Was it always scheduled for just a six week run and if it does well, will we see more episodes this year?

There won’t be any more episodes this season so watch and write letters.  If you want to know what happens it won’t be this year.  We shot this pilot last March, a year ago.  Steve loves the quality of the show but in the business of shows you need a hook.  This show doesn’t have a big hook because it’s just about the characters.  Steve said to find a way to make at least a batch of episodes because, “I think this is really special but I can’t justify it to my marketing team, how they’re going to sell this show.”  Through the perseverance of Steve and finding the money through a third party, they produced the first six episodes.  Then the good news was that they were so happy with how the first six episodes came out, they gave us the post-Grey’s Anatomy time-slot.  So we went from like literally having no show to all of a sudden to having the best time-slot out there.


How difficult is it just waiting to see if your show will ever air and then when they say you will, when you actually do?

Each minute feels like an eternity of being boiled in hot oil.  It’s excruciating.  It’s the ultimate hurry up and wait.  We were the last pilot to get ordered.  You’re waiting so long that when you shoot it, now all of a sudden you’re behind.  Frankly even now with the time-slot, the good news was that they gave us the Grey’s Anatomy slot and the bad news was that they gave us a three-week lead-time to promote the show.  There’s a lot of hurry up and wait, which can be brutal.


Now you’re premiering after Grey’s Anatomy.  Could you ask for a better lead-in?  Is there any added pressure when you’re going after a show where you know you’re going to get a bunch of viewers so there are no excuses?

First of all, back in the day when we first sat down with McPherson he said, “I’ve got this big hit Grey’s and I’m thinking of moving it and I need a companion piece and I want a show that the women will come to and the boyfriends won’t go in the other room to play X-Box.”  And we were like, “Well we’ve got just the idea for you and it’s called October Road.”  So on the one hand it feels like we’ve come full circle that we actually got the chance to be on after them because we’re huge fans of the show.  In terms of pressure, honestly dude, when we found out, it was just a feeling of peace.  At the time, over two weeks ago, it was a huge feeling of peace because I thought, “You know what? No matter what, whether we succeed or fail, we’ll always know that we got the shot.”  Literally last night, I was lying in bed on my computer and I was looking for something on the internet and all of sudden pops up “October Road, premiering March 15, after Grey’s Anatomy” and I went into a complete fucking worm hole.


Can you tell us a little about your cast?  How involved were you with the casting?  Was there anyone you were targeting that you got?

I know everyone says this but literally this cast is like the thing that I would not change.  Whatever the show is or isn’t, these guys are the characters.  Bryan and Laura, we were told we couldn’t get them.  Actors of any caliber won’t come in and audition for you anymore, it’s real weird.  With Laura, we were fans of her work but this was an hour drama and we were wary of making an offer so we said, “Could she come in and meet with us?”  So she came in to meet with us and by the time she left we were devastated because we were like, “She’s so great and she’s so Hannah but she’s so not going to take this part because it’s a pilot, it’s not a huge part and she’s a zillionaire and That 70’s Show was still filming at the time, what the hell is she going to do our show for?” We fell absolutely in love with her and luckily she signed on.  With Bryan, we were not as familiar with, again (I joke about it with him now), the son of a bitch, he wouldn’t read for us.   We met him, sat in the room and talked about his character and he was a little wary about doing a TV show after doing movies but he just connected to this character.  The casting process I will say, it was literally the most excruciating thing in the world otherwise.  It’s such an uncivilized process.  Every network, they order their pilots at the same time, so every fucking show is going after the same actors at the same time.  This cast is meant to be in these parts.  We shot the pilot in Atlanta and this was huge because to be on location shooting, it was like these guys literally were forced to become friends and they all just bonded so much.  I was out at a bar the other night and these guys were out drinking together. 

(Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl)

Image Courtesy of ABC