On KCRW's "The Business":
http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/the-business/how-will-forte-became-the-last-man-on-earth (about 21 min.)
He covers a lot of familiar territory (how the show was developed, casting Carol and Melissa, etc.), but I was particularly interested in his observations about language restrictions and broadcast-network standards during the first half.
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
Transcribed from the new TV Guide (May 2-8, 2016):
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
Sunday, May 8
9:30/8:30c, Fox
OH BABY! THE last man on Earth is learning he's also the last father on Earth in the penultimate episode of the Fox comedy's second season. Plus, as Phil "Tandy" Miller (Will Forte) and wife Carol (Kristen Schaal) celebrate the big news, Tandy finds himself getting closer to his former astronaut brother, Mike (Jason Sudeikis), following their epic prank war. Forte dishes on the hairy situations ahead.
How does fatherhood change Tandy?
He's still a buffoon at his core, but he's a reformed buffoon. This will definitely take him one step closer to the person he would like to be, but he'll make a bunch of mistakes along the way.
Tandy and Mike's relationship appears to be on the mend, but what's next for the brothers?
It's really what anybody's logical next step is after you've watched your brother have sex with your wife with your permission; you just get much closer to that person. [Laughs] They are in a good relationship for probably the first time in their lives, but we never let them get too comfortable with a situation for too long.
The prank war resulted in Mike shaving half of Tandy's body. Did you only shave your head, or did you do your full body?
I did the whole body. I have to show my shirtless upper body and I'm always wearing shorts, so I had to do the legs. And then I did the [crotch region] as more of an OCD thing. I know it's a network show, but I wanted to be able to get as close to that area as possible.
What can viewers expect for the last episodes of the season?
There is a nice mix of closure and cliffhanger at the same time. Something pretty awesome ends the last episodes and opens up a wide variety of possibilities for Season 3.
But where will your hair go in Season 3?
[Laughs] I've gone to just about every extreme. I could not have had a weirder hair year.
-- Rob Moynihan
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/15/last-man-earth-finale-postmortem-will-forte-jason-sudeikis
On working with Jason:
I mean, look, if it was up to me, I would have Jason Sudeikis be in every single show I’m ever on for the rest of my life. It was nothing but pure joy to get to work with him again, from a quality-of-show standpoint and just from a personal friendship standpoint…. It certainly was a job for him, of course, but I think he went into it realizing he had a chance to work with a bunch of friends. There were a bunch of people on our crew and writing staff that have known him for a long time. But at the same time he lives in New York, he’s got a little kid, another one on the way. He can’t stay out here forever, because he’s one of the most gifted, talented people out there, so he’s got a million people asking him to do stuff. So we were so excited to get him for as long as we did...
Actually, what I will say is, to me, I can’t imagine a better, more emotionally satisfying ending than what we did. I’m not saying that everybody will find it emotionally satisfying. He’s one of my best friends, like a brother, so watching this is a very emotional thing for me and also the end of this really wonderful period I got to work with him. So to bring him back after doing that, we want to be true to the viewers and not jerk them around. We would only do something like that if there was a really good reason for it.
Phil/Tandy has grown this last season and is trying much harder. I would say that everybody would probably think that. [I read] a couple comments about how at the end of the 16th episode, people were excited that Tandy finally got a win, and in [episode] 17 how he stuck up for Mike. Yeah, I think people are noticing that, and it doesn’t seem to come out of nowhere. We’ve been doing little things, subtle and not so subtle, throughout this second season that show how he’s trying harder. So it’s all a plan. It feels like we’ve earned these little things. That’s my opinion, but other people might not think we have….
Especially now that he’s got a kid coming on the way, I think that emotional step, he’ll keep trying to move forward, but he’s definitely never going to lose his innate Tandy-ness. And I think this will likely bring the group closer together...
The grave scene, in which Mike realizes that Phil had to bury their parents and make a tombstone for him as well, was very poignant. What sticks out to you about filming the scene? Was that a powerful scene for you guys to shoot?
It was. Those are my parents’ names, Patti and Reb. And there was a guy who was like a brother to me. It was a very emotionally resonant moment. [Fun fact: Forte’s very alive mother, Patti, made a cameo in the pilot’s flashback birthday scene. In season 2, she returned in voiceover form, reading the fake letter that Phil created to prank Mike.]
***
Let’s talk about the haircut scene. Please tell me you actually had “Falling Slowly” playing in the background for the inspiration when you filmed that scene. And it also feels like someone may have watched Ghost?
[Laughs.] We definitely had “Falling Slowly” playing every single time, but even when “Falling Slowly” is not actually playing, it’s playing in Jason and my head. Yeah, that was great, and originally we were going to have the song be “Unchained Melody,” like they did in Ghost... But then it just seemed to make way more sense to do “Falling Slowly”...
I was super nervous that he was going to snip off part of my ear or something like that, but he’s a talented hairdresser as well. What can’t that guy do? [The scene] was in this little teeny room, and it was great. That week was a real mess. I mean, it was wonderful, but it was so hard because you never [film] in chronological order, and the fact that I had that half-and-half hairdo for half the week and then not the other half — there were all these scenes that we had to cut for budget because the scheduling was so wonky. Normally if you’re at the house, you’d do a day where you’d just do everything that’s at the house. But we had to do the stuff that was at the house with the half-and-half haircut, and then come back later in the week to do the stuff in the house with the shaved-off hair...
No, not sad to see it [the half-hair] go. It was really interesting while I had it, but it’s really nice to walk around like a normal person...
***
Which of the writers drew from his or her own life to pitch the fart jar idea?
I don’t remember. It might have been me. I don’t think it was me… Well… I can’t remember….. I don’t think anybody’s ever done a fart jar where they’ve saved it. I have farted into a jar before, and very, very quickly unleashed it on my sister. But yeah, I have not had a really scientific fart-jar experience like that, like the very scientific fart-jar experience in our show, in which he learns a ton about science.
***
You drive the Back to the Future DeLorean in this episode. How did you get your hands on one of those, and is it harder to drive than we might think?
It’s kind of old now... It was awesome, really fun to get in there, just to add to the list of cool experiences I’ve gotten to, like shooting a flamethrower and running over stuff with a steamroller…
We already had the footage of the car zooming down the street, but we had the Back to the Future music in there as temp and I remember our music supervisor going, “Yeah, good luck,” and somehow they let us use it! I’m very appreciative. It would be fun either way, but to be able to do it with the music I think that helped that moment so much when you first see it.
The return of Pat (Mark Boone Junior) was exciting. What can you tease about what happens when they reach the shore? I didn’t see a welcome pound cake, but it might have just been hidden behind the guns.
This is one where I don’t know. That’s something we’re going to figure out. We knew how we wanted to leave it. That Pat thing was not just a throwaway. But that’s one of the things I’m most excited about these three for is how open-ended we’ve left it. And if you’ve noticed, there are two other people with hazmat suits. We made it a priority to obscure the faces so nobody knows who those people are...
Is it safe to assume that the drone came courtesy of Pat and his crew, or is it possible that there’s another unknown party responsible for that?
I guess my answer to that would be that it’s always unsafe to assume anything with our show, and that is a story point I would like to leave a little vague. But yes, it’s a fair question.
Was the plan always to have Pat return in the finale after you introduced him in the spring premiere?
No, it wasn’t, but it did come up when we were doing that episode... And then that grew into the thought, “Oh, my God, it’d be awesome to have two other people in hazmat suits!” ...
Will there be a time jump to kick off season 3, or do we pick up where we left off?
We’ll pick up where we left off. That’s something I can tell you. No time jump…. If somebody had the most awesome idea that involved having to jump through time, we would do it, but we would definitely at some point come back for these people making it to land. There’s no way we’re going to skip over that.
We leave the season with two pregnant women, Carol (Kristen Schaal) and Erica (Cleopatra Coleman). When will that come to a head, and how much of a problem will that pose for the group?
There are so many different ways to go. We talked about this, and this is another case of: We’ll figure it out. Usually each episode only goes over a span of two or three days, and so it is possible that we could actually get through multiple seasons without them ever giving birth. But at the same time, whatever’s best for the story…. If we were able to do the schedule like last year — I really enjoyed the two-part [season] — then I could see some kind of little time jump in between the two chunks. But yeah, we definitely are aware of the pregnancies, and we’re going to have a lot of fun with that. It would be scary to be pregnant in this world with no doctors. A lot of fun and interesting stories I think can come out of that stuff.
What’s the most cryptic hint you can just leave us with about season 3?
We just don’t know. Even the stuff that I think that I have all planned out, everything could change once we get in the room and go, “Oh, it makes more sense to do this, right?”… We have always liked to keep people guessing, and hopefully we can continue with that.
Answer this: Will we see Gail’s vibrating massage finger at one point?
I know that Mary Steenburgen really wants to — No, Mary’s the best. She is the best woman, and that is a [network] standards and practices issue, and I would guess that they would say that we will not see it…. But if you come to the set I’ll show it to you.
Really good read but it definitely sounds like Mike Miller is dead.
shareYeah, I have a pretty strong feeling about that too.
But at least 1) we, like Phil/Tandy, were spared the sight of Mike actually dying in his arms, or being found unresponsive in bed or on the floor or something; and 2) the ball-buddies will keep Mike company in his darkest moments just as they did for Phil/Tandy (who, in the very first episode, nearly drove himself into a rock with those smiling sportballs sitting there and watching). (Also, I had kinda hoped Phil would introduce the balls to Mike by name -- Gary the volleyball, Kevin the tennis ball, et al. -- but maybe it was for the better that he let Mike presumably come up with his own names...
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
It's going to be a long wait until the fall....
shareMore comments from Will on last night's season finale:
http://www.thewrap.com/will-forte-last-man-on-earth-jason-sudeikis-season-2-finale/
The final farewell between the two quarreling sitcom siblings was quite touching — feelings that carried on when the cameras were off, Forte told TheWrap.
“It was very emotional the whole way through doing that stuff with him — most of it was positive emotion,” Forte said. “This is a guy that I used to spend pretty much every day of my life with when we were at ‘SNL.'”
“We got to be really, really close toward the end [of ‘SNL’], like brothers,” he continued. “That’s why it was so obvious when we were thinking about having a brother character … the first person to ask [was] obviously Jason Sudeikis.”
Should we assume that Pat was flying those drones discovered by a drunk Gail (Mary Steenburgen)? “You can assume what you want,” Forte said. “We love for people to assume stuff.”
Of course, when a zig like this one happens, storytellers tend to set you up for a good zag.
“We’re still working out all the particulars,” Forte admitted of the person behind the drone controls.
Hours before last night's season finale, Will Forte and Kristen Schaal attended a screening of the episode and had a Q&A session at the Paley Center for Media in NY:
http://theinterrobang.com/last-man-earth-ends-season-2-high-note-sad-tone/
Last night, the [Miller] family was once again pulled apart, this time for good... That plot line was noticeably emotional for Forte, who during a Q&A at the Paley Center for Media last night, spoke of working with his SNL brother. “Certainly the stuff with Jason was special to me because he’s a guy I’ve spent so much time with, he’s like a brother. So it was a very emotional thing to go through that with him. He used to be in my life every day, but I don’t get to see him as much anymore. So this was a very special experience. So I just wanted to give this relationship its proper due. The tough parts in telling this kind of sad story was finding humor in it. But our writers have become very good at that.”
Kristen Schaal, who also attended, joked that “the audience just hadn’t heard that song ['Falling Slowly'] enough.” Forte explains choosing that slow love song for the brothers was an extended in-joke between he and Sudeikis, because it really is their go-to Karaoke when they go out. And just as the characters got tired of the brothers un-ironic love for that song, Schaal show[ed] similar exhaustion with the actors love for the song, recalling “There was one day on set when Dave Noel was directing and he was just like 'I think we’ve got it' but Will kept wanting to get it from all the angles. There is a limit to that song.”
As for the shocking haircut, Forte spent a month walking around with half his body shaved…including his eyebrows which even hair and make-up told him would be a mistake. The idea for that visual joke came from Forte’s strange mind, recalling “That was really very early, months and months before we did it, I just woke up one day and thought let’s just do a half and half. I just liked that little section of me waking up, him saying burn and me going 'burns on you, I like it this way.' That little section allowed us to keep it half and half for a while. And I couldn’t wait to do it.” He also had costar Mel Rodriguez shave down (but he didn’t keep the look for as long), although Kristen Schaal’s request to take part in the antics didn’t work out, despite Forte’s attempts to justify giving Carol a weird haircut. Schaal does however have some say regarding Carol’s unique look, including issuing a mandate that Carol never wear heels, because according to Schaal “heels are so dumb.” Appropriately wearing red flats and a “Carol shirt” borrowed from wardrobe to the talkback, the show’s eternal optimist wears flowers and patterned clothing (compared to the sleeker high fashions Cleopatra Coleman, Mary Steenburgen, and January Jones’ wear), but asks she not look too childish.
Forte however has no problem seeming childish as Phil. After all, a big part of the reason audiences tolerate him is because of his childlike perspective and “not knowing better.” Asked by a child in the audience who came up with some of Phil’s ridiculous way of insulting people, Forte claimed it was simply because that’s how he talked in real-life with his sister. Basically, it’s all in his head, and the show has become an uncompromising attempt to put Forte’s vision out there.
In fact, despite criticism that the first season went too far making Phil unlikeable and turned off initial fans of the show, Forte claims that de-evolution of the character into one of the most despicable people on TV (worst man on earth) was exactly what they intended…because the wanted to show a character that despicable is still capable of real growth (“We realized he doesn’t need to make a full change, so long as he’s trying to change. But we can still have him make mistakes”). Schaal went a step further, saying “I think the minute he decided Carol was awesome, was the minute he became someone people could trust. And then he can be as stupid or goofy as you want. But he needed that one thing in the world to ground him, which was me.”
Forte is known to be one of the hardest working men in Hollywood because of the show’s long hours and high pressure (and his tendency to be a control freak). Working a schedule this year which forced him to rent an apartment closer to set and caused him to go up 6 pant sizes, he describes the 24/7 schedule as “It was really hard. It’s like a full acting day, so I can’t start writing until the evenings. And editing is on the weekends. So it’s 7 days a week. I love the show and am really proud of it, so its worth it. But I thought going into the second season, after doing it for a year, it would get easier, but that didn’t turn out to be that way.”
It all starts again in two weeks, and Forte used his break this season to star in David Wain’s biopic about National Lampoon founder, Doug Kenney. Asked if he’s become a better boss or easier guy to work with, Schaal (who spent a few days in the writers room herself this season) told the audience about her “boss” (a title she gives with her signature Louise Belcher sarcasm) “The thing I will say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone work hard[er] than Will Forte. And I say that having worked alongside Tina Fey. She had Robert Carlock, so I felt there’s a little more of balance. Forte gives every ounce of himself to this thing. And I really appreciate you for doing that. And the thing about it is, for someone who works around the clock on the show…At the end of the day he’s never angry. He never yells at anyone or snaps. He’s still so incredibly [kind]. But I do think he’s insane.” Forte only proved his status as a nice guy when he made a bee line to a child in the front row holding a hand drawn picture of his character at the end of the event.
Schaal describes the appeal of their [Phil and Carol's] relationship being “They both feed each other’s [zaniness?] in a really complimentary way, and don’t judge each other. So they’re allowed to flourish and become more and more ridiculous the longer they stay together, which only makes them more fun to watch. They just have each other’s backs no matter what, but it was earned because they found that after not getting along in the beginning.”
Schaal, a woman who admits to having intense celebrity crushes, misses the show’s first real causality, Boris Kodjoe (“I miss him, he’s so handsome. He told me to follow my dreams and stop being so negative in my trailer. Do you follow him on Instagram, he’s rarely wearing a shirt on Instagram. You’ve got to follow him”). Forte created [Mel] Rodriguez’s role with him in mind after they appeared together in the movie The Watch, but he wasn’t sure if he could act because he had no lines in that movie. Turns out he can and Forte announced he expected him to win an Oscar in the future. The show already has an Oscar winner in the ensemble, Mary Steenburgen as wine enthusiast Gale. Schaal told the audience that more scenes with Gale is her wish for season three.
Some more Will and Kristen comments:
http://theknockturnal.com/kristen-schaal-will-forte-talk-last-man-earth/
Q: Can you talk about the writing process for making each episode and the process for creating the jokes in the show?
Will: It’s a pretty typical writing process as far as shows go. Beginning of the season we are trying to come up with the big, bold story arcs and then get into the nitty gritty of each episode as you go along. Typically, the staff will go and write the stuff and then I’ll take a crack at it and do a re-write on it; we just keep going. And then it goes back to the staff and then back to me and then we all come together and we really get in there a bunch so by the time we are out there we have a script that we like.
Kristen: Usually they will put a bunch of nouns and some adverbs into a bucket—there’s a stairwell that goes from the writer’s room to the stage and so however they land we’ll pick them up and stream them together and that will be the joke.
Will: That is how we start.
Q: So it’s kind of like a dartboard situation where you just throw random things together?
Kristen: Yeah, let the universe decide.
Q: Can you talk about some of your favorite moments to shoot on set?
Kristen: Oh, the sex scenes for sure. That’s the most fun.
*Insert Kristen and Will both making mmmmmm sounds at each other*
Kristen: But there’s not enough. We should show them in each episode that they’re making love. They get cut. But, I would say that any scene where I find myself like ‘oh my god, this is my job!’ Just playing things like the wind dancer or being on a steamroller. Like this is my job! It’s really great.
Will: And stuff done on the beach is always fun because you’re just hanging out on the beach with a bunch of your buddies. Everybody in the cast now is pretty tight.
Kristen: So tight!
Q: So where do both of you want to see your characters go in the next season?
Will: We never know until we go in there and start writing. I would assume that Tandy would grow more. Tandy is a dipsh--. He is trying very hard but at his core he is a dipsh-- so he will always stumble around but definitely in season two you could tell that he was really trying. Carol, where would you like to go?
Kristen: I would just love to see Carol just doing more things and more jokes. I can’t even imagine, she has got to do so many fun things. I am drawing a blank because I am already living my wildest dreams by being here. I have been doing so many things. I don’t know what else is left, I mean maybe flying a plane and skydiving out of it.
Vulture Emmy Insider: Will Forte and Kristen Schaal on The Last Man on Earth’s Terrific Second Season, Fart Jokes, and Anti-Love Triangles
http://www.vulture.com/2016/06/will-forte-kristen-schaal-on-last-man-on-earth.html
Some highlights:
Do you remember writing that arc of you having this jar of farts, and then it being this thing that he [Jason] gives to you?
WF: I remember that the scene might have been like ten pages long. There was just so much to cover with fart jars. Some of our episodes can be ten minutes too long. When we’re shooting for 21 minutes, that’s a significant amount to touch. So, certain scenes, you go, "No, we’re not touching this one. We’ll get it out of these other ones." And with the fart jar we tried to save as much of as we could. I’m a gross person.
The other main story in the finale was the mysterious drone, and Melissa acting like a paranoid maniac. What was the decision to have her character be the person who seems to be the most reactionary to this drone?
WF: Well, it seems like she’s usually the most realistic. When the virus was possibly reintroduced, it was very clear she should be the person who was harsh. We knew the drone would be coming in and, at this point, we have enough to go off of how these characters would react.
Kristen, as Carol, you had the “This world can suck” speech. What was it like shooting that?
KS: She is the most optimistic one of the group. It was a tough scene for me just because there wasn’t any joke to hang on to. I had to be real serious and I had to look into January's gorgeous blue eyes. And pffft. It’s a lot. But it was good. It was really nice working with January because she’s really good at the dramatic stuff. She was so there and so down and just a great person to react to. And then when we were done shooting, I remember, “Oh, I'm really good. Why was I nervous?”
Especially with Melissa’s "We are the survivors" line, it was the first time the show almost felt like The Walking Dead or Lost in terms of a menace. Can you talk about the decision to have those guys at the end come with the guns?
WF: We always like to end with some fun cliffhanger, and this seemed like a very exciting turn of events. We had thought up Pat returning a while back and then decided it’d be a fun element to have two people who could be anybody. It really opens up this world of possibilities. We go into each season not knowing a ton about where it’s going to go. Going into the second season, we knew, okay, Gail’s going to start doing medical stuff a little bit, and then Phil’s going to get appendicitis and die because of her. That was basically all we had, and then we knew Jason was going to come, and then stuff just started falling into place. We have that amount of info to go on for the third season.
Kristen, do you remember reading the script where it said the first time they were going to say "I love you" was when you were having sex with his [Tandy's] brother?
KS: That scene was one of those great scenes where they told me at the beginning that that had been the plan. I was a little thrown when I heard it, but down for everything... And then once were in that scene, it took a few takes before it hit me how hysterical it was. It might have been the funniest scene I’ve ever done, but I had to be in the middle of it, literally, to figure that out. I was actually sad when we were done because I felt like I’d just clicked into to the rhythm of the threesome and I wanted to explore it more. I was like, "This could go so many places.”
WF: We’ll write some threesomes into season three.
KS: You know what I like.
Carol’s pregnant at the end of the season. Do you feel like these are people that would have wanted kids before the virus?
KS: The virus is definitely motivating it. She wants to create the human race. So that is part of it. Carol did want a husband, for sure, and a family before the virus, too, and nothing was quite hitting. Although Emily Spivey, who writes on the show, disagrees with me, I had been under the impression that Carol really started to thrive post–virus. Like all of a sudden she could have her own set of rules, but then Spivey is like, "No way. Carol was outgoing and had her nerdy friends," which we got to meet in the beginning of season two.
This season also had the anti-love triangle, where you basically take what is a normal sitcom conflict and just make it work.
WF: That stuff was a big debate, too, just trying to figure out how it was going to affect people’s attitudes towards the characters. It could be a real sh--ty situation. One of the things that makes that story line really work is Mel Rodriguez. That moment he comes to the women! What could be a real weird story line, if people do go with it and buy it, it’s because of how he plays that character. I would get into a three-person relationship with him.
KS: He’s asked several times.
Will talks auditioning for SNL, writing vs. acting vs. show-running, and planning LMOE s.3:
http://www.indiewire.com/2016/06/will-forte-last-man-on-earth-saturday-night-live-1201682223/
You wrapped Season 2 without knowing if you’d been renewed. How much Season 3 thinking were you doing at the end?
Oh, zero... At the very end of Season 2, the last week, all the writing for the episode was done. While we were doing the episode [2x18, which hadn't aired yet at the time of this interview], the writers were taking around ideas. I think we have something fun at the end of the season that is unresolved that I can’t tell you about, obviously. But it affords us a little bit of leeway in how we wanna deal with it... and it’s going to open up a number of possibilities for next season. We have a general idea of how we might handle it. But you never know until you get in there and start doing the very specific episode-to-episode stuff.
It’s a question I think about a lot with this show — how do you make sure you keep enough fuel for the story?
...I was a writer before I went to “SNL” and was a part of a bunch of writing staffs, but the more senior members of the group would map that stuff out. Not that we wouldn’t all talk about it, but [laughs] I would let my mind wander over that stuff. I would just wait until we got to the joke-pitching. So it’s very interesting to tackle it from that other side and actually figure out how to propel a story. I think there are times when we hit the mark and times when my inexperience with that stuff hurts us a little bit. But I think, for the most part, I’m so proud of the stuff we’ve been doing.
Would you call “The Last Man on Earth” the best of both worlds [writing and acting]?
It is! There’s opportunities to get to write the words that you say. And we have a brilliant group of writers and we’ve all worked together for years. If we added up the years that I’ve been friends with everybody on the staff, it’s been like 170 years or something like that. Friends from the Groundlings, friends from “SNL,” friends from college. So that’s a wonderful thing to have, control over that stuff. And control over the direction of the show. It’s terrifying because if you screw it up, you have nobody but yourself to blame. But it’s exhilarating at the same time, because you really can try stuff and fight for stuff that you really like.
“We probably had some people concerned we had a freshman year slump,” says Will Forte, jokingly referring to Fox’s “Last Man on Earth,” for which he earned a 2015 Emmy nomination for lead actor in a comedy series. “Who knows? I never worry about that stuff. We’re just taking it one episode at a time.”
But he concedes season one offered lessons regarding storytelling that proved instructive in season two. “The main thing is getting the experience of doing the first season and you have that extra bit of knowledge of what worked and what didn’t work,” Forte says, noting that there were more adjustments in the show’s writing than in his performance.
“We definitely wrote the character [Phil/Tandy] a little differently. In the first season he did some pretty unlikable things and we wanted to see if we could get away with it. Some of it we did, other things we thought went too far. So we definitely did not strip the character of his idiocy, but we did try to protect him a little more.”
[deleted]
http://www.goldderby.com/article/2016/will-forte-interview-the-last-man-on-earth-season-2-emmy-awards-2016-news-1357924680/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqH3ZDcgg8A (18 min., 30 sec.)
Topics include Forte's favorite moments (especially the mid-season finale and the whole Miller Brothers reunion arc) and what he's most proud of about this past season, how the show got away with having a whole episode ("Pitch Black") with none of the regular cast, the "holdup" scene in "Dead Man Walking" (the interviewer's fave s.2 moment), Tandy slowly becoming a better person, that crazy half-'do, bar-cycles, how the writers and cast all get along, working with Will Ferrell, and thoughts on the Emmys.
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
Stupid internet blocker at work and bomb shelter-like building where I get no phone service. I'll have to watch it later. But he already didn't win for Alive in Tucson so we know there is no justice. I still think that's one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. His descent into madness is both hilarious and disturbing. When he was sitting there in the suit of armor getting pelted by tennis balls I wanted to laugh at and cry for Phil (not yet Tandy) Miller.
shareBut he already didn't win for Alive in Tucson so we know there is no justice. I still think that's one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. His descent into madness is both hilarious and disturbing.
Deadline: Will Forte On LMOE And Crooning 'Always And Forever' With Jason Sudeikis – Awardsline
http://deadline.com/2016/06/the-last-man-on-earth-will-forte-jason-sudeikis-emmys-fox-interview-1201753591/
What are some takeaway lessons learned from Season 2?
You just get to know the characters better. You get to know the process better, which makes everything so much more efficient. You get to know the actors better, the writers. We have just a really delightful group of people involved in the making of the show from the writers’ room to an awesome crew. Everyone just gets more and more comfortable with each other. I feel like we grew as storytellers in that second season.
That karaoke duet of "Falling Slowly" with Sudeikis—how much rehearsing did that take?
What people might not know is that we do so much karaoke, we sing that song with each other all the time. When we lived in the same city we’d go to karaoke, just the two of us, and just sing together. I went to New York a week-and-a-half ago and we went to dinner, and sure enough we ended up at karaoke. We are just karaoke buffoons.
***
What’s up next for Season 3?
I don’t know. It’s going to be tricky because we love trying to keep people guessing where the show’s going to go, and so now it just gets harder and harder. Once you’ve covered more territory it gets harder to find another way to do that, but we’ve got just a really wonderful group of friends who are awesome writers that will hopefully figure out something exciting.
The actors’ harmonizing sounded practiced – and for good reason. It turns out the former “Saturday Night Live” cast mates have sung “Falling Slowly” more than once at karaoke nights around Los Angeles and New York.
“We do a lot of karaoke together,” Forte told us in a video interview when he stopped by The Envelope studio at The Times. “We go and sing songs for hours and hours, getting into some deep cuts, but ‘Falling Slowly’ is one we do every single time.”
Other songs in heavy rotation, per Forte: REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” and Heatwave’s “Always and Forever.”
Emmy nominee Will Forte talks about the F-word — only it's not the one you think it is
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-87932411/
The go-to F-words are friggin' and farts, pretty much, right?
Farts, yes. Farts has always been with me.
Both as a word expressing dismay as well as something you used for a surprising emotional payoff this season between the brothers.
When [Jason Sudekis] hands me this fart [in a jar] that he’s just collected.
Where did that idea come from?
You know, I actually don't remember who pitched the fart jar. I don't think it was me.
You're not raising your hand, taking responsibility.
Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, we used to write at “Letterman” together, and I think after I got canned from “Letterman,” I farted into an empty Arrowhead bottle and possibly sent it to them or they sent me one.
That wasn’t the reason you got canned from “Letterman”?
No. They probably would have kept me if they knew that I could do stuff like that. I'm sorry, I apologize to my family if you're watching this.
[With Kristen Schaal’s character, Carol, pregnant] I would imagine that parenthood will be a big theme in this season coming up.
That’s something we're very interested in. It's really scary because everyone in the room has debated since day one: “What would the scenario be realistically?” Like, half the women in our writers room say, "Oh, there's no way I would give birth under those circumstances." The other half feel like, "Oh we've got to keep the population going and start over."
I always go back to, "Well, you know, in cavemen times, there were no OB/GYNs.” But I'm also not the one who has to have the actual child.
It's fun because there are a lot of shows that have had people get pregnant and deal with it, but we get to have that extra special twist because it's such a different scenario with no doctors and stuff.
Emmy Contender Will Forte on That Crazy Haircut in ‘Last Man on Earth': ‘It’s Really Fun to Be Weird’ (Video)
http://www.thewrap.com/emmy-contender-will-forte-on-that-crazy-haircut-in-last-man-on-earth-its-really-fun-to-be-weird-video/
On the first day of writing for Season 3 of “The Last Man on Earth,” Will Forte sprang a surprise on his team of writers: a Barcycle. They met at Forte’s house in Santa Monica, tossed around ideas for a while, then climbed onto the contraption, a bicycle built for 16 with built-in drink holders. For the rest of the night, they pedaled from bar to bar, joined by the show’s cast at their first stop.
“It was a fun first day,” Forte told TheWrap shortly after that excursion. Then he paused and broke into what might have been the slightest of frowns, though to tell the truth the guy is always kind of smiling. “We did not get a lot done. More hangovers than good ideas. But it was really fun.”
The show is about a hideously self-destructive man who, in the aftermath of an unspecified plague that wiped out almost the entire planet, might not be the last man on Earth, but is certainly the most disliked one–at least among the small band of misfits ... who are left alive.
“We never make it easy,” he said of his character, Phil Miller, whose scheming and conniving is so pathetic and transparent that every time you start feeling sorry for the guy, he does something so reprehensible that you hate yourself for feeling sympathetic for the schmuck. “But it’s been really fun to get to take the risks that Fox has let us take, to be pretty weird. I feel really good about the choices we’ve made.”
“In Season 1 we knew that we wanted to keep people guessing where the show was going, and a lot of the surprises came in the form of character introductions,” he said. “In Season 2, the challenge was figuring out how we could be unpredictable without relying on character introductions. We really got to focus on the group that was there, and I think the stories grew from that.”
But after a first season in which he had a back-breaking workload as star, writer and showrunner, Forte said [that] the second season was just as grueling. “In fact, I think it was harder,” he said. “Season 1 was trying to figure out what the show was, and so everything took a long time. Season 2, we did more shows so it was just harder. We started falling behind, and then toward the end we were just racing every week.” He shrugged. “Season 3, we’ll see. I’m stepping back this season and trying to see if I can be less of a control freak, which is hard to do.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/awards-chatter-podcast-will-forte-915349 (68 min.)
A pretty in-depth chat about Will's entire career -- he doesn't get around to LMOE until the last 10 minutes or so.
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding