We Is Us

Pluribus: The Official Podcast

The inaugural episode of the Pluribus podcast features creator Vince Gilligan, star Rhea Seehorn, and producers discussing the premiere epis

Key takeaways

• Vince Gilligan began developing the core idea for Pluribus approximately eight to ten years ago during breaks from Better Call Saul.
• Rhea Seehorn's character, Carol, utilizes a chin-length bob to visually differentiate her from her previous role as Kim Wexler.

Main topics

• Origins of Pluralbus
• Character development for Carol

Notable quotes

There's no drama in happiness.

Conclusion

The episode offers a fascinating look at the collaborative and meticul

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) Welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast, an intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McCaleb. I'm one of the editors of Polaribus and the host of this podcast. If you watched Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, you might have heard the insider podcast we did for nearly every episode going all the way back to season two of Breaking Bad. And a huge shout out to my mentor, the brilliant editor Kelly Dixon, for starting those podcasts and pioneering this particular format. Now, this isn't a recap show. Instead, we favor a freewheeling, unscripted discussion about the making of each episode. Now, this inaugural podcast is about episode 101, entitled We Is Us, written and directed by Vince Gilligan. So without further ado, let's dive right in with our guests, creator and writer-director of this episode, Vince Gilligan. Hey, Chris. Co-executive producer, Trina Siopi. Hi, Chris. Writer and co-executive producer, Jen Carroll. Hey Speaker 4 (1:10) there. Speaker 2 (1:11) and Carol Sterka herself, Ray Sehorne. Hello. Happy to be here. Welcome to the show, guys. Speaker 3 (1:18) Thanks. Also Speaker 2 (1:18) with us today on the mix board, on the ones and twos, is our assistant editor, Nicholas Tsai. Nicholas, how you doing? Speaker 1 (1:26) Good. How are you? Great. And yeah, Speaker 2 (1:30) this is a homegrown operation here. And this is our first episode. And there's a ton to talk about. But yeah, it's been quite a journey to get... to this point to actually have the time. Oh, man. Yeah. Vince, what was the kernel, like the first kernel of the eight? Like when did you start thinking about it? Speaker 1 (1:46) Well, we are recording this in the room that we use as a writer's room for Pluribus. And prior to that, it was a writer's room we used on Better Call Saul. And eight to 10, it might've been almost a decade ago, but at least eight years ago, we were doing Better Call Saul here and we would take lunch breaks and I'd walk around the neighborhood and I started. kind of daydreaming about this idea that became Pluribus. This was long before I had a title for it. And it started off as a wish fulfillment idea in that it started off, it was about a guy. It was about a male character. And something happens in the world, and I hadn't figured that part out yet, but everyone suddenly is very solicitous and will do anything for him. And I thought, this will be fun, man. He can do all kinds of fun stuff. And the only limitation is your imagination. But then it got kind of porny kind of quick. And also, you know what? The thing that really threw me off track for a while is I started to think it's a little like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. And those two shows, it's so weird. Both the husbands in those shows, or the husband in one, the boyfriend in the other, they're so... crabby and stunted and like, Oh, Jeannie, don't, don't do that. Don't send us to, you know, Paris, France. Don't, you know, whatever. And, uh, uh, Darren on bewitched is the same way. He's like, don't use your magic, Sam. Don't. And as a kid, even I thought, what is wrong with these guys? Even before I was pubescent, I was like, what is wrong with these guys? And Speaker 2 (3:21) the Speaker 1 (3:23) reason is from a writer's point of view, and it took me a while to figure this out is there's no drama in happiness. None whatsoever, which is why we kind of got our hand, one arm tied behind her back on this show. There's no drama in it. As I started to realize you can't make a story just about someone getting every wish fulfilled because it'd be fun for the first, until the first commercial break and then it'd get boring. Speaker 3 (3:46) And the Speaker 1 (3:47) other thing I thought was again, about eight or 10 years ago, we were doing better call Saul and the lovely miss Ray Seahorn sitting across from me here was, uh, coming to all of our attention as to how great she is and I and I started to think I want to write something for Ray when this is done I want to work again with her after this is over however long this show will go and luckily it went six seasons but uh so I started to think well why does it have to be a male protagonist why not a female protagonist and why not Ray but she probably can't be so happy and that Speaker 2 (4:24) that led to this so it's set in Albuquerque or you know where Carol lives in Albuquerque. What was the thought behind going back to Albuquerque after Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but a totally different side of Albuquerque than we've seen? Speaker 1 (4:38) I love Albuquerque, and even more than that, I love our crew. I've been working with this, we have been working with this crew for some folks since the very beginning of Breaking Bad, which dates back to 2007, which as we record this is, what is that, 18 years ago? I can't even believe it when I say it. It can vote. The concept Speaker 2 (4:59) of Speaker 3 (4:59) the crew. Speaker 1 (5:00) That's rude, Jen. That's very rude. Yeah. No, that's, so I wanted to work with the same crew. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And it did give me a little pause, to be honest, thinking, should we set it in Albuquerque, even though we're shooting in Albuquerque? And then I thought, no, you can't spin. half your energy trying to hide the fact. Oh, you Speaker 3 (5:23) mean Speaker 1 (5:23) shoot Speaker 3 (5:23) Albuquerque as a different city? Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:25) because, I mean, when they first pitched it to me, Breaking Bad, shoot Albuquerque as Los Angeles. And that was one of the smart decisions I made. I made a lot of dumb ones, too, but the smart one was don't pretend it's L.A. because it's going to be very, you can't ever show the Sandias if you do that. Speaker 3 (5:41) Yeah, yeah. But Speaker 1 (5:41) I thought, isn't it weird? It's Ray Seahorn playing. This new character, she's not Kim Wexler. It may bump some people. I can understand why, but I figured, eh, still, it's worth it. Speaker 2 (5:53) Well, and Ray is sporting a very different look than Kim Wexler with Carol. Yes. What was the thinking behind that? Well, Speaker 3 (6:00) I was talking with Vince and then also Trish Almeida, the head of our hair department, who also was the ponytail designer on Better Call Saul. But she and I were just talking about different... looks for the character but also some practicalities we knew going in that it would be a lot of probably a lot of shoots where I am supposed to have not done my hair maybe not showered like I'm talking throughout the whole season and with longer hair you can get into some real predicaments not not even trying to look attractive as much as keeping any kind of continuity because longer Speaker 4 (6:38) like some people have long thick lustrous hair like Miss C.O.B. and Miss Carol, but mine gets Speaker 3 (6:44) stringy. And so if it's not, you know, coiffed as it was in a Saul, then it could be problematic. And then we were just talking about, it would be fun to have a different hairstyle. Then pitched a couple of ideas to Vince and he liked this kind of chin length Bob that we came up with, which. really was helpful, I have to say, whether we're shooting in extreme heat or extreme cold or sweating or it's supposed to look wet from the shower, all those things. And then Matt Cradle, our A-camera op, who's also been with us forever, he and I had a really fun moment because I think it's the first time I'm on screen is the Barnes & Noble scene, right? Yes. It was really fun shooting there. And they are... Was it a dolly tracking shot or a slider that you did going behind me? Slider, Speaker 1 (7:28) slide and reveal in the audience, showing the audience and then revealing you. Wanted to give you a big movie star entrance. Speaker 3 (7:33) Right. But the back of my head. Yeah. Movie star back of the head. No, Speaker 4 (7:36) that's actually Speaker 3 (7:36) a clear. Speaker 4 (7:37) Yeah, because you want to hold up. Vince has always said this, that like the coolest introduction is to hold off on seeing the character's face for as long as possible. Love that. Speaker 1 (7:46) Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He has one of the coolest, Harrison Ford has one of the coolest introductions because you, Spielberg. who's a genius, you know, holds off seeing him. And then when you finally see him, it's like the back of his head. It takes quite a while before you see his face. If you watch that movie again. I'm going to go back and see it. Speaker 3 (8:03) So as Matt was filming it, we did a take. And then I looked over at Matt because so many shots were designed in Better Call Saul that were framing my ponytail and coming up from behind. Sometimes... as this barometer of where Speaker 4 (8:18) Kim was at emotionally, like falling Speaker 3 (8:20) apart, tightly wound. And he's, he got like a little like chill running up his spine of just like, wow, it is definitely a new character. It is totally a different day because the ponytail is, is gone. And I was thinking the same thing. It's that we have a nice little moment, like just doing that. I mean, and Matt, right. When I. directed on Saul and chose a shot that was Kim's moving her chair. He and I kept working on how he was framing the back of my head. I remember that. Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about it. So we did think that was fun, a little subtle. None of us planned it to be that, but I do think it's a subtle little nod of like, we're not in Kansas anymore. Speaker 1 (8:56) You're right. And I admit, I was just thinking of the cool movie star introduction. I was not thinking about, oh, it's all about her. that was a really wonderful added benefit. It's, oh, there's no ponytail here. We're a different character. I thought that was, Matt reacted to that. It was fun. And then suddenly I went, oh, yeah, right. Speaker 3 (9:14) Yes, that's why I did it. How did you guys come to decide, like, how the others were going to behave when they are seizing and all of that? Because that got introduced in this episode and was something I wasn't sure what it was going to look like either. And, of course, you had Nito Lariosa doing the choreography of that. That was a big ask to ask a lot of background people, some of whom are actors. Some may not want to be doing that as a living, but they all had to act. They had to perform. You Speaker 1 (9:41) are right. You are right. It was one of the scarier parts of pre-production for me personally, because we had big crowd scenes. I don't like big crowd scenes as a director. I mean, I don't like, I like them fine when I'm watching a movie or TV show. I don't particularly like directing Speaker 2 (9:54) them. Speaker 1 (9:55) I don't really feel that in control period when I'm directing, but the more people I have to direct. the less in control I feel and the more I have Jen and Trina and Alana, my assistant and anyone, people I trust and anyone I trust for that matter, I get folks to stand behind me and look at the monitor and sometimes I give them quadrants of the screen, say look in this quadrant and this quadrant only, look in this one, because you're looking out for some one person out of a hundred to be. staring at the camera, you know, like, or just doing something wrong. And I have to say, our extras were really good. They did a great job, but Nito directed the extras. I didn't. Or I had a much more minimal hand, but Nito. Well, Speaker 3