I had the opportunity to take part in a recent Q&A with Grimm co-creators, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf. Here's some of that phone call.
Question: David, can you talk about where the idea of the extended world of the Grimm fairytales came from?
David Greenwalt: Yes. Jim Kouf and I were approached by Hazy Mills, which is Todd Milliner and Sean Haye’s company, and Todd had this great idea about doing something in the modern world with the Brothers Grimm. And we flipped for the idea. And we came up with the notion that how to marry that mythology into the modern world would be by the following: That the original Brothers Grimm were in fact profilers, and that the stories they were telling were in fact true on some basic deep level. And we came up with the notion that in our world of the Grimm, there would only be one world. There wouldn’t be a fairytale world and a real world. There would just be our world. And in our world lived these creatures who can be seen by our hero. And for example, he can see the big bad wolf and the child molester. And it’s a sort of a marriage of a police procedural and a mythological fracturing fairytales every week.
Question: So similar to Buffy, X-Files, True Blood and other TV shows that have run before, I know it’s early, but what are the chances we’ll see a comic book series based on this show?
David Greenwalt: The chances we see a comic book series based on the show I think are very good. And I think there’s terrific room for that in the comic book world. And the big question is will it come before or after the musical.
Question: Is there going to be a season long story ark or something like that?
David Greenwalt: There will be week to week episodic tales that you can just enjoy like opening a book and reading a fairytale. And there will also be seasonal arks involved in the show as well.
Question: And like a big bad or like or used to with Buffy and Angel?
David Greenwalt: Well, you know, the big bad comes in a little different form in Grimm because we’re presenting some characters that appear to be bad but may actually have some good agendas, you know, a little more mix of good and bad in the characters that Nick, our main character will go up against.
Question: So is your plan to have every episode have some basis in an existing fairytale or you also going to be inventing your own brand new fairytales?
Jim Kouf: All of the above.
David Greenwalt: All of the above. Some will be really clear like, oh, that’s Little Red Riding Hood or oh, that’s Goldylocks and the Three Bears or Sleeping Beauty or whatever. And then some will be less clear of what the specific fairytale will be. But they’ll always be an element of fairytale in the shows.
Jim Kouf: Or we’ll take a story from the headlines and give it a fairytale-like twist to it so you go, oh the real life story has a fairytale like quality to it.Question: Hello. I’m noticing, you know, detective Nick Burnhardt seems to occupy these 2 worlds and it strikes me the series itself is doing the same thing, balancing between who is procedural and more fantasy elements. How are you planning to balance these elements against each other and you know, maybe draw in viewers who may not ordinarily watch one or another?
David Greenwalt: Well, if you, for example, if you’re someone who really likes a police procedural, you know there will be familiar elements in the show that will appeal to that viewer who is like, here is a crime. What’s the source? Who really committed the crime? What’s the source? What’s the cause? And what’s the solution? How do our heroes solve it? At the same time, there a whole other level, you know, sort of cooking at the same time on the stove. That it usually has its’ own explanation in the Grimm world of who these creatures really are and what they’re really up to. And our hero is astride the 2 worlds. He’s got a foot in each world. And he - and you know it’s very difficult for him to balance, you know, what is he going to tell his girlfriend? What is he going to tell his detective partner? How is he going to use these abilities to solve crimes and yet still have it look like they could have been solved in the normal world. So it’s - I think it’s appealing to you know, hopefully, a broad audience that maybe normally wouldn’t’ be that much interested in one or the other. Or that are interested in one or the other, but want, you know, more meat in the sandwich so to speak.
Question: My question is viewers of genre shows really tend to be hardcore and intense. And I’m one, so I know this for a fact. And we tend to think too deeply sometimes. I guess my question is: Are we to assume these characters - for example, the Big Bad Wolf - are archetypes? Or is there more than one Big Bad Wolf? And does the Big Bad Wolf always go after girls in red hoods? Are these kind of symbolic? You know what I’m trying to say here?
David Greenwalt: Yes. I think it’s a great question.
Jim Kouf: No, they’re actually real people with real problems. And we actually, in the show, are telling their point of view as well. So you hear I’m the big bad wolf and there’s not - there’s many of them. We call them blue pods and their blue pods in the plural. And they have a point of view that they’re doing. And their behavior, from their point of view, is not all that bad. They accept it as normal.
David Greenwalt: And our one big bad wolf running character regular in the show is a vegetarian. And he does Pilates and he goes to church. And he’s trying to fight his grimmer impulses. So they run the whole gambit, the whole spectrum so that they’re not always evil or bad. Sometimes they’re good. Sometimes they’re innocent but they’ve gotten themselves into a situation which our hero has to help them. So they kind of run the gambit that humans do. And each one is different. They’re not all the same. They can’t just be categorized as generically the same.
One more thing, these creatures, when they were little, they’re parents told them stories about the Brothers Grimm and to be afraid of the Brothers Grimm. So these creatures, when they recognize our character as a Grimm profiler/hunter of these creatures, some of them get very freighted because they’ve been told of these
Jim: Because they’ll slay them.
David Greenwalt: Yes. That they’ll slay them so. So there’s many points of view in this show.
Question: Wow. That’s very cool. In fact, that’s awesome. Then my next question is, aside from the character that you mentioned is going to be a regular, one of the Big Bad Wolves - will there be other kind of reoccurring or regular characters from the Grimm world that we’re going to get to know?
David Greenwalt: Absolutely.
Jim Kouf: Yes. There are. Some of them won’t be in every episode. But there will be arks for them and we’ll build on their characters a little bit here and there.
David Greenwalt: They’ll be some that are simple as a refrigerator repair man who comes to your house, you know, so that like I said they come from all walks of life.
Don't forget to catch Grimm Oct 28 on NBC!
