Jen: So, you went from a story about a time-travelling 13-year old to a show about a time-travelling 32-year old. Was it tough to make that leap?
Jana: Once it was presented to me, I realized that I was really interested in this thing where you hit your late thirties or your late twenties and if you haven’t succeeded with the job, the family, the partner – you feel like you’re failing by not hitting certain milestones by a certain age. The idea of a woman who is funny and smart and attractive and educated who seems to have all these things going for but feels like she’s failing because she hasn’t achieved things in the way she and society have told her she must achieve, felt really universal to me and interesting and something I was seeing happening all around me. So, we married that to the time travel concept and it really went from there.
Jen: It seems like every time Erica goes back to fix a regret, she doesn’t necessarily accomplish what she thinks she’s going to do. Often times, the original end result occurs anyway, just sometimes in a more round-about way. Is that a statement on fate?
Aaron: We play with fate a bit – show some alternative realities – like Adam has one where he’s married to Beatrice and Erica has one where she’s rich. But mainly, we’ve written things that way because we want the dramatic thrust of the show to focus on the present than the past. So, it’s not about going to the past to fix your problems, it’s about going back to the past to learn from your problems, and bringing those lessons to fix her current issues.
Jenprah Winfrey: Perhaps that’s why a lot of people relate to the show – because, like Erica, they can’t or don’t actually change their pasts, they can only face their mistakes, try to learn from them and move forward.
Aaron: Right. Your life is going to be limited if you let your regrets define you. Instead, you have to learn from them, put those hang-ups behind you and move on.
Jen: Has that really resonated with viewers?
Jana: Oh, yah. We hear it all the time. That’s the major feedback we get from the show.
Jen: I’ve heard people describe watching Being Erica like it’s as if they’re getting their own little therapy session.
Jana: I’ve heard that too. People have told me that the show has changed their lives – and it’s lovely. People get very heartfelt about it. They really relate to Erica. Like, some people have told me the show has helped them solve their own problems, and some people wish their own therapist was more like Dr. Tom.
Aaron: We also strive to entertain people, of course. *Laughs* But one thing that has always been really important to us is that the show feels realistic, even with this time-travel element to it.
Jen: Where do you get a lot of your viewer feedback?
Aaron: Our friends are very vocal. They watch and they definitely let us know what they think of it.
Jana: People e-mail. People Facebook.
Aaron: There’s a LiveJournal site we look at. Television Without Pity. Twitter.
Jen: The Internet isn’t always known to be the friendliest place. How do you deal with criticism?
Jana: Well, sometimes you get consensus. Like, sometimes nearly everyone feels the same way about something and when that happens, you have to pay attention to that, I think.
Aaron: A good example from this year was episode seven, “Jenny From the Block.” It got a really big, positive response, which surprised us because we thought it was the weakest episode of the season. For a lot of people, it was their favourite. And that really made us think.
Jana: We reconnected this season with what people really liked about the show to begin with. Seeing the response to that episode helped us. But it’s often very individual. Like, there’s the whole Kai / Adam situation this year. Some people really love Adam, some love Kai. Some people really want Erica to be single.
Jen: The show has been picked up by a few international distributors and networks – has the knowledge that it’s being seen elsewhere, like Britain and Brazil and the States, impacted the show at all?
Aaron: We only get notes from the CBC, and that’s really all we concern ourselves with. The thing is, different countries and cultures respond differently to some of the subject matter – so from what I understand, they’ll sometimes edit the show quite a bit before it airs there. Degrassi was the same thing. It was often too much for American broadcasters, and yet, it was what got us a lot of attention down there.
Jen: Has there been any pressure to turn down the “Torontoness” of the show?
Jana: No, no, no. If anything, we crank it up. Toronto is a huge part of our show. We go out of our way to mention things like the 401 or Scarborough Town Centre or Casa Loma. The show is aggressively Toronto.
Aaron: We purposefully set a lot of scenes in highly identifiable areas of Toronto. We want to make Toronto look beautiful. It’s not just a stand-in for an American city. It’s one of the biggest cities in North America.
Random Comment: Want more proof of my Two Degrees of Canadian Bacon theory? Erica’s home – an apartment building on Palmerston – is actually where my friend (an old high school boyfriend, to be precise) and his girlfriend live. They feel slightly ripped off that inside of their apartment is nowhere as roomy as the one on Being Erica.
Jen: Being Erica is being remade for a British audience. Do you have any input in that? Do you want any? Are you OK with having your character in someone else’s hands?
Jana: Nope – no real input. It’s being made for that other culture so I think it really does have to handled by someone who is immersed in that culture. I mean, if being Erica was being made for Egypt, should I really have input in how the portrayal is done? Our Erica is distinctly Canadian. I couldn’t imagine someone writing her, on a Canadian show, for a Canadian audience, who didn’t thoroughly understand what it’s like to be Canadian. So, when it comes to adapting the story for other markets, I think the same is true
Jen: Not only are you writers, but you’re also executive producers. What does that mean when it comes to what you do on the show?
Aaron: We’re show runners – but we don’t have anything to do with the money side of things. Basically all creative decisions get filtered through us.
Jana: We’re the creative gods of the show, to put it really crassly and bluntly, but that’s the best way of explaining it. We direct the show creatively in every sense. What the sets are going to look like to what people are going to wear – we don’t buy the wardrobe or anything, but we are the creative vision.
Jen: As much as that’s in your control – have there been things you’ve had to fight for creatively? Have any of your stories or suggestions received pushback from Temple Street or the CBC?
Aaron: When we do some of the more out-there stories, there’s always some concern about what we’re doing – and we ensure them that they can trust us that we’re not going to make it weird and unwatchable.
Jana: But we’ve always felt very supported – really the most in my entire career.
Aaron: Oh, yes, by far.
Jana: Like, they let us do things that they’re afraid of, it’s clear that they’re afraid.
Aaron: Definitely stuff that you wouldn’t do on broadcast in the US. And this is a network, broadcast show, just in Canada, and they let us do things like …
Jana: Anal rape.
Aaron: Finding your boyfriend masturbating.
Jana: Stuff that’s typically more cable.
Jen: I did noticed way more swearing and sexuality this year than in previous seasons.
Jana: The swearing was from Adam probably.
Aaron: It’s kind of hard to have a character like that without a swear word or two in there.
Jana: We write them as real people – and real people curse. Real people are sexual. If we didn’t have any of that in the show, we wouldn’t be writing honestly about these characters.
Jen: When you’re writing an episode together, how does that normally work? Is one of you more of a dialogue person and the other is more of a story person? Or are there certain characters that you each kind of own?
Aaron: When it comes to co-writes, we both have strengths and weaknesses so we balance each other out. Like, I’ve never written a voiceover for the show. I don’t know how to write them – Jana writes all the voiceovers.
Jana: And I don’t do the comedy. Like Julianne and Brent and Friedken and all that – that part of the show is very much Aaron’s voice. It works well to write about the things that you have the experience in or that you relate to. It makes the process go faster and better. When we’re co-writing, we’ll skip scenes – like the super emotional scenes he’ll usually leave for me, and the comedic scenes, I’ll leave for him. When we’re writing individually, we usually really struggle with those scenes that are outside our usual expertise, and half the time the other comes in and rewrites it anyway.
Aaron: Lots of times I’ll write a very female-centric scene like a guy, and Jana will be like, “this is NOT how a woman would say that!”
Jana: For me, the same thing goes for comedies … and sometimes the guys.
Aaron: Yes – I’ll tell her, “those guys are emoting too much. Use less words.”
Jana: But we’re both getting better and learning from each other.
Aaron: We both write much better because of this show.
Jen: Which character is the most fun to write for?
Aaron: Julianne. She just says what’s on her mind.
Jana: That’s for him. Julianne’s really hard for me. I guess Erica is the most natural character for me to write – because we’re somewhat similar, I can draw from a lot of my own thoughts. I also like writing Dr. Tom, even though he’s probably the toughest character to write for. When you do a good job with a Dr. Tom scene, it’s really rewarding.
Jen: What makes writing Dr. Tom so tough?
Jana: He’s really different from anyone on the show.
Aaron: That was the hardest person for me to write for at the start. He’s always talking in metaphors. He often has to get a point across without actually saying it outright to Erica. It can be hard to do that.
Jana: He’s sometimes sarcastic, sometimes mean, sometimes compassionate – and always holding something back.
Jen: Is there a character you relate to the most on the show?
Aaron: I love Julianne. I pick her. *Laughs*
Jana: Well, Erica – in many ways, obviously. She’s my age, she grew up in the same part of the city I did, she’s Jewish like me. On a superficial level I have a lot in common with her.
Aaron: But there’s a lot that Jana is that Erica isn’t. By the time this show came around, Jana had already had kids, she had a good career – sort of the anti-Erica.
Jana: In terms of writing her, though, and understanding what she’s thinking – I get it. If you’re going to write a show, make the lead a character that’s the easiest for you to write.
Jen: Jana, are you often asked if you’re Erica?
Jana: YES. It’s probably the question I get the most. I’m not Erica. Everyone, please stop asking me that. *Laughs*
Jen: Have you ever pulled directly from your lives or from conversations you’ve had with friends and family? Are any of the stories in Being Erica mostly true ones?
Jana: Oh, yes. We’ve even used peoples’ actual first and last names in the show.
Both Aaron and Jana look at each other and laugh. There’s clearly a few inside jokes going on within the scripts of Being Erica.
Jana: Well, we tend not to do things so that they’re so specific that they and their entire families will recognize it’s them. Actually, a lot of the time people think we’ve been inspired by their lives when we actually had no idea that what was happening in the show was something they also experienced. It goes back to the universality of a lot of the issues we explore in Being Erica.
Aaron: But, everyone’s named after someone we know, even if it doesn’t match their character. I used Kendra (our mutual friend) for Claire’s best friend who brings stripper poles to parties.
I laugh, envisioning our Kendra doing the same - especially seeing as she's been invited to a cocktail party we're throwing this month.
Jana: And Ivan and Dave – our gay couple on the show who own Goblins? They’re named after our fellow executive producers from Temple Street, Ivan Schneeberg and David Fortier.
Aaron: A lot of people now think they’re a couple. *Laughs* They’re close, but not that close. They’re both married with children.
Jana: Well, there’s also Brent. That was the most extreme one we did – and we so did not ask for his permission, in fact, we kind of made fun of him. Brent - the real one - is a very well known talent agent in the industry. And he’s a gay straight man.
Jen: Ok! I need clarification! Brent is STRAIGHT?
Jana: Yes. He’s a straight man.
I’ve only just met Jana, so I’m not sure if that's sarcasm I'm reading.
Jen: No, really? Like, he’s straight-straight? Because I never, ever would have thought that.
Aaron: He is 100% straight. We’ve shown him hitting on women throughout the show – just in a very gay way.
Jen: Ok – I’ll take your word on that. Besides developing characters, you’re also developing the big story. When you establish the show’s arc – do you do that together?
Aaron: Yep – we’re doing that right now, actually, for season four – should we have one.
Aaron shows me a piece of lined paper where he’s drawn a line to represent the series continuum, with characters jotted down and ideas of what will happen along the way. I’d officially make the worst spy ever because I really didn’t catch anything besides – sarcastic spoiler alert – the names “Erica” and “Dr. Tom”. Way to go, Jen.
Jen: How far along have you thought about the show? Have you pretty much plotted out Erica’s entire journey?
Aaron: There’s been one thing that we’ve known all along, and that’s the end point – how the series will wrap, but that’s mainly it. Her life is evolving and we follow Erica and what makes sense for her. Like, at one point, when we started the series, we thought she wanted to become an author herself, and it doesn’t feel like that anymore.
Jana: Plus, you get inspired by certain performers or by things you see happening around you, or by things that we become interested in, and we put those in the show. So, we’re really not locked down, season to season, except in the most broad strokes way.
Aaron: The ultimate goal is for her to be happy and fulfilled.
Jana: We’re committed to seeing her evolve and grow and become braver, stronger, happier.
Jen: It sounds like her journey might be cut short, though. In season three, Kai returns from the future and vaguely references that in 2019, there will be a major disaster to hit Toronto, one that causes many people die. Is it Rob Ford’s doing?
Jana and Aaron: YES. *Laugh*
Oh, jokes are fun. It’s a joke, right?
Jana: We can’t reveal much about that yet, obviously. Aaron and I are talking now about what happens and how, but should we have a season four, it will be explained then.
Jen: Does that mean you’re not sure about a season four? I see you’re working on it, so ... ?
Aaron: We’ve got eight scripts that we’re working on now and we’re operating as if the show will come back, but we won’t know officially until January. So, for us, it’s still at the story and idea stage.
Source : Jen Never Jen
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