We Is Us

[Music] Welcome to Pluribus, the official podcast. An intimate insider conversation about the making of the Apple TV series with the cast and creators behind the show. My name is Chris McKayla, I'm one of the editors of Pluribus and the host of this podcast. If you watched Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, you might have heard the insider podcast we did for nearly every episode, going all the way back to season 2 of Breaking Bad. And a huge shout out to my mentor, the brilliant editor, Kelly Dixon, for starting those podcasts and pioneering this particular format. Now this isn't a recap show. Instead we favor a freewheeling, unscripted discussion about the making of each episode. Now this inaugural podcast is about episode 101 entitled "We Is Us" written and directed by Vince Gilligan. So without further ado, let's dive right in with our guests, creator and writer director of this episode, Vince Gilligan. Hey Chris, co-executive producer, Trina Ciope. Hi Chris. Writer and co-executive producer, Jen Carroll. Hey there. And Carol Sturker herself, Racy Horn. Hello, happy to be here. Welcome to the show guys. Thanks. Also with us today on the mixboard on the ones and twos, is our assistant editor, Nicholas Sye. Nicholas, how are you doing? Good, how are you? Great. And yeah, this is a homegrown operation here, and this is our first episode. And there's a ton to talk about. But yeah, it's been quite a journey to get to this point to actually having the time. Oh man, yeah. Vince, what was the first kernel of the eight? When did you start thinking about it? Well, we are recording this in the room that we use as a writers room for Pleuribus. And prior to that, it was the writers room we used on Better Call Saul. And eight to ten, it might have been almost a decade ago. But at least eight years ago, we were doing Better Call Saul here. And we would take lunch breaks and I'd walk around the neighborhood. And I started kind of daydreaming about this idea that became Pleuribus. This is long before I had a title for it. And it started off as a wish fulfillment idea in that it started off. It was about a guy. It was about a male character. And something happens in the world and I hadn't figured that part out yet. But everyone suddenly is very solicitous, and we'll do anything for him. And I thought, "This will be fun, man. You can do all kinds of fun stuff." And the only limitation is your imagination. But then it got kind of pointy, kind of quick. And also, you know what? The thing that really threw me off track for a while is I started to think, "It's a little like bewitched and I dream of Jeannie." And those two shows, it's so weird, both the husbands and those shows, or the husband and one, the boyfriend and the other. They're so crabby and stunted and like, "Oh, Jeannie, don't do that. Don't send us to Paris, France. Don't, you know, whatever." And Darren, unbewitched, is the same way. He's like, "Don't use your magic, Sam. Don't." And as a kid, even, I thought, "What is wrong with these guys?" Even before I was pubescent, I was like, "What is wrong with these guys?" And the reason is, from a writer's point of view, and it took me a while to figure this out, is there's no drama in happiness, none whatsoever. Which is why we kind of got our hand, one arm tied behind our back on this show. There's no drama in it. As I started to realize, you can't make a story just about someone getting every wish fulfilled because it'd be fun for the first, until the first commercial break and then it'd get boring. And the other thing I thought was, again, about eight or ten years ago, we were doing better called Saul and the lovely Miss Ray C. Horn sitting across from here, was coming to all of our attention as to how great she is. And I started to think, "I want to write something for Ray when this is done. I want to work again with her after this is over." However long this show will go, and luckily it went six seasons, but so I started to think, "Well, why does it have to be a male protagonist? Why not a female protagonist, and why not Ray?" But she probably can't be so happy. And that led to this. So it's set in Albuquerque or, you know, where Carol lives in Albuquerque. What was the thought behind going back to Albuquerque after breaking bad and better called Saul, but a totally different side of Albuquerque than we've seen? I love Albuquerque, and even more than that, I love our crew. I've been working with this we have been working with this crew for some folks since the very beginning of Breaking Bad, which dates back to 2007, which as we record this is, what is that, 18 years ago? I can't even believe it when I say it. It can vote. My concept of the crew. That's rude. Yeah, that's very rude. Yeah. No, that's so I wanted to work with the same crew if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And it did give me a little pause to be honest, thinking, "Should we set it in Albuquerque, even though we're shooting in Albuquerque?" And then I thought, "No, you can't spend half your energy trying to hide the fact." Oh, you mean shoot Albuquerque for, as a different city? Yeah, because I mean, when they first pitched it to me, Breaking Bad, shoot Albuquerque. Shoot Albuquerque is Los Angeles. And that was one of the smart decisions I made. I made a lot of dumb ones too, but the smart one was don't pretend to sell A, because it's gonna be very, you can't ever show the sandias if you do that. But I thought, isn't it weird? It's racey horn playing this new character. She's not Kim Waxler. It may bump some people. I can understand why, but I figured, and I still, it's worth it. Well, and Ray, Ray is sporting a very different look than Kim Waxler with Carol. What was the thinking about that? Well, I was talking with Vincent, and then also Tricia Almeida, the head of our hair department, who also was the ponytail designer on better calls all of them. But she and I were just talking about different looks for the character, but also some practicalities. We knew going in that it would be a lot of probably a lot of shoots where I am supposed to have not done my hair, maybe not showered, like I'm talking throughout the whole season. And with longer hair, you can get into some real predicaments, not even trying to look attractive as much as keeping any kind of continuity, because longer, like some people have long thick, luster's hair, like Miss COB and Miss Carol, but mine gets stringy, and so if it's not, you know, quaffed as it was in a saw, then it could be problematic. And then we were just talking about it would be fun to have a different hairstyle. Then pitched a couple of ideas to Vince, and he liked this kind of chin-linked bob that we came up with, which really was helpful, I have to say, whether we're shooting an extreme heat or extreme cold or sweating or it's supposed to look wet from the shower or all those things. And then Matt Cradle, our A-camera, who's also been with us forever, he and I had a really fun moment because I think it's the first time I'm on screen as the Barnes and Noble scene, right? Yes, there is. Which is really fun shooting there, and they are, was it a dolly tracking shot or a slider that you did going behind me? A slider sliding reveal in the audience, showing the audience, and then revealing you wanted to give you a big movie star entry. Right. But the back of my head. No. That's actually a cool one. Vince has always said this, that like the coolest introduction is to hold off and seeing the character's face for as long as possible. Of that. Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Dark, he has one of the coolest Harrison Ford has one of the coolest introductions, because Spielberg who's a genius, you know, holds off Sanham, and then when he finally Sanham, it's like the back of his head, he takes quite a while before he sees face. Oh, that's awesome. I'm going to go back and see it. So as Matt was filming it, we did a take, and then I looked over at Matt, because so many shots were designed in Better Call Saul that were framing my ponytail and coming up from behind. Sometimes as this barometer of where Kim was at emotionally, I'm like, oh, I'm tired of tightly wound. And he's, he got like a little like chill running up his spine of just like, wow, it is definitely a new character. Totally a different day, because the ponytail is gone, and I was thinking the same thing. It's that we have a nice little moment, like just doing that. I mean, and Matt, when I directed on Saul and chose a shot that was Kim moving her chair, he and I kept working on how he was framing the back of my head and so we had a lot of conversations about it. So we did think that was fun, a little subtle, none of us planned it to be that, but I do think it's a subtle little nod of like, we're not in Kansas anymore. Right, and I admit, I was just thinking of the cool movie star introduction. I was not thinking about, oh, it's all about her. But that was a really wonderful added benefit, it's, oh, there's no ponytail here or a different character. I thought that was Matt reacting to that was fun. And then suddenly I went, oh, yeah, right. Yes, that's what I did it. How did you guys come to decide like how the others were going to behave when they are seizing and all of that, because that got introduced in this episode and was something I wasn't sure what it was going to look like either. And of course, you had Nito Lariosa doing the choreography of that. But that was a big ass to ask a lot of background people, some of whom are actors, some may not want to be doing that as a living, but they all had to act. They had to perform. You were right. You were right. It was one of the scarier parts of pre-production for me personally, because we had big crowd scenes, I don't like big crowd scenes as a direct, I mean, I don't like, I like them fine when I'm watching a movie or TV show, I don't particularly like directing them. I don't really feel that in control, period when I'm directing, but the more people I have to direct the less in control, I feel. And the more I have gin and trainer and Alana, my assistant and anyone, people I trust and anyone I trust for that matter stand, I get folks to stand behind me and look at the monitor and sometimes I give them quadrants of the screen, say, looking at this quadrant and this quadrant only looking at this one, because you're looking at for some one person out of honor to be staring at the camera, or just doing something wrong. And I have to say, our extras were really good, they did a great job, but Nito directed the extras. I didn't, or I had a much more minimal hand, but Nito totally separate rehearsals, yeah, Nito and Treyna was invaluable and Jen was invaluable, these, these ladies, and our assistant directors. Oh, my God. Yes. So Nito would choreograph and certainly Treyna and Alana and I would, would, would watch guard, but the people who are really responsible are the assistant directors for talking to the background. That's true. Maybe dialed in in the, on the day, you know, I remember like quite, quite a few takes rightfully so being about like, what is the tone, how scary do these people look, how passive do they look? It's, it's, as we all found out, like, it's very difficult to passively look pleasant without looking crazy. Right. Yeah. About a mind. As a kite. Yeah. Freakish. What is my length? No. What is the creepiest thread? Or needily you have to thread and I, and I, I do want to shout out prior to them becoming others. The background people that were in the Barnes and Noble were phenomenal. So, how many people crushed it? How scripted was that sequence that I, there's so, so much, so very little though, some scripted, some were lines thrown out on the day. Yeah. We did upgrade some of the, the background performers, we, we chose a few and upgraded them. And then on the day, Vincent Trina and Angie and I would prep those folks who were waiting in line to talk to you. And I remember we were running up and down the line being like, okay, here's the backstory. Here are the characters. Here's some things you might want to, to ask about like in this, maybe you're a fan of book two. And you have a question about the amulet and, you know, something like that. It was, it was, it took a village. It was a group effort and, and these guys all did a great job. The extra did a great job and, and Miriam and Ray. Oh my God. Miriam, some of the very funniest lines, Miriam and Ray came up with, like, what was the one about the support person, what was the, oh yeah, that's really funny. Yeah. Miriam introducing the one in the support person, the two of you together were just a perfect pair. Yeah. And she's so, she's so great. And I had not met her before, before we did this. And I just loved it. Well, I called her before, before we started and I was like, congratulations, and I can't, wait, and I can't wait to meet you and tell me when you're getting into town. A little, and she was just like, I don't, I don't want a bad mouth at any show. She's been on, but she was like, I don't, I don't really remember the last time the lead called me to say, congratulations, and I can't wait to see you, but I'm sure some have, but she was referencing whatever. But she was so great, and we hit it off instantly, we just had such a fun time. And in the, I was telling Vince, I don't know if I told you guys, the escalator scene when we get back on the airplane, the gum, super hard, super hard, and I'm not joking, what? Because we both had wheelie bags that only fit a certain way, honest, if I know we've all done it, you get on the escalator with your wheelie bag and it may or may not actually fit on the same step you're standing or does it need to be on the step in front of you or the step behind you? And who are you getting in the way of? And she had to be on one side, and we can't block each other and she's got a bag and I have to bag and I needed to look pretty smooth. We've done it a thousand times because we travel for book tours, blah, blah, blah. And we're just starting to get it. And then we're also like trying to figure out when the camera comes into view as we descend without looking for the camera, obviously, and I'm playing how my character is feeling about her switching the books upstairs and then at that, and then Vince goes, and now you're going to hand her a piece of gum and we were like, "What are you doing?" Yeah. So then we try to do that, so she's like, she's like, I need one hand for the rail and one hand for the suitcase. I was like, I got a hand on the suitcase a little. And so we're trying to figure it, so she's unwrapping the gum. That's taking too long. We're already, we're on camera too fast for the unwrapping of the gum and then Vince goes, "So what if you're handing her, like, do people hand people a piece of gum like this?" And he hands her a stick of gum that's peeled like you would see like a cartoon banana at the top. You know where that no one would ever ever peel gum, let alone with one hand. But she's doing it with one hand. She and I both like, "Yeah, sure," and Vince laughed and we were like, "No one does that. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?" So finally we decided like, "Gum is pre-unwrapped with thousands of discussions." And then we're still, we're practicing it over and over and over on the moving steps and then like, we almost follow where we get back up. To this day, if Miriam is traveling and goes through an airport on an escalator or I do, we text each other and go, "Nailed it!" Just did the escalator! I have a bag! I have a bag! I have a gum! You should have sleep me! So we're pretty proud of the escalator scene. I just want to throw that out there. It's a highlight. We didn't make that day, but yeah, I don't know. Exactly. I love kids. She's so much fun. She's a lot. Effortless chemistry. Yeah. Well, really effortless. Was it effortless? I mean, yeah, you're both great actors. Yeah. I mean, I think that goes without saying, but it really, there seems to be something just intangible about just a chemistry that you have. We share a similar warp sense of humor. There's might be darker and hers might be slightly more warped, but we share a history of theater, a love of New York theater, but I think mostly, I honestly think mostly what it is is two people that have been working for a long time and are so thrilled to still be getting to do what we love and then to be on a set she instantly realize starting from my phone call and then probably conversations with Jen, and Vince, and Trina, and everybody at cost. She was saying all the same things that I was saying on solid like, my god, the costume designer wants to talk to me about character, not how short my skirt is, or what the network would like, you know, and deep dives into character, and then we're rehearsing, and I could see how much she loved that kind of room to play, that big safety net to take risks, and instantly we were both women that are gals, gals, I'm not there to compete with any but, or the guys. It'd be the best you've ever been today, and that's going to make me better, and that's going to make the scene better. That shouldn't be an anomaly, but it can be. And people would ask about what chemistry looks like. For me, it's two things. It's showing up to set doing all your prep, and then being delighted to have a curve ball thrown at you by your scene partner, if they have done their work. Not to screw with you, but to because they're being in character, and they want to play, and then you're throwing them something back, and that that tether between you, that your line reading could never be the same until you heard how they did theirs, reads as chemistry, because you are invisibly connected, and then the second thing is really, really, really being each other's cheerleader. Like I want her to be great, and I respect everything she's doing, and if she wants to try something that involves me trying something, like we would do it together, and it just made us, you just are a team. I think some of the scenes where I see that chemistry in this show and in Saul too, are the sort of the quieter moments, the sort of the, there's fewer words spoken. I think about the scene right after the Barnes and Noble, the signing, getting in the, in the car, and Carol, we see kind of a different side of Carol, like a darker side, maybe the more real side, and it's interesting hearing Carol, she speaks very differently about herself and her work than she does when she's around her fans, right? Which I found very interesting, I guess the duality of the artist, you know, the way that we, the way that we present ourselves versus the way that maybe we think about ourselves. Wait, I mean, yeah, part of it was just, you know, it's fun to surprise the audience, but part of it was, you know, she's so, Carol is so good with her fans. She's, your character's very good in that signing scene. She's very warm and, and authentic and loves her fans, and then she gets in that car and it's like, I want a bunch of bullshit. And hopefully that doesn't read like she's inauthentic, truly, like she's, she's being fake, she's, you know, lying to the fans. I think it's more like there's this duality she has where she, she really does love her fans and is proud of her work, and then somehow kind of poops on it in the, in the next breath. And, you know, I think it speaks to something bigger, I don't think Carol is meant to be happy, or she feels like perhaps she's not meant to be happy. Maybe part of it doesn't have to do with her fans at all, but, but has more to do with the, the idea that every time she starts to get a little bit happy, a little bit pleased, a little bit satisfied. She has to find rationalize, find some reason as to why she's not really happy. It's not really worthy of her to be writing this, you know, series of romance novels or whatever, but she's kind of full of it. And I think Helen, more than anyone else on Earth knows that, knows her best of all and just kind of calls her on it in the bar, for instance. Oh, it must be so tough to be you and all these loving fans. Right. Helen is, is you two really are great together that, that, again, that, that, that chemistry. And it's so important that they are because they have very few scenes together in that first episode when you think about it and you really need for it structurally, speaking for a writer's point of view, you really need it to, to hit hard when, when what happens to Helen, happens to Helen. Yeah. You have to feel that loss. And you do, yeah. That night I cried watching. Yeah. Oh, here's the way. I know. Oh, those were tough nights. Yeah. Yeah. And you had to keep doing it. Oh, well, that's, see, it's one thing to do it once. I don't know who very few people could do it to that level. You did it even once, but then you got, how do you, how do you do it over and over again? I mean, there's, there's, there's things that I give myself. I don't, I mean, to be technical about it, the, the homework for me, the homework of like the as ifs of have you experienced anything like this in your life and how did you behave? Have you watched other people? How did they behave? So you can start thinking about the different reactions and tools that different people have. I do that homework at home just to like sort of analyze it because for me on the day to rely on thinking about your dead dog in the corner and then coming over is not repeatable after a while. Like, you can't, you can't keep doing that. And sometimes it's hard to take direction if you're coming from a place that's literally just self purging, you know, that's just for me and how, and how I work. So I'll then give myself some, some markers. One of the things I'll do is like ask myself where the pain lives because most of the time when you're an extreme pain about something, it, it lives somewhere in your body. Like it's a, it's a lump, you can't swallow or it's a burning in your chest or it feels like somebody sitting on your diaphragm or your face feels like it's getting hot. And I find that strangely to be more repeatable as the instigator to tell your body like this is what, this is where we're at. And then I guess just having done it this long, my job, if I have understood how the character feels about this other character being in pain and I am racially gifted, a scene partner that is fantastic as, as Bob was as Miriam is looking at them through the eyes of my character makes me feel bad. It isn't like I lose my mind and I think I'm the other, but do you know what I mean? And as long as you can start there, I can then play the scene and I'm there, as opposed to wandering around, you know, and I do goof off between scenes and sometimes I have to because it gets so heavy. And I think I told you after a couple of takes one night, I was like, I need to admit because of my gag reflex kept going up because I was choking, sobbing so hard. And then for Miriam, once she was on screen, she was, she couldn't stop crying for me. And I'm like, you can't be crying, she's like jacked. But we would have some laughs to relieve it. For instance, it was freezing cold and every time we got up to give everybody a break and I run pretty high, but I got cold and Miriam runs cold and got freezing. And she's on the bed of that truck, which was metal. So they took tons of hand warmers and they're all up and down like in her shirt, in her jacket, in her pants. And every time she'd get up to walk and take a break, she would just be pooping hand warmers. They were just like, like tons coming out of sleeves, coming out of pants legs. I was laughing right at them. But yeah, so I just, and you try to tell the story again and again. And it gets harder when, because we shot different parts of it over two nights. So when you come back the next night and you would come and tell me rightfully, so I need you to start at 14 where you were last night. It's like, we're not going one to 14 when you start from 14. And so I would go home and I would make, I would make notes of like, where were you in that moment? Is it the, just different, different markers? Is this the moment where it feels like a mule kick to you in the chest? Is this the moment where, where you're in absolute denial, which is its own kind of physical reaction to something? And I know we filmed it a couple of different ways and I know that you, and I both thought it was imperative for it to be difficult to watch and wrenching because there's so few scenes. And this grief and what it does to Carol and her decision making moving forward needed to, you know, have weight so that it stays in people's minds. Absolutely. So you are so, it's so great working with pros and I tell you, and, and for folks listening who want to direct, this is probably an obvious statement if you think about it. From a director's perspective, you need to protect your, your actor as much as possible in a big scene like this. So we started with the close ups because that's, that's where the money is, you know, cutting into the forehead, whatever the closest of the close up, we started with that stuff because I knew, you know, in a moment like that, we're going to cut to the close up. So then we work backward from there and get wider, which is really helpful. And then you're all, and you're all so really great with explaining to me how we're going to shoot. And it's not that I save it, but there are different things I have to do to physically protect myself. If I, if I know we're doing it for, you know, 10 hours versus two hours or whatever, whatever we're doing that day. And something that I thought was very interesting that the listeners might think was interesting. I don't know if you guys were privy to it, Trina and Jen probably, but you came to me on the second day we were shooting it and you said there's something that keeps bumping me. And I said, it's the same thing that keeps bumping me. It was why she leaves Helen's body to get up out of the truck and go follow these people. And we both like kept tossing around ideas and you're always the smartest person in the room. But it's been really incredible for me that we have had collaboration at times unlike let's figure out who this character is and what the tone is and all that. And I remember that night we figured out that her anger almost that why are these people getting up and my wife isn't right is what makes her get up and go like I got to get some answers like what what the what the F it's going on. Catherine Madsen or lovely sound post sound supervising sound and she and quite a few other people that have seen the pilot have mentioned that millisecond look that I do down to Helen. Yeah. Before I get out of the truck and they're like it kills me and I was like, oh, that makes me so happy that you know like you think you guys think things through like to the eighth degree. But there's still the thing that happens on the day that you didn't know this was going to not read this way or this was that and that was that and to have tiny, tiny, tiny storytelling moments like that that you give the space on set for us to care about and to figure out and then to have an audience follow it was this really rewarding for me. It was that was a tough saying, but a very rewarding saying I was so lucky to have you doing it because I didn't have to worry about you. The thing I remember worrying about the most during that scene is and all the extras were great. They did a very good job, but I didn't quite know what to do with them as in they come out and a lot of them just stand there and look at the fire. Look at the sparks coming. It's not a fire. The sparks coming from a ambulance and this bothered me not just on the set, but weeks and weeks ahead ahead of it, I remember thinking, what are they doing? And then I thought, well, they're smart enough to know that you can't touch the ambulance without getting electrocuted because there's a live wire on top of it. So, but yeah, stuff like that, the logistical stuff, the stuff that gets you sometimes more than the because I knew I could trust you to pull it off. So I wasn't worried about you, but it's just the funny, the things you're worried about. What are all these extras doing? I don't want them standing there like a bunch of lumps for too long, but they really pulled it off. They did a good job. Did you audition the background? We did. We had open auditions for actors for background for literally anybody, really. We had them show up to a dance hall or theater and they would meet with Nito, I think in groups of five or ten. We used so many background, I mean hundreds, hundreds, thousands. Oh, yeah. It was great. You know, I'm sure you've done background work, I've done background work and a lot of times it's like, Oh, just start here and just grab this folder and walk across the room and then you watch so and you know, you see maybe your little flutter of your shirt or something. So I think it was great for the background to act like they felt like they were part of the scene. They were part of the show. It gave, you know, they were. They very much art. Real about it. Yeah, they were thrilled about it. And they did the fabulous job. We had some really good. They did. One thing you did, Ray, that I have never seen anyone else do was you would give during that first episode, especially you would give a speech to the background. You would gather everybody up and you would talk to them and you would thank them for being there. And you would remind them that what they were doing was so critical to the story and that they were part of the world the same way you were. And it inspired them to get through some of those very cold night shoots. Yes. As you said, we were, they were in every shot and there was some very hot ones later. Oh. Yeah. Thank you. I think I did every time we had like a large group that was with me. You know, Vince, and I would tell them we have a lot of fabulous post-production on this show because it requires it. But by and large, you kept things as practical as possible when it came to the people. They're not tiled in CGI and all that. I know that was important, you know, to these people that they were being valued as you are acting. They're acting in a synchronized way and as a unit, but they are individual people. They are not robotic. So people have different ambling walks or ways of gesturing or slightly different facial expressions. And they were all like doing it. And then they're for me. And I told them, you know, yeah, like they were my scene partners and they were creating this world that is completely up to them to for the audience to understand what is this. That is this thing we're looking at and wordlessly. And I did want to thank them and I have done background work and I think feeling respected for how hard that job is to do well is only going to get us feeling seeing because they are very much a part of the scene is as was anyone else without them. It would not have 100% absolutely true. And it was interesting. It was an evolution. Chris about the side and we did when I wrote the thing a long time ago because I started writing this thing literally years and years ago, I thought everyone should speak in perfect unison. Everyone should move in perfect, you know, like I was picturing some stuff I had seen like Cirque du Soleil du and very graceful, very imperfect or the Marine Corps drill team. If you've ever seen those guys amazing throwing them one rifles in the air and the guy behind it catches it without looking at all this kind of stuff. I know it's humanly possible that you literally got to spend years practicing it. And we can't. We can't spend years. It seems like we can but we can but but it came to dawn on all of us I think that people speaking too much in perfect unison is actually not pleasing. We wound up in the in the sound mixes for instance staggering people talking all at once just a little bit because if they're too perfectly in unison, it somehow it doesn't have the effect you want. You need them. They're not so perfectly in unison at uncanny valley a little bit. Yeah, something's not right about this and it bothers your brain. Yeah. So did you guys do that even on that first time when they speak to me in itself as a truck, right? Oh, outside the truck in the hospital is the first time I think they speak to me. Yes. But what the other thing is they especially a bunch of people as good as those extras were a bunch of people, you know, in hour 11 of the night when it's that cold outside, they're not the Marine Corps drill team. They never will be. Right. But in perfect sync. Right. But then I think we staggered. We added more voices and posts and made it a bigger crowd so to speak and post and staggered it. Maybe a little more still. Right. Because we wanted to feel human. Yeah. That's that's been the sort of guiding thought behind almost every decision we make about the others. You say because we they're people. They're not robots. They're not. They're not aliens. They're human and then staggering the voices and people speaking and whatever accent that they have and people walking with a limp. If they have a limp, they're they're not superhuman. They're just they're people. Right. Yeah. One place where their their movements were a bit more synchronized was sort of in the patient zero area area in the US Amrid. And I know we're going to run out of time. I just want to get into that section because those clean suits, those what are the positive pressure suits. Yes. You talk those are so cool. He talked a little bit about the because we those were constructed and there's. They really are something you guys talk about then they were they were cool and expensive. They are based off of real suits. We had to make the suits for the actors as well as have our special effects team pump air into them because so that they could breathe because they're you know, they're actually in close suits. So we had little mini fans in there, special effects had air tubes running through, you know, across the ceiling. So when they plug in it actually does also you have to worry about the mask, the temperature if they're hot inside it's hot, you know, it was you couldn't keep them in there for too long. Yeah. You can only be unplugged for for 10 minutes. But the suits had to be because you got so you needed the air running. And we needed to use special microphones to communicate with them. If you were standing next to somebody while the suit was was on, they couldn't hear you. So it's had to speak into a mic to give his direction. They could hear each other, they could say so they can hear each other and tell you to them. Yeah. And then we had to rehearse with them ahead of time so that they could we knew that they could move in the suit. They had to be expunction and you know, that's that's cool. Do we have technical advisors on that? Oh, yes. Quite a good one. Yeah. Yeah. We did for that sequence. We had a scientist Aaron McDonald who was instrumental in the montage and fear like what people who do and and also talking to us during pre-production. You know, you know, hopefully it's okay to save insight in your first iteration of the scene. There was there was one scientist in the lab and one thing Aaron said to us is in a bio safety level for lab, you would never have just one person. And you wrote the scene for to have a second scientist and I think it's so much better. Yeah. I just went with the old my old ex file learning from years ago person by themselves is going to be scarier. So that's the way I intended it. But then yeah, Aaron said, you know, we just didn't work that way and I and I thought for a microsecond as I always do, you know, artistic license, let's just keep it this way. And then I thought it's never steered me wrong. It's always held us in me and us, you know, as a group, it's held us in good stead when we get things technically accurate or as accurate as we humanly can. It never has harmed us. It has always paid dividends. So we listened to her, I wrote dialogue, I restructured things based on what she said and based on what our technical advisor from the VLA said. Yeah. Sprints, Viboda. And in the scene where we have the 20 scientists at the VLA, those were all real scientists worked there. We did. We put the college at anybody who wants to be and then we essentially had to do a lottery because so many folks wanted to part of it. Yeah. Those are real nerds. Actually, they're in good company with all of us. IQ level in that tiny trailer must have been, but must must have sat in all-time world record. They're like the clown crew put together, but it's clown car of geniuses. In the lab too, we used real lab when we get the montage, yeah, we were doing the swabs and all that. Not the montage with Neato after they, you know, but the science montage. The science montage. Oh, okay. We did put the call out to anyone who, any background performers that had a background in science and then on the day, you know, Aaron would say, oh, this is this is this type of centrifuge. Whatever. And we'd say, the assistant director or whoever would say, does anyone know how to run this test in six hands would be raised and so because we wanted people who knew how to use the equipment and Aaron herself is in that scene as well. Oh, yeah. And Ryan's in the scene of the VLA. Yes. Yes. With the fabulous sweater. Yes. That's right. That's right. And Neato, that scene where they're doing the swabbing, the actors doing the swabbing and perfect unison, that scared me. But Neato really, I said to Neato what I wanted and Neato made it happen. I went and had a sandwich and it was, it was, it's always a sandwich or a hot dog. Yeah. And we should mention his assistant too because Marissa did also have a big, lay a big goal. Yes. And she was awesome. Yeah. But I was so pleased and grateful and relieved that they made that work because I don't know anything about choreography before we wrap up. Something that surprised me the first time and every time I see it is how I'm laughing out loud with Davis taffler on the screen and the cairons on the, you know, your life is your own. And we're not aliens. We're not aliens. Yeah. That stuff is so funny to me and that there could be this, this like tonal shift right at the end after this sort of apocalyptic terror that Carol has just experienced and is still experiencing, even though that for as an audience because we're, we're not experiencing it physically. I just, I love that part so much. I love that, that, that like wild tonal shift. I do too. I don't know how, how it works. Exactly. I'd have a hard time deconstructing it in terms of telling people how to do it. But it starts with great actors. It starts with people and it's the truth and it, and it, and it, and also, you know, I learned that it could be done on the X files years and years ago, X was a very serious show by a writer named Darren Morgan, wonderful writer, kind of proved to all of us that the show could be funny because up to a certain point, there was, there was a couple of dark humor moments, but Darren was the first writer to write a really full out funny one. And it was great. And ever since then, maybe even before, but, but ever since then, certainly I've always been intrigued by how elastic a story can, can be in terms of can, how dark can you go, how dramatic can you go and then how quickly can you shift gears. And this show does that and, and it starts with the actors being honest and, and, and never, we could, we could do a whole other hour, just about humor and comedy and you could teach it. You could teach a course in it, but it's, and timing, no, I think so, and comic timing. And knowing even when your character is deadly serious, knowing where the laughs are, you know, but not playing the lot, but that's an interesting thing. Yep. It sure is. But Peter Bergman was so great. Peter Bergman. I got to give it. So great. Yeah. Yeah. Taffler Davis, Davis, Davis, Taffler, USDA. Peter Bergman, a wife, Holly and I have known him for years. He and his wonderful wife, Mary Allen, and they were introduced to us by Brian Cranston and Robin Deerden, Brian's wife and Peter wound up on the young and the restless. He's been on it over, I think around 40 years now. Wow. And he is the sweetest guy that they both, he and his wife were wonderful, wonderful folks. And he was, it was so much fun. And that was not a burn in. You were really watching him on TV. Yes. Burn in meaning, you know, we shot it separately and then, and then digitally composite it onto your TV and you're in your set on the carols TV on the set. That was you were actually watching a live TV. He was in the other sound stage. I took a lot of technical figure. Yeah. But I did not know that. Yeah. And Phil Palmer figured out earwigs that both Peter could use on the other stage and I could use that wouldn't interfere with the recording that you're trying to do of our voices separately because you don't want to hear his voice coming on my mind for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Which was really fun, really cool to be able to play off of each other in that way. And at one point, your earwigs fell out and, and we digitally erased it out of your ear. Sorry. Well, no, I mean, it was just. You never broke performance. Yeah. Yeah. In your performance was so good, we used the take where the earwigs fell out. Well, speaking of earwigs falling out, our earwigs are falling out of our ears right now and out of our mouths. That's, I don't even know what that means, but that's, that's all the time we have for this week. But yeah, thank you guys for coming and being here. Thanks for listening. It was so much fun. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much to Ray Seahorn, Jen Carroll, Trena Cope and Vince Gilligan. Thank you for listening to the first episode of Pluribus, the official podcast, an Apple TV podcast, produced by hybrid productions and Sony Pictures Television. Be sure to follow on Apple Podcasts to get the next episode in your feed and watch Pluribus on Apple TV where available. Our editor and mixer is Nicholas Sy, the music by Dave Porter. Associate producers are Alana Hoffman, Justin for Beast and Nicholas Sy. Your producers are Jen Carroll and me, your host, Chris Bacala. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.