32 - O-T Fagbenle (Maxxx, Black Widow)

that you wrote, produced, co directed some episodes, are starring in, you're basically wearing all of the hats. Tell us about it. How did it begin?

loved. They were like, " Great. Make it." And, I really had my executive brother, Luti made this pilot which is really like three shorts. They're on YouTube, and they really dug that and so they asked me to write some scripts and so I wrote some scripts and then they commissioned the series. Obviously, it's a lot more circuitous than that, but that was the basic rundown of it.

the development I did, I did work with professional improvisors from Second City. And so, we had some incredible Canadian actors and actresses come in and help me beat out the ideas.

I know that character A comes in wanting X from character B and there's going to be a conflict and at end of it, we're going to come out with solution C. And so, I would go in, I'd pitch the whole episode to the six or seven actors we'd have there, and then I'd say, " Right. We're going to start with scene one. You're playing character A, you're playing character B. This is what you want. This is what you want.

Let's improvise it." And so, we'd improvise the scene and then I'd be like, " Okay, great, and we're going to make some changes. Character A, you're going to be drunk, character B, you're going to be more resistant and I'm going to replace actor to play character A with this other actor, and you come in and let me see your version of it." And,

I would have men playing women, women playing men, black people playing white people, white people playing black people. It was a free for all and as it would develop, I would get more and more ideas which I'd put in and maybe we'd do each

scene about three, four times. Anyway, we'd spend a day and in a day we'd get to about half an episode and then I would sit down in a coffee shop and I would just write and listen to the recordings. And funnily enough, I'd be really interested to go back and check it out, but there was very little actually verbatim

that was taken from the improvisations. There definitely were bits, but a lot of times, it helped me flesh out and understand the characters understand different ways, unexpected ways that the jokes could go. And so, I would build on them and write on them. But, they were such a valuable part of the process for sure.

end of the summer, I had six episodes, so we would do, then I would go off and do rewriting and stuff like that, and we were supposed to go into production that September I believe. There's a long story, but basically, we were going into pre production. We were casting. We were da, da, da, and the channel said, "Look, we want some changes. We're not ready to

go into production yet." It was a heartbreaker. And, most of the times when a channel tells you that, that means they are not going to make your show anymore. And, they reassured us that they were going to make the show and that they just needed some changes. To be honest, I imagine there

was some politics involved. It wasn't all about the show, but there were some issues with the show, but they kept their word and we retooled and rejigged and tweaked and improved and then made it the following year. So, that's probably the reason why it took so long to write.

believe we should make. To be fair, and kudos to all of the commissioners they had some great ideas, but also when I said, " Look this is really important to my vision of the show, they backed me." It took some push, but they backed me and I really appreciated them for

that. So, I don't know. One of the episodes had quite fundamental plot changes and I think there was some development of the characters, in particular, Tamsin, the main female lead, I think there was some development to do there some rounding out of her character. So, those are some of the main ways that it improved. But also, a big part of it was also tuning up production wise. We brought on

Phil Clark, the legendary executive producer. It was funny, because we had a meeting and they said ... because me and my brother has got a long history of making music videos and some features, but never really had made television, and I never really made television, so there was a lack of experience on our

team. They basically said, " Look, we need someone on your team that can tell us to fuck off, and right now, you don't have anyone who's got enough weight to tell us to fuck off." And so, we went and got someone who could tell them to fuck off, who was Phil Clark, who never used that phrase, funnily enough. In fact, almost the opposite. Phil was one of the secrets to being successful in the industry is how much shit

you can eat. How much shit can you take and still keep going? And, that was very disheartening, but I think probably very good advice.

my journey, of my, I guess, ambivalence between going for the art, I was a theater actor for many, many years and very happy to it, and then also the idea of being popular and being on TV and stuff like that. So, I guess there was some of that autobiographically played out, and then also I'd gone through this terrible heartbreak and I was trying to recover from that, and so I guess that played out

a little bit as well. So, I guess developing him in some ways was a process of enhancing and over blowing and exaggerating lots of parts of myself I despise and then an opportunity to play them out. That's on a more personal level, but also as they developed, I realized that I

was interested in exploring a broader cultural phenomenon where because of social media, it's just some big validation act. We constantly put forward not our true selves but our idealized selves our presentation of ourselves, our ego, and we put it out there and we hope to be liked and then we might change what we post, depending on how much validation we get. And, it's quite an obscene process that evolves the

mind in some ways of thinking that. I feel sorry for young people who are going up against the brilliant minds of Harvard and Yale, it's programming suites, trying to manipulate our fickle minds. So, I also wanted to talk about that. Not everyone is a pop star, but I think on some level, everyone who's on social media has some kind of desire to be validated

by their peers. So, the process of developing Max was a confluence of those two things.

into different parts of it. I once read this psychologist said that by the age of three, a human being has experienced every emotion, murderous rage, jealousy, love, because all of those things are in us in different quantities and so I just believe that as I write each character and as I think about Maxxx, all of the characters are me. My son, is me. I was a geeky kid at school who would get these terribly strong crushes and I am Camden as well, that is sometimes socially awkward and probably

unnecessarily verbose. And so, that's how I think about writing.

crying. Unfortunately, I don't have that capacity. I have really embody and live through. It's boring. I tell you. I wish I didn't have to, but over 20 years of being an actor, I've realized that that's what produces the best results for me. So, yeah.

executive producer, Luti.

July, he was going 24/7. He doesn't stop and exactly that thing, we were both desperate not to let each other down and to bring out the best in each other and we implicitly trust the intentions of each other, which is to create the best work we can create. And so, yeah, it's one of the biggest joys in my life being able to create Max with him.

we sent him the script. He fell in love with it. And, we were just lucky enough that he was just on it, because we didn't have all the bells and whistles. We didn't have big trailers. We didn't have trailers. We had nothing. He really came and slummed it with us, God bless him. I don't know, I just think he's brilliant in this.

we just had an expectation. And I tell you, there were a number of opportunities that we gave people including people from minority groups and stuff like that to be heads of department where they'd never been heads of department before, but we believed in them. We believed in their skill and we believed that their reason for not being head of department before this time was the industry creates blocks in their process

of hiring, naturally discriminates. It doesn't need an individual to be racist. It's just the way of the industry. And so, we gave a number of people their first go, and I tell you, they showed up so hard, so brilliantly, they brought a kind of value to the show which I just ... I'm so grateful for, I'm so thankful for. It was just reconfirmation that the benefits of diversity is not

a tick box exercise. The benefits of diversity isn't that everyone gets to feel that they're doing United Colors of Benetton. It's that there are brilliant artists here which are underused and under utilized and it's to our benefit to give them that opportunity.

head, is Joanna, our esteemed costume head. In episode two, there's this big industry party, and I've been to some weird parties in my life, and I know what it feels like. I know what it looks like, and we were asking for these extras, and the extras we were getting

just ... I didn't believe them. It was very frustrating. For weeks and weeks I'd look through these reams of extras and just be like, " We're not going to have the party with this, with a party that's in my head, the parties I've been to." And so, Joanna came and she was like, " Well look, I'm part of the scene, whether it's the fetishing or

the kink scene. I know people who were in there and we can both cast them, but they come with costume, because that's their lifestyle." And so, we managed through her to get half the party through her contacts and people who are above and beyond. I was walking around that party, hell yeah. This is now a party that I'm both intrigued about and scared about. And, that's the way I want to feel.

be authentic versus trying to be famous, and it brings up two opposing songs. One is a song about sex and frozen yogurt and the other is a song that has been stuck in my head since watching the show. You say that thing with me. (crosstalk) .

be like, (inaudible) like that. And so one day, and to have a longer version of the story, I sat down at my keyboard and I wrote the lyrics to the chorus. So, that's how that song came about. And then, the other song, the soft serve song, someone came with a beat. I listened to 20 beats and I was trying to find something which was silly but real, corny but fun and I just fell

in love with this beat. And so, I just wrote the lyrics and chorus and rest of that one day in the studio.

to play drums and-

Fawlty Towers, to Back (inaudible) . I think it's the class thing. We're so obsessed with class and social climbing in England, and I think that's where a lot of it comes from, people wanting to be " better than they are."

and had tea. I was very nervous she wouldn't be a very good actor, but she looked great and we got on very well, so I wrote quite modestly for her. Then, we had our first rehearsal together and that's how we deal a lot with improvisation, so I did with her everything I did the Second City people. I said, " Hey, look, this is the scene. You're going to do this and I'm going to say some

stuff to you and you say some stuff back and let's see what happens." And we did it, by the end of the rehearsal, I wrote back to my producers Ali, Karen and Luti and I said, " We've got a problem because she's so good, we're going to need more of her in the show." And, we did. We boosted what she had to do a lot.

And Helen Monks, who plays my assistant in it, she's brilliant. She comes out and we would just do another take and we would just be like, "Keep going. Give us some more," and Chris, and Pippa. They're all really talented.

being a novelty act. But, that was a really fun relationship to play with and you said you had to develop it more in the beginning, so I'd love to hear more about the process of her character.

and all sorts. She's the real deal. And, she brought such detail and differentiation, and humor and truth to Tamsin. I am very indebted to her actually, to how she fulfilled that part.

on the non binary character. I thought the whole thing was wonderful.

So basically, I think it's quite amusing, the whole thing about being a celebrity and adopting. When I say amusing, I mean I really respect it actually. People get (inaudible) it's like, " Hey, you're dedicating a lot of time to a young person, kudos to that." But, I also just think the phenomenon was interesting. So, I thought it would be great for Max, and also gives him a bit more heart. I don't know. It came pretty

early that idea. Funnily enough, the idea for the non binary love affair, it's really interesting to me, because originally that character was a female. And in fact, the first time round we auditioned,

we were only auditioning women for that part. And, I think part of the feedback that came back was just the concern that maybe there were a lot of female characters that were particularly sexual, because you have Siren in episode three and you had Rocks in episode two, and then you had Chris Meloni's wife and then you had the assistant Rose. And so, we were all sexually forward, but

I really didn't want to change that dynamic. I really liked the dynamic of Alan, the son, being the sub as it were in that relationship. And so, I wasn't sure how to fix it and then I thought, " Well, what if we just change the gender then? If that's the issue, then let's just change the gender and to get that diversity in." And so then, we auditioned some young guys and yeah,

suddenly a bright shining light, I was adamant. The moment I saw ... I was just yeah, that's who it is. And, it was a bit of a shock to Alan, because he'd of course, auditioned with a lot of very pretty girls, and then suddenly ... and he comes from a Muslim background, so it was a little bit of a ... he was like, " Oh, really?" But, kudos to him. He wanted to part and believed in it, and they

just had a great chemistry. It's an echo of my teen love affairs and infatuations and unrequited loves (crosstalk) -

But, it's not necessarily what we talk about all the time. All our storylines don't have to be about that. We had the '90s and the 2000s to have those conversations, kind of thing. And I just felt, here we are in 2020, it's possible for us just to find out about these two human beings and how did they try and match together, and it doesn't have to be about the issues. Of course, the issues are very important. That was just

something I just wanted to attempt in this show. ( music)

and loving and he is raising his wife's child from another man, and he faces his wife's oppressors and rapists, not to mention her boyfriend. So, a lot happened for Luke in the last season in Handmaid's Tale.

generous as was Warren, but Bruce in particularly and Colin Watkins, our VP and sometimes director, in that when we were shooting Handmaid's and I was developing Max, Bruce let me come into the writers' room and sit down, and Mike Barker, who should be nominated for an Emmy every year for Handmaid's, he let me shadow him on the final

episode of season three. And, there was so much generosity from that gang and supporting me, in making my first show, so at any rate, that somewhat speaks to the joy and openness and love that's apparent in the show, yeah.

me that the best book he read on writing was a book called Drawing, and one of the things that stuck out to me is that ... and I'm going to butcher what he told me, but basically, it was like, when you're drawing a person, you don't have to start at the top. You don't have to start at the beginning or the feet. You don't have to do a rough outline. You don't

have to. You can just take any discrete piece, and the example I think he gave is like if a person was standing there with their hand on their hip. You can start with the space between their arm and their body, and that can be the starting point. And, you could think of the same thing with a script or a scene or a sentence. You don't need to start at the

beginning. The first thing you write of a script does not have to be scene one, and the first thing you write in a scene does not have to be the first lines written. You can find a discrete part and grow of that and that was a really piece of useful information I got.

I was acting it out. And, I think that was an anchor for him. He's that guy who sees a celebrity opportunity at the funeral.

and plays and stuff. So in a way, it's weird because being part of something like the Marvel Universe, was never part of my original dream, and not because it's not really attractive and amazing and wonderful, it was just something else. It was like, do you want to be an NBA basketball, yeah, sure. But, that's not part of reality. And so, as it's happened, it's very surreal. I'm doing things like Comic

Con and things like that. I feel like I really appreciate it. I don't take it for granted at all because I don't know. I'm a person believes that luck really plays a huge part in the outcomes of people's lives and I believe I've been incredibly lucky.

fun. And to me, it's I don't know, it's not burning inside. I really care about my family and I'm working on a charity called the ABC Foundation, and it provides tech opportunities for young people in Africa. These are the things which I think are important and these are the things that burn me. I don't know. This is fun.

I got were not the same as the part I played. It was completely different, and I got sent them ... I was on holiday with my then girlfriend, and to be honest, when I first got the audition, I was like, " Oh, I'm not going to do that."

I was writing Max at the time. I was just like, "I'm not going to do that," because I was already, embarrassing enough, my then girlfriend ... I told her, "Look, we're going to go on holiday, but I'm going to be working from 9: 00 a. m. to 1: 00 p. m. writing every day during our holiday to Mexico. And so, I was like, I'm not now going to take 1: 00 p.m. to 2: 00 p. m. to put down an audition that I'm never going to get because they're going to

give it to someone else. I was just like, I'm not doing it. I'm not putting myself on tape. And so, she was like, " You should." I was like, " Look, I can't ... I do want to be respectful to you," and things like that, and bless her heart, she was very generous and she was like, " No, you put yourself on tape." So anyway, long story short, I put myself on tape, in this quite different character. And,

it was a banging tape. At some point, I feel like I want to share it, because it was like, that's one of the best auditions I've ever done. And, at the end of it, she was like, " This is good. You're going to get this." And I was like, " No. Doing a great tape does not mean you do get ..." I've done a bunch of good tapes and no one's even called me back telling me thanks for sending it. No expectations. So,

I just sent it off. And then, I was told that I would do a screen test with Scarl and it was me and six other guys, and I wasn't a favorite. I was number four on the list for something that I don't know. But to do a screen test, you have you sign a contract and the contract that I would sign would mean that I wouldn't be available to shoot Max. So, I was like, I don't

even know if I can sign this contract. I don't know if I can do that because doing a Marvel Universe, that's, like you said, the biggest job I could ever hope for, but Max is my heart. It's something I did with my brother. I'm going to let my brother down. I have to have that conversation. My brother was like, " Bro, I've got this screen test, and I don't know what to do, because I don't want to let you down,"

and he's staked his company on this show. It was a really challenging time, and eventually, I was just like, I don't know if I can sign a contract that says I can't do Max. And so, please go and talk with them. And, my reps are like, "I don't know if they'll take that. They're Marvel." And then, I got a call about a week later. My agent called me up and said, " Right. You've got a problem." And, I was like, " Oh, okay." And she's like, " Well, they just offered you the role."

it work." And, you know what? It was just like, I don't know, luck, fate, destiny, whatever, Handmaid's, for whatever reason, was running late and so they said, " We're not going to be shooting in September," so they were pushed four months, and then we just asked Marvel, " Hey look, can you fit my filming into these two months and push those there," and then we asked channel four if we could

push Max there and they all overlapped like this, but I've actually get to do all three. It was so surreal and I felt so grateful. I felt so grateful for Marvel and Cate Shortland, who assured me when I got to speak to her. She's an indie filmmaker, and I was like, "Look, this is my baby." She said, " We can make it work. We'll make it

work." And so, I'm so grateful to her and to Marvel, who was surprisingly, just flexible and responsive and I feel very grateful for that.

what's important, what's real. If you get too much of a sense of self from others, then you're really dangerous, because the world can be fickle and everything changes, and so, look, it's a lesson I'm trying to relearn and teach myself every day to be present and to be

grateful for the small things and stuff like that. And so, I try not to put too much stock ... of course, like I said, (inaudible) , but I try not to put too much stock in those things, because I know it's not a sustainable way of having peace.

more about ABC Foundation?

Zimbabwe, and they do exactly that. They give tech training to young women in Zimbabwe, and some of it is as rudimentary as teaching them how to turn on a computer or write an email, go online, because these people don't have necessary access to the internet. And so, over the last two years, we

have provided tech training to over 100 young people. We created a tech hub which has solar panels and cooling system which is mobile and the young people can come there and have access to over a dozen computers we have. We've paid for them to get tuition, both on a

remedial level and also in things like robotics. I just think tech is the future, and for people in developing nations to keep up and to compete, they need access to that. And so, very recently, Elizabeth Moss (inaudible) , Angelica Ross all joined me on an Insta live which you can

check out. They were so generous in their time, to help fundraise, because we're aiming to create more of these tech hubs so we can provide access to more and more people in Zimbabwe.

money aside. If you had to choose one, would it be theater or film?

but theater has an audience. They listen to the words." And, what's amazing about theater to me is it's not unusual, in fact it's very common for me to do something written 400 years ago in Shakespeare, or to do something within the '80s or the '60s, Lorraine Hansbury. And so, what we're saying, the best works of art from the English language are available to an actor to do again

and again. I can't go and play my favorite character in Game of Thrones. That's not available to me to go, oh, the Wire. Okay, well actually, I'm going to do the Wire next year. I can't do the best of television again and then do my interpretation of True Detective or whatever. I can't. Once it's in television, once you're done, it's pretty much done, unless 30 years have gone. In theater, you can have four productions of King

Lear going on at once. So, it's that. The last play I did, I did a play called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson. It's one of the greatest plays in the English language. It's absolutely heart wrenching and stunning. It's a play I wanted to do for 20 years, and that's available to me on stage. And so yeah, that's a big part of it.

One that just really you would tattoo on your arm if you could?

country and you'd sit in your dressing room. You could hear the ... and then every night, some new line would ... that line I'd never heard before could be the best line in another play.

politics and I think it's so stressful. And, I don't know, I've been reminded a lot this week how important it is to look after one's mental health as much as possible, to be kind to yourself and to find ways to find peace and to be present and stuff. So yeah, I guess if I was going to say anything, it's just like, that's something I've been thinking a lot about recently, and so I wish everyone the best of luck with that.

to hear from you. If you like something, let us know, and if you don't, let us know what we could do better. Stay safe and healthy, and thanks for listening. ( music) CurtCo Media. Media for your mind.