Yahoo Movies Fleishman Is in Trouble stars Jesse Eisenberg and Claire Danes in a new kind of relationship drama
When it comes to the series adaptation of her book, Fleishman Is in Trouble, showrunner and scribe Taffy Brodesser-Akner says viewers can expect a relationship drama unlike any they've seen before. Like the novel, the eight-episode series of the same name follows Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a man who wakes up one morning to find that his new ex-wife, Rachel (Claire Danes), has dropped his children off a day early for his custodial weekend, and then just doesn't return. Lizzy Caplan plays Libby, one of Toby's closest friends.
"It's about the sort of crisis of middle age, of marriage, of divorce, of nostalgia, of friendship, of what you thought your life was going to be and what you think you could have predicted," Brodesser-Akner explains. "And how the more you try to predict things, the more those things tend to let you down — at least that's my experience."
One of the key facets of the book is the shifting of perspectives between the characters, and the way that translates to the screen is "really satisfying," says executive producer Sarah Timberman. "It raises the questions about who gets to tell your story, I think, if you're a woman in this world," she says, pointing to Caplan's character's central experience as a woman working at a male magazine as an example.
Brodesser-Akner was inspired to write her book in part from her own experience as a journalist, specifically her award-winning profile pieces. She says she was always struck by how just the act of telling somebody's story makes them inherently sympathetic. "When I would be talking to a celebrity and they would talk about a former marriage or a former friendship, the amount of times I wondered what the other person in that story would say if they were in the room, and what I would believe, is what birthed the book and became what I think is the most interesting or the most surprising aspect of the show," she says, adding, "I've seen relationship dramas. I've never seen one like this."
Adds Timberman, "It sort of avoids every trap of a he said, she said story about the dissolution of a marriage. I think it's much more complicated than that."
Linda Kallerus/FX Maxim Swinton as Solly Fleishman, Jesse Eisenberg as Toby Fleishman, Claire Danes as Rachel Fleishman, and Meara Mahoney Gross as Hannah Fleishman on 'Fleishman Is in Trouble.'
Actually adapting the work for the small screen was likewise complicated, at least at first. Timberman and Brodesser-Akner can laugh about it now, but early drafts of the scripts had an overabundance of voiceover. "It was really painful to pull it back, for us as her producers, to say, 'We love this, now, can you just press delete,'" Timberman says.
But pull it back she did, and Brodesser-Akner says it enabled her to bring to life things from the book that, on the page, were more like ideas or thoughts of the characters, but on screen, could be fully realized scenes. "As the series goes on, there's less and less voiceover because I no longer even just wanted to hear myself talk," the writer says. "I wanted to see people adapt the emotions into something I could look at. I was mesmerized by it right up until the very end, when I saw how much the actors not just embody these characters, but took what I gave them and furthered an interpretation that was right on."
Brodesser-Akner says that, unlike some authors, she didn't picture any actor in particular as she crafted the characters in the book, but all of the leads were ultimately her first choice to play these roles on screen. "It was shocking to me how much these people became them," she says. "To the point where they were our partners in their interpretations of it. I no longer felt that these were people I created anymore." Since the shoot coincided with the Winter Olympics, Timberman adds that, "There were days where I just kept feeling like we are working with the equivalent of Olympic athletes as performers, just finding the smallest note of irony or bitterness, or really subtle humor."
Those Olympic-level performers also include the likes of Adam Brody and Josh Radnor, and both Brodesser-Akner and Timberman admit they were "so fortunate" to have such a dream cast, especially for the former's first time on a television project. So much so, that other people on set took notice. Says Brodesser-Akner, "People would whisper to me throughout. They would say, 'Don't get used to this, this is not how it usually is.'"
Fleishman Is in Trouble — which is directed by Little Miss Sunshine duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, and more — hits FX on Hulu on Nov. 17.
Make sure to check out EW's Fall TV Preview cover story — as well as all of our 2022 Fall TV Preview content, releasing over 22 days through Sept. 29.
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