Dream Team: ‘Étoile' creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino on the secrets of their partnership: ‘You want to be jealous of something someone has done'

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6 days ago

They're married to their work, their words, their worlds. The husband-and-wife team of Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino have created some of television's most meticulous, hilarious, singular series, populated with unforgettable characters from the Gilmores to the Maisels. And they've done it all working side-by-side as creators, writers, directors, and executive producers — and still managed to stay married for '400 years' (according to them).
Gold Derby: What's your secret? How do you keep the magic going on and off-screen?
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Amy Sherman-Palladino: So much alcohol. Just constant inebriation. I don't know, what is it, Dan? What's our magic?
Dan Palladino: We get this question from all walks of life. Our teamster driver would be like, how do you work with your wife, Dan? There's people who find it horrifying. There's people who find it inspiring. I think it really started in earnest on Gilmore Girls, when Amy wrote the pilot and produced the pilot and was having some trouble. I knew exactly what she was doing. The script was very, very delicate, the project was very, very delicate. It wasn't a plot-heavy concept.
Sherman-Palladino: It was a time when they were leaning heavily into Dawson's Creek. And it wasn't a show that the WB dancing frog totally understood.
Palladino: I knew instinctively exactly what she was going for. So even though I was running Family Guy at the time when I would finish up there, I would go from North Hollywood over to Burbank and help her out. And I wrote some of the scripts in the beginning and that's sort of how it started. And then from there, we break every story together in a room, usually with other writers. If we have a disagreement…
Sherman-Palladino: We cage fight it out.
Palladino: The winner is the person who's most passionate about their side. And then once that path is picked, the other person takes that as their path as well, and there's no "I told you so" later. The worst thing you can do in a partnership is later on say, "I told you so" because it's uncreative, it's mean. I think that's the main thing that we sort of figured out.
Sherman-Palladino: I don't think people realize the job is so big. It's such a ridiculously big job that there are many days where we don't see each other till martinis come out at dinner, because if I'm directing, he could be in editing. There's so much to do that we'll go in together and then we're sitting at a bar going, what was your day like?
Palladino: We're not even together now. We're here using AI.
SEE'Gilmore Girls,' 'Maisel' creator Amy Sherman-Palladino on the star who's 'separated at birth,' who wanted to get fired, and who will never get away
How do you divide and conquer? Are there particular parts of the job either of you like more than the other or dislike more than the other that you hand off to each other?
Sherman-Palladino: I can't write an outline to save my life.
Palladino: That's true. I write all the outlines.
Sherman-Palladino: At that point, I just want to start writing the script but the way it works in our world, we break things so detailed in the room because our outlines are meant to tell Bill Groom exactly what sets he needs to build, exactly what costumes we need, how many dancers Marguerite needs, what music we need, all of that is in our outlines so that when we hand them out to production, they can all go do their thing. So outlines are actually extremely important. They're not just a writer's tool. They're really more a production tool for us. Which means, I don't care. And Dan, God love him, is the patient one who actually sits and make sure that the outlines are cohesive, because it's the lifeline to making production work in our world.
Palladino: We both started off as writers, obviously. And I think once we transitioned into directing, it's such a puzzle that you can never really solve. It's kept us really, really engaged in a way that I don't think we would have if we had not went into directing.
Sherman-Palladino: Also writing is really lonely. You're sitting in a room and you're staring at a computer and the computer is basically saying to you, you're out of words, you're done. Why haven't you retired yet? So you're having a conversation with your computer saying, but no, I have to, like people are waiting for the script and your computer is saying, well, they're shit out of luck. And so while you're arguing with a piece of equipment, you could be on stage with actors and your DP. And if you get stuck on stage and something isn't quite working, people have ideas. That's where you see the dancers and the music and you get to hang out with Luke Kirby. How's that bad? Compared to the lonely sadness of being in a corner eating your hair when you're writing a script.
SEE'Étoile' cast and creators on fast-talking, mean drunks, and what they learned from 'Gilmore Girls'
How do you decide between the two of you who's going to tackle which script as the director? Because I know you're both so passionate about directing. Is it which episode you're more attached to?
Sherman-Palladino: It's pretty organic. In general, it feels like this is something I'm going to take, or Dan's got such a strong instinct for the most important part of that, so that's what he should take. That actually has been kind of a pretty organic conversation. Frankly, when you're in this business for 400 years, which we're going on our 400th anniversary, when you've been doing it this long, what you want is to be jealous of something that someone else has done. So there's nothing kind of better for me than if he directs an episode that I didn't necessarily want, my eye wasn't on that episode, but then I see him and I see what he's done and I'm like, God damn it, then I'm really jealous and angry so that in my next episode, I've got up my own game. It keeps you on your toes.
Palladino: Appropriate for a dance show.
How did you come up with the idea for this dance show? And by the way, did you have a crystal ball where suddenly arts were going to become a thing that we were going to have to fight for?
Sherman-Palladino: No. And how sad that we're in a position where we're fighting for something so important. I don't know if people understand that, drawing on the walls of caves was art. Art has been part of the human experience for as long as there have been humans, and to be losing it should terrify everybody because the best part of people is when you think differently and you can learn about other experiences that aren't your own, or your mind can go someplace that you didn't think it could go, that's what art does. So no, we didn't foresee it. I was a dancer, I trained as a dancer my whole life. I have got three back surgeries to prove it. Welcome to the world of rods in your lower back. So it's always kind of been in in my zeitgeist and Dan was a musician. Our writing is rhythmic and has a patter to it. It's an organic world for us. We tiptoed into it with Bunheads, although Bunheads was much more of a coming of age with a background in ballet. Dancers were very important to the Maisel experience. It just felt like a world we wanted to sort of live in. We love dancers. We love the fact that these amazing creatures that are totally completely devoted to an art form where they're guaranteed to never make a dime. Which is a shocking thing. It's just pure love of the art form. That's a spirit and an energy you kind of need in your world. So we slid into the idea of, if we were ever going to do a workplace comedy, what sort of workplace comedy would we do? And ballet seemed to be the right fit.
What do you want people to take away from the show?
Sherman-Palladino: The ballet is a weird, wonderful, interesting world. It's not all tutus and, swans on stage, that it's very athletic. You're racing against the clock. It's grueling. It's tough. It's cutthroat. It's weird. And frankly, it's for everyone. It's storytelling. If you like story, if you like athletics, if you like music, if you like drama and comedy or just spectacle, that's what ballet is. Ballet is not some precious art form that the Van-uppeties go on a Friday night with their monocles. That is not what ballet is. Ballet is for everyone. And if more people could just realize that it's this wonderful thing that's right there and be a part of it and experience it, it can change your world a little bit.
Palladino: It's an entertaining funny show about the fragility of arts. Everybody loves the arts in some form or another. We live in New York City. We see people with MAGA hats, going to Broadway shows.
Sherman-Palladino: And crying, and coming out sobbing, and they're touched.
Palladino: It's something that can bring people together. So it's something that we want to protect, whether it's ballet or theater or television or films to be seen theatrically, not all on TV. It's something for all of us to fight for. And we just wanted to obviously do it in an entertaining way.
As you look back over the course of the season, is there a moment you're proudest of?
Palladino: We didn't even finish the first episode until the very, very end of our shoot. We had never done anything like that because we were crisscrossing countries, and we had to get out of Paris for the Olympics. … This was our chance to do like a big ensemble workplace comedy set in a dramatic world. I think we achieved what we were attempting to do. And yeah, it was the most ambitious thing we've ever attempted for sure.
Sherman-Palladino: Yeah, there's something wrong with us. We need to be checked out, for sure.
Palladino: But also we hate boredom. But we love these actors and we got to live in Paris for a while and there's no bad there.
Nothing bad about that at all. And given all of that, what do you want to see in season two?
Sherman-Palladino: I want there to be a season two. I know that there was an announcement that we got a two-season pickup, but that is fake news, ladies and gentlemen. So it's tough. We're in a time where IP is king and we're not based on a comic book, although I've tried to lie to Amazon and say, no, it was a very successful graphic novel. … We would just love to have a season two and I'm not sure if that's possible. So we're going to live with the wonderfulness of these actors and how great they are and these beautiful dancers.
This article and video are presented by Prime Video.
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