Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The first three episodes of Casual season three are patiently waiting for you to enjoy them on Hulu now, with new episodes following weekly. If you’re not already hooked on Casual, cancel all immediate plans and catch up. And for those appropriately obsessed and eager for what the new season has in store, well, you know just how much of a gem this half-hour show can be.
Some like to define it as a dark comedy, but it’s more of a complex comedy, really, exploring the irony, the comedy and the utterly ridiculous moments that come along with life, usually popping up at entirely inopportune times. So much of the writing and acting on the show are nothing short of superb, but it’s the roster of directors this show chooses to bring on that make it so very special.
Not only is this show pulling top talent from the pool of directors available to tell these stories, but they’re giving female directors the chance to shine. Season three boasts 9 out of 13 episodes directed by women, with 5 female and 2 male directors nabbing credits this season, including executive producer Jason Reitman. This is up from season two, where the show brought in 4 guys (including Reitman, Fred Savage and Michael Weaver, who all directed two episodes in season 1. Weaver returns for two episodes in season three as well) and 3 ladies to take on directing duties (including Marielle Heller and Karyn Kusama), with guys taking the reins for 7 episodes and women for 6.
As showrunner Zander Lehmann explained, “[Executive producer] Helen Estabrook does a lot of the groundwork with the directors and I think this year we made a conscious choice, we’re going to at least offer all women first for our blocks [of episodes] and we ended up getting most of the blocks filled with women. We get to work with the people we want to work with and it just so happens to be a lot of women. Every year we’ve had more female directors than the year before. I think the truth of the matter is there’s so much TV right now, there’s so many directors in demand and we get to take the directors other people might not be comfortable with, who haven’t done TV before, who have only done an indie movie or a webseries, because we’re that sort of show that can do that. So for us, that happens to be more women that fall into that camp. Oh, you’re an awesome director and no one will give you that shot but we will because we want you to bring what you bring to your movies to our show. The writers room is mostly women, obviously two of our three leads are women, two of the three producers are women; it’s a very woman-run show outside of me and I think that’s great. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. I like working with women directors, they’re collaborative and they really speak to the actors in a way that the actors like, I think they feel like they’re being heard and being worked with in a good way. I think it’s an unintentional thing that has ended up being really good for us.”
The actors don’t just like it, they love it. “I really wanted them to like me,” Tommy Dewey, who plays Alex on the show, admitted while laughing. “The directors this year [that] were new to the show are all top caliber filmmakers, so I don’t let the nerves get to me, but there’s no slacking off. Show up, know the scripts and be ready to go because we’re showing up with all these new fantastic filmmakers that have made so many of the movies that I’ve liked in recent years. I think all of them are conversant with actors in a great way. We rarely hire a pure shooter, just technically proficient. We really have a free flowing exchange of ideas and we’re communicating all the time about how best to lay out these characters.”
The way Casual shoots their episodes also lends itself to be an environment that many directors can flourish in, by bringing most of them in for two episodes at a time. “When we do two episodes at the same time it allows us to block shoot,” Lehmann explained. “If your block is episode three and four, on a certain day you may be shooting scenes from both those episodes and it basically allows us to go to different locations that are in multiple episodes. It saves money and it saves time. It was easier season one because there were only 10 episodes, so it was a very simple 5 block: two episodes then you go. Now that we’re at 13 episodes, one person always gets the single episode and this year it’s Lynn Shelton who did the first one but not the second. We found that not only does it give the directors more time to figure out what they want to do, but we only shoot for five days per episode. If you’re coming in to do a single episode, you would hardly even have time to get settled and comfortable and then you’d be off into the editing room. So having two at a time, it feels like you get a block that’s distinctively yours, you get essentially an hour with the content to do your story and the directors seem to like that. It gives them more time to play around with stuff, it gives them more time in the editing room. It’s basically giving the directors more freedom to shoot more interesting stuff and try more things because they have more time to do it.”
It’s also beneficial for the actors, with Dewey adding, “On the most personal level, I really like the block shooting and the way we do it. From a very selfish standpoint, I want to get to know these great filmmakers as well as I can while they’re there. By the end of 2 weeks you feel like you’ve developed a little bit of a bond and feel like you’ve gotten to know their style and they’ve gotten to know you a little better.”
“I do think it helps the show,” Dewey continued. “I think you come in a little more invested. You’re gonna be there for 10 days, you’re gonna shoot a little mini movie with us and I’ve just been so impressed as to how prepared and committed to making our show look great these directors have been. It just gets a little chaotic when you have a hired gun for 1 week. I think it breaks up the flow of the show. We’ve got great people and the longer I can spend with them, the better.”
And let’s be honest here, these are some fantastic artists the show has coming on board. From kicking off the season with Lynn Shelton, known for Your Sister’s Sister and directing episodes of everything from New Girl to Fresh Off The Boat, to Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia coming in for two episodes, and even Lake Bell taking on directing duties — when she was six months pregnant. But no biggie, the actress has also directed episodes of Childrens Hospital as well as her feature debut, 2013’s In A World. Amy York Rubin also came in for a pair of episodes, as did Gillian Robespierre, writer and director of the lovely Obvious Child with Jenny Slate, who she re-teamed with for Landline, out later this year, but a film that picked up major buzz at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year.
“You know, honestly, I just don’t know if women have the stamina to really direct,” Michaela Watkins, who plays Valerie on the show, joked. “I don’t know how they do it. They’re too emotional,” she said before bursting into laughter. “No, it’s been so amazing, amazing, amazing. I’ve been so so lucky that the most interesting work I’ve gotten to do up to this point has mostly been with women. I’ve gotten to work with so many women. I’m so excited that that’s becoming more of a natural, mainstream sort of thing that’s happening more and more. Or at least in our bubble it is. And it’s not even like, ‘Women Directors! Let’s lump them all in a big pile!’ Each director has such a unique and interesting style and sensibility. When they came to decide that they wanted to direct, the reasons that they wanted to, what their aesthetic is or what drives them to do it, is all so distinct and is so different from each other. You couldn’t find two different directors in say Lake Bell or Carrie Brownstein. But we get this amazing blend and we get to try everybody and try so many different ones. These women are strong, they know what they want and the way that they are communicating that. It’s like a sampler menu of directing styles, and they just happen to be women. I think they are proving to be some of the most interesting directors I have certainly ever worked with. I’ve worked with Lake Bell before and I feel very lucky to get to have her. She’s also, full disclosure, one of my best friends. But it’s so great to have her to work with in this capacity because I’ve only worked with things that she’s created and she’s written. And here she is coming into this show and she just is really, really, really specific and hands-on and you have to do what she wants and it’s detail, detail, detail. And then you have somebody like Carrie who, she is like a macro director, she takes things as a whole and just lets them settle into one big moment.”
Tara Lynne Barr, the actress who portrays witty teen Laura on the show, echoes the sampler menu sentiment, saying, “I feel like every director could bring something different to, I mean, the set at the very least. But I think for actors, it’s sort of fun to be able to adapt to each director when they come in every two weeks. They all bring something different out of you, and they all communicate in different ways and it helps you. Sometimes they talk to you about the character in ways that you may have never heard before. So that opens up another little avenue in your mind about how to approach a scene or a particular beat.”
For Watkins, having her pal leading the way was particularly useful when it came to shooting sex scenes, and with Chace Crawford, no less! “If you ever decide to do a sex scene, and I highly recommend them, you should have Lake direct it. Nobody will make you feel more taken care of and more comfortable, because she’s an actress and she knows what somebody would want to do with her. She’s very respectful and very private with a closed rehearsal first and she really arms you with what we’re going to do here and what’s going to happen. I just like that people have an awareness that this isn’t the most natural thing to do these really private, intimate things on a camera. So she’s your go-to gal for that, she’s the best. She tells you how many takes she’s going to do, and it’s like nobody does that. But at the same time, she had this enormous belly, and she’s since had her baby, but she’d be like playing all the parts. She’d be like ‘Chace, you’re going to be here,’ and she’s got this like beach ball in her. It was just hilarious to look at.”
For Brownstein, the way she ended up taking on two episodes this season was by being proactive and reaching out to the show. “I was a fan of the show and had directed Portlandia and had directed a short film for Kenzo, which is a fashion brand, and wanted to do more directing. Casual was a show that I thought was very heartfelt and funny, I thought the actors were phenomenal on it. So I had a meeting with Zander and just let him know that I would be interested in directing. He and I hit it off and we went from there. It was an extension of that meeting, and being admirers of one another’s work. I felt like I was being hired because it was a good fit and just trusted that it would be, and it was.”
Brownstein took on two very different episodes of the season: episode two features mostly Dewey and Watkins’ characters over the course of a night and is very dreamy and romantic (even though they are siblings), while episode three is much more of a typical episode of the show, with each of the main characters confronting different aspects of their life that can be a bit more uncomfortable. “What I loved was the contrast getting to go from one of the more emotionally intense episodes to something that in some ways was not the polar opposite, but just a reactionary place for the characters, which is a lot of mania and denial and I really relished that contrast there,” Brownstein said.
“It speaks to Carrie’s versatility,” Dewey said. “I can’t say enough good things about Carrie Brownstein. We all know she’s funny, that’s a given, but also very soulful and thoughtful when it comes to an episode like two. She ended up being a perfect match for that episode. The fun of this job for me is the variety and the opportunity to switch gears pretty frequently, to test out different corners of Alex’s personality. So jumping from episode two to three for me is really fun.”
“You can’t reinvent the wheel with a television show and you never really want to,” Brownstein added. “The best shows have already established themselves tonally and your job as a director is to be as expansive and innovative as possible while still keeping in mind what the show is and what the parameters are. I was given a lot of creative license, especially in episode two. There was definitely a cinematic element to it that I was excited to do.”
While Brownstein hasn’t directed a ton outside of her home base of Portlandia, Casual proved to be a great fit for her, and just the start of where her directing career will take her. “I think part of that is a growing confidence, after being part of Portlandia as a co-creator and writer and eventual director, there are so many ins and outs of the show and of making the show that feel very intrinsic and second nature to me at this point; coming in with a sense of understanding the process a little bit was helpful. Working with the people that make that show year after year, from the production designer or wardrobe department to the DP, it’s just a collaborative process on a TV show, earning everyone’s trust and putting your trust and faith in other people’s ability to do their jobs.”
Lehmann was more than thrilled to have the directing talent they had on board, noting that Bell was responsible for “one of my favorite scene that we’ve ever done. Lake is amazing. She was better prepared or as well prepared as any director we’ve had on the show. I think her episodes are definitely two of my favorite of the show. She was able to get certain shots and certain performances I think because of her acting background, where she very much spoke to the actors in that acting way. She and our DP were really in sync about the shots. Her direction is so layered and beautiful and well shot.”
Directors such as Brownstein and Bell have more than proven themselves as fantastic directors, but will we see them act on the show? As Lehmann pointed out, “You do have to remember, these people are coming on as directors. They put on slightly different hats than they do acting when they’re directing. So there’s no expectations that they would ever act in the show unless there’s a perfect part and they wanted to it and in which case we would approach them and ask them. It does feel like a separate thing we consider. Carrie and Lake are amazing as actresses but honestly they’re maybe even better directors.”
Each and every episode of Casual is packed with exceptional performances, in front of and behind the camera. But the fact that it’s women leading the way in so many aspects is what separates this show from so many others, and is exactly what makes it a show we’ll point to as one that helped give experience and exposure to our future favorite female directors. Because they’re out there, and there’s nothing casual about the work they’re doing.
