Interview with Greg Berlanti
AfterElton has a long interview with Brothers & Sisters show runner Greg Berlanti, whose credits also include Everwood and Jack and Bobby. The interview includes his views on the industry, “the cleanse,” and the possibility of falling in love, but here are a few of his observations on B&S related matters:
On Kevin and Scotty: “As usual when you get two characters — and two actors — together that have so much chemistry, you wind up with two camps. You get people that really want that, and others that don’t want it, you know? My sense is that because we’ve got a lot of characters that are married on this show, to drive a lot of story in these kinds of shows you need characters to … have a string of different relationships. You know, if they’d all gotten married the first year on Sex and the City, it would have been a very different show. … I like to think of Scotty as Kevin’s Mr. Big.”
On Kitty’s politics: “Kitty is now officially dating the senator. I think as she gets more involved with the senator, the politics of this family will become important to him and to her. It was definitely in Robbie’s original concept and something that’s really held true with the show — we really examine what are the politics of a family and how does that inform one another’s politics. And that’s definitely been one of the more successful elements of the show. Now we may not get to that [gay marriage issue] this year just because there are so many characters and so many competing stories, but we didn’t just set that potential conflict up lightly.”
On family fights: “You know, they’re very much a staple to the show, and I think there’s a lot of people who tune in to see them. Anyway, that’s what I meant before when I said that it’s a double-edge sword to having a big family. It’s our [the writers'] job to figure out ways to dramatize that sword every week and just show people what are the best and what are the worst elements of having a family like this. I also think there’s an element of wish-fulfillment involved. Because I think every kid wishes that as an adult they could still have that kind of relationship with their siblings and with their parents.”
On favorite scenes: “One I loved was the episode called ‘Northern Exposure’ where they are all up at the Ojai Ranch and there’s the request for Kevin’s sperm and the fight that that yields for the family. That was the first big family fight we had on the show, and I remember working on it with the episode’s writer, David Marshall Grant, and I remember reading his first draft and thinking: “OK, this has not been on TV before.”
On the future: “I’m pretty sure the show will come back. I mean, they haven’t picked up anything officially for next season yet, but our chances are looking incredibly strong. I’ll be involved, but at the end of the day it’s Robbie’s creation. Hopefully one of my other pilots will go.”
Brothers & Sisters, ABC, Greg Berlanti
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