This interview contains spoilers for A Man on the Inside Season 2. Summary Ted Danson recalls shooting A Man on the Inside Season 2, Episode 4, which led to him getting a mouthful of glitter. Danson and Steenburger discuss the joy of playing a couple in the early stages of their relationship. Creator Mike Schur breaks down the new cast as well as Julie and Didi’s surprising storyline. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better duo than Mike Schur and Ted Danson. Schur is the stuff of comedy legend, writing on shows like Saturday Night Live and The Office, executive producing Hacks, and co-creating Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Danson has had a long and successful career in many genres, though he’s best known for the beloved sitcom Cheers, for which he won two Emmys. Fans were heartbroken when their first collaboration, The Good Place, ended its run in 2020, but thankfully, they reunited a few short years later for A Man on the Inside. Season 1 of the show saw retired professor Charles Nieuwendyk (Danson) go undercover in a retirement community to investigate stolen jewelry, while Season 2 sees him return to his roots to try and solve a case at Wheeler College. Thankfully, the second season features favorite characters from the first installment, but it also introduces new faces, including a sleazy billionaire (Gary Cole) and his much younger wife (Lisa Gilroy), Julie’s mother (Constance Marie) and her eccentric boyfriend (Jason Mantzoukas), and a music professor named Mona, played by Danson’s real-life wife Mary Steenburgen. Though she and Charles couldn’t be more different, the two have an immediate spark and begin a sweet, albeit complicated, relationship. Collider got the chance to speak to Schur, Danson, and Steenburgen about Season 2 of the Netflix comedy. During the conversation, Danson and Steenburgen discuss the fun of playing a couple in the early stages of their relationship, and Schur dives into casting Mantzoukas and Gilroy, as well as how the Didi and Julie storyline came to be. Ted Danson Recalls a Very Sparkly Day Filming ‘A Man on the Inside’ Season 2 “We were a little bit worried that he was gonna die.” COLLIDER: First of all, I just wanted to say thank you for this show. A lot of the themes really hit home for me, and it came to me at a time in my life where I really needed it, so I’m just very grateful to you all for making it. MIKE SCHUR: Thanks for saying that. It means a lot to me and I’m sure a lot of other people. I enjoyed all of the Wheeler traditions a lot, especially the riddle. I know glitter is notoriously difficult to get rid of, so Ted and Mary, what was it like to shoot those glitter bombing scenes, and are you still finding pieces to this day? TED DANSON: I made this idiot mistake. The first time we had it, some student runs up, and I think it maybe was one of his first days at work ever as an actor. And he was timid throwing it in my face, and it kind of went in my hair and missed my face, and we had to do it again, and I said, “Just really throw it right in the middle of my face,” encouraging him to have a big, huge handful. I made the mistake of having my mouth open, and literally, they had to put umbrellas up around me so the rest of the world couldn’t see me trying to get it out of my mouth. So it got irritating as an actor, not just as a character. SCHUR: It’s the take we used, by the way. It’s when he says, “Did anyone see that?” His mouth is full of glitter, and it took 20 minutes to rinse it out and get it out of his mouth. We were a little bit worried that he was gonna die that he was gonna ingest too much glitter and this would be the end of Ted Danson. What an ignominious death that would have been. MARY STEENBURGEN: What a death. That’s commitment. That’s commitment to the craft, I love that. Real-Life Couple Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen Talk Playing a Fictional One in ‘A Man on the Inside’ Season 2 “It was fun to throw myself wholeheartedly into being in love with the person I was acting with.” Charles and Mona are such a sweet opposites-attract couple. I’m so curious, what is it like to play out at the beginning of a relationship when you’ve been married for 30 years in real life? STEENBURGEN: It’s fun, because you have to sort of unknow what you know about that person and look at them with a certain wonder, and from Mona’s point of view, she’s fascinated by someone who’s so different from her. I think she finds him unbelievably charming, but wildly different from her. How about you? DANSON: Whenever I’m in something else with somebody else over the years, and it’s romantic, part of me is like, “Oh, brother.” STEENBURGEN: [Laughs] The women are gonna be lining up, Ted. DANSON: No, no. well, now we don’t have to worry about that. But it’s weird. It’s just weird. By the way, when she kisses somebody else another actor on stage my heart is very calm, because she makes it very clear how much she loves me. My eyes go nuts. My eyes go, “No!” STEENBURGEN: Luckily, you weren’t with me in Vancouver a couple of days ago. DANSON: [Plugs ears and hums to tune her out] It was fun to throw myself wholeheartedly into being in love with the person I was acting with because it was Mary. It was so fun to watch, too. Mike Schur Breaks Down Julie and Didi’s Relationship “Am I crazy, or is there a vibe here?” Another sweet opposites-attract couple I really found myself rooting for was Julie and Didi. I was picking up on those vibes from the beginning. STEENBURGEN: Did you really?! SCHUR: Were you? All right! DANSON: Nice! It’s so good! I’m so curious, Mike, has that always been part of the game plan, or how did that pairing come about for you? SCHUR: In the finale of Season 1, there’s a scene where Charles and Julie go to Didi to try to convince her to stay at Pacific View. And we wrote this scene where we were like, “Look, Charles can say all he wants, but this will actually matter more if it’s coming from Julie, who’s like, ‘I get you. We’re both workaholics. I’ve investigated a lot of awful people, and no one’s ever caught me before, because no one ever cares, and you cared, and that’s an admirable quality in a person.’” It was just supposed to be a pep talk a completely objective, “Look, this is the way I see it” kind of talk. And we did that scene, and I watched it and was like, “Am I crazy, or is there a vibe here?” So I went back to the writer’s room and was like, “I don’t know I kind of think this could be a storyline,” and so we decided to do it. We had a bunch of different versions, some of them moved faster, and some of them moved slower, but at the end of the day, I think we told it the right way, which was, it’s a fun meta-detective story. Because Julie picks up on something from Didi and is like, “This doesn’t make sense. Oh, I know what it is she’s trying to take me down.” And then Didi is like,” You’re insane.” Then that allowed us to tell the story of why Julie is a private detective and what it is about her life that caused her to be paranoid or mistrustful. And then, at the end, we get the actual reveal of the detective story, which is no, she was right there was something going on. I was really happy with the way that all played out. DANSON: Oh, it’s great. STEENBURGEN: So good. SCHUR: I’m glad to hear you say that, because I believe that there are people in the world who maybe picked up on the same thing you picked up on, and I hope that they find this season satisfying. Yes, I was so happy for that reveal. Mike Schur Reveals Why He Cast Jason Mantzoukas and Lisa Gilroy in ‘A Man on the Inside’ Season 2 “We had the stated goal this year of bringing in some comedy killers.” I was also so happy that we got those familiar faces in the form of Didi and people from the community, and also your other shows popping up. That’s always so fun. I love the new people, too, though. Lisa Gilroy as Kelseigh is so good. Can you talk a little bit about the decision to cast her and then working with her? She always brings something so interesting. SCHUR: We had the stated goal this year of bringing in some comedy killers, and our first call was Jason Mantzoukas, because every time I do anything, there’s always a character who’s completely loony, and I think to myself, “Who the hell is gonna play this part?” And the answer is always Jason Mantzoukas. We had this part of Gary Cole’s much younger wife. We wrote the part, and Lisa came in, and her audition blew the doors off the place. She was the first person we saw, and I was like, “Well, no one’s beating that.” And we did our due diligence and saw other people, but oh my god. Lisa’s been known to the comedy community out here for a while people know who she is and love her but she came in and shot that first scene where Gary introduces her to Charles and Jill Talley’s character, she just started improvising at the end of every take, and the entire set was buzzing. It was like, “Who is this person? How is anyone being this funny this often?” I’m so happy because she is a person who deserves a huge showcase, and I’m sure that she’ll get many more. DANSON: As a bonus, there should be a 20-minute clip of her ad-libs. STEENBURGEN: Of her outtakes, yeah. Oh my gosh. I would love that so much. Well, I could talk about this with you guys all day. I do have to wrap, but thank you so much also for giving me the idea to ask everybody’s favorite concert at Thanksgiving this year I’m definitely going to be stealing that from Mona. SCHUR: All right, good. STEENBURGEN: Thank you. A Man on the Inside Season 2 is streaming on Netflix.
https://collider.com/a-man-on-the-inside-season-2-ted-danson-mary-steenburgen-mike-schur/
