This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
*Before Jonathan Tropper became known for shaping acclaimed TV dramas, he was a novelist exploring the messiness of middle-aged life in suburban enclaves. His latest Apple TV+ series, “Your Friends & Neighbors,” brings him full circle, right back into the world he once wrote about in his books.
“You know, before I was a TV and a film writer, I wrote some novels, and my novels were largely set in this world,” Tropper shared. “They were about families and men in this world screwing up their lives. I had always intended to come back to this for a TV treatment.”
The world in question? Westchester County, New York–a place Tropper knows intimately. “I lived in Westchester for 15 years. I know the world well. I know the people who live there really well. It was a world I wanted to explore on TV.”
The spark for the show’s premise came a few years before the pandemic, Tropper explained. “I had this notion of a hedge fund manager who loses his job and starts robbing his friends and neighbors. And it just stayed with me. And eventually I had the freedom and the time to develop it as a show.”
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The result is a genre-blending series that merges psychological suspense with biting humor, anchored by a complicated lead, Andrew “Coop” Cooper, played by Jon Hamm. But why combine such contrasting tones?
“We’re doing a show about some pretty serious themes, but I didn’t want to be weighed down by the themes. I wanted the show to be entertaining,” Tropper said. “If I did this show as a straight drama, I think it starts to get a little hard to swallow that this guy is breaking into the homes of all his friends and neighbors.”
On the flip side, making it too comedic would strip away the emotional investment.
“If you go all the way to comedy, you’re not investing emotionally in these characters. And for people to come back week after week, they have to really care about these characters.”
So he aimed for the middle. “In my mind there is no tragedy without comedy, and there is no comedy without tragedy. That’s why people laugh at a funeral, right? And I just feel like the show needs to toe that line… where we’re free to go into satire, comedy, drama, or even French farce, and it all should feel like one piece.”
Beyond the intrigue, secrets, and satire, Tropper hopes the show’s humanity stands out.
“These are all people going through midlife crises, whether it’s about love, romance, marriage, sex, death, divorce. So I think there’s really something for everybody in the show.”
And at the heart of it all lies a mystery. “We do have a mystery that’s kind of the spine of it,” he noted. “There is somebody who ended up dead, and there’s a real question as to how he got there,” Tropper teased. “I think the ending is pretty surprising.”
“Your Friends & Neighbors” premiered April 11 on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through May 30.
Watch our conversation with Jonathan Tropper via the clip below.
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: Olivia Munn Dives into the Collapse of Privilege in ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ | EUR Video Exclusive
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