When I heard that we would not only be watching the 2 part wedding episode of Trophy Wife, interviewing executive producers, Sarah Haskins & Emily Halpern, AND meeting its star, Malin Ackerman, I was excited.
To be honest, I had seen the previews for Trophy Wife and thought it looked like a funny show but I hadn’t had the chance to watch it. Now that I would be meeting the executive producers and its star, I had some research to do. So, I watched past episodes of Trophy Wife (Thanks OnDemand) and I am so glad I did because the show is funny!
About Trophy Wife
They say the third time’s the charm, and reformed party girl Kate (Malin Akerman) is hoping that’s true when she becomes the third wife of a slightly older man, Pete (Bradley Whitford). They fell into each others’ arms (literally) at a karaoke bar, and flash forward a year later, Kate finds herself with an instafamily complete with three stepchildren and two ex-wives. But Kate is determined to make this work and become a part of the family no matter what.
After meeting Malin Akerman at the ABC Moms Mingle (which I’ll be posting about in the near future) we headed on upstairs to a screening room where we watched the 2 part Wedding episode. It was funny and romantic and happened to incorporate the Muppets.
*The first part actually aired last week (but you can watch it online here) and the 2nd episodes airs tonight on ABC at 9:30/8:30c. The cool things is that you won’t be lost if you haven’t seen the rest of the season but I do suggest you watch the 1st part before watching the 2nd part this evening.
After watch both episodes we got to interview Executive Producers Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern. Here’s what they had to say
How did you come up with the idea for Trophy Wife?
Sarah Haskins: We’re the creators, so we came up with the idea together. It’s very loosely based on my life. I married an older man who’d been married a few times before and has children from those different marriages. Kind of like Malin Akerman’s character, without rocking the short shorts.
It’s a situation that while unique and highly specific, is also very universal. People have dealt with divorce and co-parenting. It’s very common and we thought has a place on TV.
Do the ex wives know it’s about them?
Sarah: I wouldn’t say it’s about them. One of them watches it and one of them doesn’t. The intimidating one does watch it.
Emily: And she has notes every week! [Laughs]
The characters have very good chemistry. How hard was it to get who you wanted?
Sarah: We filmed the pilot off cycle and we didn’t appreciate it at the time but it ended up being a huge advantage because we weren’t competing for all the exact same actors as all of the other pilots at the same time. And a lot of that had to do with Malin. She was really the first piece. ABC had actually passed on Trophy Wife the first year we developed it and ultimately it was given a second life when Malin read the script and ABC really wanted to work with her. And so did we.
Why do a wedding episode now?
Emily: We were kind of trying to think of a big episode idea. Honestly, we knew this was gonna air in March. It was a 2-parter. In a comedy, we can’t shoot the president [Laughs] so how big can we go? A wedding felt good to us.
How did you come up with the specific characters?
I do think we consciously try to write all three women as strong characters. And once we sort of had whatever the stereotype was, we really worked hard to try to make sure that they felt like complete characters and strong women and had their own independence.
Who were the influences for the characters?
Sarah: We talked about my emotional reactions to meeting my husband’s exes. His first wife is super intimidating. She’s French and she’s a lawyer and she went to Brown and blah blah blah. So she was so intimidating that we took that intimidating factor and made that Diane. I think everyone probably has an experience with an intimidating ex who you don’t want to hear about.
And then the Jackie character came out of dealing with the boundaries of a blended family. No one in particular. It’s just hard to say where your nuclear family ends and your everybody family begins. And Jackie is someone who is strongly on the everybody is family portion of the spectrum. That’s just a fun character to have.
What’s the writing process like?
Sarah: There’s a lot of diverse life experiences in our writer’s room, so people would pitch stories. The Lice Story came from a writer who just had a super embarrassing lice breakdown with her kids at school. They had to take home all the pillows in school and wash them. It sounded horrible.
*The lice episode is very funny! I suggest you go back and see this one of you haven’t
And just issues like The Punisher, was actually from one of our male co-Executive Producers who was just like, “How does she learn to do that? How do you do that?” And I think that’s just his anxiety about being a parent some days. So that’s where The Punisher episode came from.
*This was also a very funny episode. You should watch this one to.
Emily: We also try to think of what’s the funniest one line story we can think of. And then just build a bigger story on top of it. If the premise is funny, the story is funny. We can make that work. We have an episode coming up where Warren joins the girl’s field hockey team and that idea made us laugh and we built a story around it.
What’s next for Trophy Wife?
Sarah: Hopefully season 2!
Emily: We just finished editing our season finale and our fate is in ABC’s hands. But we hope we get to come back to do some more.
Sarah: Yeah, and appropriately, our season finale is a Mother’s Day episode. It helps wrap up Kate’s arc all season of “Am I a mom in this family’s eyes or am I just a trophy wife?”
Don’t forget to tune in to ABC tonight to watch the latest episode of Trophy Wife. I’ll also be posting more about my experience with Malin.
