it's like singing is so vulnerable and personal and
going in and trying to act like, you know, oh,
it's my instrument. I can tune it. However, you know,
I was like, I can't. It's like feels like I'm
burying my soul. So but I think from the beginning
it was a really warm and kind and welcoming environment,
(20:35):
you know, from these like unbelievably talented people. So I
went in, I did it. I feel proud of myself
for even overcoming the raging terror of being able to
do that. I was like, you know what, even if
I don't get this, I at least uh, you know,
I did a good job. And then I got it,
thank God. And then they were like, all right, we
got to figure out this Miguel situation. And so that
(20:58):
then we had a chemistry read and you say, what happened,
Say what happened when we met?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, so I was downstairs at mcc on fifty second
Street and where I had auditions for this show many times,
and just going over my stuff, you know, just trying
to get in the zone. And then I hear it,
like it's completely quiet in the building, and then suddenly
I hear this like this tiny low voice just like
slowly crescendoing, like going through the halls, and it's just
(21:26):
like and then doors burst open, and it's like it's
like you know, like confetti in the air and streamers
and and like it was basically just may being hurt
singular self and just coming through and like you know,
making everybody laugh and all that stuff. Then I'm like,
(21:47):
I'm really just trying to like focus on like the
audition of material and just trying to like stay in
the zone. And I like, I look over and I
just see a couple of like little feet just like
dangling like on there's this wall, and I just do
like these two little like socked feet just dangling and
just like playing, you know, and I was like, who
is this person?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
Not a fan of shoes.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Not a fan of shoes, I learned. Also not a
fan of chairs.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
I learned hate chairs. Don't understand Why sit when you
can lay? Why would you take your body do this
when you can be flat?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
We had like this meeting once we started like rehearsing,
where like everybody was in the room and it was
all like it was basically just this big introductory meeting
of like we're very excited about the show, you know,
this is what the process is going to be and
all that stuff. And everybody's like very much like sitting
in their chairs and like there for it. And I
look over in the corner and she's just like sprawled along.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
The floor, wrapped in a blanket on the floor. Like
I literally did all the meetings from the floor. I
actually had on set. You know, usually you have like
chairs that you sit around and hang out in, and
I was like I don't want that, and I would
I got like Fernie pads, which are like disgusting blankets
that the Grips used to like deal.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
With like tools, like they have to be disgusting.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Of course they are. They're discussing regulations, and they laid
them out on the floor for me, and I would
just lay everywhere. I didn't have a chair anywhere we
would go, inside, outside stage, whatever. I was just laying
there and because it kind of like it kind of
tricks your body into thinking that you're resting even when
you're not, like which my other trick is I keep
(23:23):
one eye open. So there was a lot of me
laying flat on the ground like this talking to people.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Which I don't know if you've ever been like exhausted,
but actually just like resting your eyes, even just one eye.
I found, like, see, you know, it actually does make
a big difference. I'm not crazy. I was making fun
of her first and now I'm like a convert.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And I also a lot of the cast converted to
the fernie pad method, and I remember it was like
it felt like a sleepover, like we would like they
would come the eighties would come in to get us,
and it would be like six of us on our
Fernie pads, like kicking our feet around and like talking
and like with a speaker being like we'll be right there,
We're almost done. We're talking about stuff.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Like very between taps.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
It was very cozy, but anyway, we yeah, And I
remember from my perspective on Carlos, I remember, like, you know,
I was so excited and I like ran up. Thomas
was like come me, Carlos, and I was like okay,
and I like ran over and I just like really
accosted him. I was like, Hi, how's it going, like
right in his face, like yelling and the thing, and
his he was so he looked like I had like
(24:24):
thrown like something that smelled bad in his face. He
was like yeah, like he couldn't. He was like blinking
and he looked like totally and I was like, oh boy,
I was like, this guy hates me. Like I was
like I really.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Like I'm trying to be like an actor, like.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
With like half a and I'm like can't buy my
shoe and yelling and like you but he you played
it so well. And actually that was like this is
like it's it's so reflective of like Miguel, where it
was like and and Lindsay, Like it was a very
similar dynamic where you know, Lindsay's just so out there.
She can't hide anything. It's all everything comes out at
(24:59):
once and it's fontane and there's no filter and it's
bright and bubbly and she can't help herself and then
like no offense, but like in a cool way, it's
like still waters run deep, like it's like, you see,
like this kind of contained part, and I was, of
course a narcissist and assigned the fact that you must
hate me, that's what that must mean. And then I
(25:19):
was shocked to find that you didn't.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
No, I definitely didn't. And I was like, she seems cool,
but I was just, you know, I'm a compartmentalizer. I
was just kind of like I was just trying to
do the thing in the moment, you know, right, But.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
Yeah, but we acted together, and I again I've said
this before, but I'm like, you know, doing this for
so long, you get tired, you get jaded, you're like whatever,
who cares? And then like I was noticing, I was like,
oh my god, this guy's listening, which sounds like it
should be a given, but it's not. When it was
acting like you, I was like, I was like, well,
(25:55):
maybe if I say this and then see how and
he would like react in a way that was genuine,
and I was like, oh my god, this guy is listening.
And he also just had like the thing about Miguel
that's so important in my eyes is like the yes,
he's has the you know, compartmentalized part that he shows,
but right underneath the surface, it is like the deepest
(26:16):
well of emotions and sensitivity and love and vulnerability and kindness.
And I'm like, if you don't have that, you don't
really understand the character and what his journey is. And
Carlos just had that. You could tell that immediately from
meeting him, and so it was like it was actually
pretty exciting. I was like, Wow, somebody that's I went
home and told my best friend Miles. I was like, yeah,
he was actually like a good actor. And Miles was like,
(26:37):
I haven't heard you say that about anybody in years.
I was like, I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, which like, now knowing you.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I'm like, yeah, now you know it's a high compliment.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, speaking of your characters, can you tell us a
little bit more about them and what drew you to them?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah? You know, like I said, I was trying a
job that's for and foremost, and but like I think, once, yeah,
once I really delved into the material, I actually found
you know, I was pleasantly surprised at how how easily
I could sort of step into this headspace and into
(27:17):
this character's perspective. Like these days, young men, like I mean,
I think forever young men haven't been like the most
well educated with regards to like how to process their
emotions or talk about their feelings, and so like internalization
is I find, in my experience, like a pretty shared experience,
(27:41):
you know, among a lot of like young men, and
Miguel is like no exception to that. So I found
it very easy to kind of like figure out how
to like compress all of his like pain and trauma
and joy under this like hood. So yeah, you know,
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to
(28:03):
step into that. And yeah, and honestly the rest was
just kind of discovery.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
We were fortunate enough to have this very lengthy rehearsal process,
which obviously, when you're shooting a TV show, your rehearsal
is usually thirty seconds, you know. So with this process,
well it was like a month. Tell, yeah, it was
like five weeks.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
We had five weeks of prep, which is like unheard of,
you know, and and we filmed everything in the same
studio building and had like every department was there. We
had wardrobe, we had dance rehearsals, they built a recording studio,
like the art department. Everybody was there, and so it
was like it truly was, like Thomas says, it was
(28:47):
like it was a camp like and we'd be like
running around of course me barefoot, like you know, losing
my shoe in the studio, and then going down to
the dance rehearsal and watching Carlos dance and then going
to wardrobe and saying hi, Like it felt like we
really like like did the prep work, which to me
is like such a gift to be able to because
I feel like I operate much like Lindsay in a
(29:10):
way where I like to kind of set the foundation
and then just fly because I'm like, you know what,
I can't predict the outcome of this, but I know
where I'm coming from, and I've done enough work to
know the vague truth of where I'm coming from. And
so I think that was what was fascinating to me
about this character, was like, you know, I've been in
places where I have felt stuck, where I feel like
(29:34):
this illusion of safety or comfort, and I've been and
then you have this moment where you're like, yeah, but
what's what am I letting die here at the cost
of feeling like I should be this person or I
should stay with this or whatever it is. And then
you know, I had especially one moment where I kind
of like I was really feeling that in my life,
(29:54):
and I jumped off this ledge. I was like, I'm
going to just do it. I don't know what is
on the other side, and that's terrifying, but I know
that it's more honest to who I really am, so
I'm going to trust it. And he changed my entire
life so much for the better that even just having
that knowledge that that's possible is like it makes you
continue to strive for that growth. And I feel like
(30:15):
I was that was so fascinating to me that I'd
sort of just been through this, and then watching Lindsey
kind of be at the beginning of that, I felt
excited with the perspective of knowing what that really feels
like from the inside out. So it was kind of
cool because everything was kind of like a microcosm of itself.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Obviously, the voice is factor into this a lot, whether
it's an ex boyfriend or the character's respective parents. What
are some of the voices in your head?
Speaker 6 (30:43):
Oh shit, we want to curse, we are right?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Podcasts are like.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Yeah, oh fuck yeah, those fucking voices, Am I right?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
We just lost a lot of people I saw aunt.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
My voices are like I've said this before, but I
think because I started so little, putting myself out there
in a way that like my you know, the way
that my consciousness was formed was like I was pretty little,
and so I feel like it's kind of like almost
like my voices are like almost just cartoon. I view
(31:21):
them as like cartoons, like little extensions of me, the
little like monsters that like it's almost like imagine like
a child's drawing. There's like the big scary furry man
who makes me not want to say feelings and stands
in the way of my you know. And then there's
like the like one of them looks kind of like
Medusa in my head, and it's the one that's like
(31:42):
every little snaky arm coming out of her head represents
like a different path that I feel like I should
have chosen. And she's like, you don't have the capability
of making decisions. You can't choose, you know. So I
feel like mine is like it's a whole upsetting like
late night animation show. It's like adult Swim anyone I watched.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I know it's good.
Speaker 6 (32:03):
Newslash, You're watching.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
It, Oh you got picked up. I think I think
I have three characters. I think they're like Cancel, Culture,
gen Z, and Internatural. Like they're all just like running
up there basically like criticizing and critiquing everything I say
and everything I do constantly. So it's fun living in
(32:26):
that space. I don't know if you have any experience
with those particular head characters.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I'm not on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, I very much understand. I think that makes sense
for both of those I are incredible answers. He and
I were like, I don't know, my mom, I guess, yeah.
And so this is with making a musical TV show,
I'm sure, like the mechanics are different. Like can you
talk about the process a little bit of why it
(32:54):
was or how it was different from filming something else.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean one of the first things things we
had to do was record the album. Like that's literally
one of the first things that they had us do.
We you know, we learned the material obviously, and then
we went in there into the like recording booth that
they had specifically built into the stages for this particular show.
(33:19):
It was it was tough because a lot of these songs,
you know, like we had context for, and the ones
that we didn't have context for, we had like we
just had limited information about kind of how like what
was coming out of and what it was going into.
So we really kind of had to work together to
build that story and you know, figure out what that
(33:43):
felt like. And it was, it was, it was. It
was really tough because you know, we hadn't really gone
through the scenes together or really talked about the scenes
all that much, and we didn't know what it was
going to look like or feel like on the day.
You know, like she and I had just like meant
not that long ago, yeah, and I still did in
(34:04):
fact hat, but like that process we had to just
like go for it and figure out or just kind
of like guess at where our characters were going to
be at that point in the story. And you know,
we had to record separately, which I think for for
for COVID purposes, And so that made it even even
(34:27):
more difficult, even more challenging for us because obviously she
had her own idea going on of what what that
story was going to be like, and I had my
own idea of what that story was going to look like.
And it was Bobby and Christen's job to make sure
that in those independent processes we were telling the same
(34:47):
story in some way that were amazing. Yeah, And on
top of that, they were like our best cheerleaders and
they created a safe space for us, like it's so
like you. That's that's one of the areas where you
could really see their expertise, like come out and shin
and it's like, oh, you were born to do this,
and there's a reason you have almost two you guys,
(35:09):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We're going to take another quick break. Then we're back
with co creators Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez to
talk about the KEDO, working with the partner and the
songs from episode one.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
What do you think the secret is to collaborating with
someone that you have a relationship with, that you're in
a relationship with.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I think, truly it's trust. The trust to be able
to fail in front of each other, to be able
to risk in front of each other.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
That took us several years to kind.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Of develop, honestly, because when we first started writing together,
we were writing in truth to spend time together because
Bobby was writing this puppet musical called I'm UQ and
I was working on other things and teaching in the
Bronx in the Bronx schools, and we just couldn't find time.
So he was like, let's write songs. But when that happened,
(36:18):
I definitely wanted to impress him. I wasn't thinking about
being his equal. I wanted to show him I deserve
to be there. And even after we were married, when
we would go to work on like finding Demo the musical,
we both wanted to be the one who came up
with the idea and who like drove the ship, and
(36:40):
so we would feel like this pressure to come up
with the best idea and almost be almost be fighting
with each other. But now we can skip the fight.
Speaker 7 (36:49):
Yeah, that's definitely been the trajectory of it. Like I think,
I think the important thing maybe with any collaboration, not
just with you know, if you happen to be working
with your is to remember that the most important thing
when you're working is the other person, not the thing
you're working on, because I think that's when things start
to get out of balance and you start to get
(37:11):
scared and let fear come into it. But really the
worst thing you can do is hurt the other person.
Whenever you're working on a project, you're it is, it's intimate.
When you're working on a song together, there's some there's
an intimacy there and people are People's deepest feelings are
out on the table, so so you have to respect that.
(37:32):
And then once that trust is there, then the process
starts to become a lot of fun. And I think
the songs, the songs benefit too. The work is better
because because you're having more fun making it.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, you can, if you feel safe to take a risk,
then you can try new things and try things that
haven't been done before. So of course the songs are
going to get better because you're freer and more liberated.
And you know, at the very best moments in our songwriting,
it feels like two kids playing pretend.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
In all these crazy world there's one thing I am
certain of for every hour and month anywhere, that we
are here to love, begardless of how much we talk,
we tell, we touch, no matter what we suffer.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
I can never know.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
You never know, You never know.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Right before Bobby and I got married, we were going
through some of his stuff and there was like this
box of coins, and he told me that he had
been a young numismatist and I was like, what's numismatist?
And you were a young one. It again sort of
rocked my world that I was marrying this person who
(39:08):
had this thing that I had never known. And then
I thought about, We're about to have a whole lifetime
together where I'm gonna get surprised. We're about to be
married twenty years. And every once in a while my
kids make fun of it as new dad law or
new mom law, where they're like, oh, new mom law.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
But it's that.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thing where someone you think you absolutely know comes in
with a different part of their story and the whole
story sort of has a shift.
Speaker 7 (39:37):
The song Can I Ever Know You, which is the
theme song, the main title theme, and it's the finale.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Of the entire show.
Speaker 7 (39:43):
Yeah, it's based on the song from the original show
called I Can Never Know You, which was a really
depressing song full of despair at the moment, the darkest
moment of the whole play when he realizes that it's
not going to work out between them, and that song
was supposed to be in this this season. We just
(40:06):
took it out at the end, and I think if
we do get renewed, for another one. I'm pretty sure
we'll put it in because it's a sad, despairing version
of the song. If you can imagine it. This song
is super duper happy and charged and hopeful and wonderful,
but the same tune with different chords, different harmony can
(40:26):
really twist it your insides.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
It's such the opposite of nice to really know someone
to then be like, I don't really know anybody.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
And you know spoiler art if it's both the answer
right both right? The answer is you might be marrying
a young numismatist, but you're still going to marry him
anyway because you know him so deeply.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
And the song what if that's really her?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Like a once song wants Yeah, I think musically, there's
a looping, there's a no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no. It's this
feeling of she's been following these same patterns her whole life,
and they're not necessarily patterns that she's ever been awake to,
(41:19):
but now that she's waking up to them, she's realizing
they might not be her authentic self. So when the
loop finally stops, you kind of go into this like,
stop it what if I try to change this ever
looping tune? She stops it and ask the question, and like,
(41:40):
is awake to it? It's sort of It was a
time that woke you up to what your life was
and where you were in a rut and where you
were just going through the motions without thinking critically about it.
What I like the mother heart stop at the ball?
(42:01):
What if I heard someone and something? It's my call?
Come to let the bridges burned?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Some many lessons.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
To on.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
What if I let somebody see me?
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Fa all?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
What would baby call?
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Fine?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
The song.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
See about what if?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Ton?
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And this is a song where Lindsay not only wakes
up to it, but allows it to get her out
the door in a pair of red plastic pants, which
I think anyone who loved musical theater in the nineties
was very excited about plastic pants because of Rent. But
my friend Sarah had this pair of red plastic pants
(43:04):
that was sort of iconic and she wore them in
my first musical, Oedipis a Cappella, the first musical I
ever wrote, And so I have to shout out to
Sarah Wordsworth, my co writer on in Transit.
Speaker 7 (43:16):
The only thing I'd add about this song is that
it was the first one we did for this, you know,
for the Hulu show. We had to start somewhere and
we finally wrote a song. It was what If, and
it luckily stayed in Amazing.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So something I'm curious about to appeal behind the curtain
of making things like this is like, there's that saying
that you know, in a musical they burst into song
because the emotion is so high that it's their only
option is to sing, you know, That's what they people
will say sometimes what is sort of a guiding light
for you guys to decide where a song goes, when
(43:53):
a scene deserves a song. When writing this and then
also just in general when writing musicals.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I'd like to always look for moments of the high emotion,
but also decision or you want to find songs that
are not just about someone going what really happened? What
just happened? Let me process what happened. You want it
to be like what am I feeling? What am I
going to do about this? You want to keep the
(44:22):
arrow moving forward, the story doesn't fall on the floor
during the song.
Speaker 7 (44:30):
And even more specifically to this project, we were looking
for moments that had huge feelings and very you know,
small situations with huge feelings. In every project we do,
we try to have the music represents something special thematically
related to the story. In this case it's interior life.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
If you want to reach out to us and share
am where you could have burst into song, email us
at up here at straw hutmedia dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
If you like the show, please rate, review and share
with your friends.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
See you next week. Up Here down Low is a
straw Hut Media production. It's hosted by Madison Cross and
Julian Goza. The show it's produced by Ryan Tillotson and
Maggie Bulls. Our associate producers are Lydia McMahon, Javier Salas,
and Jean Lee. Our editor is Daniel Ferreira. Big thanks
(45:31):
to everyone at Hulu, including Kristin Anderson Lopez and Bobby
Lopez for their help putting the show together.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
There was one moment where I wanted to break into song.
This was a few years ago. I was at a
roller rink and I'm super bad at rollerblading and people
were just zipping by me, and so the song would
be something like I'm incapable and they're bold. They have
buddies that are young, but mineus old. That's Grenich
Straw Hut Media.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the up Here down Low, the official companion
podcast to Hulu's musical rom com up Here. We're your hosts,
Madison Cross.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
And Juliene Goza, two friends and theater kids.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're the Baker to my Baker's wife, and you're the
Roxy to my Valma. No, I'm Valmama.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We'll talk about this later.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And we're here to look behind the scenes with cast,
crew and creators on making musical TV Magic, Musical TV.
Magi told you not to sing. On this episode, Julie
and I introduce ourselves as hosts and recap episode one,
(00:49):
titled Lindsay.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We'll speak with stars Me Whitman and Carlos Valdez about
their characters Lindsay and Miguel, and hear stories from set.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We'll talk with co creators and songwriting power couple Bobby
Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez about how much of the
show is based on their real life love story, the
process of collaborating with a partner, and of course, the
stories behind the songs we hear in episode one. Oh
(01:18):
my god, wait, we should talk about this. What musicals
have you done? We're both theater kids ps. What musicals
have you done and who did you play?
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I well, my senior year, I was shafted when we
did Aida and I was just the king that comes
out for like literally a scene. He didn't even have
a song. I was like, they totally like dissed me
on this. And my drama teacher was like, don't worry
when senior year comes around, because that was my junior year.
She was like, when senior year comes around, I'm gonna
give you the best part. And I was like, oh
(01:47):
my God, like, finally gonna play Stanley Kowalski and I
show up that day and she was like susical and
I was like, I'm a cat in the hat, Like
I don't know, I love Susical, But were.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You the catin hat?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
For sure, Well, you'd be a great cat in the hat.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you, thank you. Oh and you told me i'd
be a great Seymour.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I'd love to be Seymour.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, what have you done?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Everything under the sun, darling? Well, I believe it or not.
My first musical was in the sixth grade was Gypsy,
the one about strippers, and I was the balloon girl.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Wait, Gypsies about strippers?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes, about Gypsy rose Lee.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Wow, take my gay cart away. That is the fact
that I thought they were like show girls.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, I mean it's like burlesque.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So were you Mama Rose?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well no, first I was the balloon girl. Oh right, right,
And then I did it again a year later and
I was Mama Rose. Then I did a million other things.
Did hair spray? Was Tracy turned out?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Of course? Wow, that's a fun one.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I had a lot of fun doing that.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'd love to be the mom.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, you'd be great at that. And it turns that
and God, I've done I did Merrily We Roll Along,
and it was Mary. I've done Into the Woods twice
once is Cinderella.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
The taste in the programming on the West Coast heavy?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I know, Oh my god. And I got to be
Eponine and Li.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Miz that's right, you've told me about your Eponine. Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I smoked my first cigarette when I was one of
the prisoners in a out like local theater production. Oh
my god.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I got my first kiss backstage of Little Women.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Anyway, Why did you? Why am I here?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Okay, So we were watching up Here, which is Hulu's
new musical rom com. It's written by the Lopezes, who
are known for Frozen and Avenue Q. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they're amazing, and I'm to understand that this is about
how they met and fell in love.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I love that. I remember my my young nephew was
like I don't get musicals, like why are they singing?
And I'm like, well, it's only a good musical if
they need to sing, and he was like ah. I
was like, yeah, motherfucker. Ask me another.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well that's what they say, right, But in a musical,
it's like it's so the emotion is so high that
you can only sing about it.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Let's recap episode one. It took me like a good
twenty minutes to realize that that's us. Maddie.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Wait, which one the couple or yeah, the couple or
I was gonna say this Robert, oh yeah, oh yeah,
but we're.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Not in love. No true. But I am Latino, that's.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
True, and I am white.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You are white and a woman.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well let's talk through. So let's just quick recap what happens.
So we meet Lindsay and she's in this life with
this fiance who can we say, like, I mean gay?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Am I wrong? I don't think that was like projected.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, I took it to mean that he's capital G
gay with the matching pjs and the only high fiving
and the like that's true.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh wow, I didn't necessarily pick up on the fact
that she wasn't like getting getting it and she wanted
to get it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
She remembers. She said she wrote a short story about
never having had an orgasm. It's very possible that that
was not their intention.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
No, I think I just wasn't. I'm not as perceptive
in audience members. You, so this could be a nicee
you in in a yang.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay. So she's unhappy with her possibly gay but maybe
not boyfriend, and she moves to New York to become
a writer, moves into an apartment with what's arguably like
the hottest, coolest girl in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah. I loved the use of that space though. She
was like, it's not a closet, Like, yes, and that's
weathered that young life in NYC.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Seriously, we both have had that before. I live in
a shoe box.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, I had a bathroom where you couldn't even close
the door.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So she moves into this apartment yes, and discovers that
she didn't win a weekly prize. She won the weekly Prize,
which is like a gift card.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
The Wheely Prize. Yeah that sounds like the MacArthur Genius.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Seriously it does. So then she gets a job at
the bookstore.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I felt bad for her when he was like, oh,
ceremony was meant ironically.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And then her roommate convinced her to go out, get
out where we both laughed at those little girl pajamas.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I have not thrown out my little girl pajamas? Have
you thrown yours out?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I literally just had a slumber party for my thirty
first birthday.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You were there, Julius, where everyone wore little girl Everyone wore.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Little girl pajamas. She goes to the bar with her roommate,
very excited to get out, feel.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Adult, wear some leather pants for a change.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yes the last step she said, stick love the matrix.
Yeah yeah yeah, with her little buns. And she goes
out and she meets Miguel. She makes some meet cute
jokes about them, you know, reserving a s to fuck
in the bathroom, which work.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I love hostess talk.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And you know what, we love a raunchy meet cute.
We do. We love it, and then they talk about
death on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So they go off and the water therapy ca you know,
I perked up with that as a pisces.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And then they hook up. He tries to put his
hands into those little tiny pants and it looks like
she is about to have her forced organism.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Then he starts crying.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I feel like usually in media it's the other way
around that the ladies I was about to come and
the lady cries. That's certainly my experience.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
It's not just in the media, honey. And then we
learn that not only does Lindsay have voices in her head,
but so does Miguel, who would be your voices in
your head.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I immediately related to the parents being the voices in
her head. Yeah, which you've also pointed out to me.
It's like, I think you have an understanding of yourself
through the prism of your parent's understanding of you. And
I was like, oh my god. I was like, what's
your venmo.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I do liked it therapy a time or two.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, I think mostly or like projections of like lovers.
I'm using air quotes right now, like people that I
think view me a certain way. Then I take that
narrative and like internalize it, and then it becomes part
of like my way of operating the world totally, which
is fucking sad. What are your voices?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I mean, I think parents are like something that's in
your head, like X's certainly exists in my head. And
then I don't know, RuPaul.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, I'm just so proud of Len's for doing that step.
The journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step,
I know. And I want to see where Miguel is
coming from, because I get the impression that I don't know.
He said he likes competition, so that's one thing he
likes about investment banking. But immediately I was like, it's
not a fit.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I felt like his mother. I was like, it's no
good for you me. I don't know why she was
of Mexican and Jewish, but good for you me.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I also think it's the moment that you start telling
people you're a writer is terrifying. Like I remember first
starting to say that I was a writer and was
really really nervous and scared about it because there's a
really long time that it's like not your.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Career, especially people that live in big cities or are
like adjacent to the industry, They're like, Okay, what have
you written? Yeah, whereas like if I go back to Texas,
They're like, wow, you're a real life actor. I'm like,
you're in a car commercial.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, totally. I also can hear so much of the
Lopez' sound in that, like totally used to really know
someone really. It felt very Avenue Q to me.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yes, and that's also as someone that does do musical improv.
The first thing I noticed was, Okay, the first song
is actually a want song. It reveals itself to be
like what she wants, which is to be a writer
in New York. Even though it's first about like this
pattern and it's really nice. Actually it's not so nice.
Actually I don't know this person at all, which then
leads her to I want to go to New York. Yeah,
(10:08):
I can't wait to see his one song? Yeah, what
you know? What makes you take me go?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Totally?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Well, it looks like because the first episode is called
Lindsay and the second it's called Miguel. Julian was having
such a hard time when we were watching taking it
as if it were like exact fact of your guys lives.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It was like, I wonder what corporate jaw Bobby was working.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Is there any trepidation and anxiety about this coming out
and people thinking like Julian did when he's like, oh wow,
I can't believe she's being so vulnerable to talk about
this sex party that.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
She was, you know, I was like, that is so brave.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Is there any fear of of well, now there is oopsy?
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I've been telling my family, and I've been telling my
ex boyfriends, and I've been telling everyone i can on Facebook.
This is it's a writer's room. Stephen Levinson was the showrunner.
These are fictional characters. Yes, we poured aspects of ourselves
into them, mostly much smaller, less interesting things that felt
(11:24):
just as big to us. But because of TV, we
wanted to make it a little more interesting the outside story,
but none. Bobby never cried from hand stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Am I right in saying this is based off of
a musical you two had originally written previously, You'd be.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Somewhat right, And yes it was a musical called up Here,
and yes it did have the concept you know, it
was ultimately about the existential question of can you ever
really know someone as brought up when you meet your soulmate,
and the concept of like getting inside one person's head
was there, But everything else has changed. The characters are changed,
(12:06):
the character names are changed, the world has changed. How
we use the head characters has changed. Stephen Levinson came
in and really helped us take that concept that worked,
but just revamp it, simplify it, and build it for
this rom com streaming genre.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Was that moving from having done musicals and then obviously
frozen feature was it? What was it like wrapping your
head around making it into different episodes as songwriters?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
That was honestly, that was the thing We were most
excited because we had never done it before. And we
you know, we grew up loving TV obviously, and we
only love it more now. It's one of the things
we love to watch and because we watched, we grew
up watching it and we kind of thought we could
do it, but then we realize, like, oh, it's a
whole other thing, and.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Obviously it has been on our bucket list.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
Part of what solved it when we were saying, well
what does it mean to make a musical for streaming?
Was when Stephen and Danielle came back, having sort of
taken the ball to run with for a little while,
and said, Okay, what if every single episode is a
mini musical, and then that they all all ate in
the first season will add up to a sort of
(13:18):
larger musical, and then in success, if we do well
and get picked up for more seasons, the whole thing
can have a grand arc and each season can be
an act in the longest musical ever written. But you're
only ever really writing one episode at a time, which
is a manageable thing to do that all of a sudden,
(13:39):
we got very excited to be able to tell so
many stories.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Bobby, I will I will say not to correct you,
but we always knew we were going to need to look.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
At the architecture of a musical for the whole season.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So we always knew we were gonna need an opening,
and we're going to need those building.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Blocks that we use for every musical.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And I want song, an act break, eleven o'clock number
of finale, and they're all in there at the same time.
Within each episode, they always had to have a beginning,
of middle, and an end, so it's kind of like
Russian dolls.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
It was really fun.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
Yeah, I think when you listen to all the songs
in a row, it sounds like you're listening to a
cast album from a probably show.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I know a lot of times they are. The was
the vocals recorded on set or was it pre recorded?
Speaker 7 (14:28):
Well, it was all the band was recorded at a studio.
And then Disney wisely told us that we should really
build our own studio for vocals in the in the
place where we shoot the show, so on the second
floor and what used to be an old wardrobe closet,
we said we built. We had this vocal booth and
(14:49):
this was the recording studio of what we called up
Here University. We had that recording studio. Across the way
there was a rehearsal room where actors could practice and
learn the music. And then downstairs there was a dance
studio where wow yeah, where selling a Taye. The choreographer
would be testing out the numbers and building building them
(15:11):
into dance pieces. So a lot was going on at once.
It was kind of an exciting time in that pre
production time didn't didn't feel like pre production because we
were producing a lot of a lot of tracks.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The fascinating thing with doing TV musical like this is
that you get most of the cast album before anyone
has said a line of dialogue or filmed a single scene.
And it's totally the opposite of how you would develop
a musical, where you usually do the cast album as
(15:43):
the very last thing, after you've done years of workshops
and you've been in previews, and you've done doing you know,
seventy shows, and it opens and then you do the
cast album.
Speaker 6 (15:54):
This was a different order.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Do you find that added pressure?
Speaker 7 (15:58):
It added pressure, But it was all so really exciting.
You know, when the actor would come in their first day,
they would have to record their songs. So May came
in before she had really gotten a chance to put
her coke down. We were having her record What if
everything was a little bit rushed. That's the charm of
working in television. And then after everything is filmed, you
(16:19):
get to have some control during post you can smooth
things around, you can snip things, you can change a
few things here in there. That's where you have the control.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll have stars. May Whitman and Carlos Valdez share the
story of their own meet cute, how they relate to
their characters and what it was like preparing for the show.
And don't worry, we'll be back with the Lopezes a
little later in the episode to talk more music.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'll go first because I'm the prettiest to quote the
Brady Bunch. Okay, so how did you first hear about
up here? And what was that audition process?
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Like, I was trying to get a job and earn
a paycheck and support myself. So I heard about it
basically just through my reps and I went into or
I submitted a tape for it, and then they had
me come in and that's when I met Tommy and
Bobby and Kristen and Lev. Yeah, and the feeling was
(17:31):
pretty palpable, I think from the beginning, like I really
loved working with them. I really liked getting to know
what their process was like. And then they were like,
we're going to come back to you. They basically like
I didn't hear from them for like months. Yeah, it
must have been like three months later. They were like, yeah,
(17:53):
so we've cast May Whitman. That's me in the role
of whoever that is.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
And if you were begging for it.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, they were like, I don't know if you've seen
Saving Grace.
Speaker 6 (18:03):
It's called State of Grace. You are so rude. You
didn't read my Wikipedia.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Page before this.
Speaker 6 (18:07):
That is what it says on that's really It also
says I went to Whitefish Bay High School, which God bless.
I'm like, I don't know where that is and why
you did this to me, but well played, that's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So yeah, they were like, we want you to come
in and test and it's like a chemistry.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
I had like same kind of thing where like my representation,
who I adore, like sent me this project and I
feel like the concept of like auditioning is so unbelievably stressful.
You just I mean, I've been doing this for like
thirty years and I'm still terrified and stressed out and
panicked every single time. Like it's just and there's usually
like anxiety and you feel like technically it should be
(18:47):
like a chance to see if you guys work well together,
but it's like, which shouldn't be stressful, but it always
feels like this weird like begging for validation or this
or that, or you're like begging for something. And I
felt like immediately, I know notice this difference where there
was this sense of like true like respect for each
other and like actual genuine like interest in who the
(19:08):
person was and how how your process is connected and stuff.
So already I was like, well, I want to do
this just because I love the people and I love
the feeling that I'm getting. I don't feel scared. I
don't feel like, you know, like some raging anxiety. And
talk to Thomas Cale, who I adore. We have like
we speak the exact same language. It's like trying to
(19:28):
keep up with us as like a nightmare. We speak
very quickly, many jokes, very fast to each other. But
immediately I was like, okay, I love him. And then
it was basically like, yeah, come to New York and
try to sing these songs in front of a table
full of the best people in the industry with a piano,
acting like you know what you're doing. And I was like,
(19:49):
I'm gonna go ahead and do that in about one
month because I'm scared. And so that terrified me. And
I worked with my vocal coach, Doug Peck, who is
the literal He and Lauren Graham are the reason I
got the job because they Lauren Graham I was like,
I can't do it, and she like was like snap
out of it, and like was like, go in there
and get it, you idiot, basically, and like you know,
(20:11):
more loving words. And Doug really like taught me how
to feel confident in my body doing something like that,
because it's like singing is so vulnerable and personal and
going in and trying to act like, you know, oh,
it's my instrument. I can tune it. However, you know,
I was like, I can't. It's like feels like I'm
burying my soul. So but I think from the beginning
it was a really warm and kind and welcoming environment,
(20:35):
you know, from these like unbelievably talented people. So I
went in, I did it. I feel proud of myself
for even overcoming the raging terror of being able to
do that. I was like, you know what, even if
I don't get this, I at least uh, you know,
I did a good job. And then I got it,
thank God. And then they were like, all right, we
got to figure out this Miguel situation. And so that
(20:58):
then we had a chemistry read and you say, what happened,
Say what happened when we met?
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, so I was downstairs at mcc on fifty second
Street and where I had auditions for this show many times,
and just going over my stuff, you know, just trying
to get in the zone. And then I hear it,
like it's completely quiet in the building, and then suddenly
I hear this like this tiny low voice just like
slowly crescendoing, like going through the halls, and it's just
(21:26):
like and then doors burst open, and it's like it's
like you know, like confetti in the air and streamers
and and like it was basically just may being hurt
singular self and just coming through and like you know,
making everybody laugh and all that stuff. Then I'm like,
(21:47):
I'm really just trying to like focus on like the
audition of material and just trying to like stay in
the zone. And I like, I look over and I
just see a couple of like little feet just like
dangling like on there's this wall, and I just do
like these two little like socked feet just dangling and
just like playing, you know, and I was like, who
is this person?
Speaker 6 (22:07):
Not a fan of shoes.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Not a fan of shoes, I learned. Also not a
fan of chairs.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
I learned hate chairs. Don't understand Why sit when you
can lay? Why would you take your body do this
when you can be flat?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
We had like this meeting once we started like rehearsing,
where like everybody was in the room and it was
all like it was basically just this big introductory meeting
of like we're very excited about the show, you know,
this is what the process is going to be and
all that stuff. And everybody's like very much like sitting
in their chairs and like there for it. And I
look over in the corner and she's just like sprawled along.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
The floor, wrapped in a blanket on the floor. Like
I literally did all the meetings from the floor. I
actually had on set. You know, usually you have like
chairs that you sit around and hang out in, and
I was like I don't want that, and I would
I got like Fernie pads, which are like disgusting blankets
that the Grips used to like deal.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
With like tools, like they have to be disgusting.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Of course they are. They're discussing regulations, and they laid
them out on the floor for me, and I would
just lay everywhere. I didn't have a chair anywhere we
would go, inside, outside stage, whatever. I was just laying
there and because it kind of like it kind of
tricks your body into thinking that you're resting even when
you're not, like which my other trick is I keep
(23:23):
one eye open. So there was a lot of me
laying flat on the ground like this talking to people.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Which I don't know if you've ever been like exhausted,
but actually just like resting your eyes, even just one eye.
I found, like, see, you know, it actually does make
a big difference. I'm not crazy. I was making fun
of her first and now I'm like a convert.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And I also a lot of the cast converted to
the fernie pad method, and I remember it was like
it felt like a sleepover, like we would like they
would come the eighties would come in to get us,
and it would be like six of us on our
Fernie pads, like kicking our feet around and like talking
and like with a speaker being like we'll be right there,
We're almost done. We're talking about stuff.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Like very between taps.
Speaker 6 (24:02):
It was very cozy, but anyway, we yeah, And I
remember from my perspective on Carlos, I remember, like, you know,
I was so excited and I like ran up. Thomas
was like come me, Carlos, and I was like okay,
and I like ran over and I just like really
accosted him. I was like, Hi, how's it going, like
right in his face, like yelling and the thing, and
his he was so he looked like I had like
(24:24):
thrown like something that smelled bad in his face. He
was like yeah, like he couldn't. He was like blinking
and he looked like totally and I was like, oh boy,
I was like, this guy hates me. Like I was
like I really.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Like I'm trying to be like an actor, like.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
With like half a and I'm like can't buy my
shoe and yelling and like you but he you played
it so well. And actually that was like this is
like it's it's so reflective of like Miguel, where it
was like and and Lindsay, Like it was a very
similar dynamic where you know, Lindsay's just so out there.
She can't hide anything. It's all everything comes out at
(24:59):
once and it's fontane and there's no filter and it's
bright and bubbly and she can't help herself and then
like no offense, but like in a cool way, it's
like still waters run deep, like it's like, you see,
like this kind of contained part, and I was, of
course a narcissist and assigned the fact that you must
hate me, that's what that must mean. And then I
(25:19):
was shocked to find that you didn't.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
No, I definitely didn't. And I was like, she seems cool,
but I was just, you know, I'm a compartmentalizer. I
was just kind of like I was just trying to
do the thing in the moment, you know, right, But.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
Yeah, but we acted together, and I again I've said
this before, but I'm like, you know, doing this for
so long, you get tired, you get jaded, you're like whatever,
who cares? And then like I was noticing, I was like,
oh my god, this guy's listening, which sounds like it
should be a given, but it's not. When it was
acting like you, I was like, I was like, well,
(25:55):
maybe if I say this and then see how and
he would like react in a way that was genuine,
and I was like, oh my god, this guy is listening.
And he also just had like the thing about Miguel
that's so important in my eyes is like the yes,
he's has the you know, compartmentalized part that he shows,
but right underneath the surface, it is like the deepest
(26:16):
well of emotions and sensitivity and love and vulnerability and kindness.
And I'm like, if you don't have that, you don't
really understand the character and what his journey is. And
Carlos just had that. You could tell that immediately from
meeting him, and so it was like it was actually
pretty exciting. I was like, Wow, somebody that's I went
home and told my best friend Miles. I was like, yeah,
he was actually like a good actor. And Miles was like,
(26:37):
I haven't heard you say that about anybody in years.
I was like, I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, which like, now knowing you.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I'm like, yeah, now you know it's a high compliment.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, speaking of your characters, can you tell us a
little bit more about them and what drew you to them?
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah? You know, like I said, I was trying a
job that's for and foremost, and but like I think, once, yeah,
once I really delved into the material, I actually found
you know, I was pleasantly surprised at how how easily
I could sort of step into this headspace and into
(27:17):
this character's perspective. Like these days, young men, like I mean,
I think forever young men haven't been like the most
well educated with regards to like how to process their
emotions or talk about their feelings, and so like internalization
is I find, in my experience, like a pretty shared experience,
(27:41):
you know, among a lot of like young men, and
Miguel is like no exception to that. So I found
it very easy to kind of like figure out how
to like compress all of his like pain and trauma
and joy under this like hood. So yeah, you know,
I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to
(28:03):
step into that. And yeah, and honestly the rest was
just kind of discovery.
Speaker 6 (28:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
We were fortunate enough to have this very lengthy rehearsal process,
which obviously, when you're shooting a TV show, your rehearsal
is usually thirty seconds, you know. So with this process,
well it was like a month. Tell, yeah, it was
like five weeks.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
We had five weeks of prep, which is like unheard of,
you know, and and we filmed everything in the same
studio building and had like every department was there. We
had wardrobe, we had dance rehearsals, they built a recording studio,
like the art department. Everybody was there, and so it
was like it truly was, like Thomas says, it was
(28:47):
like it was a camp like and we'd be like
running around of course me barefoot, like you know, losing
my shoe in the studio, and then going down to
the dance rehearsal and watching Carlos dance and then going
to wardrobe and saying hi, Like it felt like we
really like like did the prep work, which to me
is like such a gift to be able to because
I feel like I operate much like Lindsay in a
(29:10):
way where I like to kind of set the foundation
and then just fly because I'm like, you know what,
I can't predict the outcome of this, but I know
where I'm coming from, and I've done enough work to
know the vague truth of where I'm coming from. And
so I think that was what was fascinating to me
about this character, was like, you know, I've been in
places where I have felt stuck, where I feel like
(29:34):
this illusion of safety or comfort, and I've been and
then you have this moment where you're like, yeah, but
what's what am I letting die here at the cost
of feeling like I should be this person or I
should stay with this or whatever it is. And then
you know, I had especially one moment where I kind
of like I was really feeling that in my life,
(29:54):
and I jumped off this ledge. I was like, I'm
going to just do it. I don't know what is
on the other side, and that's terrifying, but I know
that it's more honest to who I really am, so
I'm going to trust it. And he changed my entire
life so much for the better that even just having
that knowledge that that's possible is like it makes you
continue to strive for that growth. And I feel like
(30:15):
I was that was so fascinating to me that I'd
sort of just been through this, and then watching Lindsey
kind of be at the beginning of that, I felt
excited with the perspective of knowing what that really feels
like from the inside out. So it was kind of
cool because everything was kind of like a microcosm of itself.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Obviously, the voice is factor into this a lot, whether
it's an ex boyfriend or the character's respective parents. What
are some of the voices in your head?
Speaker 6 (30:43):
Oh shit, we want to curse, we are right?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Podcasts are like.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Yeah, oh fuck yeah, those fucking voices, Am I right?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
We just lost a lot of people I saw aunt.
Speaker 6 (31:00):
My voices are like I've said this before, but I
think because I started so little, putting myself out there
in a way that like my you know, the way
that my consciousness was formed was like I was pretty little,
and so I feel like it's kind of like almost
like my voices are like almost just cartoon. I view
(31:21):
them as like cartoons, like little extensions of me, the
little like monsters that like it's almost like imagine like
a child's drawing. There's like the big scary furry man
who makes me not want to say feelings and stands
in the way of my you know. And then there's
like the like one of them looks kind of like
Medusa in my head, and it's the one that's like
(31:42):
every little snaky arm coming out of her head represents
like a different path that I feel like I should
have chosen. And she's like, you don't have the capability
of making decisions. You can't choose, you know. So I
feel like mine is like it's a whole upsetting like
late night animation show. It's like adult Swim anyone I watched.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
I know it's good.
Speaker 6 (32:03):
Newslash, You're watching.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
It, Oh you got picked up. I think I think
I have three characters. I think they're like Cancel, Culture,
gen Z, and Internatural. Like they're all just like running
up there basically like criticizing and critiquing everything I say
and everything I do constantly. So it's fun living in
(32:26):
that space. I don't know if you have any experience
with those particular head characters.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I'm not on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, I very much understand. I think that makes sense
for both of those I are incredible answers. He and
I were like, I don't know, my mom, I guess, yeah.
And so this is with making a musical TV show,
I'm sure, like the mechanics are different. Like can you
talk about the process a little bit of why it
(32:54):
was or how it was different from filming something else.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean one of the first things things we
had to do was record the album. Like that's literally
one of the first things that they had us do.
We you know, we learned the material obviously, and then
we went in there into the like recording booth that
they had specifically built into the stages for this particular show.
(33:19):
It was it was tough because a lot of these songs,
you know, like we had context for, and the ones
that we didn't have context for, we had like we
just had limited information about kind of how like what
was coming out of and what it was going into.
So we really kind of had to work together to
build that story and you know, figure out what that
(33:43):
felt like. And it was, it was, it was. It
was really tough because you know, we hadn't really gone
through the scenes together or really talked about the scenes
all that much, and we didn't know what it was
going to look like or feel like on the day.
You know, like she and I had just like meant
not that long ago, yeah, and I still did in
(34:04):
fact hat, but like that process we had to just
like go for it and figure out or just kind
of like guess at where our characters were going to
be at that point in the story. And you know,
we had to record separately, which I think for for
for COVID purposes, And so that made it even even
(34:27):
more difficult, even more challenging for us because obviously she
had her own idea going on of what what that
story was going to be like, and I had my
own idea of what that story was going to look like.
And it was Bobby and Christen's job to make sure
that in those independent processes we were telling the same
(34:47):
story in some way that were amazing. Yeah, And on
top of that, they were like our best cheerleaders and
they created a safe space for us, like it's so
like you. That's that's one of the areas where you
could really see their expertise, like come out and shin
and it's like, oh, you were born to do this,
and there's a reason you have almost two you guys,
(35:09):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We're going to take another quick break. Then we're back
with co creators Bobby Lopez and Kristin Anderson Lopez to
talk about the KEDO, working with the partner and the
songs from episode one.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
What do you think the secret is to collaborating with
someone that you have a relationship with, that you're in
a relationship with.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I think, truly it's trust. The trust to be able
to fail in front of each other, to be able
to risk in front of each other.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
That took us several years to kind.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Of develop, honestly, because when we first started writing together,
we were writing in truth to spend time together because
Bobby was writing this puppet musical called I'm UQ and
I was working on other things and teaching in the
Bronx in the Bronx schools, and we just couldn't find time.
So he was like, let's write songs. But when that happened,
(36:18):
I definitely wanted to impress him. I wasn't thinking about
being his equal. I wanted to show him I deserve
to be there. And even after we were married, when
we would go to work on like finding Demo the musical,
we both wanted to be the one who came up
with the idea and who like drove the ship, and
(36:40):
so we would feel like this pressure to come up
with the best idea and almost be almost be fighting
with each other. But now we can skip the fight.
Speaker 7 (36:49):
Yeah, that's definitely been the trajectory of it. Like I think,
I think the important thing maybe with any collaboration, not
just with you know, if you happen to be working
with your is to remember that the most important thing
when you're working is the other person, not the thing
you're working on, because I think that's when things start
to get out of balance and you start to get
(37:11):
scared and let fear come into it. But really the
worst thing you can do is hurt the other person.
Whenever you're working on a project, you're it is, it's intimate.
When you're working on a song together, there's some there's
an intimacy there and people are People's deepest feelings are
out on the table, so so you have to respect that.
(37:32):
And then once that trust is there, then the process
starts to become a lot of fun. And I think
the songs, the songs benefit too. The work is better
because because you're having more fun making it.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, you can, if you feel safe to take a risk,
then you can try new things and try things that
haven't been done before. So of course the songs are
going to get better because you're freer and more liberated.
And you know, at the very best moments in our songwriting,
it feels like two kids playing pretend.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
In all these crazy world there's one thing I am
certain of for every hour and month anywhere, that we
are here to love, begardless of how much we talk,
we tell, we touch, no matter what we suffer.
Speaker 6 (38:31):
I can never know.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
You never know, You never know.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Right before Bobby and I got married, we were going
through some of his stuff and there was like this
box of coins, and he told me that he had
been a young numismatist and I was like, what's numismatist?
And you were a young one. It again sort of
rocked my world that I was marrying this person who
(39:08):
had this thing that I had never known. And then
I thought about, We're about to have a whole lifetime
together where I'm gonna get surprised. We're about to be
married twenty years. And every once in a while my
kids make fun of it as new dad law or
new mom law, where they're like, oh, new mom law.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
But it's that.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thing where someone you think you absolutely know comes in
with a different part of their story and the whole
story sort of has a shift.
Speaker 7 (39:37):
The song Can I Ever Know You, which is the
theme song, the main title theme, and it's the finale.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Of the entire show.
Speaker 7 (39:43):
Yeah, it's based on the song from the original show
called I Can Never Know You, which was a really
depressing song full of despair at the moment, the darkest
moment of the whole play when he realizes that it's
not going to work out between them, and that song
was supposed to be in this this season. We just
(40:06):
took it out at the end, and I think if
we do get renewed, for another one. I'm pretty sure
we'll put it in because it's a sad, despairing version
of the song. If you can imagine it. This song
is super duper happy and charged and hopeful and wonderful,
but the same tune with different chords, different harmony can
(40:26):
really twist it your insides.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
It's such the opposite of nice to really know someone
to then be like, I don't really know anybody.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
And you know spoiler art if it's both the answer
right both right? The answer is you might be marrying
a young numismatist, but you're still going to marry him
anyway because you know him so deeply.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
And the song what if that's really her?
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Like a once song wants Yeah, I think musically, there's
a looping, there's a no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no. It's this
feeling of she's been following these same patterns her whole life,
and they're not necessarily patterns that she's ever been awake to,
(41:19):
but now that she's waking up to them, she's realizing
they might not be her authentic self. So when the
loop finally stops, you kind of go into this like,
stop it what if I try to change this ever
looping tune? She stops it and ask the question, and like,
(41:40):
is awake to it? It's sort of It was a
time that woke you up to what your life was
and where you were in a rut and where you
were just going through the motions without thinking critically about it.
What I like the mother heart stop at the ball?
(42:01):
What if I heard someone and something? It's my call?
Come to let the bridges burned?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Some many lessons.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
To on.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
What if I let somebody see me?
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Fa all?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
What would baby call?
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Fine?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
The song.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
See about what if?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Ton?
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And this is a song where Lindsay not only wakes
up to it, but allows it to get her out
the door in a pair of red plastic pants, which
I think anyone who loved musical theater in the nineties
was very excited about plastic pants because of Rent. But
my friend Sarah had this pair of red plastic pants
(43:04):
that was sort of iconic and she wore them in
my first musical, Oedipis a Cappella, the first musical I
ever wrote, And so I have to shout out to
Sarah Wordsworth, my co writer on in Transit.
Speaker 7 (43:16):
The only thing I'd add about this song is that
it was the first one we did for this, you know,
for the Hulu show. We had to start somewhere and
we finally wrote a song. It was what If, and
it luckily stayed in Amazing.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
So something I'm curious about to appeal behind the curtain
of making things like this is like, there's that saying
that you know, in a musical they burst into song
because the emotion is so high that it's their only
option is to sing, you know, That's what they people
will say sometimes what is sort of a guiding light
for you guys to decide where a song goes, when
(43:53):
a scene deserves a song. When writing this and then
also just in general when writing musicals.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I'd like to always look for moments of the high emotion,
but also decision or you want to find songs that
are not just about someone going what really happened? What
just happened? Let me process what happened. You want it
to be like what am I feeling? What am I
going to do about this? You want to keep the
(44:22):
arrow moving forward, the story doesn't fall on the floor
during the song.
Speaker 7 (44:30):
And even more specifically to this project, we were looking
for moments that had huge feelings and very you know,
small situations with huge feelings. In every project we do,
we try to have the music represents something special thematically
related to the story. In this case it's interior life.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
If you want to reach out to us and share
am where you could have burst into song, email us
at up here at straw hutmedia dot com.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
If you like the show, please rate, review and share
with your friends.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
See you next week. Up Here down Low is a
straw Hut Media production. It's hosted by Madison Cross and
Julian Goza. The show it's produced by Ryan Tillotson and
Maggie Bulls. Our associate producers are Lydia McMahon, Javier Salas,
and Jean Lee. Our editor is Daniel Ferreira. Big thanks
(45:31):
to everyone at Hulu, including Kristin Anderson Lopez and Bobby
Lopez for their help putting the show together.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
There was one moment where I wanted to break into song.
This was a few years ago. I was at a
roller rink and I'm super bad at rollerblading and people
were just zipping by me, and so the song would
be something like I'm incapable and they're bold. They have
buddies that are young, but mineus old. That's Grenich
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