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| The cast of ABC's The Real O'Neals: (l-r): Jay Ferguson, Mary Hollis Inboden, Noah Galvin, Martha Plimpton, Bebe Wood, Matt Shively |
As the ABC comedy, which premiered at midseason earlier in 2016, continues
to get stronger in this second year, I spoke with its three executive producers
during the season 2 premiere screening at Los Angeles’ Paley Center for Media about
how far the show has evolved, and what we can expect in episodes to come.
Must-Hear TV: What is special
about The Real O’Neals that drew you to the pilot script and to the show?
Casey Johnson:
Initially we were really excited about the idea of telling a real
coming-of-age story for a gay teenager in today’s America. That seemed really exciting to us, especially
on network television. It hadn’t been
done before, so we were thrilled about that.
Also, the story about a divorce happening in real time. We felt like that hadn’t been seen either.
MHTV: Is there anything
in the second season – whether it be guest stars or storylines -- that you
wanted to get to in the first season that we’ll see now?
David Windsor: Well there
are definitely some guest stars. In the
season premiere episode, we had Jane Lynch, RuPaul, Lance Bass and Tyler
Oakley. And later on, a couple of
episodes later, we have our chefs.
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| The Real O'Neals executive producers (l-r): Casey Johnson, David Windsor, Stacy Traub |
Stacy Traub: We have
Alex Guarnaschelli, Toni Lofaso and Graham Elliot. It’s a Chopped fantasy, kind of “Kenny’s
Kitchen Nightmares.” That was really
fun, recreating a cooking show.
DW: We’re still
trying to get Jesus back for a role.
CJ: He’s busy
ST: We have Robbie Rogers
and Gus Kenworthy, the silver medalist.
And we’re definitely going to have Tim Gunn back. He’s shooting Project Runway right now, but as
soon as he’s done, he tells us he’ll come back.
MHTV: What did you learn
from season 1 that affects season 2?
CJ: I think one of
the things we’re doing – we talk about season 1 with Kenny about being gay in
theory, and now we’re talking about him being gay in practice. And what does that mean in the world? What does his first gay Halloween look like,
when he wants to dress as Beyonce? How does
Eileen feel about that now that she knows he’s gay? We’re going to have Kenny get a boyfriend
this year and watch the steps of that relationship. We’ll see what that means for Kenny, and what
it means for the rest of the family.
MHTV: Did you have any
trepidation about doing that on network TV?
DW: ABC has always
been really supportive of everything we wanted to do. We never ran into any roadblocks with them. They were always encouraging of going further
and further. So if we had any fears,
they was put down right away. We were given
a green light to move forward with those stories.
MHTV: What can two teen
boys do on television on a date? Can you
suggest that they fool around? How far
can they go on network TV?
ST: Well we’re not
there yet, but there’s definitely lots of kissing. Yes, Kenny is tippy-toeing into the
relationship, but we’re not going to shy away from it. We’re going to be real, and teenagers fool
around. So we’ll get there.
MHTV: The election will
be over just a month into your season, and you’ll go well beyond that. But has anything about this political climate
seeped into the show?
CJ: It hasn’t seeped
in directly. We don’t make any direct commentary
at all. But I think our show has always
been about love and acceptance. So if
people see that as a commentary on our world today, that’s our point of
view.
ST: We tried to stay
away from politics, just because it’s so timely and you don’t know exactly when
the episode is going to air. Or who’s going
to win. So it’s in the world, but not
directly discussed.
MHTV: Do you have any
casting for any of Kenny’s boyfriends or dates?
And does Noah have any input?
DW: Well, we brought
in a few guys for Noah to read with. They
were all really incredible, and we wanted to make sure that they had really
good chemistry. So we cast Sean Grandillo,
who is an amazing theater actor. He was
in Spring Awakening. He and Noah actually
knew each other and had a friendship before the show even started, so the
chemistry just kicked off right away.
CJ: We introduce him
in our Christmas episode, where Eileen is the choirmaster for the St. Barkley’s
choir. And it builds to this beautiful
scene with a Christmas song/pop song mashup that Noah sings with Sean. And it’s really really beautiful.
MHTV: I would hope that
would the kind of thing that would win over early critics, such as from
Catholic groups. Have you heard that
they have come around to understanding that the show is loving and supporting,
and far from sacrilegious?
DW: I think there’s
been no reaction, which is a better reaction.
Matt Shively [who plays older brother Jimmy] was saying today on another
panel that we were on that the Catholic League, for example, softened a little
bit. I think they finally saw some
episodes and were like, “Oh, okay. Well,
maybe that’s not as outrageous as I was thinking before.”
CJ: The feedback we’ve gotten directly are from Catholic people we know and who are in our lives. Just the feedback from them saying, “This seems like our lives, this seems like my family.” That’s really gratifying for us. Because that’s what we’re trying to do.
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