264 fans | Vote

AfterEllen : Interview Janet Tamaro

An interview with "Rizzoli & Isles" creator Janet Tamaro (by Dorothy Snarker)

Rizzoli & Isles creator and executive producer Janet Tamaro had been thinking about creating a female buddy cop show for a while. But when her co-executive producer Bill Haber brought her the Rizzoli & Isles series by bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, she found her perfect vehicle. The former reporter, who has a masters in journalism from Columbia University, had covered crime and courts extensively while working for ABC NewsInside Edition and America’s Most Wanted before switching to screenwriting. She had previously written and produced on shows like CSI: NYBones and Lost.

Left to right: Angie Harmon, Tess Gerritsen, Sasha Alexander and Janet Tamaro

Since premiering on TNT last summer, Rizzoli & Isles has become the highest-rated basic cable show. Its ratings remain high in the second season and its stars Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander have broken out big time and graced magazine covers together. Tamaro spoke with AfterEllen.com last week about Rizzoli & Isles’ success, its stars and its large fanbase of lesbian and bisexual women.

AfterEllen.com: What was it about the books that made you think they’d make a good TV show? 
Jantet Tamaro
: What I liked and what I was drawn to was the relationship between the two women. The fun for me was this odd couple, these Kirk/Spock women with all their edges and all their complications.

AE: I read you were inspired to write a show about female friendship because of the death of a long-time friend. 
JT:
 Yes, she was my best friend for 16 years and she was killed two and a half years ago.

AE: Since then had you been thinking of a project that featured women? 
JT:
 It’s strange. So much of writing is unconscious and you don’t make the connections. [Pauses] I’m sorry, it’s still actually hard to talk about and it’s her birthday today. I had started to write a spec pilot. I was doing a female buddy cop show when Bill Haber approached me with Tess’ books. I didn’t really think about it until after I had written Rizzoli & Isles. I think the reason I was drawn to this was because of Melissa, my best friend.

AE: What was it about Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander that made you think they’d be right for these roles? 
JT:
 We wanted Angie and I’d always liked her work. The thing I didn’t know about her was how funny she is. She is very funny in person, she is witty and she is like a wild horse. She has all this crazy, furious, feisty energy. We wanted her. She was Jane Rizzoli.

And so, when she agreed to do it, the challenge for me was to try and find somebody who could actually stand up to her on the screen. Because she is such a powerful force. My opinion is the woman is a TV star and just needed the right project to explode.

We went through every available actress and we needed to actually put them in the room with Angie. And when we found Sasha, this is not well known so you’ll have a little scoop here, she initially said no. And then we kept pressuring her and eventually she came in and read with Angie. And it was kind of like when you set people up as friends or on a blind date. It was just so obvious when we put them together. They played off each other just beautifully and fluidly. Both were truly a different flavor.

Unlike the books, Maura is kind of morose and a little bit of a goth — sort of Morticia figure. And I knew I couldn’t do that for a television series. First of all I didn’t want two physically similar actresses, two dark-haired women. But I also I wasn’t expecting the lightness that Sasha brings. I knew I wanted to do this sort of wonky, nerdish but also fashion-conscious woman. Sasha had all these other things I had thought about. But she was the only one who just knocked it out of the park with Angie.

AE: When you saw their chemistry together on screen did you change the way they interacted at all? 
JT:
 No, but the honest truth is you get better at it as you see them. Regardless what you see or read about Hollywood television writers, I have to write for myself. I have to be interested and I have to really love the characters and if I don’t it shows. So it wasn’t a question of, how do I put these two together and get people to watch? It was, what’s interesting about the two of them? And what makes you like them? What is unexpected?

I’ve been writing television for the last 10 years and I’ve often been the only female on the staff. It’s not to say that men can’t write women, because then women couldn’t write men. But I think there are shades and flavors and complexities to women that only other women are privy to. And I really wanted these two women when they were together to have that safety and trust. Where they just dropped the mask and they could just be who they were.

So as I saw them together and enjoyed them and saw how they played off each other and realized they both were good physical comedians and both had this lovely chemistry together, yes, obviously that shapes and changes what goes on the page.

AE: Why do you think there are still so few shows centered around female leads, female friendships like Rizzoli & Isles
JT:
 You know what is funny, I was sort of down on my knees yesterday because I made the mistake of signing up for Google Alerts and reading reviews of the show. My husband keeps saying, “Stop reading the reviews.” I read a really nasty review. My life before this was as a journalist and I think the thing that critics forget is people create this stuff. And I’m not out there writing just nasty, snarky articles about their abilities as writers when they criticize their critics. Because some of it is so nasty.

But to answer your question, I thought – not that other shows aren’t under attack, and I have seen really wonderful writers get hammered in the press – there is this cultural thing that says if it appeals to women then it is less than a show that appeals to men. And I think we still think that. So if you have a largely female audience, as does TNT, well then that couldn’t possibly be as good as HBO or Showtime. Never mind the fact that HBO spends $20 million on a pilot and I have $3 million.

I sound like a lot of sour grapes today. But as a reporter I used to think, “Oh, I have to do the male story.” I have to be the one raising my hand and saying, “Oh, I’ll cover Iraq.” I finally got comfortable in my own skin, I’m raising two daughters, and I said, “To hell with that. That’s bulls--t.”

This is as important and I am not slumming by writing a show that appeals to women – all women. I love that your audience loves this show. I am delighted. It sincerely, makes me happy, because I love women and I write for women. I don’t give a crap if they are straight or gay. I just like that they like this show and see pieces of themselves in it.

And that’s what got me up this morning. I read that review and got up this morning and thought, “Oh, s--t, I’m a hack. I don’t want to do this.” But then, yes I do. I think eventually if enough of us hear this and if I can help enough women get into this business and raise their voices, eventually people will say, I am going to stop approaching this material with this prejudice. Oh, it’s about women. It’s not going to be as interesting.

What is funny to me is I now have film producers calling me: "You write women so well." There is this dearth of female leads out in the film world. And you think why is that and you look at the percentages of male writers, male producers, male directors and they far outnumber us. I have to tell you I think this business, I shouldn’t say this, I felt like gender wasn’t nearly as big an issue in journalism as in this business.

AE: So then do you feel responsibility as a female showrunner, writer, producer to help other women? 
JT:
 Yes, absolutely. The other thing is why not celebrate some of the things that women are. Yes, we’re more sensitive. And, yes, we do sometimes take things more personally. And, yes, we try to collaborate. And all of those other things that make us women. Why not say, "Yes, that’s true" and it’s not negative.

AE: When did you become aware that the show had a large following of lesbian and bisexual women? 
JT:
 It was a surprise, quite frankly. I think the people at TNT told me after the first or second episode of the first season and when they told me I thought cool, that’s just cool. And, by the way, “I Kissed a Girl” was already written. So that wasn’t pandering. That was done.

AE: So why did the lesbian fanbase surprise you? 
JT:
 I think of my work like a writer. It bothers me when I read about this calculated attempt to get an audience. It’s not where I want to write from. I think I was really just writing about a friendship. I’ve been on so many canceled shows, I assumed it would get canceled. I didn’t even go far enough to think who is going to watch it. I don’t think like that. I just thought, what do I want to write? What would I want to watch? What makes me laugh? What would make other people laugh?

AE: Can you see, even though you didn’t create it with that in mind, why the fans would read subtext into the show? 
JT:
 Hell yeah.

AE: Did that subtext become a topic of discussion with the writers? 
JT:
 No. I mean, you don’t want to fall into the trap of pandering to any audience. I just want to keep making this show better and the characters better. And I think the actors feel the same way. I try not to let that interfere with the creative process.

AE: The gay community, obviously, saw the subtext but were you surprised before the start of the second season that the more mainstream media started to pick up on it as well and asked questions? 
JT:
 I wasn’t surprised. Part of me thought, "Yeah, so? That’s a story?"

AE: We try to have fun with the subtext. We do recaps, other people do drinking games. 
JT:
 The actresses have shown me stuff on YouTube and honestly, we find it a wonderful compliment that people would take the time. Some of them are so clever. That stuff amuses me and I love the passion behind it. I love that people are interested. It’s so much better than a nasty review.

AE: Do Angie and Sasha feel the same way about the attention? 
JT:
 Absolutely. The three of us feel the same way. You know, it’s funny, I wondered about Angie when I was constructing “I Kissed a Girl,” because she is very conservative. We know this about her. But, in terms of social stuff, she is not the least bit conservative.

It sounds ridiculous, it’s one of those things straight people say, but she has a lot of gay friends. But she does, she has a lot of gay friends. And she was totally cool with that. And she is totally beautiful. She has a massive female fanbase and I would guess a large percentage are gay or bisexual. So it’s not like that’s a surprise. It’s like, how cool is that?

AE: Do you have gay friends and have you talked with them about the show and subtext? 
JT:
 I do. I am insulted when they’re not fans. I have a really good friend who said, “No, I don’t really watch it.” I was like, “Really? You don’t, like, do drinking games?” She was like, “Just because I am gay doesn’t mean I like your show.” I was like, “Awww.”

AE: Do you ever feel like you are playing up or playing down that nod-wink subtext that is in the show? 
JT:
 I love to make people laugh. Still I think the more you do that, “Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink,” the less funny it becomes. But, let’s face it, they have remarkable chemistry together and that is the appeal of the show.

AE: Well, in the third episode, Rizzoli and Isles pretend they are a couple and then there was the “I Kissed a Girl” episode and the TNT speed dating promo. Do you think those played it up at all? How did those come about? 
JT:
 You know what’s funny about the two actresses is they have their hands all over each other all the time. That is not for show. They genuinely like each other and they are very touchy, really. So, when Angie is holding Sasha in the TV Guide, they do that. They grab each other’s asses. And I like that and I like that they are comfortable enough to do that. And I like that when it became public that we had this huge gay and bisexual audience, they didn’t think, “Oh, God, we can’t.” Instead they just thought, “Great, she’s got a great ass. She’s gorgeous.”

AE: So there are no plans to tone it down or try to show less of that? 
JT:
 No. And it’s a living breathing thing now, it doesn’t belong to me anymore. So who knows. Like I said on Twitter, “Never say never.”

AE: Speaking of never say never, what about in, say, Season 12, after one too many drinks at the Dirty Robber: Could Jane and Maura ever hook up? 
JT:
 I say, who knows? Who knows? I am right now focused on writing episode 11 and that’s how I approach it. I’ve been a fan of certain television shows and wanted certain characters to get together and if that’s part of the appeal, part of why people watch, then God love them for coming and shoving their families out of the way and putting my show on.

AE: The show deviates from Tess’ series quite a bit, how do you see the books in relation to the show? 
JT:
 Tess has been really wonderful about sharing these characters and pretty much giving them over to me. We joke and I say, “You’re the birth mother and I’m the step mother. When they’re with me they’ll do what I say.” What works in books doesn’t necessarily translate into television. And I have to do 15 of these a year. And the characters, partly because of who we cast, they’re really not the same characters as they were in the book. You want to be respectful of her work, but then it became mine and I have to generate it. So you have to think, what’s good TV?

AE: What else can fans expect from this season and anything else to say to your Rizzles fans out there? 
JT:
 Thank you. Thank you for watching. Keep loving these characters, they’re worth loving. We’ve got a lot of fun stuff planned. Maura’s mob dad is coming back. Tommy, Jane’s little brother, is going to get himself in more trouble. We’re going to learn some stuff about Korsak’s ex wife. We have a lot of really good stories coming up.

 

Source

Ecrit par Totallyfan 
Activité récente
Actualités
Annabeth Gish dans la seconde saison de Pretty Little Liars : Original Sin

Annabeth Gish dans la seconde saison de Pretty Little Liars : Original Sin
Le Dr Anne Sullivan, incarnée par Annabeth Gish pendant 3 saisons dans la série-mère, fait son come...

Rediffusion de la série sur Téva

Rediffusion de la série sur Téva
Maura et Jane sont de retour ! La chaîne Téva propose à la diffusion, en journée à partir de 13h35...

Pour ses douze ans, le quartier Rizzoli & Isles change de design !

Pour ses douze ans, le quartier Rizzoli & Isles change de design !
En ce lundi 29 janvier 2024, le quartier Rizzoli & Isles se pare d'un tout nouveau design,...

Annabeth Gish - De nouveaux projets en préparation

Annabeth Gish - De nouveaux projets en préparation
Annabeth Gish ne doit pas connaître l'expression "se reposer". L'actrice, qui incarnait Alice...

Alternative Awards 2023 | Une première nomination pour Rizzoli & Isles

Alternative Awards 2023 | Une première nomination pour Rizzoli & Isles
En ce moment, la citadelle vit au rythme des Alternative Awards 2023. La série Rizzoli & Isles a...

Newsletter

Les nouveautés des séries et de notre site une fois par mois dans ta boîte mail ?

Inscris-toi maintenant

HypnoRooms

mnoandco, 23.03.2024 à 14:31

Si ce n'est pas encore fait, quelques seraient appréciés côté "Préférences"

chrismaz66, 24.03.2024 à 17:40

Bonsoir, nouvelle PDM/Survivor Illustré chez Torchwood, dédié aux épisodes audios, venez voter, merci !

Locksley, 25.03.2024 à 20:10

Pas beaucoup de promo... Et si vous en profitiez pour commenter les news ou pour faire vivre les topics ? Bonne soirée sur la citadelle !

choup37, Avant-hier à 10:09

La bande-annonce de la nouvelle saison de Doctor Who est sortie! Nouvelle saison, nouveau docteur, nouvelle compagne, venez les découvrir

Sas1608, Hier à 18:25

Pour les 20 ans de la série, le quartier de Desperate Housewives change de design ! Venez voir ça !

Viens chatter !