‘Your Friends And Neighbors’ Creator Jonathan Tropper On Jon Hamm

When Jonathan Tropper first came up with the concept for his new Apple TV+ series Your Friends and Neighbors, he recalled his longtime experience living in a tony Westchester neighborhood for some 15 years. What if a person fell on hard times and felt the pressure to keep up? How easy would it be for them to resort to lifting a few pricey items from their affluent friends to hawk on the side? At the center of Tropper’s story is Andrew “Coop” Cooper— a man down on his luck and freshly out of a job. Disenfranchised with the materialistic world he’d bought into, his wife (Amanda Peet) has left him for his best friend (Mark Tallman), and his burgeoning relationship with Sam (Olivia Munn) is rocky. The more Tropper thought about it, the more one actor appeared in his mind for Coop: Jon Hamm. When they met, Hamm was on board and would ultimately join as executive producer. Tropper wrote with him in mind and the outcome is a character that blasts Hamm back into a leading television role that combines social commentary, dark humor, twisty relationships and a murder mystery.

DEADLINE: I’ve been such a fan of your work forever and have read all your books, starting with This is Where I Leave You. And this show because feel like it is in the vein of those novels, which are such meaty relationship pieces.

JONATHAN TROPPER

That’s not an accident.

DEADLINE: How did the idea for a guy who steals from his friends to keep up his lifestyle come about? Were you inspired by the time you spent living in Westchester?

TROPPER: I don’t live there now, but I lived there for about 15 years. I’ve set some of my books in similar neighborhoods. Just living there for 15 years and feeling like I really understood the area and understood the aesthetic and understood the mentality of the people who lived there. And also not unimportantly, I lived there during the huge internet boom, the internet bubble in the early 2000s, was there for the crash, was there for all of the hedge fund money that started pouring into people’s pockets, and then the Madoff disaster which affected a lot of people I knew.

And so I was kind of watching people’s worths evolve in real time and also watching people’s value systems evolve in real time. And as a novelist, living among finance people, I didn’t have that level of income. And so there was a little bit of that Persian Letters effect where I could watch it, the stock market crash didn’t affect me directly. I wasn’t in the market, I wasn’t in finance, and I didn’t make nearly as much as the people around me, and so it was kind of an interesting place to be sitting and absorbing it.

So I always knew I wanted to do a show set there. It just, no one was going to let me, it took a while till I reached a point where I was allowed to, so.

DEADLINE: If you don’t live there anymore you can skewer those people?

TROPPER: Yeah, although I don’t think the show really is a skewer, I think it’s done with love. And at the same time, there is something both internally broken about it and now something that’s breaking externally because [of the state of] the world and the permanence of everything has been called into question. And the sustainability of this type of income, this type of lifestyle, I think that’s all starting to seem a lot less of a promise than it used to be.

DEADLINE: So when did you first light on the kernel of the idea of your protagonist? I know that you met Jon and then it evolved with Jon in mind as you wrote, but when did the idea first land for this guy who steals to keep up with the neighbors?

TROPPER: I don’t remember the exact moment, but I do remember while I was still living there, I walked into a friend’s house looking for someone or something, and nobody was home. And I was just in this really nice house by myself, and I realized how easy that is and how easy somebody who looked like me could explain it if I happened to get caught. So, it just became this idea that in any kind of fishbowl community, it doesn’t have to be a wealthy community, in any fishbowl community there’s a really tremendous importance placed on status. And somebody who suddenly could not maintain the status might be tempted to maintain it in other ways. And it would really be kind of easy if you were willing to just forget the rules. It might be really easy to walk into these places and you would know where to go and what to take because you know where people are during the day, you know your friends’ schedules, you know what’s going on. So, it felt like something somebody really desperate might do.

DEADLINE: I can’t imagine anyone else pulling off this character other than Jon Hamm.

TROPPER: Me too. From the minute I developed the idea, my intention was the best way to get this up and running, because it’s not based on IP, it’s not based on some popular book or some property that the studio already owns, is I need to come in with a star. And the problem was the only person I could really see in the role was Jon Hamm, and the problem was I didn’t know Jon Hamm.

It’s one of those things that shouldn’t have worked out but did. I got my agent to arrange a lunch, and I met him for the first time and I pitched him the idea. And I think the fact that we’re very close in age and have the same cultural touchstones and there’s a tremendous midlife component to this show, it’s that moment where you wake up and you stop seeing the matrix, or you suddenly see the matrix, but that moment when you realize you’ve been following a lot of scripts that you didn’t write yourself and maybe you follow the wrong ones. So, I think there was a lot of that, and there was a lot of just an understanding at our age of how much angst and ennui and regret there was to be mined in a situation like this. I think him getting excited about it got me excited about it, which led me to go write the pilot. And when I sent him the pilot, the reaction was instant and that we just said, “Great, let’s go sell it.”

DEADLINE: You talk about people following the wrong script and waking up to that in midlife. I really felt like there was a little bit of Lester Burnham from American Beauty there too in Coop.

TROPPER: American Beauty definitely a touchpoint for this.

DEADLINE: Yeah, I really felt that. Not in a derivative way, I just mean that that’s an iconic character and for me, it resonates because when you hit a certain age, you realize that you can’t collect enough things to bring you anything that resembles happiness. So then you think, “What is it that I’m doing?” And that’s the classic midlife crisis.

TROPPER: Yeah, it’s the quiet desperation of the upper middle class. It’s been done since Henry James, right? It’s been done forever. But there’s something about doing it at a time where our politics are so fraught and the wellbeing of our planet, our country, and our neighborhoods literally can change on a dime now. I think there’s much more rawness to the notion of you don’t have forever to get it right. When you wake up, the urgency to fix your life is much greater, especially when you’re in middle age.

DEADLINE: Yeah, it’s terrifying. But the next thing I wanted to get to is, I love that you’ve brought back the voiceover in a real way. You’ve given it what it really needed all along, which is it’s not a device to fill in holes, it’s a character, it’s separate. Jon’s playing two roles, basically.

TROPPER: It made me so happy to hear you say that, but yes. That was the goal, and the fear was that once I implemented it, that I would get asked to use it as a fix for things. So, when I presented it, I made it really clear, and I’m lucky to have very artistically-minded executives at Apple that said, “No, we’re not going to solve that problem by adding voiceover.” Voiceover is a very specific thing. It’s to add texture and it’s to do another character study on our main character that’s separate from the character you’re seeing on the screen. And it’s really inspired, honestly, by Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, it’s the noir from the ’60s, which is by the way, why you see him sometimes watching that on TV. I loved those movies when I was younger and it was always the notion that whatever this guy’s going through on the screen, there’s an older, wiser version of him reflecting on it. And that, to me, gives you a great way to also empathize with a character who in the moment you might not, but because he’s talking to you from a distance where he’s achieved some level of nebulous wisdom, you get to understand the character twice at once. I think he has the omniscience of having been there already, but he’s future Coop. But the question is, is he five minutes in the future Coop or is he 10 years in the future Coop? Is he talking to you from the Riviera or from a jail cell? We have no idea. He’s future Coop.

DEADLINE: You’ve been renewed already for Season 2. Do you know how this ends?

TROPPER: I knew very clearly how the first season would end, and I have a very strong idea of emotionally where it ends, but plot-wise I’m still figuring that out.

DEADLINE: When you talked about the voiceover with Jon, did you collaborate on that to get it to sound like him?

TROPPER: Jon has done a lot of voiceover in his life professionally, both in the advertising world and in other situations. We developed the idea of what the voiceover is going to do in the writer’s room. Sometimes that would stay, sometimes we’d have to reimagine it post writer’s room. I would write it, but what would often happen with Jon is on the day we’d record it, we’d record it twice, we’d record it once just a half. And by the time we got to the studio, Jon had had time to think about it. It was tricky to figure out all the tenses, we had to play with the tenses a lot. And we’d work on that largely on the day in the studio. And then he’d come up with sort of, “Well, maybe he’s expressing it this way and maybe that.” I think he’s very intuitive and he likes to come in on the day and figure some of it out when it comes to the voiceover.

DEADLINE: It’s so important that you make him likable at the same time as interesting and subversive, otherwise why are we here, right?

TROPPER: There’s a really good literary trick for doing that, and it’s called casting Jon Hamm.

DEADLINE: He definitely brings that, but in your writing and in your directing there are some key points where we know we like him. The way he handles being hit on for example. He doesn’t do any of the things that a less likeable man might do. And that’s when we first know, “Oh, this is a good guy. This is not your typical guy.”

TROPPER: That’s a constant battle, and there are certain things we’ve institutionalized into the show that help. For instance, his sister. This is a guy who takes care of his grown sister. And so, no matter how you judge him and any of his other behaviors, there’s one part of his life that’s completely uncorrupted, and that’s his relationship with his sister, where you can get a sense of the real character of this man, right? His sister has been in his life for his whole life and I think there are certain North Stars, and one thing you understand about him is no matter what he’s doing, his sister comes first.

We also did an episode where he and Mel went back to Princeton, and you got a sense of what they were like before all of this. Without doing a flashback, we were able to find a way to convey the sweetness of their relationship, the consideration of each other that you’re not seeing necessarily in the other episodes. So it’s just about picking moments to show the person he was on his way to becoming this person. And then in the moment there’s always tempering the dialogue – is he too harsh here? Is he not harsh enough? Do we want him to actually be seemingly unredemptively unlikable in this moment so that we can redeem him in that moment? And it’s an ongoing conversation.

DEADLINE: Can you tell me a little bit about casting the rest of them from Olivia Munn to Lena Hall to Mark Tallman to Hoon Lee?

TROPPER: The beauty of having Jon in it from the beginning was I really felt we can call anybody. And I started thinking about who I really admired. Amanda Peet, 20 years, more than that, of watching her movies, of seeing her on TV and knowing she had the same ability he has, which is so important to the show, to walk the line between comedy and drama, to merge them together and make someone sympathetic even when they’re acting out.

Mel had to have all the same characteristics of Coop, which is that sometimes she’s not going to behave very well, and we’re starting out learning that she’s had an affair, right? But it doesn’t take you more than five minutes to fall in love with her anyway, because you understand this is a really human person with a lot of depth who’s trying really hard. I thought she just conveys instant empathy, instant sympathy, and instant buy-in to how complicated she is. And her line delivery is insane. Her ability to find the meat of a line and do it six different ways, it’s just amazing to watch. And then Olivia, ever since I’d seen her in The Newsroom, I’ve been dying to write for her.

DEADLINE: I’m obsessed with how she played her character in The Newsroom. Oh my god.

TROPPER: Right? And I love the idea of the beautiful woman who’s also a neurotic, insecure mess. And I’m not going to compare myself to Sorkin, but just, watching her deliver his stuff, I really wanted a chance to write for her. I actually tried to get her for my previous show Warrior, and I was willing to write a whole character for her, but we got canceled before I got the chance to do that.

But we’d been put in touch then. And then when I was thinking about this character, she just seemed perfect for it. And I was thrilled that we were able to get both of them, because now it felt like whatever I write is going to get elevated by that trio almost instantly.

DEADLINE: And I love Hoon Lee’s character of Coop’s friend and business advisor Barney so much.

TROPPER: I never do a show without Hoon since my first show. I think the end of Season 1 of Your Friends and Neighbors was our 85th episode of television together. We did four seasons of Banshee, three seasons of Warrior, one season of See, and then Your Friends and Neighbors. And the thing I love about him is also his innate understanding of comedy and drama and how to fuse them. He has such a giant brain. Wherever he goes, the smartest person in the room, and that comes across and he makes me look really good, he makes me seem like a much smarter writer. He just brings an intelligence and I don’t think you can act that intelligence, you have to have that intelligence. And that’s why I always write a role for Hoon.

Probably our hardest bit of casting was Mark Tallman, because we needed a guy who has slept with his friend’s wife, but you still believe is an earnest, sincere, sympathetic guy, and is an athlete. Let me tell you something, it’s a tall order.

DEADLINE: Literally.

TROPPER: He took us the longest to cast. We went through everybody. We could find somebody really sexy who might not be funny. We could find someone really funny who you don’t buy as sexy. We needed to believe this is somebody Mel would be in a relationship with. And it was a lot of work to find him. We ended up finding him in our backyard in Brooklyn.

DEADLINE: You’ve said you’re working on Season 2, what do you want to achieve with it?

TROPPER: The comparison I always give, and I’m sorry that I’m such a geek, but season two is always The Empire Strikes Back.

DEADLINE: That’s a very relevant reference for you right now, given you’re working on the new Star Wars film with Shawn Levy…

TROPPER: Season 2 has to get darker, more complex, and the stakes have to get much higher. And we’ve written most of the episodes. We go into production three days after the show comes out, so we’re ready.

DEADLINE: Is everybody coming back? I really hope so.

TROPPER: Everyone’s back, yes. That’s the advantage to getting picked up so quickly is I can keep my production team, I can keep my crew, I can keep the actors engaged, everyone’s in their group. And as long as they want us to make the show, we’re going to try to come back quickly so that everyone can really stay in the zone. I’m a big believer in not flushing the format too early. I want Season 2 to be a returning pleasure for people who love Season 1, and at the same time we have to up the ante, we have to take the characters in different directions.

Also, one of the things Jon’s always been pretty firm on is that what Coop is doing is not a sustainable way to make a living. So, we’ve got to figure out how this evolves for him in Season 2 and then 3. And our plan is definitely not the Walter White plan. He’s not becoming a criminal kingpin. The idea is more about he’s being liberated, and so what’s the next stage of his liberation?

DEADLINE: Since you brought it up, I have to assume that you’ve been a massive Star Wars fan for life then?

TROPPER: Star Wars is, for me, and I think most people my age, and certainly most people my age in the entertainment business, everything. I was seven years old when Star Wars came out, and I have a visceral memory of my dad driving us all into Manhattan. In those days you’d go to one of these big theaters where the red curtain was still over the screen, and when it said, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the screen parted, and I have visceral memories of that.

DEADLINE: How did you feel when you got the writing job on this new installment?

TROPPER: Well, it was both one of the most exciting days of my career and I felt like everything I’d been doing had been almost like the audition to get me this job, but at the same time, [there was] a lot of wariness. I knew how hard the development process would be and that most people don’t make it across the finish line. So, I had a healthy amount of skepticism, but I was also determined to be a part of the team that made it across the finish line.

DEADLINE: And what about working with Shawn?

TROPPER: Well, that’s what made it really great for me, is that Shawn and I, this is our fourth project together, and we live around the corner from each other. So we were like two giddy boys who were given the keys to dad’s car. We’ve been having a blast doing it. And also, when you have someone like Shawn who is so used to these massive productions, he really bears the weight of all of that and kind of just focuses me on the writing. So yeah, no, it seems also like everything we did together untill now was to prepare us to do this together, so it’s been really satisfying.

DEADLINE: I wanted to ask you about Lucky as well. You have so many great things coming up, but what can you tell me about that?

TROPPER: We’re in the middle of shooting here in California.

DEADLINE: I’m glad you’re shooting in California.

TROPPER: Yeah, we’re shooting in California, and we have a phenomenal cast with Anya Taylor-Joy, Tim Olyphant, Annette Bening, other people have been announced. And it was just a real surprise to me. I was thrilled when Hello Sunshine sent me the book, and there’s something really exciting about a one-and-done limited series with this level of cast and it’s a bit different from other stuff I’ve written, but it’s just been a lot of fun putting it together, and we have a great team doing it and it makes it possible for me to work on Your Friends and Neighbors and this, and I’m super excited for it. I mean, it’s very different from things I’ve done, so I’m very excited about it.

Your Friends and Neighbors is on Apple TV+ from April 11.