‘Undone’ Creators Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy Explain How ‘BoJack’ Influenced Their Universe Altering Show

Prepare to question everything with the premiere of Amazon Prime Video’s latest original, Undone. Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy, who are best known for their work on Netflix’s BoJack Horseman, Undone follows a seemingly normal young woman who’s grieving the loss of her father. But as her mental state increasingly unravels, the series becomes an emotional deep dive into loss, mental illness, ancient beliefs about healing, and alternate realities. It’s an incredible, gorgeous, and warped series that will leave viewers sobbing one moment and questioning everything they know the next.

“I talked to [Raphael Bob-Waksberg] about some of my own experiences, about all of our alternate realities having gone through depression and anxiety and having fears around my mental health with my grandmother who was schizophrenic,” Purdy told Decider. Worried about her own mental state, Purdy turned to meditation, alternate healings, and indigenous traditions from different shamans. The reality-bending premise of Undone is a sort of ode to Purdy’s journey.

“There’s different perceptions of realities and different cultures. We talk a lot about the philosophy around that,” Purdy said. “What if reality were more fluid than we experience? What if all these perceptions were true? What would that mean?”

The first series to be created completely through an animation technique called rotoscoping, Undone follows the impulsive Alma Winograd-Diaz (Rosa Salazar), a young woman who is coping with the loss of her beloved father and the fear that she may be losing her mind. After a terrifying car accident, Alma starts to see her deceased father Jacob (Bob Odenkirk), who explains she has the ability to alter time and reality. Not only that, it’s up to her to find out who was responsible for his alleged murder. As the series progresses Alma constantly battles with two stressful possibilities: either he father is right and she can actually alter time; or her worst fears are coming true, and she’s losing her sanity.

“When he comes to her she is excited by the potential but also terrified by what this means,” Purdy explained. “Is she slipping? Is she losing her mind? Or is this actually a call to adventure and she can do something great to change the course of reality?”

Purdy is responsible for writing some of BoJack Horseman‘s most ambitious episodes, including Season 1’s “Downer Ending” as well as Season 4’s “The Old Sugarman Place” and “Time’s Arrow.” Working on these episodes that play with unconventional timelines helped set the stage for Undone.

“The first season of BoJack, I wrote an episode called ‘Downer Ending’ where BoJack has this drug trip and he experiences this alternate reality,” Purdy said. “Raphael and I had so much fun doing that together, afterwards I was really honored he approached me and said we should do a show together that sort of starts from this place. Instead of it being the 11th episode, what if this was one of the first episodes of the season?”

“Those were kind of dry runs a little bit for how could we tell stories that bounce around through time without losing the audience. I think the fact we were able to do it on BoJack really gave us the confidence to go even further with Undone,” Bob-Waksberg said.

“People’s feedback and response to those episodes — ‘Time’s Arrow’ specifically — I think taking those risks really paid off. People were excited that their minds and their hearts could be at play in those episodes in watching those episodes,” Purdy said.

The two creators noted that it was difficult constructing a story that was intentionally non-linear. In Undone it’s not uncommon for a scene to play out in the show’s present timeline before unexpectedly jumping 20 years in the past or a few weeks into the future. “Sometimes we can do it carefully. And other times we’ll, like, put a scene in Episode 2 and just make a mental note like ‘OK, we gotta make sure this pays off later,'” Bob-Waksberg explained.

Though there was research done about the ancient traditions referenced in Undone, most of them come from Purdy’s personal passion with how different cultures view reality. “I’ve been to India several times and studied with different healers. I’ve been to Hawaii and worked with a shaman there and Central Mexico and spent time with this Aztec healer and then have been meditating consistently for several years now. And then of course reading ancient texts from different cultures and traditions just to give it a sense and an understanding of all these [perceptions] of reality in different cultures,” Purdy explained.

One of Purdy’s healers actually appears in Undone. In Episode 5, Alma and Jacob become trapped in one of Alma’s memories about a family vacation. That then transitions into a group of shamans walking through the same ancient area, though it’s unclear if that interaction happened in Alma’s past or years before she was even born.

“He was very funny on set because he instantly got stage fright, and then Bob [Odenkirk] worked with him in a really sweet way to help him with his lines,” Purdy said. “After the shoot he went ‘That guy who plays the dad, does he do this a lot? Cause it seems like he knows what he’s doing.'”

Odenkirk was actually the first actor to express interest in Undone. While at a party, Purdy mentioned the idea to him and he was quickly on board. Even when he learned that the animation style of the show would require him to be physically present on set, the Better Call Saul actor was enthusiastic.

“We didn’t know what it was, we just had this Bob Odenkirk thing floating. Once it became clear we were like ‘Oh you gotta come to set. You can’t just record your voice in a booth. Do you still wanna do it?’ He was still like ‘I want to make it work, I’m really busy but let’s make it work I’ll figure out a way to be there and do this,'” Bob-Waksberg said. “He was really excited about it. He was a joy.”

Similarly Rosa Salazar was a perfect fit for the project. Casting director Linda Lamontagne brought the actress in and right away it became apparent she was meant to play Alma. “She had a lot of actual personal life experiences that related to the character and the story and just felt like a perfect match,” Purdy said.

Casting the right actors was especially important because of Undone‘s style. Rotoscoping is an animation technique that traces over motion picture footage. The resulting product is incredibly lifelike animation, capable of capturing each actors’ specific facial expressions and ticks. Undone‘s director and animator Hiko Hulsing was the first person to suggest rotoscoping for the series.

“You get all the tension and nuance of the characters, the actors, interacting with each other. All the emotionality is captured, and he thought it was very important for the themes and the scripts and what the show was saying to have that dynamic to have that tension. So it’s like the best of both worlds,” Purdy explained. “You get all that rich performance from Bob Odenkirk and Rosa Salazar, and Angelique Cabral, Constance Marie and everyone on the show and you get to see the chemistry between all the performances.”

“Honestly it just looks cool as hell,” Bob-Waksberg added. “We didn’t want anything that felt too real. Or too unreal, kinda just like right in that sweet spot.”

Not only is Undone the only series to ever be created primarily using rotoscoping, it’s also the first series Bob-Waksberg has created with Amazon. The creator’s other projects BoJack and the recently canceled Tuca & Bertie were aired on Netflix.

“I was a little nervous kinda going out to a different network than I was used to working with. You know especially this huge conglomerate to take me into their huge Lord of the Rings space and their huge block hits,” Bob-Waksberg said. “But they’ve been really passionate about it-excited about it, very encouraging and supportive all the way through.”

“The marketing campaign has been tremendous,” Purdy added. “They really understand the show they really understand what it is and who might like this show which has been a learning experience for me.”

So what actually is real in Undone? Is Alma really able to control time and space, or is she losing her grip on reality?

“While we’re writing we always make sure and make every effort to make sure that there is every answer is both or could be both,” Purdy said. “You’re looking at it through every angle of the lens to say any reality or possibility or potential could be real or true so how do we create that tension?”

“I’d love it if people were to watch the show together, at the end of every episode they’ll have an argument,” Bob-Waksberg added. “Then again it’s very much up to your interpretation.”

Undone premieres on Amazon Prime Video Friday, September 13.

Watch Undone on Prime Video