What is Janicza Bravo watching?
The acclaimed creative has sworn off episodic directing, for now — but she'd make an exception for The Pitt.
what are they watching? is an interview series for my newsletter in which I chat with a television creative about television itself. Previous interviews include Chelsea Peretti and Jeff Hiller.
I jumped at the opportunity to interview Janicza Bravo when it was announced that she would be speaking at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Her talk, Breaking the Rules: Janicza Bravo on Unconventional Narratives and Fearless Filmmaking, was a deep dive into her past works: Directing and co-writing the acclaimed film Zola, her theatre roots, and her directing of some of the best episodes of television I’ve watched in the last few years on The Bear, Mrs. America, Atlanta, Poker Face, Dear White People, Too Much (while also appearing as Kim), and more. It was a real treat to get some one-on-one time with her over Zoom, a few days before her Vancouver arrival.
Can I start with a question at the top of the minds of everyone who is a fan of your work: What is happening with North American distribution of The Listeners? I would very much like to see it.
Oh my god, I wish I knew. I was just on a Zoom, I’m doing this talk on Saturday for the festival, and it came up. I was like, babes, I don’t know what to tell you, it does not look like it’s in the cards. If it happens, it will be years from now. We had some bad luck with it. I feel like I had a similar outing with it as I did with Zola, which is, if it had come out in any other year, what could it look like? And it’s not to say that it didn’t do very lovely things for me, both of them, but The Listeners came out right on the heels of the strike. I think that what the strike did was some rewriting around what television needed to be made and what television needed to be bought. The show is quiet. It’s like a very glacial drama, and that’s not hot. There’s no dead body. There’s nothing too scandalous. It’s really just elegant and quiet. She’s like, a low hum.
I mean that sounds great to me but I hear you. I guess I’ll just torrent it or something!
I’ll send it to you. Or if you want the adventure to steal it, you can.
Speaking of television making a splash, Too Much disappeared off the Netflix top 10 so quickly, which was surprising to me as someone who loved it. Is it just too smart for Netflix audiences?
Like, maybe. I feel a couple of things. One, it came out in the summer, right? Summer’s tough. Are people really inside like that? If it’s not going to do that hit list of the things that are real bangers, you know. The Hunting Wives was out a week or two after, and if you’ve seen that show, it’s fucking loopy. If that’s the thing you’re competing against or being held up against, that’s tough.
And so I wonder, would it be doing better right now? It’s tough to track on that platform, because you’ve got this very limited window. If I’m not mistaken, ratings for them are what happens in the first 72 hours. Look, I haven’t made a show for Netflix, but I believe that’s the thing. But it was very well received. And the people who watched it and got it really got it, and then she went away back into the shadows.
Would you reprise your role as Kim for a second season?
Of course! The best part of acting for me is getting to watch. It really is an opportunity to hone my skills as a director. So much of my directing muscle comes from having been a pretty failed actor, having been in the hands of another director, and learning rather quickly how I wanted to be talked to or not talked to. As a director, you’re not really privy to an actor’s interiority, right? So yeah, absolutely, I love acting a lot. I’d do it again in a second.
What was it like being in Camping? And as someone who loves Lena Dunham’s work, would you recommend that I watch it?
I don’t think it’s Lena’s show. I think it is very much Jenni Konner’s show. I think both Jenni and Lena would probably say the same, so I don’t think I’m saying anything too scandalous. Lena was why I said yes. I loved Girls so much, I love her mind so much, I love her writing. I wanted the gift of getting to be under her eye. And when we started the show, she pretty quickly retreated. But sure, why not? I’m told the British version is better.
What are your foundational TV shows?
The Cosby Show — you know, she’s got some stank on her currently and probably forever. But that was for me, visibly, the first time I saw myself. I wouldn’t have put it in those words then, but Rudy, specifically. I lived in Alabama for a few months in the 80s, and the kids had a really hard time with my name. There was a boy in class who suggested that I be called Rudy. And so everybody called me Rudy. And I had not seen the show, and I didn’t know what that was. I remember my stepfather saying he’d heard about this show, which happened to be The Cosby Show. There was a television in front of our dinner table, and when she came on television, I was like, that’s me! All my friends call me Rudy! That’s kind of a terrible story. But I remember really seeing myself in her but also in a lot of the children in that family.
I grew up in Panama mostly. There was lots of American television that played on a loop, like Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, and The Honeymooners. My parents and grandmother absolutely loved those shows. That was really important television for us as a family. I also think about after school, coming home and watching soap operas with my grandmother: One Life to Live into General Hospital into The Oprah Winfrey Show. That was a really important three hour block in my life. I don’t know how important any of it really is, but it really stayed with me.
I feel like it’s quite important! The art that we consume when we’re youngest and how it impacts us as we get older. And I think the sheer volume of television impacts us on a different level than a single film or painting at that age.
Completely! My partner is English, and we were talking about Fawlty Towers, which I had seen a ton of when I was child. He told me it was one season, and I was like, what?! I had seen it so much, which just meant I had watched the same episodes over and over and over again. It’s not stored in my memory in that way.
Another one that I have sentimental feelings for is All in the Family. I remember it being an instigator of a lot of really good chat around my parents and their friends and the grandparents. It was a merging of different age groups for the more sticky kind of exchanges around politics.
I wonder what the equivalent of that would be for today?
I don’t think we have it. I think Roseanne may have done that for some people. I didn’t really grow up on that show, but I do think that Roseanne is under the umbrella of a Norman Lear-style show. Maybe Modern Family also did that? Reminding us that we knew gay people, and the gay people were our neighbours, or they work at your school, and that gay people are okay. I feel like that show seems to have done that conversationally, like gay marriage isn’t terrifying, you know?
Totally. Is there anyone in the television space you’d be interested in working with?
I don’t think it really makes sense for me thematically, but I really dug The Pitt a lot. I loved the hour by hour breakdown of the world. The theatre kid in me was thinking around casting the company and working in company, right? Like, how beautiful to choreograph in company. Also, so much of the world is experienced 360 degrees, it really feels like theatre, and that is exciting.
I kind of swore off doing episodic directing. To be honest, I just don’t always find it that satisfying. There are more paint by number directors, and that’s not meant to be a dig. I think that my skill set is one that’s just slightly more individuated. So I don’t always think I’m actually best in that kind of collaboration. You tend to be invited, but invited to fit into that world. My muscle is best expressed with room.
What are you watching and loving right now?
Love Is Blind: UK, obviously. Great TV. I’m excited that there’s going to be a new Survivor. I really love some reality trash.
I didn’t peg you as a reality TV person!
I know. But recently, I’m so in. My big currency is stress, in my own work. I love stress, I love discomfort, there’s not as much room to curate expectation, to curate execution. That’s what gets me really excited. It’s a little bit wrong and a little bit ugly and a little bit dirty, and I’m like yes. Bad vibes and I love it.
What else?
I am now writing a biweekly television recommendations column for Yahoo! It’s called “Trust Me, I Watch Everything,” and will be out every other Monday. This is the column that allowed me to quit my day job, a much needed shift. It is so special to be commissioned continuous writing work as a freelancer, I’m excited!
I wrote a mixed review of Netflix’s new gay military dramedy Boots which will be posted for TheWrap here tomorrow (the show is also out tomorrow). I can’t say much more than that without breaking the embargo...
For Elle magazine, I continue to recap the new fourth season of The Morning Show and all of its soapy nonsense. This week’s episode involves planes, btw.
Newsletter things:
I got like, 20 new paid subscribers to this newsletter last week when I announced I quit my day job! It’s because of you that I get to keep doing this, so thank you, seriously. A reminder that subscribing gets you an invite to join my monthly Zoom TV Club.
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Coming up next:
Oct 9: Victoria Beckham (Netflix, S1)
Oct 9: Boots (Netflix, S1)Oct 10: The Last Frontier (Apple TV+, S1)
Oct 10: Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars (Apple TV+, S1)
Oct 12: Elsbeth (CBS, S3)
Oct 12: Matlock (CBS, S2)
Oct 12: The Chair Company (HBO, S1)
Oct 13: DMV (CBS, S1)
Oct 14: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (Netflix, S1)
Oct 14: Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition (Bravo)
Oct 15: Loot (Apple TV+, S3)
Oct 15: Murdaugh: Death in the Family (Hulu, S1)
Oct 16: Ghosts (CBS, S5)
Oct 16: The Diplomat (Netflix, S3)
Oct 16: Romantics Anonymous (Netflix, S1)
Oct 16: Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy (Peacock, S1)
Oct 17: Boston Blue (CBS, S1)
Oct 19: Hal & Harper (Mubi, S1)
Oct 22: Harlan Coben’s Lazarus (Prime Video, S1)
Oct 22: The Monster of Florence (Netflix, S1)
Good reminder about The Listeners too - I remember you mentioning it forever ago. Wonder if she is going to get back into features?