Interview: Matt Nix (Creator / Executive Producer, ‘The Good Guys’)

In the run-up for FOX’s preview of “The Good Guys” tonight (Wednesday, May 19, 7:00 pm CT), executive producer Matt Nix spoke with reporters about the creation of the show, as well as the role Dallas plays in the production. Red Carpet Crash asked him about the decision to bring Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing,” “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip”), Colin Hanks (“Orange County,” “The House Bunny”) and Jenny Wade (“Feast,” “Reaper”) to the show:

You have some incredible people working on your shows: not only do you have Jeff Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar and one of my personal favorites, Bruce Campbell in “Burn Notice,” now you’ve also got phenomenal actors Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks in “The Good Guys.” Tell us about the casting process that you went through to get these two characters onscreen, and if you actually wrote for them when you were thinking of the show to begin with.

I had written the original script as a movie script many years ago before I was in television. Once I was in television my manager/executive producer, Mikkel Bondesen, pointed out, “Say, this would make an awfully good television series.” I said, “It’s actually much better as a television series than it was as a movie.” That existed already so I wasn’t writing for a particular actor.

I had such a good experience on “Burn Notice” that it was really important to me in the casting process, and I said this from the beginning: I really want leads that I connect with personally, that I feel that I’m on the same wavelength as and I feel like if I’m writing to my strength they’re going to understand my voice and enjoy doing that. You don’t want somebody who’s got to stretch every week to do something, to fit into a role. On “Burn Notice” many people have observed that I have the same speech patterns as Jeffrey Donovan. It’s sort of a joke, like it means a devastating impression of me. It’s also really great for the show. For “The Good Guys” I’d seen Bradley’s work; I’d seen him do comedy. I was really excited about him and I said, “I just want to make sure we’re on the same wavelength.”

He came in for a meeting and he came in wearing the exact same outfit that I was wearing, the same boots, the same jeans, the same belt and a shirt that was not the same brand, but the same design. It was bizarre. We clearly were on the same wavelength and had a great time. We live in the same neighborhood; it was really kind of a love fest from the beginning so that was great.

Finding Jack, on a show like this it’s really about creating a marriage and finding a fantastic dynamic. We read people, but really the lynchpin was when they came in and read with Bradley. Bradley was incredibly generous throughout the casting process in reading with every actor who came in for the test. Then it was just a matter of who’s got chemistry, what’s the most fun pairing when they’re playing with each other. Bradley really responded to Colin and Colin really responded to Bradley. It just made it very easy.

Jenny Wade (ADA Liz Traynor)

Jenny Wade is a phenomenally funny actress. We had a chance to talk to her earlier this week in the set visit, but some might say a little young for the character, an assistant district attorney. Why did you turn to her as the choice for Traynor?

Honestly, it was, with regard to her age, she probably is a little bit young; I think it’s fair to say that we stretch a number of things; it’s not really a documentary series. I sort of felt like we could get away with that and again, that was really, let’s pair people with Colin and see who’s fun. She really opened up a direction for that character. She is so funny and so engaging. It was seeing her in the audition and realizing that’s kind of who that character can be. I find sometimes you’ve got the character fully formed in your head and then it’s a matter of finding an actor who fits with that and extends that.

Just to be honest, sometimes you’re finding, with a character who doesn’t have an enormous number of lines in the first episode, you’re finding someone who’s inspiring. You’re finding someone where you’re thinking, okay, that version of that character; I know exactly what to do. That was really a great thing with Jenny, just looking at her and going version of version of Liz is so colorful; she’s got such a big personality. That’s a direction that we could take this character that would be really fun.

Not to knock Jenny, by the way. I thought she was phenomenal in the pilot.

I know you weren’t knocking her. We were sort of conscious of that; we actually sort of had the discussion. Basically, if anyone turns off “The Good Guys” because they think she’s too young to have the lawyer position that she has, we probably lost them a long time before time before that.

There’s always the History Channel for them.

Some other items of note from the conference call:

• On shooting in Dallas: I’ll never forget my first [scouting visit to Dallas] where I … jokingly asked if we could shut down a downtown street to do a bank robbery scene. The scout turned to me and said, “You can shut down this street and you can shut down the street up there. You can shut down the crosswalk; can’t shut down the highway over there.” I was like, “All righty then, are you serious?” And he was like, “Yes, yes, no problem.” You can crash it; you can blow something up, whatever you want. People were incredibly film-friendly and the city just has a great look for a cop show so that was very exciting to me as well.
• On debuting the show in the summer, as opposed to the Fall pilot season: I think there’s an advantage in that it’s a less crowded field. We have a 13-episode order that is under some kind of exotic circumstances could possibly be extended a little bit, but probably not at this point. It was pretty much designed to be a 13-episode order. We’ll see; that could change or whatever, but it’s not the standard of let’s order 13 and then we’ll order a formal back nine. We lose our stage spaces before a back nine could be shot so it really is designed to be a 13-episode order at the moment. One of the things I really like about being on in the summer under a model like that, which is a model that owes more to cable, you’re on for the full run; you’re not up against all of the other pilots. There’s a little bit more time to build an audience for something that’s a little bit quirky or a little bit offbeat … That’s not something that happens if you’re up against 15 heavily promoted other shows that are competing for headspace in the middle of the traditional season. I also think that FOX, in a really cool way, is going, “there’s no particular reason that we can’t produce shows in the summer.” There’s a place that they burn off their other shows, but it doesn’t have to be that. People may watch less television in the summer, but it’s not so much less that it makes it not worth making stuff. Indeed, I think that cable shows prove that if you’ve got something that people really want to see, they’ll make the time. They’ll sit down and take a look.
• On “The Good Guys” being smarter than it appears on the surface: I think if when you look at, okay there are two cops; they solve crimes. They’re mismatched in some way. I think if you just see that you might say, “I know what that show is.” Sort of apropos of all the things I was saying before about what was exciting to me creatively about the show is yes, it is something you’ve seen before, but we’re coming at it from a completely different angle. It is a cop show where the main characters may or may not solve the crime they are actually investigating, but they will certainly a much bigger, cooler, other crime. Building these stories, we’re building in at least three, sometimes as many as five different story lines, different character threads that are coming together in unusual ways. Part of it is just I want to let people know, or evidently when I wrote this thing I don’t remember writing, it is important to me that people know to take a look at this; we’re not just re-treading something; we’re really coming at it in a new way and doing something interesting, or I hope interesting, but certainly unusual. It’s about taking the oldest thing on television and trying to make it the newest thing on television. We’ll see if succeed, but I kind of want to let people know that that’s what we’re aiming at.