The Great Wall between Online and TV has been diminishing this year — with Netflix taking on Arrested Development, YouTube launching premium channels, Lisa Kudrow’s web original series Web Therapy landing on Showtime. In late November, FX jumped on the bandwagon, adding the female-led web original comedy series Broad City to its TV development slate with Amy Poehler executive producing. Digital Chick TV’s Daryn Strauss asked the hilarious and smart costars/creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson about the new deal, Amy Poehler’s involvement, and how to make a socially relevant comedy about being a New Yorker in your twenties.
DARYN: Congrats on the FX deal! Now that you’re moving to TV, which one of you will go blonde?
ABBI: I already have.
ILANA: It’s SO weird, but she looks hot — not gonna lie.
DARYN: Amy Poehler made a surprise appearance in the Season 2 finale online, and now she is executive producing the TV series, which I think is such a perfect teaming. What is it like working with Amy? Did you know her well before?
ABBI: It’s an absolute pleasure to get to work with Amy. She’s the best — the warmest person and she can make any idea better. We actually hadn’t met her until the shoot last May.
ILANA: Yeah, we hadn’t met her, but we really clicked. I have a feeling Amy “clicks” with everyone she meets and that everyone wants to believe that to be the case. She’s amazing — so funny and normal and everything you’d want her to be, and we’ve been learning so much from her as writer/performers and, cheesily enough, as people.
DARYN: Broad City is now part of a very select group of web series that moved to television, and in my opinion, is the most creative of the shows included in that group. Can you talk about the process of pitching?
ABBI: First off, thank you so much! The pitch process was so interesting and to be honest, a bit daunting for us at first. You’re sort of thrown into the industry head first. Our experience was about 4 days of actual pitching, and a lot of prep time before that, really developing how the show would be expanded to TV and figuring out how we can best describe all of that in about 15-20 minutes while still presenting it in a simple yet entertaining way for the execs. Going from web to TV, we had material that we hoped in each meeting everyone had watched prior, but we had no guarantee, so it had to still be presented as if they’d never seen it.
ILANA: Another side of pitching was the emotional/intellectual transformation we had to allow the project to endure. It’s so pure on the web, but if we want to expand it to television, we learned we had to allow some walls to break down to let it grow. Anyone who’s changed or added a form of media for a project could probably attest to the initial resistance. For example, we were reluctant at first to label things as a constant, something you’d see every episode. It felt “so TV,” or maybe even a bit formulaic. But then we’d talk through it, and it’s like, “Wait, we WANT this to be so TV.” I think when you’re new to any game, you want to reinvent the wheel. We learned that the form has been set for us. TV has been being perfected (for lack of a better word) for what, like 80 years or something? There’s a form and a structure for a reason. And filling that form in with your own content is where you individualize something, where you make it your own.
DARYN: You two work so well off each other and have a very unique brand of comedy. How did you meet? Was it “comedy” at first sight?
ABBI: We met in an indie improv team here in NYC back in 2007. It was called, “Secret Promise Circle”. We were a tight knit group, but Ilana and I were the only two ladies, so we bonded right from the start.
ILANA: We also had some wonderful “mutual friends” that we discovered were mutual IRL and not on Facebook, and that was pretty cool. We are also grateful that we had a couple years of normal friendship before getting all meta with it. It’s the initial, core thing, which makes the work part of it so much easier.
DARYN: In addition to having great chemistry, you captured something in the web series which Woody Allen and Spike Lee did before — what New York City is really like. How did the “Do the Right Thing” and “Manhattan” inspired episodes come about?
ABBI: We both love New York and the struggles that come along with living here. We both get cat-called in very different ways here in the city, and we thought it would be fun to get to talk about that a bit. At first, the, “Do The Right Thing” episode was spun from just doing an homage to the title sequence. Then we incorporated the “Fight The Power” attitude about these cat call situations. Our director for that episode Tim Bierbaum really brought so much to that one. He took it to the next level, really getting the Spike Lee feel and just made it so much better. That’s why we love getting to work with new directors and collaborators!
ILANA: It was such a dream to see ourselves in these contexts we had idolized for so long. We are both really big Spike Lee fans, and I feel like, without knowing it, we went through some of the same steps he had — beginnings and these very street, “in it,” stolen shots. It’s also like telling someone you love them or something, though I don’t really know if he’s seen it. But it’s like we got it off our chests, our Spike Lee thing.
DARYN: You tackled so many different socially relevant issues on Broad City like breaking a $10 from the homeless, female mustache waxing, and penis size. How much is scripted and how much is improvised?
ABBI: They are all scripted, and then we allow ourselves and the other actors to improvise within them. Especially because the tone is very natural, it’s important for us to have a bit of flexibility in there — not to mention we’re working with some of the most talented improvisors out there, it would be a shame to not let them play a bit.
ILANA: And as far as being socially relevant goes, we just stay small, using exact instances from our lives or even our friends lives. The more specific we go, the wider an audience a moment seems to reach. Also, it’s not socially relevant until other people get on board with it, so it’s mutual between us and our audience what is deemed important.
DARYN: For new fans of the show, what are your favorite episodes during the web series run?
ABBI: For me, I think “Comedy Couple”, “The Commute”, and I can’t not say “I Heart New York”–because this one was a real real labor of love.
ILANA: Totz about “I Heart New York” — the work our team put into that was incredibly special. It’s hard to choose, it’s like picking your favorite child… if you had 34 kids. “Date Night” always makes me feel warm and glow-y. “Dream” always cracks me up because I love getting Abbi’s proverbial goat, and that’s all that happens in this one. God, I don’t know. I just want to thank everyone who’s lent a hand and say that the one they worked on is my favorite.
While you’re waiting for the FX version, check out the web original at http://www.broadcitytheshow.com/.
