On the heels of an Emmy nomination for the second season of the HBO series, showrunner Jesse Armstrong discovers how he reworks the scripts to be more cinematic and whether we will see a pandemic storyline in the series.
Follow-up showrunner Jesse Armstrong stood up to shoot the third season of his Emmy-nominated HBO drama when the COVID-19 outbreak redefined the film. Not being in production in New York, he has spent much of the shutdown in the UK at the end of three seasons in a row – this way he will be ready to go as soon as they can figure out how to safely film the show, which is up for 18 Emmy nominations, this fall. From his home in London, Armstrong opens up about the tentative date for resuming production, how he’s reworking the scripts to be more cinematic and whether there are plans for a pandemic storyline in the coming season.
I realize that everything is very fluid at the moment and that no one has a crystal ball, but is there a tentative plan for that if you try to make do with filming?
The tentative plan is, ideally, in late autumn around Christmas to start shooting, but it’s nothing we can fully commit to, because we just have to respond to the situation with the pandemic. But we try to make plans, and I try to focus my own mind and that of my fellow writers on a realistic schedule. Ultimately no one knows, so we should try to stay flexible.
Have you considered the fact that the virus can get much worse during the winter months? Was that part of the discussion?
I mean, we do not have our own World Health Organization, so it is the same information that everyone else has. And yes, there is a lot of speculation and some days it feels better and other days it feels less. It’s just completely out of our control. We need to try and learn in some Buddhist way to live with the uncertainty.
Has the story you were planning to tell changed because of the pandemic? Are you writing something to make the film more amidst the virus?
If you want to excuse me, I will not get into things next season, just that it’s fresh for when people get it and enjoy it, hopefully. But I’m flexible when it comes to creative things that I and the writing team can do to make it more film-worthy. We will not compromise, which means the performance is less, but we are ready to think about how we can do this thing safely on an easy timeline. We try to help the physical production out of the writing room.
What’s your favorite scene from last season?
I wrote a great scene in the last episode where a lot of confirmation happens around the table on the hunt. From an early age you think, “What will be the heart of the episode?” It felt like putting the cards on the wall. Like, who will take the rap for this? Who will go to jail? And we were all together on that boat, so it was a very exciting, creative time to film.
That one was a crowd-pleaser.
And then there’s a scene in the episode of the safe room, in which Shiv and Kendall have a moment of brother and sister connection, where they cry as they often do, jockeying for the grace of their father and their positions, and there’s a moment of honesty where Kendall kind of tells his sister he does not think he will ever be able to fulfill the ambition [to take over their dad’s company], which always hangs in front of her like this big, meaningful thing in her life. And it was actually just a magical moment on set where – I do not know, I might get sly about the show and the characters, but I was reduced to tears by the level of Sarah [Snook] and Jeremy [Strong]his achievements.
Was there a scene that was particularly difficult to write?
I remember we built this set for the brains of the First Chamber in episode nine, and I was behind on finishing the script. That the set was built before I had completed my really solid concept of it. I remember going in there and seeing this pretty impressive senatorial building grow when I had not written the words to fill it, and that gave me the heebie-jeebies. But on the day, too [the actors’] stuff came in pretty late, they learned it so well and we managed to sweep it through so fast that we got the chance to write a lot of extra questions from the senators and put them under real pressure, so the stuff left them pretty late comb. That was one of those things where you find yourself in the locker room at Silvercup [Studios] questions hammer to senators. It’s fun, but it feels high pressure as they wait for you to come down with the questions.
Do you want to keep the actors on their toes?
Yes. I do not want to sound like I’m a puppeteer because they are pretty weighty puppets, but I think they enjoy it too – the feeling that things can change.
De Follow-up jokes over when James Murdoch left News Corp in July. How much do you pay attention to such news as you write?
Oh, we read and consume it all. The fact that it is not meant to be a portrait of one family does not mean that we do not read all that stuff. Honestly, the money is free for writers, whether it’s a story about Sumner Redstone or Comcast or one of the Mercers and the Murdochs. And Ghislaine Maxwell, who is the scion of a British media baron, Robert Maxwell. We feel total freedom not to use 98 percent, but 2 percent of it can start great plotlines.
Do you feel there are any misunderstandings about the show you want to end?
Not really. I feel like the great pleasure of doing a show is that you try to say something without saying it. You try to make people feel a certain way and certain things without saying them out loud and the danger of playing that particular game is that people might misinterpret you if you do not hear clearly, because you do not want to be too clear, because then it feels like you are writing propaganda or that you are in the world of politics, not in the world of craft and art. That I find nothing. It’s all our fault, to a point, what we did.
What is the chance that we will see a pandemic storyline in an upcoming season of the show? How can you imagine the Roy family acting in the current crisis?
Well, I do not want to go into what we have in the show, but I would expect them to behave with the highest ethical standards, as they always do. (Laitset.)
Interview edited for length and clarity.
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And the chances are ..
Outside Watchmen Away with the title of the limited series, the 2020 Emmys seem to offer some sure bets. However, if you are talking about almost certain betting, Follow-up can be just that. HBO’s sophomore drama was a direct favorite in the industry when it premiered in 2018. And while there was zero chance of topping network neighbor Game of Thrones to win the best drama in 2019, the first Emmys included one very favorable win in drama writing for creator Jesse Armstrong. Ozark and, to a lesser extent, The crown real threats present for Follow-upthe favorite status. But many insiders have said it for almost a year, back when the second run of the series the season that preceded it, sparked that this race is Follow-upis to be lost. – MICHAEL O’CONNELL
This story first appeared in a stand-alone August issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
