S1: Hey, this is solo director and producer Jenni Curtis. Writer
S1: Chris Porter. And I got to sit down with Aniello
S1: and talk through the intricacies of her character, Jessup. Here
S1: are a few excerpts of what she had to say.
S1: Like you said, you were in these development workshops with us,
S1: so you kind of saw the show change and grow.
S1: Mm hmm. Was there a difference for you in just
S1: from the first time we worked on her in the
S1: workshop to what we ended up bringing into the studio?
S2: I think it just got refined for Jess. I felt
S2: like in the workshop Jessie was already kind of fully formed,
S2: and I think we just, like, made little refinements to
S2: like exactly how she approached the different crew members.
S3: How did you find Jess's voice physically?
S2: I felt like Jessa, just like who lives fully in
S2: my chest, if that makes sense. Like, if you think about, like,
S2: where a character lives in your body, she's like, rock solid. So, like,
S2: if I kept thinking of Jessa as just being, like,
S2: the most. The most confident and assured that I could
S2: ever be about who I am and what I do like,
S2: that feels like Jessa to me. And that's not to
S2: say that just doesn't have, like, her own worries and
S2: questions about herself. But she's that rock for the crew.
S2: And I wanted to, like, feel that whenever I was
S2: in a scene. So that's kind of like the mental
S2: image I had in my brain to.
S1: Talk about being in the booth. We recorded this in
S1: the height of the pandemic.
S3: Vaccine.
S1: Pre vaccine. So we were in a recording studio, which
S1: I don't know about for you, but for me that
S1: was like a godsend, being able to be in a
S1: studio with other people. Obviously you were on the other
S1: side of the glass, so we never got to interact
S1: like face to face. But I saw you.
S2: It was nice. It was one of the first projects
S2: I got to work on in a studio in the pandemic,
S2: because like the pandemic happened and everything went remote and
S2: I had to learn how to record remotely. And then
S2: this came up and you're like, We're in a recording studio.
S2: And I was like, Can we is this a thing
S2: we can do yet? And it was and it worked
S2: out great. And like all the safety protocols were in place,
S2: like everything felt safe and above board and it was
S2: lovely people to see your face through the glass while
S2: we were doing this.
S3: Just to bring it back to Jessa. Yeah, we obviously
S3: very much love Jessa as a character, all of us,
S3: but we tried very hard to make sure that they
S3: were all very human characters. So from your perspective, what
S3: is something that you love about Jessa and what are
S3: some flaws that you feel are worth acknowledging?
S2: I love that Jessa is just enough of a chameleon
S2: to be able to like, connect with everyone in the
S2: crew because they're all very different. And the way you
S2: have to approach each of those people in order to
S2: draw them out, in order to get them to tell
S2: you vulnerable things, in order to get them to become
S2: vulnerable for you. Like that's a different tactic for each person, right?
S2: One of the tactics being her big monologue in episode three,
S2: kind of baring it all herself in kind. And I
S2: think that's so, so valuable, just trying to relate to
S2: people out there in the world. So many people are
S2: un willing to try different avenues to be able to
S2: connect with people that they normally wouldn't. And I feel
S2: like just as the kind of person who would be
S2: able to do, you know, how I lost my arm?
S3: A drunk driver.
S2: That's right. One year before self-driving cars became mandatory. I
S2: was driving home with my fiancee and we just had
S2: dinner with her parents. They thought we didn't need her something,
S2: so they gave us all their leftovers. I'm sitting there
S2: in the passenger seat with four boxes piled on my lap,
S2: and I see these headlights coming real fast toward the
S2: driver's side window. And I think to myself, these leftovers
S2: are going to go everywhere. And that's where my memory
S2: just ends.
S1: This monologue that we've been talking about in episode three,
S1: I swear, like Jessa became a friend of mine and
S1: a cheerleader of mine, and I would go back and
S1: listen to this monologue when I was having, you know,
S1: stress about the show and stress about life and her perspective, like,
S1: helped me as a person. And I guess I kind
S1: of want to throw it over to Chris who wrote
S1: the thing. What is it you were trying to say
S1: with the monologue? Where did it stand in the story
S1: and how did you come to the words of it?
S3: Definitely functionally, with this moment in this story, what was
S3: important is communicating who Jessa was and how she works
S3: just like and was explaining. She kind of has to
S3: be a chameleon and find a way that she fits
S3: with these other crew members because she's not only there
S3: to stitch up fools, as Jessa says, she's actually there
S3: for their mental health as well. And she knows in
S3: this moment Jamal is spinning out. And we know that
S3: in the more present timeline, which is the most future
S3: timeline of Jamal facing what could be his imminent death,
S3: he's also spinning out and he needs to hear these
S3: words again that Jessa has relayed to him. So story wise,
S3: I knew that that had to be the mission of it.
S3: Part of her back story, I knew that she had
S3: to have a bionic arm that was caused by this thing.
S3: Her story about the leftovers going everywhere is actually somewhat
S3: inspired by a true story, where I was leaving a
S3: friend's house on Thanksgiving and his family had given us
S3: multiple pies. I had them in my passenger seats, about
S3: three different pies because they were like, Here, thank you
S3: for coming to our Thanksgiving. Here's a whole bunch of
S3: extra pies. And thank God it was not a drunk driver.
S3: It was not a situation where I lost a significant other.
S3: It was not a situation where I lost a limb
S3: of my body, but I definitely slammed on my brakes,
S3: reached over to the pies and thought to myself, These
S3: pies are going to go everywhere. And that is where
S3: my memory stops, right? Then it does not kick back
S3: in for 3 hours until a cop is questioning me,
S3: asking what year it is and who the president was.
S3: And sure enough, when I found my car and it
S3: was totaled, the pies had indeed gone everywhere. But there
S3: is always something about that. Like I told that to
S3: the insurance people when they were taking my statement, I
S3: was like, I thought, these pies are going to go everywhere.
S3: And I remember looking back on that and thinking, What
S3: a stupid thing to think, what a stupid thing to
S3: spend that fraction of a second on. And so that
S3: became sort of what happened to Jessa. And I wrote
S3: it into the story that way because it just resonated
S3: in my brain of, Wow, this is the way that
S3: humans think.
S2: Yeah, that hit me when I was like reading it
S2: and working on it because yeah, we do think about
S2: really weird stuff at the worst possible moment and that
S2: is just human nature and it's so easy to beat
S2: yourself up about that kind of a thing, but you
S2: really literally couldn't help it. That was all you were
S2: going to think about at that moment. And having to
S2: sit with that is is hard.
S1: And it's very human. And I think that's what's powerful
S1: about the script is there are so, so many human
S1: moments in this and everybody has their own truly human flaws.
S1: Jessa gets to see all of them. Yes, because everybody
S1: spills their guts to her. So what is just a
S1: view of all of the other crew members, all these people,
S1: you know, so deeply? And let's start with the first two,
S1: Jamal and Ren, you become close to both of them.
S2: For Ren, I think Jessa sees like kind of a
S2: kinship with her. Like I think she she sees Ren
S2: kind of respond to the world in a way that
S2: Jessa has in the past like. And I think that
S2: resonates with her. So I get the sense that Jessa
S2: reaches out to her first because she can see her
S2: coming down that same path that just some might have.
S2: But also, I think that makes them closer friends than
S2: probably anyone else in the crew. Not that Ren is
S2: the most outgoing or easy to form relationships with, but
S2: I think Jessa is able to crack the shell a
S2: little bit more with Ren, and part of it is
S2: probably occupational by nature, but some of it is like
S2: just genuinely she appreciates her presence and wants to wants
S2: to help her out.
S1: I love that you said Ren responds to the world
S1: in a way that Jessa has in the past, because
S1: we definitely didn't give you that. That was something you
S1: created as Jessa on your own. Yeah. And I didn't
S1: know that. I didn't know that.
S2: I guess I get this. Feeling that Jessa was a
S2: lot like that because she has this I approach it
S2: like just had this life before the incident that she
S2: talks about in episode three and then a life afterward.
S2: And she talks about having to change her whole outlook
S2: on life and having to change her whole way of
S2: approaching approaching this new world. So I feel like before
S2: she was different and I get the sense because she
S2: was she was going to be a marine, she was
S2: ambitious and all this kind of stuff. And I think
S2: she might have been a little more of a closed
S2: off person like like Ren with the exception of her fiancee,
S2: you know?
S3: I love.
S1: It. Yeah, me too. Well, that's a taste of our
S1: behind the scenes with Anadarko. If you'd like to hear
S1: the whole discussion, you can find it on the solar
S1: panel on Apple Premium.