substance

Regulation of psilocybin — the “magic” substance in psychedelic mushrooms — has been a hot-button issue for Californians in recent years, but repeated attempts by state lawmakers to allow medical use of the substance have floundered.

Now it seems change may come at the federal level.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is weighing a petition sent earlier this month by the Drug Enforcement Administration to review the scientific evidence and consider easing restrictions.

Psilocybin is currently classified as a Schedule I narcotic, the most restrictive category under federal law, reserved for drugs “with a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use.” The DEA is considering moving psilocybin into the less restrictive Schedule II tier, which includes drugs that are considered addictive or dangerous — including fentanyl and cocaine — but also have medical value.

Past efforts to allow for therapeutic use of psilocybin have largely stalled in the face of official intransigence and lack of political will, including in California, where state lawmakers’ efforts to decriminalize psilocybin and other psychedelic substances have failed multiple times.

Despite strict prohibition under both state and federal law, psilocybin is widely available and growing in popularity for both recreational and therapeutic purposes.

Illegal cannabis dispensaries across Southern California openly sell actual psilocybin mushrooms, as well as dodgy chocolates and gummies that often purport to contain the substance but instead contain only synthetic versions. In recent decades, a growing body of research has found that psilocybin can be beneficial in treating mental health conditions including depression, anxiety and substance use disorder.

The issue of psychedelic access is high on the agenda of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s controversial and conspiracy-minded secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has signaled support in the past for expanding access to some hallucinogens in medical settings for treatment of mental health disorders.

Kennedy’s agency directed all inquiries to the DEA, which said in an email that it is “unable to comment on or confirm scheduling actions.”

The DEA sent the psilocybin petition after a drawn-out legal battle led by Dr. Sunil Aggarwal. For about five years, Aggarwal, co-director of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute in Seattle, has been seeking a means to legally obtain and administer psilocybin to ailing and aging patients for care during the final phases of their lives.

Kathryn L. Tucker, a lawyer for Aggarwal, wrote a letter to the DEA this month that said he “continues to provide care to patients with advanced and terminal cancer who could benefit greatly from psilocybin assisted therapy, enabling them to experience a more peaceful dying process.”

“The science supports movement to schedule II; such placement will enable access under Right to Try laws, which contemplate early access to promising new drugs for those with life-threatening conditions,” Tucker wrote.

Aggarwal filed a lawsuit after his 2020 petition to reschedule psilocybin was denied. A federal panel dismissed the suit, but the move toward rescheduling continues now that the DEA has officially forwarded his petition to the Department of Health and Human Services.

But some researchers and other experts caution against moving too fast to expand access.

Dr. Steven Locke, a former Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor, wrote in an email that the question of whether psilocybin has any medical applications “remains controversial.” A past president of the American Psychosomatic Society, Locke has studied rare conditions such as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, which cause symptoms akin to long-lasting “bad trips” in a small percentage of people who use psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics.

“There is little evidence from good-quality studies to support claims for the efficacy of the use of psilocybin for the treatment of any medical disorders,” said Locke. “The reclassification should be contingent on a careful review.”

When is AI not artificial intelligence? When it refers to ammonia inhalants, aka smelling salts.

When are these AIs in the news? When it was reported that the NFL banned their use, San Francisco 49ers star George Kittle protested, and the NFL walked back the ban a day later. The league’s players association clarified that players can still use AIs as long as teams don’t provide them.

Got it?

The NFLPA sent a memo to players on Wednesday saying that the ban only prohibits team employees from distributing AIs during games.

That must have pleased Kittle, who when under the impression that AIs were banned completely, grabbed a microphone on an NFL Network broadcast to say, “I honestly just came up here to air a grievance. Our team got a memo today that smelling salts and ammonia packets were made illegal in the NFL, and I’ve been distraught all day.”

The five-time All-Pro tight end said he used the substances for an energy boost before every offensive drive and joked that upon learning of the ban he “considered retirement.”

Except that it isn’t a ban. Kittle will just have to bring his own AI stash to ballgames.

“To clarify, this policy does not prohibit player use of these substances, but rather it restricts clubs from providing or supplying them in any form,” the NFLPA memo said. “The NFL has confirmed this to us.”

The use of AIs by NFL players has been under the radar despite apparently being a common practice. Their primary use is to prevent and treat fainting, with the Federal Aviation Administration requiring U.S. airlines to carry them in the event a pilot feels faint.

The ammonia gas irritates the nasal membranes, causing a reflex that increases breathing and heart rate. That can keep a person from fainting, and apparently can also help a person block and tackle.

In short, an AI — which has been described as smelling like cat urine — is a performance-enhancing substance.

The NFL, however, cited a warning from the FDA that AIs can mask symptoms of a concussion and have not been proven to be safe or effective simply to increase energy.

“In 2024, the FDA issued a warning to companies that produce commercially available ammonia inhalants (AIs), as well as to consumers about the purchase and use of AIs, regarding the lack of evidence supporting the safety or efficacy of AIs marketed for improving mental alertness or boosting energy,” the NFL memo to teams stated. “The FDA noted potential negative effects from AI use.

“AIs also have the potential to mask certain neurological signs and symptoms, including some potential signs of concussion. As a result, the NFL Head, Neck, and Spine Committee recommended prohibiting the use of AIs for any purpose during play in the NFL.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield — who says he uses AIs — said the logic behind the NFL no longer supplying them is convoluted.

“I think the reasoning was that it masked concussion symptoms,” Mayfield said on “Up and Adams.” “But if you get knocked out, which is the whole purpose of smelling salts — to wake you up — you’re not allowed back in the game.

“I think it was a quick trigger to ban them, just to kind of CYA [cover your ass].”

Maybe NFL officials figure that by no longer supplying AIs and forcing players to bring their own batch to games, their liability in case of concussions or other medical complications is reduced.

“You just got to bring your own juice to the party, got to wake up ready to go,” Mayfield said.

Minnesota Vikings receiver Jordan Addison will avoid jail time for his 2024 DUI citation after pleading no contest to a lesser charge Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The former USC standout was arrested in July 2024 when a California Highway Patrol officer found him sleeping behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce that was blocking traffic near Los Angeles International Airport.

Addison pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor drunk-driving charges in December; those charges were dismissed Thursday after Addison entered a no-contest plea to the charge of “wet reckless driving upon a highway.”

“While Mr. Addison’s case would have made for a great trial, I admire him for taking responsibility by accepting the City Attorney’s ‘wet reckless’ offer,” Addison’s attorney, Jacqueline Sparagna, said in a statement. “Now he can put this incident behind him and solely focus on his promising career.”

Addison was sentenced to 12 months’ probation and is required to pay a $390 fine and complete two online courses. In a statement posted to X, Addison’s agent Tim Younger said the expectation was that “his probation will be terminated early in six months.”

“Over the past year, he voluntarily participated in MADD events and programs and, after reflection, decided to enter this plea understanding the ramifications of this decision,” Younger wrote. “He has kept the organization apprised throughout these legal proceedings, and will continue in his full commitment to being a valuable member of his team.”

Had Addison been convicted on the charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with 0.08% blood-alcohol level, he could have faced up to six months in jail, been fined up to $1,000 and had his license suspended for as long as 10 months.

According to the NFL’s policy and program on substances of abuse, Addison still could face a three-game suspension without pay, with some “aggravating circumstances” allowing for a harsher penalty. The league said in a statement Thursday that the matter “remains under review.”

Addison spent the first two years of his college career at the University of Pittsburgh, winning the Fred Biletnikoff Award for best receiver in the country after catching 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns during the 2021 season.

After catching 59 passes for 875 yards and eight touchdowns at USC the following season, Addison was selected by Minnesota at No. 23 overall in the 2023 draft. He has 133 catches for 1,786 yards and 19 touchdowns in two seasons with the Vikings.

In the latest episode of The Envelope video podcast, Janelle James discusses her character’s arc on “Abbott Elementary,” and Aaron Pierre details the training required to master the “seamless” action of “Rebel Ridge.”

Kelvin Washington: Hey, everybody, and welcome to The Envelope. I’m Kelvin Washington alongside Yvonne Villarreal, also Mark Olsen. Great to have you two here this week, as usual.

Let’s get to it. Yvonne, someone I’ve never met, but I’m gonna be saddened if she’s not as pleasant or just as fun and hip as she seems: Janelle James. It just feels like I know her, even though I don’t. Tell me about your experience.

Villarreal: I have to tell you, I was super nervous that she was going to hit me with some one-liners about my appearance or something.

Washington: She’s got zingers.

Villarreal: No, but she was super lovely. She plays the blunt and hilarious principal, Ava Coleman, in “Abbott Elementary.” And she’s done an amazing job in that role, because she’s already been nominated three times for an Emmy. But Season 4 brought a lot of depth to this seemingly incompetent and uncaring character. We really see how she [goes] to bat for the students at the school, maybe in some unorthodox ways, but in ways that really help them. We also see a little bit of her relationship with her father. She also develops a relationship of her own, a romantic relationship. And — spoiler alert, I’m giving you guys time to dial down the volume —

Washington: Just hit the little 15-second thing or something.

Villarreal: Her character was fired this season. And I’ll just leave it at that. But we talked a little bit about all of that, all the development that we saw from her character this season.

Washington: Spoiler alert.

Villarreal: Sorry, I’m telling you, you gotta keep up, Kelvin.

Washington: Why is it me? I’m just saying it could be someone listening. Mark, I swing over to you and …

Olsen: I didn’t know she got fired.

Washington: Aaron Pierre. Let’s just say the three Washington girls in my household, my daughters, including my 3-year-old, “Aaron Pierre!” I mean, they had to do the whole, “That’s Mu-fa-sa!” for about a good month and a half.

Villarreal: Is that how you started the interview?

Olsen: I mean, we did talk about Mufasa, but I didn’t say it quite like that.

Washington: You didn’t do it? Oh, come on!

Olsen: Well, you know, the TV movie category in the streaming era has just really exploded. And it’s become a much more dynamic category than it had been in a few years previous. And “Rebel Ridge,” which stars Aaron Pierre, is really a great example of that. Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, the film stars Aaron as a man who comes to a small town. He wants to bail his cousin out of jail and he runs afoul of the crooked local sheriff. It just becomes this really muscular and exciting action thriller. Aaron brings a real gravitas and power to his role and has some very exciting fight scenes. And also it’s just such a great time for Aaron Pierre. As you said, he just was the voice of Mufasa in Barry Jenkins’ “Mufasa: The Lion King,” and then he also is gonna be seen in the next [season] of “The Morning Show,” and then is currently filming “Lanterns,” which is a DC Green Lantern property.

Washington: You can always kinda see certain folks have that moment where the boom happens, right? And then they just take off, and then someone’s gonna go, “Where’d this person come from?” Not knowing the whole, it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. He’s been putting in the work for years.

All right, well let’s get into Yvonne and Janelle James. Let’s start it now.

Janelle James in “Abbott Elementary.”

(Gilles Mingasson / Disney)

Villarreal: You’re in this big career moment. In what ways did you feel ready for it and in what ways has it just thrown you for a loop?

James: Ooh, I mean, I feel ready for this career moment — not only moment but this career from performing for 15 years prior to getting this role. I’ve been performing for a long time. What has thrown me for a loop is fame. I had no concept of what that meant. I had no concept of what being on a show that immediately takes off entails and what that feels like. That’s definitely been a surprise.

Villarreal: Can you break it down, what it does mean to be on a hit broadcast sitcom? How have you had to reconfigure your life?

James: Can’t go to Target — not that we are — can’t go to Target. I remember the first season, I was in Target and I was looking at doormats, as you do, and this guy comes up to me — I didn’t see him, I heard him say, “I got to hug you.” And I was like, “He’s not talking to me, because I don’t know this man.” And he picked me up. This huge guy picked me up off the ground and gave me a hug, which I’m sure was in love. But that had me shook. I remember I went to work the next day and it was on my face that I was shook, like, what just happened? And Tyler [James Williams], my co-star, was like, “What’s going on with you?” And I was like, “A stranger picked me up in Target to compliment the show.” He was like, ‘What are you doing in Target? You can’t go to Target anymore.” And that used to be my happy place. That was an adjustment, people knowing who I am when I’m in my jammies, trying to get some gummy bears.

Villarreal: I was with Chris Perfetti at a museum [for a story], and kids were on their field trips, coming up to him and ready to share what they’re learning in school.

James: And I’m way more famous than him. (That was a joke.)

Villarreal: What do you hear most often, and do you feel the need to be on as Ava because this is what people are expecting from you?

James: What do I hear most often? “I’m a principal.” “I know a principal like you.” “I also went to school.” I feel like that’s part of the reason why the show is a hit. Who hasn’t gone to school? It resonates with a lot of people because they’ve had the experience. And do I feel the need to [be like Ava]? Yes. You don’t want to disappoint people. I’ve learned to take people approaching me as Ava as a compliment, like, “Oh, I’m doing this character so well they think that it is me that they’re talking to.” They’re [thinking] I just stepped off the screen and now I’m in Ralphs for some reason — although she [Ava] would never be shopping for herself. I want to give them what they want and sometimes I don’t, so I just stay in the house.

Villarreal: Well, Ava Coleman, the character you play, has had so much character development this season and it was very earned too. She started out the series as this very polarizing character. She can be rude. She’s not politically correct. She really won over the audience over the run of the show. I’m curious what it felt like for you to really get in depth with her this season. We get more of her background. We see her open herself up to a relationship, and we see just how far she’s willing to go for the students.

James: I was really proud and honored that Quinta [Brunson, the show’s creator and star] and the writers trusted me with the material that they’re giving me. And, like you said, it’s earned. I feel like it was time. There’s been [a] little dribbling out of her character over the seasons, but this, to me, was an Ava season, basically. [I’m] happy that they trusted that I can bring these different flavors to her. And [it’s] just a testament to, like, the writing that this is a sitcom, it’s 22 minutes, and we’re doing so much story in such a short time; to be able to, for instance, reveal about her dad or have a dramatic moment and go right back into comedy [when] I’ve only been onscreen for maybe four minutes and you’ve already found out so much about her is amazing, and it makes me feel very talented.

Villarreal: What were your conversations like with Quinta?

James: I mind my business. I’ve been in a writers’ room before, and I know nobody cares what the actors think. I know we certainly didn’t when I was in one. I just try to let them do their gig, and because they have been doing such a good job, that’s why we’re a hit. They’ve been doing a great job with the show and developing the characters. I feel like each one of us gets a year. I feel first season was a Barbara [played by Sheryl Lee Ralph] year; second was Tyler [who plays Gregory]; then this one. I’m never worried or trying to involve myself. I’m so lucky that Quinta is like the coolest boss and that she gives me a heads-up for big stories, but I’m never like, “Whaaat?” or “Oh, I feel this …”

I know I have said things to her on the side that ended up happening. And then I’m just psyched that they decided to go with my idea. But I’m never like, “I have a pitch.” I would be annoyed with that. If it’s my show and I feel like I’m killing it, I don’t really want to hear a pitch from the actor. My job is to make those words feel real and convincing. And that’s it.

Villarreal: The father element [to Ava’s] story was a really a revelation for me. I’m curious what that unlocked for you. Ava’s father is played by Keith David. You were able to capture so much about the daddy issues that she has and where the maybe hardness or prickliness comes from.

James: Exactly what you said. It’s just more about her ethos and why she is like she is, why she’s so untrusting, why she’s short with people, doesn’t want to get close with anyone. Because she’s already been disappointed by somebody — as we find out in the date episode — that’s very important to her, and then abruptly went away to start another family. I thought that was a really great way to show that and to show her strength. He comes in, they have that moment, but then she’s back to Ava right away. I feel like Ava just like keeps it moving, to her detriment sometimes — like [she] doesn’t process. But it makes sense. That’s what I like about the writing for the characters on this show. Everything we do makes sense, it seems very real, it’s relatable. So many people wrote me and said, “I have this situation with a parent, and it struck me as real.” It also illuminated for me what I think is the most important relationship on the show is Janine and Ava and how we have similar backgrounds and parental issues, but we’re coming at it from different ways. She’s coming at it with endless optimism and nonpessimism. So we’re opposites sides of the personality spectrum, but I think as the show goes on, we’re moving closer and closer together. I think that’s so smart and [makes for] good story development.

Villarreal: We see that Ava gets fired at near the end of the season. Did Quinta or the writers prepare you that this was coming, or did you read it in the script?

James: So Quinta told me maybe a couple of days before, like, “You’re gonna get fired.” I was like, “OK.” I think I did say, like, “Oh, do I still get paid?” Which I meant. Do I still get paid? Because I thought that meant I wasn’t gonna be in the show at all. So I’m like, “Can I just pop in and get paid or…? Just let me know.” I wasn’t concerned about being off the show [permanently], because that didn’t make sense story-wise to me. I don’t know why they would have done that, and I don’t think she would have pitched it to me so casual if I was out of a job. But again, just trusting them, I was like, “Oh, if I’m getting fired, that means we about to shake something up, and I would love to see the reaction to it,” which was fabulous. That was one of the best days of my life.

Villarreal: It goes back to earning it. You’ve reached a point where the audience wants you back, wants to see Ava back. How do you think your background in stand-up and playing to either packed crowds or nearly empty venues and having to win over an audience, how did that prepare you for a character like Ava?

James: Exactly what you said! Exactly what you said. Even when it’s a packed house of people that love me, my stand-up is also very antagonistic, and that’s for my own pleasure because I do like that. I’m gonna say something that you might not agree with or you don’t find funny or touches you in a certain way, and you’re gonna love me by the end. Then I’m going to make you laugh. There’s a power in that. Stand-up has definitely prepared me for this whole Ava arc of people being like, “I don’t like her.” And I’m like, “Yeah, really? You don’t? OK, we’ll see Season 4.”

Villarreal: Can you tell me about a time where you just felt like you bombed [onstage] and how you turned it?

James: I thought you meant just bombed, because I have bombed and just went home and had this one tear. [But] bombed and came back … I feel like that’s every set, truly. I like to craft a set, especially if I’m doing an hour, where it has different levels. Of course, you want to crush the whole time, and I am, but I like my jokes to have downbeats and then ba-da-ba. I’m not really a one-liner, which is what Ava was for a long time, so that’s been a new muscle for me to do, where I’m just saying a line and have to hit those beats. But I like to do a joke that has different peaks and valleys to it and where people are like — you see them physically going back, then they’re like, “Ah, I love that.” That’s what I like about stand-up, that instant reaction and the feeling of winning.

Villarreal: Do you get the nerves doing “Abbott” the way you get the nerves of stand-up?

James: Yes. I feel like if you don’t get nerves, that means you don’t care. Did I say 15 years? Jesus. 15 years doing stand-up, I still get nervous beforehand. Four seasons doing “Abbott,” I still get nervous. It just means that I care about my performance.

Villarreal: “Abbott” is a single-camera show. You’re not filming in front of an audience. And you’re used to doing your stand-up in front of people. What is a signal to you that you’re delivering Ava the way you want? Is it hearing a cameraman, his laughter come through or breaking one of your scene mates?

James: All of that, but also I’m just confident in my comedic timing at this point. I don’t need a response. I love it. [But] I don’t need a response anymore to know that I’ve hit the beats. Comedic timing is a skill just like anything else.

Villarreal: I lack it, so I have no idea what that’s like.

James: Thank you for admitting, because everybody thinks they can do it. I’d like to hear a man say it — never will happen. I always say my confidence in myself and in what I’m doing is earned. I think that’s part of what some people don’t like in Ava. Some people don’t like confident people because it makes them think about themselves. I feel like it’s OK to be confident. There’s confidence and narcissism. My confidence comes from putting in the work. I have the respect of my peers, in comedy and now in acting. I know what I’m doing. And, so, I don’t really need the instant feedback, but it’s lovely to have it, which is why I’m back onstage.

Villarreal: Do you think she always had it?

James: Ava? Yeah. Especially like I said, the first season, I’m the joke machine. One-liners wasn’t my thing, but I know what the beats are. I know the jokes are supposed to sound like and how it’s supposed to hit and how we’re supposed to parry off of another statement. Can you say parry? Is that a word? I don’t know. Is that tennis? I might have made it up, but hey, confidence. It’s a word.

Villarreal: One of the great things about the show is how the writers build the characters with these seemingly small details that say so much about the characters. For Ava, she owns a party bus, or she dated Allen Iverson, or she hasn’t used capital letters in years. What are some of the details that you’ve loved learning about her?

James: One of my favorites is that her “Hello” sign [on her desk] is facing her and that was totally a mistake when we did that. I had turned it and props turned it back, and both me and Quinta was like, “No, that’s funny if it’s facing you,” and now that’s become a thing because that’s totally something she would do, like, “Don’t come in here.” Anybody that comes in, she’s like, “Don’t come in my office, I’m doing my side hustles; I’m not really trying to talk to you, so no hello. Hello to me. You’re doing a great job, Ava.” I love just the continuity of our props department is hilarious in that I think Season 1 we took the picture with Gritty and she says, “Oh, this is cute picture I’m gonna have to Photoshop Janine out.” Then behind me for the whole season [is the framed photo], not Photoshopped, [but what] I think is is is even more cutting: She literally cut her [Janine] out [of] the picture with scissors. That’s some real hate. I love that. And the fact that she does know all these people that she’s talking about. She’s popular outside the school. She has all these hookups. Just recently, she had her list of high-net-worth drug dealers that came in. But also, that rings true. That’s who she would know. And those are the high earners in a neighborhood like that. It’s just, again, excellent storytelling to remind people where we are. We’re in the inner city in Philly. That’s what she knows. She grew up in that neighborhood, she knows them. She know they got money. That’s her friends. But she just happens to be a principal.

Villarreal: As you mentioned earlier, you’ve been in writers’ rooms before — “The Rundown With Robin Thede,” “Black Monday.” How does being behind the scenes and knowing what goes into making the show inform you as a performer?

James: Well, like I mentioned earlier, I leave them alone. I know it’s a different process than what we’re doing. I know it’s difficult to craft out a whole season. I’ve never been on a show that’s done 22 episodes and we just [deliver] back-to-back bangers — that’s amazing [and] even more reason to leave them alone. They know what they’re doing; Quinta knows what she’s doing. I feel like Quinta has a vision, not only for each season but from the start of the show to when we eventually end it. And I know for me, as the seasons go on, I’ve become more comfortable with suggesting things and maybe improv-ing. But only when asked, and I always ask first. I always try to say what’s on the paper. I never try to be like, “Oh, what I think might be funnier…” or whatever, even though that’s what I believe. I always do what’s the paper first. And then I say, “Hey, I have a suggestion,” and then I get to find out if they chose mine or not, and they frequently did.

Villarreal: How were you in writers’ rooms?

James: How was I? I feel like you got inside information.

Villarreal: No, no, I don’t. I don’t. Please share with me that experience because it feels intimidating.

James: Nah — I mean, it depends. I guess for some people. I ain’t intimidated by much. I’m a joke machine. I’ve only written for comedies so far, so that’s my bag. Pitch, pitch. If you want a joke, I’m all day with it. I have a story. I thought you had inside information with “Black Monday.” When I first started — it’s usually men. Was I the only woman? No, there was two women in that writers’ room. One of my favorite jobs, by the way. Let me just say that before they think I’m talking s—. All the men are pitching, and I said, “Ugh, ugh.” And I had just gotten there because I came in, like, late to the season. And my boss, David Caspe, was like, “What’s going on with you?” And I was like, “None of this is funny. I’m just waiting to hear some funny s—” or something like that. He wrote it on the window, and it stayed there for the whole season. Seeing it written, I was like, “That’s outta line.” But I meant it.

Villarreal: How did your fellow writers feel about that?

James: They loved me. I just saw one just recently, hugged me and everything.

Villarreal: Would you ever want to write an episode of “Abbott”?

James: Yeah, I was just talking about that with someone. I don’t know if we’re allowed. I also don’t how it would work because I wouldn’t be in the room to build with them. They start way before we do, and I know each episode is assigned to a writer. But it’s already pretty formulated by then. I don’t know if I would write, like, a one-off type of situation, but however it would work out, I would love that.

Villarreal: I would love to see that. Which character would you be interested in writing for?

James: Ooh, I think Tyler’s character is so interesting and funny. Tyler’s comedic timing is so funny and underrated. Quinta too. I love the Janine character. And then myself, duh. Everybody. I feel like I know the least about Barb’s. I feel I would maybe write her too much as a caricature.

Villarreal: I can only imagine the lines.

James: Easter Sunday every line. Chris too. Just some real — ooh, I almost cursed. Some real high jinks for him.

Villarreal: Do what you want.

James: Some real f— high jinks. That was in me the whole time. I was like, “Oh, God, can I say one curse word?”

Villarreal: Let it out.

James: One of my favorite things to do as the cast is when we’re in a group in the kitchen, and we have like we’re all bouncing off of each other — those are my favorite scenes. So, yeah, anything.

Villarreal: What’s it like filming with the kids? You don’t do it as often as some of the other actors on the show.

James: It’s great. I’m just always constantly surprised and impressed with how chill they are. I know me, we do [a scene] three times, I’m like, “All right, I am done with that.” But they are engaged, and they’re doing it, and they’re good. And it’s so amazing because I know, especially first season, we had a lot of kids who had never acted before, who aren’t even professional actors. A lot of Black kids, which we want to represent where we are, it’s very hard to be a child actor. A lot of times, if you’re a professional child actor, your parent has quit their job because they’ve got to drive you around auditions, they’ve got to be on set with you. And a lot of Black kids don’t have that privilege. So to have all these Black kids there and it’s their first acting job, and they’re so good. And now they’ve grown with the show.

Villarreal: Do they call you Miss James?

James: No, they call me Ava. Which is fine. The kids are the least annoying as far as approaching me as a character. They can call me whatever. Of course, they think that’s who I am. And I don’t mind performing for them. You want me to do the TikTok dances with you and all that? I don’t want them to feel like they have a job. I think that’s lame. You’re a child, let’s have fun and reward them for being so chill.

Villarreal: When the show was entering its second season, you made the decision to move out here. I know Tyler had to persuade you not to buy a Mazda —

James: Oh, that story. I have regrets, actually. I love a Mazda.

Villarreal: I’m more curious what that transition was like, moving out here, that period of settling in.

James: I had lived in L.A. for short periods just for a job, and I would go back to New York. That’s what happened with the first season. I remember we did the pilot and I was like, “That was cool.” I went right back home. Then we got picked up. I truly didn’t even know what that meant. Then we like did 13 [episodes] in the middle of the pandemic, by the way — I feel like a lot of people, of course, have wiped that from their brain, but we did all of that with the masks and [personal protective equipment]. So that was just a whirlwind of things happening. Then all of a sudden it’s, “Oh, it’s a hit, 22 episodes next season.” So that’s nine months out of the year. I’m like, “Well, I guess I live in L.A. now.” It was a big transition. I’ve been in New York for a long time, and I am a New Yorker — you hear it? I’m a New Yorker. And my family is still on the East Coast and my friends and my nightlife and my community. So, yeah, it’s been a big transition and I’ve left all my comedians, and I hang with actors.

Villarreal: On the subject of the growth with Ava, is there a limit to the growth you would like to see with her? Is there something that you don’t want to see from Ava as the series progresses?

James: I’m not afraid that this is going to happen, because if it would have, it would’ve happened already, [but] one thing I’m very pleased with is, although we’re revealing more about her, her core personality stays the same. She’s still that b— I liked, especially when she got fired, it wasn’t this big [moment] — on her part — of like, “Woe is me! What am I going to do now?” She was instantly like, “Next.” Find out that wasn’t even her main job. I loved that. And the next time you see her, she’s rising from the audience for her speaking engagements. She had people picking up her checks. But that’s who she is. She’s a hustler. That’s what I really relate to with her. I get that, “Next. Let’s move.” And anyone who dares to let me go, that’s your loss because I’m killing it and doing multiple things, which is not only relating to being a hustler, at the core of that is relating to being poor. That’s what you got to do. You got to have multiple streams. That’s what all those lame guys are talking about. Multiple streams. I saw a couple people [say], “I hope that we find out she’s been like lying this whole time.” She’s too fab for that. It is very true that this person exists who is a hustler, who is as fly as she says she is and who has not only book smarts but street smarts, which I think is very underrated, or what’s the word I’m looking for, not valued as much as a book learning. She has both.

Villarreal: Before we wrap, what is it like to have your performance captured in meme form and live on in that way? Do you find yourself actively thinking about that now?

James: A lot of times, I’ll see a meme, and it’s not even me. I don’t see it as myself. Maybe the first season, I was like, “Oh, my God, I can’t open my phone without seeing myself.” I also was living in a place where the billboard was right across from my window. I’m like, “That’s weird.” It’s really been a real — they said I could curse — mindf— sometimes, seeing myself so much and not even just in the context of the show. That’s what a meme is. It’s in a thread about taxes and then it’s me. I’m like, “What does this have to do with it?” But now I’m taking it more like, “Oh, wow, this character is like iconic. Not like, is iconic.” She’s in the lexicon. She’s gonna be around forever. Anytime somebody plays [Juvenile’s] “Back That A— Up,” they think about me.

Villarreal: Talk about that moment.

James: It’s crazy. Everywhere I walk in — I walk into the Ralphs, “Back That A— Up” on there. Everybody like, “Hey, that’s for you.”

Villarreal: The way people like glommed onto it, like it was all over TikTok with captions like, “This is me in my kitchen.”

James: Again, excellent writing, excellent character development. Because that is the song. Nothing is written because we just want it to be. That is the jam that people such as Ava and people in that age group, you hear it, you on the dance floor, and it would make you act out at work. It’s true.

Villarreal: Was that so fun to do?

James: Man, I was so nervous.

Villarreal: Were you worried you were not backing it up right?

James: Not even backing it up right. I had to find a middle ground. Hit show, ABC. I feel like I could have went crazy and they would have cut it up. But I also wanted it to be — I know grandmas and kids are watching, and I wanted it to be funny too. So I was trying to do so much in that little time. We had Randall, he’s circling around. How that was shot, it was like cinematic.

Villarreal: The timing.

James: I had a silk blouse, I was like, “I can’t be sweaty, I still gotta look fly, the hair gotta flow, gotta be a little funny, gotta be little sexy, gotta be believable that I’m letting loose.” It was a lot. Again, we’re doing so much, and I’m doing so much, in a short amount of time. That scene was maybe 30 seconds. I had to convey all of that in a dance. I’m not even saying anything. I’m doing my little giggle because that’s what girls do. I had to make all of that and remember what that feels like to hear that song.

Villarreal: To go from something like that, which again, like the joy and fun of a scene like that to the depth we saw this season from her, like I said, with like the moments of vulnerability, it’s such a testament to you and what you’re delivering. So kudos to you. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead with Season 5.

James: Thank you so much.

Aaron Pierre in “Rebel Ridge.”

(Allyson Riggs / Netflix)

Mark Olsen: You’ve been so busy these past few years, I can imagine there are times when you’re like, “What am I here to talk about?” You have so many projects that you’ve been involved in.

Aaron Pierre: I’ve been very fortunate and very blessed on my journey. I’m just trying to keep it about a commitment to doing the best work I can. A commitment to evolution and growth and just enjoying the moment.

Olsen: When you came to “Rebel Ridge,” there initially was another actor in the project who left. I’m curious, for you did you feel like you were jumping onto a moving train? What was it like to get involved in a project that was already in motion?

Pierre: The first time I heard about this project was from [director] Jeremy [Saulnier] himself. My team had read this script, which we now know to be “Rebel Ridge,” and they were just really thrilled and excited to have something cross their desks that felt original, that felt exciting and that energized them in a way that perhaps they hadn’t been energized in a long time. So more or less immediately, I read the script, got onto a Zoom with Jeremy himself, and we just immediately connected. I think there is something to be said for instincts and something to be said for a gut feeling, and I think in both departments we had a positive experience of that with one another, and we felt as though this collaboration would only be conducive to an enjoyable time. And that’s certainly what was happening.

Olsen: Did you know Saulnier’s work from his other films, “Green Room” or “Hold the Dark,” were you familiar with him before this came to you?

Pierre: Yes, I was familiar. My favorite is “Blue Ruin.” I think that is a masterpiece. And I think that is Jeremy arguably at his happiest as a filmmaker and just getting to flex all of those different muscles and talents that he has. After seeing “Blue Ruin,” I always wanted to work with him. I didn’t know if it would ever come to fruition or if it would even be a possibility. And then “Rebel Ridge” came along, and we got rockin’ and rollin’.

Olsen: You mentioned instinct and how you have to learn to trust your gut working with someone like Jeremy, saying yes to a project. At the end of it, do you ever get some sense of what that instinct was? “That was what I was responding to, that’s why I wanted to do this”?

Pierre: I have this sort of checklist for myself, any project that I do, when I wrap. At the end of it, if I can say that I did my best to give my best, and also if I can say that I earned my own respect — which is a very challenging thing to do because I demand so much from myself and I’m hypercritical of myself — but if I can check those two boxes, then I feel satisfied. I don’t try and control or puppeteer anything beyond that because the space that I’m in, you’re in, we’re in, it is so subjective. But that’s why we love it. It’s art. And if I can have that peace in myself of, “I really gave everything I had,” then beyond that whatever happens is just additional blessings. And to have the response that “Rebel Ridge” received was beyond my wildest dreams, to be honest with you. Speaking candidly, I’m still processing it now. It was really moving. I think in part it was so moving because we poured so much into it. Everybody in every department. I’m not speaking exclusively about the cast. I’m not speaking exclusively about the director and the [producers]. I’m talking about everybody, from crafty to catering to transpo[rtation] to the teamsters to the crew. Everybody poured so much into it. We were all there every day from the beginning to the end. And I think there is something so beautiful about a project which is so physical and demands so much. That sort of brings you all together. So I’m just thrilled for everybody who poured themselves into this, and it really wouldn’t have been possible without everybody’s commitment to it and everybody’s commitment to excellence.

Olsen: When you say that you’re still processing your feelings about it, what’s changed for you? How do you feel your response to the movie has evolved?

Pierre: I think what I’m processing still is just the abundance of joy that it gave people and the reception it received. So many people have reached out to myself, to Jeremy, to others who were part of project and shared what it meant to them. And even requested a sequel. I just feel very grateful, and really the film wouldn’t be what it is today without the audience. And that really ties into why I do what I do — I don’t take myself seriously, but I do take what I do and my craft very seriously. And that is me attempting to honor the time and the energy that an audience gifts you with when they engage with a film, or they engage with a TV series, or they come to the theater and watch a play that you’re in. Life is busy. Life is hard. People have multiple things to juggle. So when people gift you with that time, I feel as though, as an artist, as an actor, whatever I want to describe myself as, I have a commitment to honor that. And that really just ties into the audience response. Just to get that, it feels really special.

Olsen: One of the things that’s so remarkable about your performance in the film is you remain so calm through the whole thing. No matter how wild the story and the action gets, you’re still very cool throughout. How did you come to that choice? Tell me a little bit about that essential nature of your performance.

Pierre: I arrived at the decision that I wanted Terry to feel like — I wanted his energy to be “loudest quietest person in the room.” And what I mean by that is, I wanted his silence to speak tremendous volumes. Somebody who steps into a room and they don’t say anything, but the fact that they don’t say anything is so loud. The fact that they are not demonstrative in their physicality is so loud, and almost their lack of emoting at times, their lack of being physical at times, is what indicates their capacity and is what tells you everything you need to know about them. That’s what I was playing with during the entire filming process. And it was a lot of fun to do so. That’s one of the beautiful things about a character that is so wonderfully written. Terry is written in such a dynamic way, in such a nuanced way and really such a generous way. And I have to credit that to Jeremy as the writer, he was so generous in how he created Terry, so that the individual that portrayed him had so much to work from.

Olsen: People often talk about Jeremy’s work as being slow-burn thrillers. That’s what they call them because they typically take a while to get to the action and to really pop off. Was pacing something that you talked about with Jeremy, both in how the story was going to be paced, but also how your performance was going to be paced? How do you capture that sense of the slow burn?

Pierre: As an actor, I think doing things in a slow pace is not something I have an issue with. If anything, directors have to say, “Hey, Aaron, let’s [pick it up]” because I like to enjoy moments in the context of portraying a character. So this was exactly the lane that I enjoy operating in, so far as action and thriller. I love enjoying those beats and enjoying those moments and really being unapologetic about it. So it was a lot of fun. The moment where, for example, Terry rides into where the sheriff’s office and he puts his pedal bike down and he just waits there calmly, and then Don Johnson comes out and he has this whole speech about P.A.C.E. and he breaks [the acroynm] down: I could be wrong, but I feel like a number of other action movies might have taken the route of, let’s just get straight to it. But I love that Jeremy had his character break down what was going to happen should this police department not adhere to his request. I love moments like that. I love that Jeremy was so unapologetic about it, and that gave me permission as his collaborator within this film to also be unapologetic.

Olsen: That is one of my favorite scenes in the movie as well, because it’s this very tense dialogue scene between you and Don Johnson, and then it suddenly erupts into a very physical, rough-and-tumble fight, a physical sequence between you, Don and another actor. I have to say, it sure looks like that’s really you in close combat with those two guys. What kind of training did you do for that? And what was it like to sort of go from paced, restrained dialogue to break into the action like that?

Pierre: Oh, it was so much fun. You’ll hear me commend and celebrate the crew a lot because they deserve it, they earned it, and they’re just phenomenal. I had a lot of help with the physicality of Terry, with the intellect of Terry, from the stunt department and from our advisors. [Marine Corps Martial Arts Program] instructors, for example. We really did a lot of physical training prior to production commencing. We did wrestling training, we did boxing training, we sparred. So I was really in my body. I’m already a student of martial arts, and I love it. It’s the most humbling thing in the world, and I just adore it. And I’ll always be a student of it. So that was really fun for me, to be able to do that for my job. By the time we got to choreography, it just felt somewhat fluid and easy because moving in that way was already in my body. That was how we warmed up, that’s how we would sometimes start days, that’s sometimes how we would end days. That’s sometimes how we would spend a day on the weekend. So it was really in me at that time. And again, it goes back to being the loudest quietest person in the room. I like that Terry goes from that speech to, “OK, you’ve now left me no option but to demonstrate everything I just told you I had the capacity to do, but I was hoping not to have to do.” There was sort of a running joke in the crew that Terry is there to teach manners.

Olsen: There also is a scene in the film where Terry, your character, is on a bicycle and he’s racing a bus. And I’ve seen some of the behind-the-scenes footage. You’re on this contraption that’s sort of a motorized cart that has a bicycle sticking off the front of it. But I have to say, I would 100% believe that you were, like, racing that bus.

Pierre: So here’s the thing. As you know, it takes a lot to make a film and it takes a lot to capture a scene like that. And all of these get cut together, and then it all just looks seamlessly like one take, or whatever it might be. But there was a version of that bus scene where I’m pursuing the bus on a pedal bike, just me. There’s a version of it where I’m pursuing the bus on a bike rig that is fueled by a motor, almost like a small go-kart. There’s a version of it where I’m quite literally attached to the bus and I am physically pedaling and exerting myself as hard as I can. And then [key grip] Big Bruce Lawson — who I love, by the way — he’s gently pushing me closer and closer to where the driver is, driving the bus. So all three of these versions require me to pedal, but not all of them am I making movement purely on my own accord. Then you put them all together and it looks seamless and wonderful.

Olsen: How surprised are you when you see the final product? Like, “Whoa, looks pretty good!”

Pierre: I have to be honest, with Jeremy, I wasn’t surprised. Jeremy’s Jeremy, he does wonderful work all the time as far as I’m concerned. I remember well before the film came out, he showed me an early cut, I think it was maybe like the first eighth of the film, and I was just really excited by it. And then to see the final product, I just commend him.

Olsen: There also are a number of scenes in the film where you disassemble a gun, a handgun, in your hands without really looking at it while you’re doing it, like you’re looking at another person while you are taking this gun apart. How hard is that? I don’t think I could ever manage that. Had you had any kind of weapons training from other projects?

Pierre: Not prior to “Rebel Ridge.” But I really had to immerse myself in that in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve, which was authenticity. And which was honoring Marines. That’s very important to me, as it’s very important to me with every role that I play to be authentic and to honor the individual and the history of that individual and their respective communities and units. So I really immersed myself in it, and even reflecting on it now, I’m surprised that I managed to even get to the level where I could do a scene and be looking you in the eye but [be] disassembling a gun or unloading a gun and unloading a magazine and putting that on the side. They really had me in sort of like a boot camp, and luckily I took to it. Because one thing about Jeremy is we will not move on from the scene until it’s seamless, and that’s what I love about him.

Olsen: Were there any other films that you and Jeremy would talk about or maybe that he showed you as a reference as you were working on this part?

Pierre: Actually, no. I mean, of course, he and I were aware of wonderful films that share similar themes. But for the whole maybe three-month shoot, we didn’t actually speak about any other action films. And I even remember Don, Jeremy and I one day, I think we were shooting the scene where Don’s character takes Terry with David Denman’s character to the hospital before they break the news to him. And Don actually doesn’t watch any films when he’s shooting a film. So that was kind of the energy, actually, while we were filming “Rebel Ridge”: Let’s just focus on creating this original film without influence or at least without any conscious influence. Of course, it’s art, so subconsciously you’re always going to be influenced; it’s going to be a version of [something]. And that’s inspiration. But we really just focused on “Rebel Ridge” and how do we want to tell the story of “Rebel Ridge.”

Olsen: Tell me more about working with Don Johnson. He seems like a super cool guy that it would be fun to meet and hang around with. But then it’s funny that he’s so good at playing this like really smug jerk of a crooked sheriff.

Pierre: Don and I get along really wonderfully. It’s so funny, I think actually the fact that we got along so well allowed us to create such tension and friction within the scenes because we were able to, outside of the context of the scenes, discuss what we wanted to achieve and how we wanted to achieve it. And then when the cameras started rolling, we had substance because we had everything we had discussed. And in those moments, it wasn’t Aaron and Don, it was really Terry and the sheriff. Jeremy creates this environment where it really is conducive to, I think, the best work, because he protects with everything the scene and the place where the scene is taking place. So you can have a laugh and a joke outside, because you know as soon as you step into that atmosphere, that arena, you’re in that world now.

Olsen: The story of the film is about a Black man coming into a Southern town. Race is a real undercurrent to the story, and yet it’s something that apart from one scene, where a Black female police officer calms down a group of white men, it’s never really explicit in the film. For you, what was it like to have that sort of bubbling underneath? Did you like the fact that there was never a big conversation about it, that’s not that scene in the movie. How did you feel about the way the story dealt with that?

Pierre: I think Jeremy did a brilliant job of navigating multiple important and pressing issues, all within one film. And I think he did it in a way that was not didactic. And I might even say that … allowed for it to resonate even deeper with audiences. Because versus the audience is feeling like they were being sat down, it was more of an invitation to come and engage in this conversation with us, within the context of the film.

Olsen: I want to go back to something you said earlier, that you feel on a project you have to earn your own respect. Can you talk a bit more about what means to you? What, in essence, does it take for you to earn your own respect?

Pierre: When an audience engages with your work in any capacity — theater, film, TV, radio, wherever it is — that’s them gifting you with their time. Time is precious. Time is valuable. I need to feel as though I’ve served the character. I need to feel as though I’ve served the story. I need to feel as though I’ve served the creative team. And I need to feel as though I’ve served the audience. Even if an audience walks away from something and they say, “That wasn’t for me,” that’s OK because the work is subjective. Just so long as the result of that wasn’t me not giving my all. If I don’t give my all, I’m not at peace. And I think that really just comes from gratitude for the opportunity. And that ferocity of work ethic that I have is just fueled by gratitude. I’m well aware that this is something that isn’t a given, to be blessed in a position where you can tell stories on this level with such wonderful creatives. I’ve been in a position where this is everything I wanted to do, all I could do, but I was unemployed and I was in a very financially challenging position and telling people I’m an actor, but I had nothing, nothing to show. So I think actually having all of those life experiences of those rough times, and those challenging times, when I am now in this position where I’m fortunate to have an abundance of options and things available for me to engage with, it’s just never missed on me. Ever. And it just would never feel right to take that for granted. What are we doing here? We have an opportunity, let’s give it our all. Maybe it lands flat, maybe it’s a major success, but whatever we’re doing, let’s not hold our punches, let’s give everything we’ve got.

Olsen: Last year, you were also in “Mufasa: The Lion King,” you did the voice of Mufasa. And as I understand it, you had previously worked with Barry Jenkins on “The Underground Railroad” —

Pierre: That’s big bro.

Olsen: And as I understand it, he initially reached out to you. He saw you onstage, and he sent you a DM.

Pierre: He did.

Olsen: As an actor, is that kind of what you’re hoping for? You can’t even really hope for that to happen, in a way.

Pierre: I thought somebody was messing with me, I promise you. We had just finished an evening performance at Shakespeare’s Globe on the South Bank, of “Othello.” Mark Rylance was playing Iago, Andre Holland was playing Othello. Phenomenal actors both. The whole team, phenomenal actors. And I just finished the evening show, and I think I was coming out of the underground at Earl’s Court Station and my phone pinged. And it was a DM from Barry, and I was like, “This has got to be a joke. Somebody has heard me talking about how much I want to collaborate with him, heard me talking extensively about what he achieved with ‘Moonlight.’” And then I opened it and it had the little verified blue tick, and I was like, “This is actually Barry Jenkins.” And he was just saying, “Hey, man, I really enjoyed your work on the stage as Cassio, I have this project upcoming. And I would like to engage in a conversation with you about it.” That was a really special moment for me.

Olsen: With “The Lion King” in particular, what was it like taking on the role of Mufasa, originally voiced by James Earl Jones? Was it a challenge for you to find your own way, essentially your own voice, for that character?

Pierre: First and foremost, James Earl Jones originated Mufasa and is and always will be synonymous with Mufasa, and his portrayal is just so beautiful and timeless. And it’s not only with me for the rest of my life but with all of us for the rest of our lives. And most importantly, it can never be matched. That actually brought me a lot of peace entering that conversation and entering that creative process. Knowing that is in its own stratosphere, and rightly so, it gave me a lot of peace and it gave me permission to find my own version. And I hope that he would be proud of the version that I discovered, and I hope that he would feel as though we did everything we could to uphold the legacy that he established and the legacy that he built. Because that was our intention and that was what we were striving for. And, just on a separate note, James Earl Jones, he’s the top of the mountain for me. I study him. He’s just the top of the mountain for me.

Olsen: As we’re having this conversation, you’re in the midst of production on “Lanterns,” which is a very different production from “The Lion King.” I’ve seen this iteration of the Green Lantern story described as a sci-fi “True Detective.” And I’m curious just how that project is going for you and what the experience so far of shooting that has been like?

Pierre: It’s been great. It’s been a really beautiful process and experience. Everybody is so close. Everybody is so tight and connected. And I think that is because we all love this project.

Olsen: You also are in the upcoming season of “The Morning Show,” again a very different project, and I’m curious, for you as an actor, do you feel like this has kind of become your moment? As an actor you work so long and so hard. What is it like for you when it seems like suddenly so many things are lining up for you?

Pierre: It’s very surreal. It’s very surreal. There was a time when there was nothing available to me, despite me trying to have things available to me. So it’s very surreal. Again, I’m abundantly grateful, and I think it’s about just utilizing these moments to learn, to grow, to evolve. And just to serve this space as best I can. It’s impossible not to have an amazing time on “The Morning Show.” All of those wonderful artists and creatives, we had a really great time.

In the latest episode of The Envelope video podcast, we sit down with “Paradise” creator Dan Fogelman in front of a live audience at the Newport Beach TV Festival to hear what he has planned for Season 2 of Hulu’s buzzy dystopian drama and much more.

Kelvin Washington: Hey, everybody, welcome to this week’s episode of The Envelope. Kelvin Washington here alongside Yvonne Villarreal and Mark Olsen as usual. You two, we want to have a conversation about Emmy nominations. We know they’re gonna be coming up — this will be the last episode before we find out who is nominated — so you got some some bold takes? You got some things on your mind? Don’t roll your eyes!

Yvonne Villarreal: No, not rolling! I’m getting ready. You know, streaming obviously still dominates a lot of the conversation, whether it’s “Severance” or “The Studio.” But I’m going to say, I look forward to seeing my girl Kathy Bates get a nomination for “Matlock” on CBS. That is my prediction and I’m sticking with it.

Washington: All right, Mark, you got a bold one for us?

Olsen: I’m going to go with Matt Berry for “What We Do in the Shadows.” The show just wrapped up its sixth and final season. And he’s just been such a comedic powerhouse on that show. And season after season, he’s been so inventive, so fun. And I just think it’d be great to see him recognized for the totality of the work that he’s done there.

Washington: The person I’m gonna name is in this show you mentioned, “Severance.” Tramell Tillman. Milchick. There’s a moment on my other show that I do, I danced and everyone said, “Oh, you’re Milchick! What do you think, you’re Milchick?” Everyone’s just screaming — it was a whole thing. That was one of the signature moments of the season, I think.

Villarreal: Why don’t you ever do that here?

Washington: First off, it’s early. You don’t know what I’m gonna do the rest of this episode. You don’t know.

Villarreal: I don’t have a drumline here.

Olsen: He’s in the new “Mission: Impossible,” “The Final Reckoning,” and I saw that at a public [screening], and the moment he came onscreen, people cheered in the audience. Like he has such a fan base from the show.

Villarreal: Well earned.

Olsen: Beautiful thing for him! Let’s talk about, you had something cool you got to do, Yvonne, speaking with someone that you’re familiar with, Dan Fogelman, showrunner for “Paradise.” You got to this at the Newport Beach TV Festival, where you sat down and had this conversation in front of a live audience. He got a showrunner of the year award as well. It was really cool, right?

Villarreal: It was very scary. I do like audiences, but I do get a little nervous. Speaking with somebody that I’ve talked to many times helps ease the sort of stage fright there. Dan Fogelman is somebody that I have spoken to a lot of times over the years because I covered “This Is Us” from beginning to end.

And it’s funny because I remember, last year I was on the set of “Only Murders in the Building,” which he is a producer on, and they were filming on the Paramount lot for their sort of trip to L.A. last season. And he had just started production on “Paradise” on the same lot. And he took a break and headed over to our neck of the woods on the Paramount lot to show everybody a cut of a scene that they had just wrapped for “Paradise.” He was so excited to share that with everyone, and he’s like, “Yvonne, you gotta see this, you gotta see this,” and it’s Sterling K. Brown doing a scene and you’re just in awe of it. This show has political intrigue, there’s a murder mystery, there’s the destruction of the planet, and the premise is Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent who’s accused of killing the president and is sort of trying to unravel who was really at fault here, and that’s just on the surface. There’s a lot more to it than that because Dan Fogelman is known for his twists, and he didn’t disappoint here. So it was really fun to unpack that with him in front of an audience

Washington: A whole lot of twists in that show, for sure. All right, without further ado, let’s get to that chat with Dan Fogelman. Here’s Yvonne.

Sterling K. Brown in “Paradise.”

(Brian Roedel / Disney)

Villarreal: Dan and I go way back.

Fogelman: “This Is Us” days.

Villarreal: I had the great privilege of covering “This Is Us” from beginning to end. And that show, I would often come to you and say, “Why are you making me cry?” And “Can you make me cry some more?” This show, it was very much, “What is going on here?” Talk about the genesis of this show, because it actually predates “This Is Us,” the kernel of the idea.

Fogelman: I’d started thinking about this show long before “This Is Us.” When I was a young writer in Hollywood, they start sending you on all these “general” meetings, which is, basically, you go to meetings with important people with no agenda. And it can be a very awkward dance. You tell your same origin story a hundred times. At one of these meetings, I was meeting with a captain of industry, a very important person. As that person was speaking to me, I was not hearing anything he or she was saying. I was calculating how much money I thought they were worth. I was thinking, “Is this a billionaire? Am I in the room with a billionaire?” And on the way home — this was a long time ago — it was in the shadow of 9/11, and a nearby construction site dropped something, and it made a loud boom, one of those booms that shakes you for a second, and I thought to myself, “Wow, when the s— really hits the fan, that guy’s gonna be as screwed as all the rest of us, because all the people that must take care of him are going to run after taking care of their own people.”

I started thinking about that. I started to think about a Secret Service agent and a president, somebody whose job it is to take a bullet. And this idea of telling a murder mystery of an ex-president underground and learning later that the world has ended above. That was the impetus behind it. I kind of put it away. I wrote “This Is Us.” I talked with some big sci-fi writers about the idea, thinking maybe I could produce it for somebody better than me to make it. And then when “This Is Us” ended, I was like, “I’m gonna try and do that one.” And so it took like 15 years to come back around.

Villarreal: What do you remember about those conversations with the other sci-fi writers?

Fogelman: People thought, “Oh, that’s a cool idea.” But that’s as far as it goes because that’s lot of work to then figure out the cool idea. And that became the problem with this show. I wrote it and I had to sit down and figure out how we were going to do it, and what was the tone going to be, and what were the twists and turns. They all kind of said, “Thanks but no thanks,” because it seemed really hard, I think. I just waited and did it. It takes a while and it takes a village; it takes a lot of writers sitting with you and figuring out how to shape the world.

Villarreal: How much was it tugging at you during “This Is Us”?

Fogelman: During “This Is Us,” I was pretty in “This Is Us” and a couple of other projects at the time. The last two years were like fraught with COVID, and there was no more in-person stuff, and everybody was wearing masks on set. It was a really tough two years of a six-year show. At the end, in the final season, we did 18 episodes and I had 18 Post-it notes on my wall in my office, and each time I would finish a script, I would “X” it out. And each time I’d finish an edit, I’d “X” it out. Because that was how much left I had to do. They’re still on my wall in my office to this day because it was so exhausting and it was such a big accomplishment to just be done with that, when it was over, I was like, “Oh, now’s the part where I take the Post-it notes off the wall.” And I never did. They’re just still hanging on by a thread there. But then I took a break for six months, and I started getting the itch to write something. That idea kept poking through and poking through. I just wrote it without telling anybody first.

Villarreal: One of my favorite things about a creator like Dan, a writer like Dan, is you’re that person who likes to watch people watch something. During “This Is Us,” I remember you would be so excited about a scene or something, and you’d be like, “You gotta see this,” and you would screen it in the next room. “Paradise” too — when “Only Murders in the Building” was shooting on the Paramount lot for their trip to L.A., you were doing “Paradise” at the same time, and you took a break to sort of come see the set of “Only Murders,” which you’re an executive producer on. And you had this scene with Sterling and you wanted to show it.

But you were hesitant about pitching this to Sterling, which I’m sort of surprised by because I think you know when something’s good. Talk a little bit about what made you nervous about giving it to him and what he would say.

Fogelman: I’m a person who operates off of obligation. My best friend, [who] gave a speech at my wedding, said, “You can ask Dan for anything and he’ll feel too guilty not to do it.” He’s like, “He’s my ride home tonight” — that was his joke at my wedding. I felt worried that Sterling would feel obligated after “This Is Us.” When we ended “This Is Us,” I remember very vividly Sterling wrapping, and I did a little impromptu quick thing when he was wrapping and I was like, “Sterling, you go out in the world now and make us proud.” We could all see what’s coming for Sterling and what remains to be coming for him. I was like, “Go win your Oscars. Don’t forget us when you’re even more famous” — that kind of thing. To come back to him a year and a half later with a script for another TV show with the same guy, I wasn’t worried that he wouldn’t like it; I was worried that it would put him in a weird position. He was so gracious. I sent it to him. I had written it picturing Sterling but never vocalizing that to myself. Then I started letting friends read it to get their feedback, and they’re like, “Did you develop this with Sterling, or was it his idea?” And I was like, “No, I’ve never talked to Sterling about this.” And it started occurring to me that if I didn’t get Sterling, I had a huge problem because that is who I’ve been picturing. I sent it to him, and he read it that day and called me back and said, “Tell me where it goes” — because obviously if you watch the pilot, it doesn’t tell you a lot about where it’s going. I gave him the broad strokes of where it was going for three seasons. I said: “It’s three seasons, I want to shoot it in L.A. Here’s what the arc of it is. Here’s where it’s going. Here’s what happened in the world.” And he said, “I’m in.” We just kind of shook hands. And that day we were off to the races.

Villarreal: What did he think about the twists in that first episode?

Fogelman: Sterling emotes, right? Sterling will come into the writers’ room — he’s an executive producer on the show — and if you pitch him something surprising, he falls to the floor and rolls on his back like a golden retriever. He reacts and he emotes. So, he was really into it. He had the same question I think everybody had after the pilot, which is, “What happens now?” I kind of had the rough answers. As you know, he’s the best guy. I was just outside, and somebody was asking me, like, “How do you get Julianne Nicholson and James Marsden to do your show?” I’m like, “Well, it helps if you already have Sterling K. Brown because they all want to work with Sterling.” And hopefully they tolerate me and the script. It’s been a gift with him.

Villarreal: You said Sterling sort of became the person you were thinking about as it evolved. How did you decide who should be which characters? Why was Sterling right for Xavier? Why was Julianne right for this tech billionaire?

Fogelman: There’s not a lot of art to it. You just kind of see it in your brain a little bit. Sterling I’d worked with, I had known Julianne and James from their work, not personally. The other actors in the show, for the most part, I’d known of their work or whatnot. Most of them read, and when you’re doing this job, a big part of your job is you see a lot of really beautiful, talented people read the same lines of dialogue. And your job is to think, “Which person fits it? And which person makes it most interesting?” Jon Beavers, who plays Billy Pace, was an actor I didn’t know. And I really wanted him from the moment I saw him on tape. I was like, “This is the guy for that part.” But I knew, because it was only four episodes, that there might be a clamoring for a bigger name in the part. Because it would be possible. Because you could go cast anybody because it’s a month of work if they were willing to pay him. And so Jon came in and he read and he read again. And then you get to a part where it’s like chemistry tests. And he was reading with Nicole [Brydon Bloom] and a couple of other people who [were in the running to] play Jane. And I just loved him. He walked out of the room at the end of it, and I ran out after him and I said, “Jon, would you ever look at a new scene that I haven’t given you yet? It’s from the fourth episode, and you’ve only got the pilot to audition off of.” I knew the scene was big, and I wanted to have a piece of material that would be undeniable if I needed it to win with the powers that be. And Jon sat with the scene for three minutes and came in to me and said, “I’m ready.” And he came in, and it became his big scene right before his death in the show where he confronts Julianne’s character, Sinatra. And actually, when I first Zoomed with Julianne, I showed her the scene. I was like, you want to see something cool? This guy did this in three minutes without any preparation and look how good it is. And so part of it is just like a gut instinct or really liking somebody for it. And I had that with everybody in the cast on this one.

Should I be funnier? I feel like I should be funny.

Villarreal: Do you have a Sterling story?

Fogelman: What’s my best Sterling story…

Villarreal: He’s bare naked in this.

Fogelman: Oh, my God. When I first showed him — because Sterling takes eight years to watch or read anything, except for this pilot. And it drives me crazy because I want Sterling to like it, and I’m very excited. I’m like, “Have you seen the second episode?” He’s like, “I haven’t had time, man.” I’m like, “You haven’t had time to watch a 50-minute episode of television? It’s been a month!” And it drives you crazy. But then he finally saw that third episode and he was like, “Dan, all anyone’s going to talk about is my ass. Is it gonna be released in the first batch of episodes?” ’Cause he went a hundred years down the road and was seeing the press where they always wanted to ask a question about his ass. But he loves it. He’s so proud of it. And the first person to see “Paradise” was my mother-in-law [and wife]. I showed them the first three episodes at home before anyone had seen it. [My mother-in-law] had lived and breathed “This Is Us” with me; my wife was in the show. And when that part came on, the shower, she started fanning herself. And she said “Oh, Sterling!” That made him very happy. That was his proudest moment of the show, I think.

Villarreal: This show is marketed as a political thriller, and the question that looms over the season is, “Who killed the president?” But then you get to the final moments of that season opener and you realize, “OK, there’s a lot more to this. This seemingly all-American town is really this community carved under a Colorado mountain after an apocalyptic event.” What was going through your mind in terms of how to piece it out? How meticulous were you in the edit — like, is this is revealing too much too soon?

Fogelman: It’s less in the edit, because at the edit you’re already pretty bound to what you’ve scripted, but it was in the writing stages. My intent for the show was that in the first season of eight episodes, we were going to provide answers every week, ask new questions and hopefully have provided a complete meal by the end of the season where, for the most part, I think any question you’ve been asking in the course of the first series of the show is answered by the end of the season. I was very clinical about that. I get frustrated when shows give you too much too quickly but also when they withhold for too long. I thought, for this one, I wanted to be really calculated about it. In the second episode, you start learning, “Oh, wow, the world really did end, something catastrophic happened” and you’re learning more about Sinatra; in the opening sequence of [Episode] 2, Sinatra is telling all these other scientists that something imminent is coming for the world. We would constantly, in the writers’ room, put ourselves in the minds of the television audience. If I was watching at home, I’d say, “Oh, they’re all in the ‘Truman Show’; this is all fake, it’s a social experiment.” At what point do we get rid of that theory for the audience? At what point do we tell the audience and show the audience what actually happened on the day the world ended? And so that was really calculated with how we were gonna parse it out.

Villarreal: The press get episodes ahead of time. But it was interesting watching people watch it week to week and see their reactions on social media. The show launched with three episodes, then it switched to weekly. How much were you involved in those discussions about starting with three episodes at launch?

Fogelman: That was a big conversation. I’ve got a great studio and network who involve me in the conversations. I don’t know if I could move the needle if I disagreed strongly with anything, but they at least involve me. My first instinct had been, “Let’s let the pilot be the only thing that gets put out in the world and let people talk about it and what that ending says.” But then you have to acknowledge the fact that people are being served television in just a very different way these days. The whole point of the show is I wanted to make something that was hopefully artful and well done but also propulsive, and you don’t want to frustrate people. We’re accustomed to hitting that drip of next episode, next episode. So while I did want that week-to-week build and momentum, I was also aware we have to give them a little bit more to hook them in. And ultimately you trust the people that are like, “We know how things play.” I wanted this show to get seen. That was a big conversation: Was it one episode? Was it two? Or was it three? Ultimately, they decided three. The downside of that is you get less weeks to build the momentum of a television show that people are starting to talk about. It worked in our favor this time. I think it’s what we’re going to do this coming season, most likely. We do it on “Only Murders” as well — release two or three up top. I did “This Is Us” and other network television shows where it was like, you know when “This Is Us” launched, it had that big twist ending, and then people sat on it for a week and talked. But it was a different time. It was 2016, and we were not as on that Netflix kind of drip of just sitting like hamsters hitting the dopamine button. You have to weigh that. I love a weekly release. My whole goal with this show was to capture a small sliver of the zeitgeist where people could be talking about something, hypothesizing and talking, and I knew that required a weekly release. But how many [episodes to launch with] to get people like locked and loaded was a big debate.

Villarreal: What was the episode or the moment that you were most eager to see how people responded to?

Fogelman: So, my process always has been, I find strangers — I could pick out 20; I try and have them vetted by people who know them, so friends of my writers, friends of actors — and I start bringing them into my edit bay early and screen for them. There’s this old screening process that used to happen in television and film, which is really bad, because you just literally give people dials. You guys familiar with this? You give people dials and you say, “When are you liking something? Turn up your dial.” All you’ll hear is they don’t like that actor, they don’t like that moment. And I’m like, “Well, yeah, the grandfather was dying. I don’t expect them to be going, ‘Weeeee!’” It was a very broken system. But I do believe in screening stuff for people and seeing how they react, even if you’re not going to change it; even if you go, “Well, you’re stupid, you don’t get how brilliant I am.” I bring people into my edit bay all the time and strangers who sign [nondisclosure agreements] — I would do that on “This Is Us,” I did that here. I was very interested to see what happened at the end of the pilot to people. Are they following it? Are they following the ending the right way, the way I want them to? After that, you would start hearing murmurings in the room as the camera’s rising and as the guy’s going “the world’s ending” and they realize they’re underground. After, I will say things like, “When did you start realizing something was amiss? Did any of you get ahead of it?” I will get a little bit more granular. It was exciting in the fourth episode when we killed a character, watching an audience in my small little edit bay, watching them go with that episode, knowing we were about to pull the rug out from under them. And that they were going to have a reaction — that was exciting. It’s exciting when it goes the way you want it to go. They were turning to me going, “You motherf—, you can’t!” You’re like, “Oh, good. That’s good. That’s a good day at work!” Watching people watch that last episode and feeling them move with the explosions, that’s my most exciting thing. I started doing films, and this experience of communally watching stuff you don’t get in television. For me, you get limited opportunities to watch people react to the thing that you slave over every detail of as a group. I have 300 people making our TV show right now, and we never get to see people watch it. That’s a really exciting part.

Villarreal: Fans are so savvy — they can rewatch, they can zoom in, they can pause and really look at details. Are you ever worried they’re going to get to the mystery before you’ve gotten there?

Fogelman: I screen ad nauseam. As an example, in our premiere, there’s an assassination attempt of the president in the premiere, and the guy doing the assassination attempt is a character that hides in plain sight throughout the series; then we get to the end, and that’s the murderer.

Villarreal: Spoiler alert.

Fogelman: But that actor’s mother, or longtime manager, was at the premiere and said to the actor, “I wish I got to see an episode you were in.” And he was like, “I was in that episode.” And she said, “What?” We do that level of testing where we feel pretty confident when it’s going out in the world, it’s not gonna get spoiled. But we were locking our pilot, the first episode, before Christmas, to air in January, and the big expensive shot was the big final shot that goes up and reveals the inner workings of the dome. I showed my brother-in-law and my sister-in law. My brother-in-law had taken way too many weed gummies, so he wasn’t the best audience, but at the end, he’s like, “Are they in outer space?” I kind of was like, “You’re so stoned. You need to stop with the weed gummies.” But then somebody else in the room was like, “Oh, I thought that for a second.” I went back into my writers; I was like, “Go screen it for your families more.” And one out of every 20 persons was having a misunderstanding that they were in a space station. So we went back and we spent a fortune — I had people work over the holidays because I got more granular. I was like, “What is it that’s saying space station to people?” And it was these red lights we had combined with a couple of other different lighting choices, and we went to the drawing board with our visual effects to make sure there was no confusion about what was going on at the end of it. I’ve always said good television is made by people who take it way too seriously. And I have like 20 people in my writers’ room and 300 people on my crew that take it really seriously and that’s part of it.

Villarreal: How does it compare to sort of the secrecy that surrounded “This Is Us”? There were red scripts, there were NDAs.

Fogelman: The world has moved faster now, so I’m less worried about it. “This Is Us” was an anomaly because it was so in the zeitgeist for a moment — “How did he die? What were the secrets?” But it was also so early in this moment of the internet and spoilers and whatnot that now I’ve kind of chilled out a little bit. I do “Only Murders in the Building,” and the showrunner of that show, John Hoffman, is very frenetic all the time that if one little Easter egg is in a trailer, it’s going to ruin the surprise for everybody. And I worry a little bit less now, maybe because I’m old and lazy, but I worry a little less. I think the media is pretty forgiving. I watch “Survivor,” it’s my favorite show, and I’m so tired of those blurbs you see on your timeline that they show the face of the person who got voted out the night before; it drives me absolutely insane. I have to like blur my vision all the time. I hate it. But I think for the most part, the media’s done a better job [with] if there’s a spoiler, you’re going to have to dig for it as opposed to it being accidentally in your face. I thought “White Lotus,” did it [well]; everybody was really responsible with it this year.

Villarreal: Inherent to this apocalyptic event is this idea of starting over, starting fresh and trying to correct some of the mistakes or errors of the past. What intrigued you about those existential questions at play here?

Fogelman: I think we’re all there a little bit right now. I had this idea 15 years ago, and the idea that everything was changing and it was quicksand under our feet was a little less prevalent back then. I was very drawn into the early years of “The Walking Dead” — those early seasons of that show were so good because ultimately it wasn’t about zombies or apocalypse, it was about, “If the s— hits your fan, what levels will you go to to protect the people you love? How far would you break bad?” I was interested in that notion. I was interested in the notion of putting a really good man in the center of it as opposed to an antihero. Because Sterling exudes decency as a human being, and this character is so hard and quiet and [an] old-school action hero. I was curious about what it was like to put that guy in that world, so that appealed to me.

I went to a little carnival recently, and my little boy wanted to get a balloon animal. He was really patiently waiting in line for the balloon animal. And I was watching him, and he was really patiently just waiting and waiting, and this mother kept coming over and bringing multiple kids and cutting the line in front of him because her kid was in front him, and she kept bringing friends and other kids. And I was using it as a case study and I was watching my little boy; I’m like, “I wonder how he’s gonna react.” He stood there patiently, but the balloon animal guy said “five more minutes and I’m packing up.” I was like, “Oh, is he gonna run out of time?” I was originally watching it as a case study on my little boy. Then I started filling with rage. And I was like, “I’m going to kill this woman. I’m going to have to go over and be the parent who says, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, your children are not in line for the balloon animal. My son is.’” And I was like, “No, don’t do it, don’t do it.” It fascinated me what started happening in me as I held back and didn’t say anything. And he got his balloon animal. He’s a spoiled little brat. He’s fine. But that stuff really intrigues me, especially if you raise the stakes to end of the world and all of that.

Villarreal: What did it make you think about in terms of the lengths you’ll go to?

Fogelman: I think we’d all go to extraordinary lengths. And whereas “The Walking Dead” focused on that, this focuses a little bit more on what the people in power do. As you learn more about Julianne’s character, Sinatra, [the question becomes], “What length will you go to save not just your own family but a portion of humanity? What are the right things to do in these situations?” And so it takes my balloon animal story and puts it on steroids a little. And that was really interesting to me.

Villarreal: Speaking of case studies, I feel like we’re living a case study right now in terms of a president and the people around him and the influence or power that they have. And obviously [the show] predates some of the [recent] headlines — whether it’s Trump and Elon Musk or whomever. What was the research you were seeing about the power dynamics in a role like that that were interesting to you at the time?

Fogelman: That really caught us off guard, the Elon Musk-president relationship, because there was one point in our third episode where, in a flashback, Julianne [as Sinatra] walks into the Oval Office from a side room, and I remember having my bulls— meter going off on my own television show going like, “Is this realistic? She’s not the chief of staff of this guy. Could she really be walking in and out of the Oval Office?” And lo and behold, here we are, all this time later. So I was like, “I guess it’s realistic.” Our research was actually somewhat more focused on the logistics of building a bunker city, of governing in a bunker city, of, “What would the electric vehicles be like? How would they source food and clothing?” There are so many more answers hidden in the production design of the show than you actually see onscreen. We had a dissertation written by a professor of sociology on how the best way to govern would be. A benevolent dictatorship was deemed the best form of government for this particular situation by people who said, “How would you keep people alive and in a functional way?” I’m not talking in the United States, I’m talking about in this bunker city. That’s what we think in our mind’s eye Sinatra had the research to see and say, “I’m going to try and do the right thing for all these people down below as best I can and try and keep the people at bay.” We did a lot of research on governance, on infrastructure, on things about nuclear and thermal energy that I can’t fathom nor understand, but that my writers all understood — how the place was powered and all of that. A little less on power dynamics between billionaires and power just because I think you kinda know what that is. It’s a lot of people in a room who are used to being the only person who everybody listens to.

Villarreal: But also, who do you trust? Cal [the president, played by James Marsden] has Xavier, he’s got Sinatra. It’s interesting to see whose input he takes in.

Fogelman: And ultimately, we try and make everybody fallible, but also everybody kind of have a point of view and a place where they’re coming from. I think in the second season of the show, you’ll see where Sinatra was coming from on the big picture even more. You kind of know where Marsden’s coming from, you know where Sterling’s coming form, and those are all the people pushing against one another in the show.

Villarreal: No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, I feel like everybody feels like we’re in a doomsday situation at the moment and change is needed. How do you create escapist TV at a time like this where people have issues on either side?

Fogelman: I remember when the show was coming out, having a degree of concern about that, just based off the timing and things I couldn’t control. We’ve been here in different ways before. When you look at all the periods of history, it always felt at different points of our history, like, “Oh my, wow, the sky is really falling. This is for real this time. This isn’t like it was for our parents’ generation or the generation before; this is worse.” The X factor right now that’s making people say, “No, this is the one that’s the worst” is the technology has shifted so dramatically. When the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, it was with a single person. Now those single people have much more scary stuff. The technology and the AI is much scarier. I wanted to make something that had climate change as a factor, but I also wanted to create a scenario that wouldn’t be the one that would keep people up at night. This is an extreme kind of worst-case scenario fluke occurrence that could happen. It’s based in some science, but it’s not the most likely way the world is going to end. We were trying to find ways so it could be palatable.

Villarreal: Thanks for that assurance because that was my concern. How likely is this to happen?

Fogelman: We have a writer on our show who’s one of the foremost experts on climate change.

Villarreal: Please talk about that.

Fogelman: Stephen Markley. He wrote a novel recently — it’s a masterpiece of a novel. He was hired for the show because of it — called “The Deluge.” Part of entertainment is we created a big tsunami and a big crazy action-adventure episode of television. The reality of climate change will happen quickly, but in less world-encompassing kind of ways. And if we don’t get on top of it, it’s a huge, huge catastrophe waiting to happen. As an example, and Stephen covers this in his book: I’m by no means a climate-change expert, but a lot of us roll our eyes when we talk about six inches of sea-level rise because it doesn’t seem like the thing that’s going to necessarily end the world. But along with the many, many, many, things that come along with that, when that inevitably happens, if we don’t stop, when parts of Miami go underwater, it won’t be a drowning of a half of a state or a city necessarily, because it will happen slowly and then quickly. What will happen is, as we’ve seen out here in California with the fires, you’re talking about an economic and housing collapse that will dwarf anything we saw in 2008. If you think about how hard it is to get your home insured now in California, just wait. That’s the stuff that’s less sexy than a tsunami sweeping over a 400-story building. But unless we get our heads out of our asses, it’s coming. Our balancing act is, “How do we make something not pedantic, make it entertainment, make it so that you can do it, but also maybe shake people a little at the same time?”

Villarreal: The conversations in that writers’ room must be insane — just TED Talks all the time.

Fogelman: It’s also a lot of fart jokes. It’s a nice balance. But it’s a heady, heady place. Season 2 deals with a lot really heady stuff, and I try and understand it as best I can and then let the smart people battle it out.

Villarreal: I want to get into some of the details of the show because details make everything. Can you talk to me about why Wii?

Fogelman: We just thought it was funny. But also, in Season 2, you’ll learn the origin of the Wii for Jane. Our sixth episode that we’re shooting right now actually is called “Jane,” and it’s her backstory episode.

Villarreal: How about the fries? How did you land on the cashew cheese fries?

Fogelman: We landed on the fries primarily because we decided there would be no dairy down below because having real dairy would require so much maintenance of chickens and eggs and infrastructure and animals and cows that it wouldn’t be feasible. Cashew and nut cheese was the thing that they would put on cheese fries. We thought it was an interesting way of making it a key clue in the show, but that also tied into where they were and what they don’t have.

Villarreal: Are we going to learn any of the other songs on Cal’s mixtape? Are they important?

Fogelman: No, there is another song that plays heavily towards the end of our season from his oeuvre of music, but no. We’re actually getting very Elvis-heavy [in] Season 2, not related to Cal’s music. That’s a little bit of a spoiler.

Villarreal: Can you talk about Phil Collins of it all and finding that cover? Was it originally like, “We want the Phil Collins version”? Or “We want this really eerie, scary version”?

Fogelman: Originally, the show was called “Paradise City,” and the song at the end was Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City.” Then I soured on it as a title and it made the song being the song less important. When I got my first editor’s cut of the pilot, she had found that cover — Julia [Grove], our editor — and put it in. And I was like, “Oh, yeah, that’s it. That’s the one.” In my mind, I always thought it would probably be a cover of one of those two songs. I don’t know why, because there’s something about ’80s music — you’re really on a fine line when you use it on a show or in a movie; it can get funny quickly, even if accidentally. Like, “We Built This City,” if you put that in without it being a cover, it makes you smile, but maybe in the wrong way in the genre of television. We felt that it would be good to use covers from the very beginning that could evoke the songs but kind of transform them a little bit.

Villarreal: This show has you thinking about budgets in a different way because you’re dealing with special effects or action scenes in a way you weren’t on “This Is Us.” What’s a scene from the series we’d be surprised got a lot of notes because you have to be like, “I don’t know if we can do it this grand because this is what we’re working with…”?

Fogelman: We never got that. We have a really great studio and network that work with us. We’re given the money we have, and then it’s how we choose to use it. We knew Episode 7 was going to be an expensive episode for us where you show the world actually ending. So what we would do is on Episodes 5 and 6, if we needed to cut a corner here or there, we would do that to save up the money for that. But we never really had that on this show. We also stayed on budget. I’m sure we would have had that if we were over budget, but we never really had that.

Villarreal: You’re about to get the showrunner of the year award, and as a fellow writer who’s very fearful of ever becoming management, I’m very interested to know how your creative process has changed since becoming a showrunner.

Fogelman: It’s a big job. I don’t always relish it. I was with a group of showrunners the other night for a different thing, and we were all just lamenting how exhausted and miserable we all were — in a funny way, because we also all love it. The management is tough. You’re the CEO of a large company. I say 200, 300 people, [but] it’s really 1,000 people when you talk about the people who day play and do special effects and visual effects and all of the stuff. It’s a lot of bodies, and you’re managing a lot of people, and managing people is the hardest part of your job. It takes up a lot time. I don’t go to set very much anymore. I did at the beginning of my showrunning career because I felt like I should and because I wanted to be there because I was the boss. And I started realizing it was just not a good use of my time. I mainly focus on writing, breaking the episodes, writing them and editing them, and that’s where my time goes. But you need to be there for people. On any given day, there’s somebody on your crew who’s not happy with something, and you’re putting out those fires. It’s a tremendous amount of work. One of the things that’s been striking to me, and I say this to people all the time, is, at the end of “This Is Us,” I would make gestures to people who worked on the show, whatever they were, but what would stand out more than anything, and I always felt like it was doing so little, [was] to write somebody a note on stationery. And I was constantly struck by how much it meant to people to be individually seen. People are really kind of lovely and great and don’t require that much. They just wanna be seen and they want their work to be seen. And it’s the difference between writing a little note to somebody that says, “You’re doing a great job” versus “I saw what you did on Tuesday, on Thursday, with that scene, and it’s not lost on me, and I see you, and I appreciate you.” It takes one minute of my time, but I’ve learned how meaningful it can be to people. You try to be better at it and then you inevitably fail. If you were a decent person, you go home and you’re scolding yourself, but it’s been an eye-opening, weird experience.

Villarreal: Well, before we wrap, I know we talked earlier backstage that you’re about halfway through shooting Season 2. What can you share?

Fogelman: I’m really excited about it. I just started editing. Like you said, I show people stuff all too much. And so I’ve just started editing the first two [episodes] and they’re really good.

Villarreal: How soon do things pick up?

Fogelman: Right after. It’s a slightly different show at times in the second season in that part of the season lives outside in the world. We’ve lived almost entirely claustrophobically inside the bunker [so far], and we do live there a lot in [Season 2] and pick up directly from where we left that world. But you’re also living in Sterling’s story and the story of the people he comes across, and those stories eventually collide. It’s a different, exciting show. Shailene Woodley joins the cast this year. I just wrote her a note. She’s extraordinary in the show. I’m really excited for people to see her in it. When you’re doing something different, it’s exciting and daunting, and that’s the best kind of feeling. You’re like, “Oh, I’m not dead inside. I’m very excited about this season.”

Villarreal: Is there something that won’t make sense now but will when we watch?

Fogelman: Elvis.

Villarreal: Any other people from “This Is Us” making an appearance?

Fogelman: Right now, yes, there’s a few. I’m careful about it because I don’t want it to get distracting with Sterling. I did a show called “Galavant,” and one of my actors in it, Tim Omundson, was one of my favorite actors ever, and he had a part in “This Is Us” and now is joining in a part here. There’s another one that I think they’ll yell at me if I announce it, but it’s smaller. I’m always looking at stuff to do with those guys. I just saw Mandy [Moore] and Chris Sullivan the other day, and I’m always looking for stuff for those guys; Milo [Ventimiglia] and Justin [Hartley] and all those guys.