Starring Sasha Roiz, Alessandra Toressani, & Cheeks
Written by Liz Adams, Cap’n Phatty, & Cheeks
Directed by Tommy Barney
www.cheekstv.com
Follow @sasharoiz @bambolabambina @gocheeksgoNot what I was expecting.
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In case fans of “Husbands” missed the first time Cheeks worked with Alessandra Torresani and Sasha Roiz - here’s the vid!!!
Awwww!!! The lovely Sasha Roiz gives a GREAT mention of “Husbands” and Jane Espenson in this indepth interview:
http://scifiandtvtalk.typepad.com/scifiandtvtalk/2012/09/grimms-sasha-roiz-the-beast-within.html
“I worked with Jane Espenson again and made a little cameo appearance in her web series Husbands. It’s getting a lot of buzz and I was happy to support some friends of mine on that project.”
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He’s a sweetheart!!! :D
A tv interview article by: Laura Akers, Chris Hicks
Did you read part 1 of our interview with the Husbands crew?
Husbands, the marriage equality webseries created and written by Brad Bell (VH1’s Pop-Up Videos, Torchwood) and Jane Espenson (Buffy, Firefly, Once Upon a Time), just finished off its second season, funded by a $50k Kickstarter that yielded amazing results, both financially and creatively. With this buy-in from its audience, the Husbands team brought us back into the world of Cheeks and Brady, complete with a cast of geek stars (including Joss Whedon in his acting debut) guaranteed to please.
Bell and Espenson, along with Bell’s co-star Sean Hemeon (True Blood, Criminal Minds), sat down with CB at this year’s GeekGirlCon to talk about the Kickstarter, the new season, the perils and opportunities of coming out, and the nature of men—gay and straight.
Laura Akers and Chris Hicks for Comics Bulletin: So what new topics does season 2 take on?
Jane Espenson: [to Bell] Civil rights?
Brad Bell: Civil rights.
CB: Right now, we define that – for gays – almost entirely as “marriage equality,” so what do you mean when you say that?
Bell: Well, a parallel of all civil rights.
Espenson: The defining of that battle as a part of a larger continuing battle: equality for all. But that makes it sound very didactic.
Bell: But it’s funny though!
CB: Don’t worry, guys; I’ve very much established that it’s hysterical. Because it is.
Bell: Yeah, we deal with that in a light and frivolous way.
Espenson: But the longer the show goes on, the harder it continues to be, like will this marriage make it? Will these two disagree but eventually find each other? And as it is a romantic comedy, as you may guess, they probably do all right.
Bell: Yeah, and double standards in society and the unfair reaction and microscope that is put on anyone that is visible in a gay community…or even anyone that is not visible in the gay community that’s in front of the opposition.
Hicks for CB: Previously, Laura had talked to one of the producers for Burn Notice about shows about relationships.
Akers for CB: Matt Nix.
Hicks for CB: He actually made a good point about a lot of shows, when they deal with romantic relationships, they always drag things out and they never get together; there’s always this almost-kissing and other stupid plot devices. So they do that, and then when they finally let the characters actually hook up, the writers suddenly don’t know what the heck to do with their characters. All of a sudden, the whole show is gone.
Nix said it’s the result of a teenage view of love, rather than a grown-up relationship and all the adventures that holds. Do you see Cheeks and Brady hitting a point where they’ve got things worked out: they know who’s doing what, they’ve been able to come to some sort of terms on how their lives are going to operate, etc.? If it reached that point, then what is the show about?
Bell: Well, no ‘cause I think that that scenario will play out for ten years. And aside from that, there’s a lot of material in just that first step—all the different facets to what that entails, so that even if that becomes more solidified, and naturally it would, you’ve got “us against the world” stories, you’ve got “opposing goal” stories: okay, great, we know each other and we’ve got this figured out, but you want this thing and I want this other thing and who knows how that can play out.
Espenson: Another place that the shows tend to go is babies, but I think that that would not be a thing I would see for us in the first six years of the show.
CB: Because that’s what every show is doing with characters right now; it’s doing the baby thing. In both straight and gay relationships…
Bell: Yes, but you especially don’t see any gay couples without babies, because babies cancel out the sexual component of a gay couple. Babies are safe and likeable and, “Oh, I like those guys and their cute little baby.” If there is no baby, the assumption is that those guys are enjoying a sexual relationship and you can’t have that.
Espenson: So again, marriage is, like Mad About You, they told some very interesting stories, where they actually split up like, “Are we going to get a divorce?”
Bell: Not likely going to happen. Because it’s sort of what you guys are saying is, now that they’ve gotten through the newlywed phase, what obstacle can we throw at them that makes it uncertain? You know, divorce and cheating, and I don’t think we would go there either.
Espenson: But the nice thing is that we started them with this…they knew each other 5-6 weeks when they got married, so we’ve got a long time till they figure out that they know each other.
Bell: Well, it takes two years before you really know someone.
CB: And of course you didn’t like him for the first two weeks.
Espenson: There’s a story that remains: the flashback episode.
CB: [to Bell] Why did you give Brady another chance?
Bell: I don’t know if it was another chance; it was just, well, this will be fun – as long as he doesn’t talk – this will be fun for a while and then I’ll move on to something else.
CB: Like “Hey! I’m dating a Dodger! Cool.”
Bell: Yeah. I’ll have that for a while, sure. And then a couple of weeks went by, and it was suddenly like, “Oh, wait, he cares about me. Since when does somebody care about me, people just have a good time just like me and then it’s fun.” But then, yeah, I think that there was some normalcy and some tenderness.
Espenson: Honesty.
Bell: And some honesty. And it was weird and different, and I kind of liked it.
Espenson: I want to go back to that idea. I think that the shows that run out of steam when they get the couples together are a very different kind of shows than the kind of newlywed shows. We are much more like I Love Lucy or Mad About You – where the couple is already together – than we are Cheers or Moonlighting where the stated goal is them getting together or not. That’s why they run out of steam: it’s that they’ve reached the end of their stated goal. But our characters’ stated goal is “let’s keep this marriage going,” which is a goal that can take…it takes people a lifetime to answer the question “Will we keep this marriage going?”
“Will we get together or not” plays out much more quickly, and that’s why they hit that wall. We don’t have a wall in front of us; we are set up to not have a wall.
CB: So what was the goal for the season one and what is the goal for season two?
Espenson: In terms of within the show or…?
CB: You can interpret it however you like. You’re writers: go with it.
Espenson: Well, for season one, our goal was to determine if there was a fan base out there and we answered it: yes.
Bell: Yeah, I think to actually just do [the series]. Like, that’s a good idea; that should be done.
Espenson: That should exist; let’s make it exist. There it is.
Bell: Yeah, you want to write something ‘cause you have a good idea for something, and you just write it down.
Espenson: And season two similarly, we wanted to see more, and we know the fans want to see more, so let’s make us both happy – because we were fans of the show. At that point, we weren’t just fans of the idea; we were fans of the show we made. We wanted to see more.
Bell: I just love giving great stuff to the audience because you’re sitting there and you’re writing…and then getting to see it with an audience especially. You know, screening it at cons or even handing out the marketing photos, the commercial photos that we have, was a concept that I came up with and I knew, I just knew our audience was going to love it.
Espenson: You knew that?
Bell: Yeah. We rolled it out and people are like “Oh my god!” I mean those photos are flying out of our hands. I’m seeing it get like re-blogged on Tumblr and people adding comments like, this is amazing, I have to have more like this, I can’t believe it…that’s my favorite thing; I love that. So the ability to keep doing that…
Espenson: And it is Adam Bouska [best known for his NoH8 series] photography, thank you.
CB: So you’ve worked on geek shows and you understand they have a very special relationship to the audience; did you expect to have the kind of relationship that you have with your audience? How is it different, or is it different, from the relationship you have with hard-core geek audience?
Espenson: Maybe it’s a little more personal. I think a fan of Battlestar would certainly feel free walk up to me at a convention, so it’s not hugely different. They send us gifts and stuff, which is lovely, but so do Buffy fans.
Bell: Yeah, I guess for me it’s more personal because the fans were always there for me. The nature of what I was already producing, through either satire or directly saying, this is my opinion on this, brought people that were of like mind and felt that there was a kind of voice that I was representing that was not represented a lot in our media.
So extreme; it’s extreme right, extreme left, you’re either on or you’re off and I think most people are kind of, “Well, let’s be reasonable about this; there’s this and there’s that, but quit being so sensational.” And that was sort of where I started, that’s what people responded to and I think that that’s what builds that relationship.
Espenson: Fans bake us cakes and bring us cakes and we eat them, without fear; that’s the thing I hadn’t really had on other shows.
CB: Even after some of the things you did with Battlestar Galactica characters…
Espenson: Things I did? Oh, I murdered Cat, that’s true. People died.
CB: So aside from Joss, who else are we going to see in season 2?
Bell: Well, there’s Jon Cryer and Mekhi Phifer. [editorial note: Alessandra Torresani(Caprica) returns for season two, which also includes Clare Grant (Robot Chicken), Amber Benson (Buffy), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Sasha Roiz (Grimm), Dichen Lachman (Being Human), Felicia Day (The Guild), and Emma Caulfield (Bandwagon, Buffy)]
CB: What’s been the most surprising feedback you’ve gotten?
Espenson: The most surprising feedback?
Bell: Surprising…
CB: You can change the adjective if you like: touching, frightening, etc…
Espenson: Well, we’ve gotten…the ones that are the most gratifying have been the straight guys. Surprising?
Bell: Gratifying, flattering. There was a scene that’s very close and intimate and half-naked and sexy, and this straight guy working on set to me that he was relating it to a scenario that he’d been in and he was like, “Oh, my God, I’ve so been in that scenario.” And this is a dude…like a real kind of dude, and I said, “Didn’t it all weird you out that it’s two dudes? ‘Cause you were looking at us in our underwear all day basically while I straddle Sean.” And he said, “No!” like he hadn’t even thought about it. He’s like, “That’s exactly how it is, man.”
Espenson: With a girl.
Bell: Yeah, he totally related. I think that that, that sort of feedback…
Espenson: If your goal is to make people identify with these guys, for someone who you isn’t immediately going to identify with them, to actually be able to identify with them – then you know you’ve done it.
Bell: And the girl at Comic-Con that said that her cousin or someone came out after watching us two, to his dad. “Wow, really? We’re not even about coming out.”
CB: [to Hemeon] What’s been the most surprising, or disturbing, or exciting reaction that you’ve gotten from doing the show?
Sean Hemeon: Oh, it came right away actually. I had one that really got to me. I got just a personal email from some young boy in the Midwest. He said he felt like there was hope because he was just watching two gay men on the show be happily-ever-after; it just gave him hope to continue to be who he is. I was really moved by that. This was before we really got any coverage, any reviews or anything; this was right at the beginning.
Bell: Which as a gay man, I think speaks to something that people might not think, which is not only like hope to leave Ohio and get away from my oppressive dad, or whatever it is, but also that there’s more to the gay community than the bar scene and casual sex, which some of the gay community gets offended about: you know, the stereotype that we’re promiscuous and that kind of thing. It’s really very true: the expectation is that you have a Grinder account and you get laid every week, or every day if you’re single. You go out and you get laid.
It’s not really the way I work: I’m not really interested in having a Grinder account, and I’m sort of perceived by a lot of the gay community as having a puritanical hang-up about sex because I’m not interested in just going out and having casual sex. Which is something that I think that young men – because I think that men are very sensitive creatures – need to understand that that’s okay; it’s okay to want a relationship, it’s okay to seek something monogamous, it’s okay to not have sex with a guy until the fourth or fifth date, or after you’ve known him a few months. That’s all right.
Hemeon: I think a lot of them, deep down, want that. A lot of them, deep down, they’ll openly admit that. However, the problem is that a lot of these boys, these gay men, identify only as gay men. That’s their marker, and so they look around and it’s like, gay men go to bars and have lots of sex rather than develop their own relationships with themselves, with being gay just being a part of it.
Bell: I hear that, and I think that a part of it is also what gives me hope for that I can be married, that I can be in love.
Hemeon: Which was my biggest thing about coming out. I can’t get married, I can’t have kids. I mean, I was terrified. I want to be a father. I’d love that and I was terrified of coming out, as if that was being robbed from me [by admitting I’m gay]. But that’s not the case anymore; I mean, after developing a relationship with myself and having the gay just be a part of it, it’s just totally cool.
I can love who I want and be happy, be really happy. I think the timing of that email was so moving for me specifically because this show has really had…I’ve had to face my own personal phobias. Everything that Brady feels, I would read the script and do the scene, and afterwards think “Oh, so true. I’m totally trying to be the patriarch.” All my own personal beliefs and ideas, whether I pick them up from my family or somewhere else, all of them are being challenged, for the better. I mean I’ve come out as a different person; I’ve evolved because of the show.
Espenson: Oh, that’s so nice.
Hemeon: It is true. Okay, so there was some gay content on the web if you search my name and I was thinking I should change my name. I really thought about it for a good couple of months, but having Husbands and being so proud of it and being so proud of myself and being okay with it, it’s really helped me evolve as an “out” actor. And that email just came at the right time, totally telling me, “Okay, cool, I’m doing the right thing.”
CB: You’re talking about the attitudes towards sex in a gay community. Did you seeBurt’s sex talk with his gay son Kurt on Glee?
Bell: No, I remember hearing about it.
CB: It’s really amazing. You have a straight man trying to talk to his gay son about what sex is going to be like. Something along the lines of: “Everything about being a man, the casualness with which you want to treat sex is just going to be a thousand-fold with another man, and you’ve got to understand that this is actually an emotional minefield that you’re walking into, so you need to be careful about your emotional wellbeing.” And we do, I think, have that tendency to see gay men as exempt from that.
Espenson: Just all wanting to have sex all the time. And eventually, when you lose steam, you get married.
Hemeon: But gay men aren’t supported by our society [in terms of more traditional monogamous romantic love]; there was no “you get to go to prom,” there’s no dating experience, there’s none of that validated so we’re all behind in relation to that stuff.
Bell: So you’re 21 years old, and you might as well be 15 or 16. I mean it’s ridiculous. And that’s where you get the catty mentality, it’s where you get the viciousness, and the backstabbing. Because, yeah, emotionally they’re stunted. I mean, I will say it: the gay community is emotionally stunted. And until you make the decision to actively work beyond that, which eventually happens…
I know particularly well because I worked in a gay matchmaking company for two years, and the majority of our clientele were really amazing guys. There were these really amazing guys who were in their 20’s or 30’s, who had no idea where to go to meet a quality guy because they’re more interested in going to the bar scene. And online is this weird experience where you create a perception of something that you’re not. Or a second type of guys that were 40 years old, had never been in a relationship and didn’t realize that [in that kind of an environment] you turn 30 and you disappear; you disappear in the gay community.
And these guys would roll in, usually right after their 40th birthday. And, yeah, they were amazing and didn’t know where to go or they were like, “I’m 40 and I’ve never had anything significant for more than 3 weeks. I don’t understand. How did I go this long?” And there’s no glorious role model for gay guys; there’s no leader or example saying here is an option that’s not the option offered by the culture of gay.
Hemeon: There’s a few books that I can tell you, there’s a few options out there like, why the gay man is the way he is, what is he missing out on and how he can change and why every gay man’s relationship lasts 3 weeks.
Bell: And most of my friends are straight men; the majority of my friends are not gay. And straight men are sensitive, emotional. I guess they put on a different face for their straight buddies and women because that’s not the men I know; that’s not how they are with me. But that’s not the prototype for man. The prototype for man is somebody who’s not really allowed to act that way [with sensitivity], in society and he’s told that from his earliest, formative years.
Hemeon: Cheeks just described himself. He’s very sensitive and caring like that and I think he surrounds himself with straight men like that, but the prototype of what a straight man should be is insensitive, do it on your own, don’t ask.
Bell: That’s not actually the nature of the man.
Hemeon: That’s not the real nature of man but that’s generally what the man of this…that’s my brothers and my father, that sort of thing. And it is out there and most gay men are raised in that, so they take that on. And it’s like they have all these emotions going on inside and they’re wondering, “What do I do with it? Oh, I’ll just drink, I’ll just fuck it away.” Anything is better than dealing with themselves, and then they wonder why they can’t last longer than a month or two months in a relationship. ‘Cause they get to that level where they actually have to face that stuff and it’s like, ‘Crap!” and then they go back out and start drinking again.
Bell: And then your youth and your beauty goes away and then you really don’t know what to do.
Hemeon: Because that’s all you have.
Bell: Yeah, based on…
Hemeon: I mean, all this is in the straight community as well, but in the gay community, it’s just so focused.
Espenson: Yes, and women have to train the men they go out with because they don’t understand.
Bell: That is the benefit of the balance. I have a straight friend who says, “It must be so much easier with two guys,” in the sense that I don’t have to deal with needy, emotional, erratic. I don’t have to deal with that, but it’s more difficult because there is no balance. Yeah, it’s two guys, you know, guys are always up for having sex, so let’s have sex. So you never have the guy who understands, “Oh, while I’m not having sex, I’m actually really attaching to the other things there are to like about you,” which you’re forced to learn with the male-female dynamic.
And guys put the brakes on a woman’s desire to get together and make babies right away, which is why you got the whole joke about lesbians, [where] they go on their first dates with U-hauls. And the thing that got the men “Let’s keep it casual, let’s keep it casual, let’s keep it casual,” and you have a whole lifetime of keeping it casual, which is why I think that a necessary balance of male and female, not masculine and feminine but male and female within all genders is important.
CB: Coming from within yourself?
Bell: Right, exactly.
CB: I wanted to ask you one last thing, Brad. Cheeks says in the first season, “I’m all about me.” Which is one of those things that can tend to be seen as very negative, but he meant something different by that. Can you talk about what he means?
Bell: What I mean is individuality, not trying to make a marriage work [to the exclusion of the individual’s identity]. But it’s a dangerous thing because I’m about living a life of others, living a life of others is the life to live. But a life of serving others doesn’t mean a life of trying to make other people happy by being what they expect you to be – not living only to others’ expectations.
Espenson: The Cheeks character is a little different than Brad’s Cheeks persona. Sometimes, the character is shallow and really might have just meant “I’m all about me.”
Hemeon: This is where they parallel; this is what’s so good about it. I think what he means with “I’m all about me” is that, I think the greatest service that we can do as individuals on this planet is to be the best human beings we’ll be, which is removing the blocks and limitations and shining bright.
I mean this is where that whole, “We made of the same stars” stuff comes into play, because if I can show I can be an open, loving, and balanced human being, full of integrity, that is the greatest thing that I can do. I can’t be of service to you if I’m still living with my own shit. And so when you’re all about you and focusing on you, that’s exactly what you’re doing, is you’re standing on that cliff saying, “Look at me, this is true, this is actually me.”
Bell: I think it’s the funniest way to say, “I stand for artistically expressing one’s most authentic self.” It’s the funniest way to say that. I stand for the same thing too, I’m all about me. It’s clearly going for the humor, but…
Hemeon: You’re selfish in that way. We have to be if we’re doing the art for ourselves. But at the same time, when we’re out there doing it, it affects other people and inspires them. Joss Whedon inspires other people to be writers by being himself, you know what I mean? So, in that way, it isessentially all about you and doing what you like.
A tv interview article by: Laura Akers, Chris Hicks
Husbands, the marriage equality webseries created and written by Brad Bell (VH1’s Pop-Up Videos, Torchwood) and Jane Espenson (Buffy, Firefly, Once Upon a Time), just finished off its second season, funded by a $50k Kickstarter that yielded amazing results, both financially and creatively. With this buy-in from its audience, the Husbandsteam brought us back into the world of Cheeks and Brady, complete with a cast of geek stars (including Joss Whedon in his acting debut) guaranteed to please.
Bell and Espenson, along with Bell’s co-star Sean Hemeon (True Blood, Criminal Minds), sat down with CB at this year’s GeekGirlCon to talk about the Kickstarter, the new season, the perils and opportunities of coming out, and the nature of men—gay and straight.
Laura Akers and Chris Hicks for Comics Bulletin: So when you guys set up the Kickstarter to fund season 2, what did you expect and how did that compare with what actually went down?
Jane Espenson: We thought that we would get the $50k but that it would be a slow crawl and that with 3 days to go we might still need 50%. What we got was the opposite; we made it all in the first 3 days, and then we got a slow crawl because we had hit the goal. So we didn’t think we were going to go over it; we thought we would hit it but that it would take the whole time.
Brad Bell: Yeah, we had $5600 in 4 minutes. I had no idea it would create that kind of reaction.
Espenson: Yeah, we didn’t know it would be that fast.
CB: You had $45k or something like that in three days?
Bell: 12 hours was $30,000 and then 7 days was 50k.
Espenson: It was great.
CB: Who contributed?
Espenson: 1000 people gave an average of $60 each. They were fans of season 1, which made us feel really smart that we did season 1 and then did a Kickstarter instead of doing a Kickstarter to make season 1.
There was a lot of interest in the incentives we offered, with Buffy incentives, but there was no sense of anybody coming by with the attitude of “I support Husbands because I like Battlestar andBuffy, I don’t care what this Husbands project is but I want the swag.” There was none of that; it was all people who were generally invested in making season 2.
Bell: And I would say that the demographics were… there were married men, like men married to each other, there were moms, there were college students, you know what I mean? And yeah, I think the people had seen it, and they wanted more.
Espenson: A lot of them really wanted the DVD (of season 1 of Husbands) especially.
Bell: And it seemed like they were fans of us. They had faith in what we were going to create again.
CB: So you had no ringers lined up? Friends who at the last minute are going to jump in and help you?
Bell: No, and I thought we might need that. Before we launched it, I was like, “Ok, worst case scenario, maybe somebody can…”
Espenson: Which you’re not really allowed to do.
Bell: No, but it was only ever like, “Maybe that will be some sort of option that we’ll have to entertain if worse comes to worst.” But it was such a big response, thankfully.
Espenson: Yeah, it was very, very gratifying and really made us feel good. Because we knew season 2 probably could be better that season 1.
Bell: I was telling Sean that when people say they love the show, in my mind I’ve been immersed in all of this stuff (season 2) that the public hasn’t seen yet. So when people say they love the show, I’m like, “Yeah, right!” I understand it like, “Yeah, isn’t it so fun?” And then I think about it and I’m like, “Wait a second; you have seen only this much. That’s what you’re talking about?”
Sean Hemeon: We watched the first season, and we were like, “Okay. It’s gotten so much better.” We made it and then saw it, the first time it was like, “Wow, this is amazing,” but now a year later, after the second season, when you see the first season you’re like, “eh…”
Espenson: Season 1 is good, but season 2 is great. If you’re coming to the panel, you’ll see a clip.
CB: Is it the same one you showed at San Diego?
Bell: Yeah. [Editorial note: Actually, we got to see the entire first episode at the GeekGirlCon panel]
CB: ‘Cause I was there. I’ve already been blown away by the Joss.
Espenson: Well, you might not have heard all of it because there was a lot of noise, at the showing of that clip. This is a smaller crowd; you may hear more that you heard last time.
CB: So one of the great moments in season one is the comparison of Brady and Cheeks’ coming-out experiences. “I’ve been out longer than you so I’m older than you,” that.
Hemeon: “You count it that way? “
CB: So how do your own experiences reflect the characters, or not at all?
Espenson: Oh, they’re kind of parallel.
Bell: I think it’s the exact same. Yeah, I just could never hide that I was gay, so if you can’t hide that you’re gay, what do you do? You say, “Fuck it; I’m gay.” That’s how you react.
CB: In Dallas.
Bell: In Dallas, where you’re supposed to be a good old boy. The reason I developed humor was to give people something to like about me, like “I’m gay, but I’m really funny.” And I think that the reason I became so observant of people is because, for one, I’m always observing to make sure I’m not in danger; I’m always reading the other person to make sure, “How much can I be myself around you?” And I think that it’s the reason I just sort of embraced the feeling. There’s nothing I can do about it.
And the more I try to fit in, the more I’m going to stand out, so I might as well go to the extreme and be whoever the hell I want to be – which is not the experience you have when you have the option of hiding. If I had the option of straight privilege, why would someone give that up? I mean, there are plenty of reasons to, obviously, but if you’d always had that choice and you’d never known what it was like to not have that choice, then you might very well make that choice, which is what Brady did, what Sean did.
Hemeon: Yeah, that was miserable, so what’s the other option? What’s interesting is that I have that same quality of being very perceptive of people, being to read them right away. It’s a survival thing.
Bell: It’s absolutely a survival thing.
CB: It’s also common in abuse victims.
Bell: Yeah, you’re extremely hyper-aware of what that other person is thinking, what information they’re gathering about you, and you’re scanning for safety basically.
Hemeon: Yeah, I was scared. I was Brady in that I was an athlete, the homecoming court, the captain, all that stuff, and I tried so hard to fit in. I drove a cherry-red Jeep; I was going to a frat.
Bell: ‘Cause a cherry-red Jeep is so not gay.
Hemeon: Oh. I was so living the beginning of a porn movie. I would have flipped my collar but that wasn’t around back then. But no, then I hid behind that, and it was like it mattered what you thought and what you said because that was how I built the picture.
Bell: Didn’t you tell me that you would change the music that was playing in your car.
Hemeon: I was secretively listening to whatever pop songs were on, I don’t know, Britney Spears or something, like, “I kind of like this,” but would immediately change to Dave Matthews or Stone Temple Pilots, which I generally like. But no one would ever know that I was listening to that kind of stuff [pop music], let alone very loud, in the Jeep. Everybody had to know how straight I was, so I turned up the straight music really loud in the parking lot in the Jeep.
CB: Sean, you mentioned at San Diego that you’re also…I wasn’t clear whether you werea Mormon or are a Mormon.
Hemeon: I was a Mormon. I got out in high school, right before my mission. The final straw was, the Mormon faith, when you’re in high school, you go to church before you go to school. By that time I knew I was gay, I was falling out with other guys, still trying to do that undercover, and I was just like, “I can’t do this anymore.” But yeah, my elder brother, who’s very Mormon, he was at Comic-con, and he was almost on the floor laughing his ass off at the show. He loved it so much, and that was very rewarding.
CB: I can imagine.
Hemeon: Yeah.
Bell: He’s a big champion of our show. He wants us to be able to make more of our show.
Hemeon: I actually didn’t know this. And I just found out that he’s like a big champion of the Mormon Church accepting gay marriage. There are starting to be segments for Mormons who arefor gay marriage. And he’s starting to champion that. I had no idea.
CB: Do you think he would have done that if you weren’t his brother?
Hemeon: I thought the same thing. I doubt that. Because he’s so dedicated to his family, and I’m a branch of that, so the gay thing just wouldn’t exist in this world. He’d be like, whatever. But now that I’m part of that, he is proud of me. I was just with a lot of my family last week, and what’s really interesting now is that as long as I’m comfortable with it, they’re comfortable with it.
I’ve been out for 11 years, since I was 19; they’ve had only so many years to kind of catch up. So, I’m walking them through the process. I’m like: “It’s okay. Yeah, I have boyfriends. It’s okay.” But I’ll bring it up and I’ll, I guess, desensitize [them to] it. There was a point where I was very angry, and I threw it in their faces because, “Love me!” But all that aside, I just talked about it, and they’d talk about it as if it’s a normal thing.
Bell: That’s an interesting point though; how often are they confronted with it? You know what I mean?
Hemeon: Totally. My little brother told me a story about my brother where he…
Bell: No, I mean you being gay? So like I go home and I hang out with my mom and I watch TV; I don’t go home and make out with a guy in front of her. How often is your family actually confronted with you being gay?
Hemeon: It depends; I guess being married and having a family has been a big thing in my family, so when they bring up the marriage thing or the family thing… Like this last trip, there were many jokes about adopting a baby from China; there were many jokes like that. Actually, this is kind of the funny one, but this is how I make them okay with it.
We were talking about the premier of Husbands next week and that we’re going to be the center of attention and I was like, “Yeah, in Ben and Jerry’s, they have like a flavor for [Husbands],” and my little brother’s like, “What is it? Fudge-packer?”
Espenson: That’s pretty funny.
Hemeon: So I grab that and I deliver that joke later on with some other siblings and they die; they love it. It’s totally…it’s fine.
Bell: Yes, with extra salty nuts.
CB: So is religion something that Husbands is going to touch on at all?
Hemeon: Nah. The closest it gets to is that I’m Mormon in the show; that’s the closest it gets to it.
Espenson: Yeah, Brady was also raised Mormon.
Hemeon: There’s no focus on God or spirituality or like even Mormon beliefs. It’s just that he’s Mormon.
Bell: And I’m not interested in what insisting or demanding or highlighting the importance of tolerance among religions. Your religion can believe whatever it wants; I don’t want anything to do with your religion. We’re talking about social acceptance, civil marriage, you know, that’s our point. You know, yes, as long as you’re not throwing bricks through my window, you can believe whatever you want in your religion, and I’m not going to try and make something that shows how important it is that your religion accepts me, ‘cause your religion doesn’t have to.
But yes, if we’re going to live in the same society, then there are a few things you have to get over that I am entitled to.
Espenson: I think that somehow specificity is what makes characters feel real, but there’s a certain place where you get so specific and things stop being identifiable. We want people to watch and identify with Cheeks and Brady no matter what their religion is; we’re already asking them to identify with characters whose orientation and income level may be different from theirs. So to suddenly go, “Now we’re talking about the fact that Cheeks is Lutheran,” feels like it might not be a useful avenue for a storytelling.
CB: I was imagining it more coming from the outside rather than in the relationship.
Bell: Yeah, like taking on the preacher that’s…yeah, and I think that maybe if that was in the cards, then it would always be more of a social…I could see a satire where Cheeks is actually all of the things that they’re criticizing, like maybe there was an outside group attacking them for an action that Cheeks has taken that is literally a modern-day allegory of something Christ did.
Maybe Cheeks goes and washes the feet of homeless children, and they’re saying that he’s a paedophile. You know, something like that, to make the fact that Christians are very anti-Christ these days.
CB: You guys have really aligned yourself with the geek world throughout the creation and marketing of Husbands; how do you think that’s affected the project?
Espenson: It has affected the make-up of our fan base, I think. People, even though anyone who found our show would love it, the first people who found it, some of them were already fans of mine following my career doing sci-fi and fantasy shows, but I don’t think it has influenced our story-telling.
Bell: I think having geek fans allows us to make a fearlessly smart show.
Espenson: That’s true because we have an audience that already loves fearlessly smart programming like Battlestar and Buffy. We’ve got smart people to watch our show.
Bell: I never feared.
CB: And your selection of guest stars greatly influences the show. Influenced by the fact that you have access to geek celebrities like Nathan Fillion and Amber Benson because of your work on Buffy and Firefly.
Espenson: Which influences who then watches Husbands in turn. So yeah, it’s sort of circular. Again, going back to Roddenberry: infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Diversity is built right into the geek world; sci-fi, when done right, loves to explore things, like the fact that Battlestar Galactica took place in a culture where there had never been discrimination in the colonies based on gender orientation. It meant that that was a show that explicitly was welcoming to gay characters or fans. That feeling is the right feeling for our show.
CB: So Joss has his acting debut in the first episode of season 2. What do you guys think of Joss as an actor?
Espenson: We all three were in the room for his performance.
Bell: It was the opposite of what I felt when I read it; I was like, “Okay, he’s going to do it like this,” but then he totally did it his own way.
Espenson: He did it his own way; he’s really good.
Bell: Yeah, and very subtle? Is that the word? Yeah, understated.
Espenson: We’re cutting it together, and we looked at it in the editing room, you see even more because he’s very subtle. And he’s in all 3 episodes of season 2. So there’s more than you’ve seen. And I think he always had that in him. He’s really good.
Hemeon: He was so nervous; he was so adorable.
Bell: When he does the Joss delivery that he puts so many Whedon actors through… Oh, gosh, when I was watching Avengers I heard it, it’s the…
Espenson: Jeff Greenstein, our director, commented on that, he said, “We’ve heard that delivery for years”
Bell: This weird rhythm I can’t quite explain, but you know it when you hear it. And Joss built his entire performance on that sort of delivery.
Espenson: There’s a line early in Avengers that went something like, “We don’t know if we’ll live, or the other thing.” That rhythm, that kind of wording. So when we wrote the part for Joss, we were definitely thinking of Joss. I mean I’ve written lines for years where I was trying to sound as much like Joss as I could. That’s been my career.
Bell: And so writing Joss-style dialog for Joss…
Espenson: It’s perfect.
Bell: So appealing.
Espenson: I assume if he writes this way, this is how he would like to speak as an actor and it seemed to work.
CB: I just read the companion book to Dr. Horrible Sing-along Blog, and I’ve kind of wondered, I don’t know how much you guys are aware of the creative process that that went through. It was very, incredibly collaborative; there’s family involved and everybody’s sort of getting really excited about this one project…
Espenson: Well, we were very collaborative on this. We did a table read, and we invited writers in to watch it and collected feedback from them. We also re-wrote lines on set with input from actors and from Joss and from Jeff. You can get a little tunnel vision where you go like, “We’ve been looking at this for so long, we aren’t seeing the story, we aren’t sure of this line, is this joke funny?” So it’s always good to have outside input.
Bell: Yeah, you take input collaboratively, but executing it is really you and me, collaborating. It’s not like, “Somebody give us a joke. Hey, that’s funny, let’s do that.” But yeah, we take feedback.
CB: While we’re on that subject, have you guys ever found yourselves at loggerheads at how to deal with something on the show?
Espenson: Oh, God yes.
CB: How do you resolve that?
Espenson: Generally the way I see it…
Bell: The one who doesn’t run out of energy wins it.
Espenson: Generally, though, I would say, like early on in Buffy, Joss Whedon had created the show and was running the show, but he’d never run a show before, so David Greenwalt, he’d sort of take him through the process. I’m David Greenwalt, Cheeks is Joss: it’s his vision. It’s much more his life experience than mine, and so if there’s a disagreement I generally will tip it to…
Bell: Yeah, and I feel like, “A or B?” I say A, Jane says okay that sounds good; or I say A, Jane says B. I think it should be A, because this is why, Jane says, “Oh, okay, yeah, all right, let’s do that.” Or I say A, Jane says B, and Jane says, “Look I’m really convinced about B, because this is really the way I feel about B.” And I go, “Okay, all right.”
Espenson: Yeah. Unless Cheeks is equally strong in the other direction; we’ve had a few where we both had a…
Bell: That’s a rare thing where we’re both really, really adamant about what it needs to be.
Espenson: Yeah.
CB: [To Espenson] So you’re not a gay man. So how does writing for gay men differ from other experiences or is it exactly the same?
Espenson: It’s exactly the same; you write people. I think Starbuck isn’t like Willow, and neither of them are like me. You write that person. Cheeks and Brady are people who are no more different from me than Starbuck is. Yeah.
CB: But there’s also no politics involved around Starbuck. [chuckle] Well, okay, there were some politics involved around Starbuck, but after the…
Espenson: I mean the writing is also really 50-50 between the two of us, and if anything doesn’t ring true, Cheeks is going to catch it.
Bell: Well, anything that ever catches my eye has nothing to do with the choice of the gay man or the politics thing. I remember one specific example where you wrote Cheeks’ reaction as hurt; he was hurt, or offended, or sad, or something, and you had him react in a way that was more emotional and female. And I thought, “That’s not how a male would react in a situation that would be competitive. It would be one-upmanship.” And I think that’s more making a choice based on gender but not on sexuality, or age, or…
CB: Although it’s hard to imagine Starbuck reacting hurt.
Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah; that’s true.
Espenson: But I feel more that it comes across in a line like…I’m not sure that I would be able to write the exotic femininity of Cheeks; that’s a point of view that you [to Brad] have had to develop through years and years of living it, so the authenticity of that line rings through. I feel like I write the first draft of those lines sometimes and then you refine it, so that it is exactly your specific point of view is on something.
Bell: Yeah. Yeah, but your ability to – what is it? – to see, to empathize, or to imagine the emotional state of somebody that you aren’t, is much better than mine.
Espenson: What we do is the perfect combination because we have a character that is very close to you, so you know when a line is what Cheeks would say. I’m good at getting into the head of a character that’s not like me, and Cheeks is very much not like me, so between the two of us, we can write Cheeks.
CB: Brad, is the work that you’ve done as Cheeks, is that work that Cheeks in the show has done?
Bell: [hesitates]
Espenson: Cheeks has a job that you don’t have on Miserable Rich Kids.
Bell: Well, not anymore.
Espenson: So did Cheeks record those videos? I think he did.
Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now he doesn’t have to work. Which, of course, he loves but not if that means he’s the housewife – which we didn’t explore really in season 2, but hopefully we will.
Espenson: But yeah. It’s in: Cheeks’ songs are Cheeks’ songs.
Bell: Yeah. Except bigger and better, you know like it’s a download off an album with a world tour…
Hemeon: Sure, we could do the housewife thing ‘cause it’s sort of 1% joke about that…
Bell: Cheeks loves the idea of not having to work until it means that he’s now a Real Housewife of Orange County. I can’t have that. I have to be relevant!
CB: It’s interesting that both of your characters are in professions that have a very short life-span.
Hameon: Yeah, that’s true.
CB: You guys are going to make all your money in the next ten years, and then you’re pretty much done.
Espenson: Cheeks within the show, fictional Cheeks is a character actor and he could work forever; he could be the wizened 80-year-old guy next door.
Bell: Yeah, but well, I think he’s a little more tabloid-driven than a character actor. He’s more Heidi Montag than he is… you know. [everyone laughs]
Hemeon: Brady will probably have a revival.
Espenson: Mickey Rooney?
Bell: Yeah.
Hemeon: After he retires, like Dancing With the Stars, and head into acting in some way.
Espenson: I think Cheeks could be Mickey Rooney; I think Cheeks could age and get character roles.
Bell: I think that if he wanted to, he could eventually get there. I don’t think that’s his goal right now.
Hemeon: He’s just trying to be married.
Visit us again tomorrow for the conclusion of our interview with the minds behind Husbands.
“West thinks you’ve been doing some stuff lately that could ruin my career.”
“I bet he can’t even name one.”
“He had a disc messengered over.”HUSBANDS Season 2 - EP 1: Appropriate is Not the Word [x]
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN
HUSBANDS THE SERIES has made all kinds of news since its first season premiered last year. The Web series about two men, performer Cheeks (Brad “Cheeks” Bell) and baseball player Brady (Sean Hemion), who get legally married while drunk in Vegas and decide to try to make things work, was written up in the New Yorker and Time Magazine, and became the first ongoing Internet show to be honored with its own panel by the Los Angeles branch of the Paley Center for Media.
The first season of HUSBANDS THE SERIES, also starring Alessandra Torresani as Cheeks’ inebriated best friend Haley, consisted of eleven two-minute segments. When executive producer Jane Espenson and her star/co-creator/co-writer Cheeks, along with director Jeff Greenstein, decided to do a second season, they turned to KickStarter. To their amazement, they not only reached but surpassed their goal of $50,000 in approximately one week.
With guest stars including Joss Whedon, Jon Cryer, Felicia Day, Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, Dichen Lachman, Tricia Helfer, John Hodgman, Mekhi Phifer and more, the second season ofHUSBANDS consists of three eight-minute segments, the first two of which were screened at the Paley Center event in August. These two episodes, along with making-of footage, are now available at lovehusbands.com – a new making-of will debut on Wednesday, September 5, with the final episode going up on Wednesday, September 12.
Giving interviews on the PaleyCenterred carpet for HUSBANDS, Espenson – one of the writers/producers on ABC’s ONCE UPON A TIME – took time to give ASSIGNMENT X an exclusive on her Internet phenomenon.
JANE ESPENSON: We were shooting in the little house in North Hollywood for Season 1 …
ASSIGNMENT X: Did you use a bigger house for Season 2?
ESPENSON: We’re in a much bigger house. When you see [the opening] episode, you will see we’re in a much bigger house.
AX: At what point in the life of HUSBANDS Season 1 did you realize there was going to be a Season 2?
ESPENSON: We didn’t realize it until we put the KickStarter up, and we looked at the fan response. When we had fifty thousand dollars in a week, we were like, “All right, I guess we’re doing a Season 2!”
AX: Are you already thinking of Season 3?
ESPENSON: It’s hard not to. [Earlier in August], I spent the weekend in Seattle with Cheeks and Sean, our two stars, and of course, I co-created it with Cheeks and co-wrote it with Cheeks. We spent this weekend in Seattle at a convention called Geek Girl Con. Every time I’m together with these two guys, I’m seeing all the stories that we could tell with these two young men and the vibrant life they lead – how can you not start thinking about Season 3?
AX: Is Season 1 out now on DVD?
ESPENSON: We have made DVDs that we gave to the fans who donated to KickStarter. We have not yet got it available on Amazon or anything, but I could see that happening.
AX: Can you talk a little bit about how Season 2 is different from Season 1?
ESPENSON: Season 2 is Season 1 amped up to the rafters. It’s bigger, deeper, more beautiful – more guest stars – not bigger guest stars, you can’t get bigger than Nathan FIllion [who appeared as a newscaster in Season 1], but more guest stars and better film quality, better sound quality. It’s just more professional. We had a bigger crew, we made a script that is more unified. It’s just bigger and better in every way.
AX: Did you ask Joss Whedon to be in Season 2, or did he come to you and say, “Can I be in HUSBANDS”?
ESPENSON: Joss came to us and said, “I love Season 1, I love this, these are jokes I wish I’d written,” is something like the quote. So when we asked him to do Season 2, he looked at the material and quickly agreed, which made us very, very happy.
AX: Your guest cast has a lot of people from the Whedonverse – Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, Felicia Day …
ESPENSON: Well, we’ve got Dichen Lachman from DOLLHOUSE, we’ve got Tricia Helfer from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, actually Sasha Roiz, who I worked with on CAPRICA – we love him so much. It actually spreads around over the Whedonverse and beyond. Aasha Davis from FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, no connection to the Whedonverse. We found that anyone we approached, when they saw the material, they were eager to be involved.
AX: Did you give yourselves any challenges this time around, like having to work on a strange downtown street around the muggers as you did on Season 1?
ESPENSON: [laughs] Season 1 was our big challenge, where we went and shot at L.A. Live downtown here in L.A. Season 2, we stayed very close to our base camp, but still, we had green-screen stuff outside, we were shooting as we were losing the light, we had plenty of risky moves. Including just, “Is everyone going to be here?” When you’re trying to coordinate a much larger cast, if any one person doesn’t show up, everything is higgledy-piggledy.
AX: Was the writing schedule about the same as this first time around, or did Season 2 take longer or shorter?
ESPENSON: I think we took more time to write the script, but I’d have to back and look at my old-fashioned paper date book to see.
AX: Right now, what would you most like people to know about HUSBANDS Season 2?
ESPENSON: That they can watch it at LoveHusbands.com.
by Melanie Kohnen
- - -
As an early start to the fall TV season, the second season of the web series Husbands offers a look at what it means to be gay, married, and famous in contemporary America. Created by YouTube star Brad “Cheeks” Bell and veteran TV writer Jane Espenson, Husbands explores newlyweds Brady and Cheeks’ negotiation of married life, with the second season premiere focusing on the public’s reception of Brady and Cheeks’ marriage. Brady (a major-league baseball player) and Cheeks (an extrovert celebrity) each face contradicting expectations from the media and fans. In the season two premiere, Cheeks’ tendency to share intimate moments from his marriage via social media causes a public relations nightmare for Brady. His conservative fans “don’t want to think about our sex life.” Chastised by his agent, Brady declares that Cheeks should try to be “less gay.” Specifically, Brady and his agent ask Cheeks to be less obviously queer and more in line with Brady’s “wholesome” (read: normatively masculine) self-presentation.
The events of the season premiere allow Husbands to engage in a multi-layered critique of queer visibility in American culture. On the most obvious level, the episode offers a blunt attack on what frequently passes as acceptance of LGBT culture. As Brady’s agent Wes puts it, “Acceptable gays are overweight, over forty, overly professional with their lovers in public.” Cheeks refuses to feed into this veneer of acceptance. While the arguments arising out of Brady and Cheeks’ conversation have the subtlety of a sledgehammer, they are nevertheless an important commentary on the state of queer visibility on network television. After all, many gay and lesbian characters fit into tightly defined cultural norms: they are white, wealthy, professional, and live in monogamous relationships whose intimate aspects remain largely invisible.
Husbands takes a stance against this narrow definition of queer visibility (a stance that Espenson and Bell have discussed in a number ofinterviews). While Husbands offers a verbal critique of this definition, a visual critique remains largely absent so far. For a variety of reasons, it seems unlikely that we will see Brady and Cheeks get down and dirty in future episodes (e.g. Husbands‘ distribution via YouTube requires the series to abide by YouTube’s TOS, which prohibits explicit sexual imagery). Beyond the issue of depicting same-sex intimacy, Husbands does not really challenge the current norms of queer visibility. Brady and Cheeks are white, out-and-proud professionals in a committed relationship. As such, they inhabit the type of queer visibility that television has promoted as default mode of LGBT representation in programs such asBrothers & Sisters, Glee, and the upcoming The New Normal.
This overlap between Husbands and network TV is particularly interesting considering that the series also uses Brady and Cheeks’ diverging ideas about how to represent their relationship as means to articulate differences between traditional TV and web series. The crux of the argument between Brady and Cheeks in the season premiere comes down to Cheeks’ uncensored use of social media, including Instagram and Twitter. Via tweets, Cheeks constructs a picture of his marriage that diverges from Brady’s carefully constructed public image—an image managed by Brady’s agent. Considering Espenson and Bell’s embrace of Web-based media production, it is easy to read Cheeks as representative of web series while Brady embodies the conventions of traditional TV production.
From this point of view, Brady and Cheeks’ conversation about which public image of their marriage to project is also a rumination on who produces these images and to what end. Various statements by Espenson illustrate that she and Bell consider their web series a departure from and challenge to the TV industry. Explaining her interest in Web-based TV, Espenson emphasizes “[s]peed and maneuverability–being able to be very hands-on, without having to guess what the powers above me might want”; regarding the possibilities of LGBT representation, she explains that “[w]e wanted to do content that was a little spicier, a little intriguing, something you can’t get everywhere else and online is totally the place to do it.” Espenson and Bell’s emphasis on independence beyond the reach of network notes echoes in Cheeks’ insistence on using social media to connect directly to his fans, regardless of the “notes” sent by Brady’s agent. Whether Web series, including Husbands, are always as independent or provocative is up for debate, but the articulation of this critique via Brady and Cheeks’ debate about queer visibility is intriguing.
The season two premiere of Husbands ends on a provocative note. A brief post-credit scene features recognizable TV figures Tricia Helferand Dichen Lachman lounging in skimpy clothes and discussing their boyfriends before having sex (off-screen). The staging recalls a set-up aimed at the straight male gaze and the scene draws on the “experimenting in college” trope. In contrast to the overt critique in the earlier conversation between Brady and Cheeks, this scene is presented without any introduction. Rather, it relies on the viewer’s ability to recall that the Helfer/Lachman scene was playing on a TV in the background during the episode. Presumably, this extra scene critiques mainstream representations of sexuality by pointing out that faux-lesbian sex is acceptable on TV whereas Brady and Cheeks’ marriage and sex life are not.
While I agree with this critique, I wonder if the lack of framing undermines the provocation issued by this extra scene. Another aspect that undoes the critique for me is that the “plot” of this scene relies on in-jokes about the characters these actresses played in Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse: “My boyfriend back home thinks college is gonna turn me into a sex robot,” Helfer’s character remarks. Lachman’s character replies, “Tell me about it. Mine thinks it’s going to turn me into a brainwashed sex doll.” Does the in-joke outweigh and deflect the critique? Or could we see it as a critical commentary on what types of roles are available to women, especially in genre programs? I would like to think so, but, as with the earlier critique of queer visibility, I am not sure it pushes far enough.
Husbands: Behind the Scenes EP 2
On the set of Husbands with Joss Whedon (The Avengers, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Sasha Roiz (Grimm), Dichen Lachman (Being Human), Felicia Day (The Guild), Emma Caulfield (Bandwagon), & Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Jane Espenson and Brad Bell come from different segments of the entertainment industry. She is a known and lauded producer and writer from the land of network and cable television and he is a YouTube sensation.
Apart they have conquered their own unique set of obstacles with Jane dominating Y chromosome heavy writers rooms and Brad making a bold statement about the guts, creativity, and skill it takes to excel and rise above the interweb pack. Together? Well, Espenson and Bell are re-writing the rule book and drawing the bunny-fingers around the phrase television with their web series Husbands — a hilarious, take no prisoners gay marriage rom-com that is splendidly frustrating homophobes and positively delighting those with a brain and a sense of humor.
I’ve spoken to Jane and Brad before and as always they deliver in this exclusive interview about Geek cred, raising the bar, the joys of controversy, and the shows unbelievable guest stars like Nathan Fillion last season (who wrote his own cue cards) and this season’s cameos by Joss Whedon (who brought his own wardrobe), Tricia Helfer, Jon Cryer and others.
Read on, enjoy, and share…
You took Comic-Con by storm and yet this is a romantic comedy not a “genre” show. How do you explain your “geek” following and street cred?
Jane Espenson: Some of it comes out of my resume. I’ve written for a lot of science fiction and fantasy shows: Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Game of Thrones, etc, so the Comic-Con crowd knows my name. But I think my name is just a billboard of sorts. It catches interest among those fans. The real reason Husbands has earned fan loyalty is that, just like with Sci Fi, the emotions are universal. The circumstance might look like they’re unrelatable — another planet, an alien race, gay people! — but the experience is universal. The journey is compelling. Husbands is the same way.
Brad Bell: I’ve never understood why “genre” shows are defined that way. Everything falls into a genre. Husbands, for example, is a romantic comedy. Assuming Husbands would only appeal to romantic comedy fans or gay fans — or not appeal to the Comic Con crowd because those fans only like Sci Fi — that limits the depth of the show and all fans of everything, everywhere! But that aside, I think Husbands never underestimates the intelligence of the audience. We give our viewers the respect they deserve. People like that. Especially geeks.
Are there any current web series’ that inspire you and that push you to be better?
We adore Very Mary Kate. The quality of joke writing in that little show is so perfect, so beautifully timed… it’s a step above most popular entertainment. When we work and rework the scripts, we aim higher because of Elaine Carroll’s writing.
There are a few new comedies coming up on network TV with gay main characters and what appears to be a more diverse premise. Some will quickly lump Husbands in with those shows, but do you think they need to earn a place beside you with their content? Do they need to put up and earn that badge? A followup: do you think that Husbands is helping to re-draw the boundaries of where network television is willing to go from the outside?
Brad: Earn a place beside us? No, not at all. I mean, if other people want to point out that we were first and still remain [at the] forefront of fresh, bold comedy for the 21st century… that certainly wouldn’t bother me. But to take some kind of ownership or expect others to acknowledge us, that just makes “us” more important than the result. I hope that result is a future with diverse and ample stories from all walks of life. That’s what’s important, not who made it happen.
Jane: I don’t mind Husbands being the bar against which those shows are measured. I don’t mind that one bit. Let’s make that happen. I guess all I have to say is that there should be room in the pool for everyone. If we end up pitting all the shows with gay content against each other, then it’s like accepting the premise that only one of the shows will gain relevance. In terms of re-drawing the boundaries – yes, I hope we are an active living demonstration that the audience is ready for more than is generally thought.
The group One Million Moms has called Ryan Murphy’s upcoming show, The New Normal, “Harmful to society” and they’re boycotting it sight unseen. Do you think the press gives these kinds of protests too much attention, and in light of the attention that they get, are you a little envious that they aren’t calling you harmful to society? I mean, who doesn’t want to be a little controversial?
Brad: Controversy is an effective strategy, but I can’t say I have “kerfuffle envy.” What Husbandshas, are fans motivated by a genuine love for the show. It’s great to see people counter-protesting the (considerably less than a million) Moms — they should! But our audience gives celebratory support, not defensive support. I feel very blessed that the visibility and enthusiasm for Husbands is because of the quality; people love the show because of the show. That’s the best case scenario, no matter how big the audience ultimately ends up being.
Jane: Oh, once they see us, they may find us a little harmful. I’m of two minds about the “too much coverage” thing. Yeah, not every crazy needs a camera put on them. On the other hand, when you put a camera on them, the crazy gets really clear.
Describe for me the challenge of trying to say something about our societies views on marriage equality while also being funny. It seems to me that when funny people get too political or value being important over being comical they sometimes forget how to be funny people. On the other hand, some thrive like Jon Stewart and Colbert. How do you toe the line?
Jane: I don’t think either of us know how to talk for very long without attempting some humor. I think it’s how most people talk, and how most people listen. We rarely have to struggle to find the funny “spin” – human beings, even human prejudice, is funny because it’s so ridiculous. I’d say we more often have the other issue, where we have to decide when to hold back on some funny phrasing in order to let a point really land.
Brad: Exactly. The conservative views on marriage equality are already so absurd, it makes our job too easy, really. “Gay marriage will be the downfall of society!” Since there seems to be very little explanation for what exactly takes us from A (marriage equality) to B (the apocalypse) our only option is to imagine the most hilariously horrible doomsday scenario in between and flesh it out.
Obviously you want to evolve from season to season. Season one was fantastic, but in what ways do you think you’ve improved upon the show this season?
Brad: Well, the Million Moms have played right into our game by protesting The New Normal, so that’ll really give some of-the-moment timeliness to this season’s story. This time around, we use a few classic sitcom devices that are normally employed just for laughs, but we were able to use them in such a way that highlights the social commentary, while keeping the relationship at the heart of the story. By the time all is said and done, it’s about this new marriage and the love therein.
Jane: A more ambitious story. Much better production values. We raised a lot of the money for season two through a Kickstarter campaign, so this was the money we got from the fans and we wanted to make sure it all ended up “on the screen.” Plus our big guest stars like Joss Whedon,Jon Cryer, Mekhi Phifer, Felicia Day, Tricia Helfer, Amber Benson, and a lot more.
I spoke with you both and Sean [Hemeon] at the beginning of season 1 and from my perspective it seems like the show has a bit more buzz surrounding it in the days before season 2. You had a meaty write up in Entertainment Weekly, as I said before, you dominated San Diego — when was the moment that you each thought “Okay, this is clicking”?
Jane: I knew it would be huge the minute Brad had the idea, but the moment it really hit me was the review in The New Yorker. It was a breakthrough for online content and signified more than just good press. A few months before that, we’d drawn a shockingly huge crowd at New York Comic Con, so maybe it was already happening. And the build up to the season two roll-out is beyond gratifying. We were hosted at The Paley Center for our premiere event, another first for online programming, which was just amazing.
Brad: Yeah, there have been a series of clicks. The most personal one, I guess, was when my brother in Tennessee said how much his Army buddies were enjoying Husbands — straight, gun-carrying, Tennessee, army boys. I said, “Oh you showed them my stuff?” He replied, “They already knew who you were. They pulled it up one night like, ‘You have to see this, it’s hilarious’ and I was like, ‘Yeah that’s my brother’ and they were all, ‘Cheeks is your brother?! You’re lying!’” That was pretty surreal.
As you mentioned, the fans paid for this season through a very successful Kickstarter campaign. With that comes an obligation to give them their money’s worth but you have total freedom. If you had a chance to take this to TV and make it with someone else’s money — not fans’, but a network’s money — would you choose less exposure and more freedom or more exposure and less freedom? Also, are the priorities at all different for the two of you due to your chosen path as a performer Brad, and your more established “brand” Jane?
Jane: Can I have more exposure AND more freedom? Because that, actually, is where I think we’re headed. Freedom has to come first, but I don’t see a ceiling on our exposure – we are accessible to all. Priorities: I think we are a Venn diagram with a lot of overlap, and the overlap part is labeled “Husbands”. We both want it to change the world.
Brad: If I opted for more exposure, but sacrificed freedom (and therefore quality) why would I want to expose that product to more people? Would it be for the money? Yay. So I win and the audience gains nothing. Worse, they lose a show they loved, which I gave them. “Here you go! Do you like it? Well tough, I’m selling it so I can be rich!” How would I be able to sleep on my 3,000 thread count sheets in my palatial Malibu estate knowing that I’d taken a beloved show from the people who believed in me? I couldn’t. The happiness of my audience is more important than whether or not I have a private jet. Of course, the ideal scenario is a private jet and audience happiness. I aim to make that happen.
You can watch every episode of Husbands on their website, HusbandsTheSeries.com. You can follow the show on Twitter @TeamHusbands. You can also follow Jane Espenson (@JaneEspenson) and Brad Bell (@GoCheeksGo) on the Twitter
Joss Whedon, Mekhi Phifer, Jon Cryer and Others Guest Starring In Second Season of Comedy Web Series ‘Husbands’
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‘The Avengers’ director Joss Whedon will appear in the second season of comedy web series Husbands, created by writer Jane Espenson (Game of Thrones, Buffy, Once Upon a Time).
Husbands is about two men (a successful MLB player named Brady Kelly and actor Cheeks) who woke up married after a drunken weekend in Vegas. The two hardly know each other, but instead of annulling their marriage, they decide to make a go for it.
Whedon will play a sports agent named Wes, who is representing Brady. Husbands released 11 episodes in season one, which has amassed more than 600,000 combined views on YouTube.
The season two pilot episode premiered August 15, 2012 and has been viewed more than 40,000 times on YouTube. Two more episodes will air August 29 and September 12 on the show’s official YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/gocheeksgo and http://lovehusbands.com
Whedon’s one of a number of Hollywood actors guest starring in Husbands this season. Others include Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer, ER’s Mekhi Phifer, The Guild’s Felicia Day, Sasha Roiz and Amber Benson.
By Rueben
Last week thePaley Center for Mediasaluted, for the first time, a web series that has been making strides for same sex couples. That online series isHusbands, which comes from the creative minds of TV producer-writer extraordinaireJane Espenson and actor-writer Brad Bell.
The first season of Husbands debuted online on September 13, 2011 and told the story of a newly dating couple named Cheeks (Brad Bell), who is a controversial tabloid personality and Brady (Sean Hemeon), who is a professional baseball player recently out of the closet. Six weeks later, they traveled to Las Vegas in celebration of a federal amendment for marriage equality, only to wind up drunk-married to each other. But once they are home, and sober, they feared that a divorce would be devastating to the cause so they stay married. Meanwhile, Cheeks’ best friend Haley, played by Alessandra Torresani (Caprica), is reluctant about their marriage, but attempts to be supportive of their decision. Special appearances in this debut season includedinternet celebrity and comedian Michael Buckley and actor Nathan Fillion.
The first season of Husbands consisted of 11 webisodes, each lasting under 3 minutes (except for the final episode) and received positive reviews from celebrities as well as various media outlets such as LA Weekly, AOL TV, After Elton, Out Magazine and even The New Yorker. Husbands was also named the Best Web Comedy of 2011 at TV.com. The first season of Husbands also received up to 100,000 viewers after only 10 days online and has surpassed 750,000 total views at YouTube as of last month.
With the premiere of season two set to happen only a few days after the Paley Center event, the cast, including Bell, Hemeon and Torresani and crew, Espenson, Director Jeff Greenstein and Line Producer M. Elizabeth Hughes, introduced the first two acts to an enthusiastic audience.
This time around Cheeks and Brady are settled in a new home but face more obstacles when Brady’s manager is concerned about their marriage and the Husbands have to deal with the media invading their lives even more.
The second season of Husbands has fewer episodes – only three – but the length is about the same; and the hilarity is still as strong with the guest stars being even more plentiful. This time around special appearances will be made by Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse), Amber Benson and Emma Caulfield(Buffy), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), Felicia Day (The Guild), Magda Apanowicz (Caprica) and Sasha Roiz (Grimm). A few other key guest roles who have to be seen to be believed.
Fans, or those who are new to the online series, can catch the first episode of the second season of Husbands by visiting Lovehusbands. Tomorrow there will be a behind the scenes look at the making of Husbands followed by episode two next Wednesday. This routine will continue over the next few weeks so make sure you tune in to see what all the talk is about.
HUSBANDS EPISODE 1: Appropriate is Not the Word
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TIME FOR A RE-WATCH ON THIS #CHEEKYFRIDAY - CLICK PLAY!!!
AND RE-BLOG - PLEASE! Thank you!!!
You’ve all seen and enjoyed the first episode of Husbands Season 2, but the fun doesn’t stop there! Today at 4pm PDT, Cheeks and Jane will be at Google headquarters, hosting a Google Play Hangout where they’ll be taking your questions in a live-streamed discussion! Even more exciting- YOU could be selected to be one of the lucky participants in the hangout! Simply sign up for a Google+ account and visit the Husbands Google Play page to RSVP to the event and post your question for Cheeks and Jane. You’ll be contacted by one of the team if your question is selected!
And that’s not all! The event will be live-streamed at lovehusbands.com, so anyone and everyone can watch Cheeks and Jane answer questions and discuss Season 2 of Husbands! So spread the word and TWEET to let your friends know where to be today at 4pm PDT!
What To Watch: 5 Web Series Worth Checking Out
TVLINE.COM - by Sheryl Rothmuller
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HUSBANDS: The web phenom is back this week with its trademark sauciness in tow. The first episode has baseball star Brady (Sean Hemeon) and Internet celeb Cheeks (Brad Bell) celebrating their three week (unplanned) wedding anniversary. It’s cut short when a seemingly innocent Instagram snapshot threatens to derail Brady’s baseball career. Rapid fire wit and comedic cleverness dominate every moment of this nine-minute episode, all the way down to the TV news chyrons. This season’s episodes are longer (yay!) and promise to feature appearances by geek icons Joss Whedon, Felicia Day, Tricia Helfer and others. Can we get a whaaaat?
This review is perfection… A MUST READ:
Surprise Joss Whedon, Pillow Fight Tricia Helfer, and More in Today’s Premiere ofHusbands Season 2
We got to know Cheeks and Brady last year when new web series Husbands, co-created by Brad Bell and Jane Espenson, hit the interwebs. It’s a sharp, funny, intelligent comedy about a newlywed couple who got married accidentally, but stayed married by choice. Choice is the key word since, in the world of Husbands, gays and lesbians can choose getting married.
I had the pleasure of attending the Husbands panel at Geek Girl Con this past weekend where they surprised the crowd by screening episode 1 of season 2, which premieres today! Season 2 of Husbands will feature longer episodes (three longer episodes rather than the uber-short 2-minutes-or-so episodes of last season), an examination of how social media affects relationships, a slew of cameos from the geekerati, and the first recurring acting role for rising star, Joss Whedon.
And judging by his performance in this, that kid’s gonna have a bright future.
Season 2 opens with Cheeks (Brad Bell) and Brady (Sean Hemeon) in a moment of newlywed bliss, which is immediately dampened when Cheeks surreptitiously takes a picture of their smooch with his phone and immediately Instagrams it. A media firestorm ensues when the photo spreads, becomes news fodder, and is protested by a right-wing “Million Moms-esque” activist (Amber Benson). Brady gets a call from his manager (Joss Whedon) who warns him that as “down” as he is with Brady being gay, he and Cheeks need to tone it down. Brady then asks Cheeks to “be a little less gay,” which offends him at first. But then, he agrees in a very I Love Lucy manner, which leads us to believe that he’s not agreeing at all, and plans on teaching Brady a lesson.
Something tells me that Cheeks is gonna have a lot of ‘splaining to do.
It seems that, in season two, Team Husbands has embraced the fact that a) Brad Bell is a huge nerd, b) Jane Espenson is a huge nerd, and c) a huge portion of their fan base is a bunch of huge nerds. Geek bait abounds in this first episode, from the cameos to the incorporation of internet life to mentions of Star Wars. And that’s a good thing. The people that make web shows go viral are generally the same people who go to comic cons and try to make web shows of their own. But knowing their audience doesn’t just benefit the show from a marketing standpoint, it pays off massively in the writing of the second season, making the dialogue even snappier (if that’s at all possible) by using a shorthand that’s more easily understood by more people who actually watch the show. Whereas the Cheeks of season one seemed to be speaking in a way geared more toward readers of In Touch, this season balances Cheeks’ high-profile celebutante existence with a tech-savvy, nerdy sensibility that is both genuine and resonates with their audience. Bell and Espenson are an amazing team, and their work together has gelled even better for season two.
Brad Bell and Sean Hemeon have also benefitted from a year of getting to know each other, as their performances individually are much stronger, as is their chemistry together. Bell continues to infuse his Lucille-Ball-meets-Lindsay-Lohan Cheeks persona with intelligence, and a very serious desire to remain true to himself even as he creates a character in order to do it. Hemeon is a perfect counter to Bell, and this season he seems to be having even more fun. Season one Brady was all uptight nerves. Season two Brady is a lot more loose even as he’s reprimanding his husband, and Hemeon gets to show off even more of his considerable comedic skill.
And while we’re talking about performances, let’s give it up for Joss Whedon, who is out and out hilarious in this as Brady’s manager. This isn’t his first rodeo as far as acting is concerned. He did do that cameo onVeronica Mars, and he first stepped into comedic internet video territory with his performance as a bathroom coach. (He also does a terrific dance of joy.) But his role on Husbands is his first real character, and he does well by it, providing much of the episode’s hilarity.
The one element missing from the first episode is Alessandra Torresani’s lovable, drunken screwball, Haley. However, I’ve been assured that there’s plenty of Haley coming, and that even as season two finds her being more understanding of Brady, it will also find her getting up to her usual antics.
Jeff Greenstein’s direction is even better this season, and not only has he drawn sharp performances from the cast, he’s using the camera in more interesting way. It helps that we’ve moved past the cramped limousine/hotel room locations of season one, so that Greenstein has more room in which to play. Still, I enjoy the way he makes screens on screen actually interesting, along with how well he manages to harness Bell’s energy as Cheeks, giving his boisterousness focus and lending it a graceful fluidity.
Also: Sean Hemeon ridiculously hot and shirtless, Dichen Lachman and Tricia Helfer scantily-clad and having a sorority girl pillow fight, and a scantily-clad Felicia Day eating pizza in a way that will make your mouth water. Sadly, Sasha Roiz is not nearly so scantily clad in his cameo as a photographer, but I guess he’s saving his shirtlessness for Grimm. There, so in case the high-falutin’ artsy talk above didn’t get you, there’s also hot, sometimes half-naked people.
Husbands season two premieres today over at LoveHusbands.com, so go over and give it a watch. If this first episode is any indication, season two ofHusbands will prove just how well shows on the web are capable of evolving and maturing.
