Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Will they or won’t they? That is the question that has haunted every tight television male/female friendship pairing since the beginning of time. Cheers spent its entire first season offering pros and cons for an inevitable Sam and Diane hookup while 30 Rock made it clear that any Liz/Jack flirtation would only lead to awkwardness and ruin.
Mozart In The Jungle spent much of its first season establishing a wonderful platonic friendship between the idiosyncratic Rodrigo (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his ambitious ingenue of an assistant Hailey (Lola Kirke). So it was both welcome and surprising to see the two end the season with a passionate post-opening night kiss. Should the two have kept it platonic? Is the show forcing a tryst for drama? Or was the kiss just a natural evolution of their relationship? We asked showrunners Jason Schwartzman and Paul Weitz what they made of the kiss.
“The main thing is that they’re both aliens and they’re both devoted to music from different angles. They’re meant to be buddies,” said Weitz. “At the same time, you can be in situations with a buddy where, because there’s pheromones flying around and because we’ve grown up watching romantic movies, you kiss, you fall in bed or whatever, and then what do you do? Does that sacrifice the more important relationship and underpinnings of this friendship?”
Schwartzman explained that the backdrop of the show only heightened these passions, saying: “Especially something as sensual as music. It’s so beautiful to watch everyone play. It’s seductive.”
So, to be clear, they don’t think that their endgame is a Hailey/Rodrigo romance, but they did want to explore what happens when passion gets in the way of friendship. When I asked Lola Kirke how she felt about the kiss, she didn’t seem to mind it at all!
“It was like totally okay with me to make out with Gael!” she joked. “The thirteen year old in me was like, ‘Yes!‘”
Kirke then added thoughtfully, “I think that the way Paul [Weitz] directed that scene was that this was something that neither of them planned. It just sort of happens in this moment of happiness and excitement and it made a lot of sense to me in the moment, so I definitely stood behind it. I don’t think it was just like a gimmick. It was just natural for them and I think that’s the tension in their relationship.”
You’ll have to wait until season two of Mozart In The Jungle debuts to find out how the kiss affects Hailey and Rodrigo’s friendship.
Season one of Mozart In The Jungle is available to stream now. Season two debuts on December 30.
