Auditioning actors made me happy. Our Sunnyside characters were all immigrants, and each was grounded in a solid backstory independent of their appearance. This allowed Allison to cast an especially wide net to find the strongest, funniest talent regardless of specific background—we let her know that we’d lock in those character traits (ethnicity, country of origin, culture) based on whoever we cast, not the other way around, as was traditionally the case.
Comedian Moses Storm was our first hire, delivering a flawless performance of his character Brady, a closeted-about-his-undocumented-status all-American frat boy loosely based on an acquaintance in Detroit (the undocumented guy thrown in ICE detention while teaching English). Matt Murray modeled Samba Schutte’s taxi-driving Ethiopian doctor Hakim after an Italian car salesman he knew. After Diana-Maria Riva booked the role of Griselda (based on Matt’s crossing guard), Kiran Deol, Tudor Petrut, and Ana Villafa?e rounded out the next few hires. There were only two roles remaining: wealthy Asian American siblings who were heirs to their father’s fortune.
Our top choices were Chinese American actor Poppy Liu (whose vapid take on the character won her increasing points during each audition round) and Korean American comedian Joel Kim Booster. Joel took a character that was written more like a self-absorbed finance bro and added so many layers of quirky, flamboyant detail to him that Allison remarked, “Obviously you’re hiring Joel Kim Booster… you don’t just let an actor like that walk away from you. Somebody else will scoop him up.” At this point, most producers would a) pick either Joel or Poppy and find a second-choice Chinese American or Korean American actor to play opposite them or b) say something like, “Cast Joel and Poppy, who cares if the brother is Korean American and the sister is Chinese American… blah blah blah… all look the same anyway.”
We thought both approaches would have been misguided. Of course, we were going to cast them both! We loved that it offered an opportunity to accentuate the bizarre comedy we were pursuing in the first place. Matt re-tweaked the backstory: Poppy’s and Joel’s characters were now very strange half siblings who shared the same father but different mothers entirely, a by-product of an estranged billionaire oligarch dad who technically lives in international waters.
After the network table read of the pilot with our almost impossibly diverse and talented cast, the electricity in the room was palpable. Once the executives trickled out, Allison leaned in and said, “I haven’t seen chemistry like this since NewsRadio. I just don’t see how they don’t pick this up.”
“Holy shit, Allison! I’m not sure what to say,” I mumbled through thankful laughter. “You’re comparing us to Andy Dick, Joe Rogan, and Dave Foley? NewsRadio ran for five seasons! Today felt so great… but I don’t want to jinx it!”
* * *
With our director Oz Rodriguez (SNL, A.P. Bio) on board, the rest of the week was full of production meetings and rehearsals in which the characters really sprung to life—it made us even more confident in (and thankful for) the great team we had formed. On Wednesday of that week, the NBC legal department called a meeting with the cast to talk about ethical standards and social media. “We want to make sure that you don’t ever post photos that might give away any of the plot points or intellectual property of the show. If you ever have questions about whether it’s okay to post something, ask your executive producers.” Everyone looked at me. Oh right, I am indeed one of the EPs! “We also,” they continued, “want to make sure you don’t tweet anything that’s racial or sexual in nature, or really anything considered inappropriate.” Three-quarters of our cast happened to be stand-up comics. They all raised their hands.
“I have a question,” Joel spoke up. “My brand is literally talking about sexual things, that’s what I do. My stand-up comedy is about cum in butts. Are you saying I can’t tweet about cum in butts?”
The now-shocked-and-amused lawyer assured all the performers that these things were really just issues of context—NBC had no intention of getting in the way of anyone’s brand, as long as performers avoided mentioning the network by name in tweets that wouldn’t pass their purist benchmarks. “You can do stand-up comedy and tweet as you normally would, as long as you don’t mention or tag NBC.”
The next day, when Deadline gave accolades to our talented, funny cast with a flattering article titled “NBC Assembles Cast of Mostly Immigrant Actors for Kal Penn Pilot ‘Sunnyside,’?” Joel retweeted the link with his own hot take:
Despite his clear violation of their rules, the network was very cool about it and nobody asked me to tell Joel to take it down.2
The pilot shoot was some of the most fun I’ve had in television. We edited and turned it in, the studio and network focus-group tested it, and a couple of months ticked by as we waited.
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I’m at home in New York City, pacing in my apartment, on hold with the executives at NBC and Universal for a phone call I have dreamed about my entire career. “We just wanted to let you know,” they say, “how excited we are to be picking up Sunnyside for a ten-episode season this fall!” I belt out a “woohoo” at the top of my lungs. “You probably won’t see news about our other comedy pickups for a few days,” the executive encourages. “We want to make sure you can grab great writers before they get staffed on other shows.”
Across the apartment Josh smiles.
I quickly call my parents to share the good news.
I get back on the phone with Matt because it’s time to hire a writing staff and I’ve never done that before! As the showrunner, he takes the lead on the time-consuming process, and brings together the funniest of the applicants. He composes a team made up entirely of immigrants and immediate family members thereof. As I read their bios and writing samples I can’t quite tell if the ray of light I’m feeling is bursting out of my heart and onto these pages, or the other way around. We already assembled the most diverse cast in the history of network television, and I guess I’m the first Indian American leading man. Now I know we have the most diverse writers’ room too. I’m very proud.