Francesca Delbanco and Nicholas Stoller (‘Platonic’ creators) on exploring why ‘society seemed to sort men and women into different social groups’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“The series was originally my idea, and it was a personal idea I had based on my own life,” says Francesca Delbanco, who created the Apple TV+ comedy series “Platonic” with her husband Nicholas Stoller. “A lot of my closest friends in my life were guys and they were friends of mine from college and they were friends of mine from my twenties.” Watch our full video interview above.
The show stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne (who is also co-executive produce) as former childhood best friends who reconnect as adults and try to get past the rift that led to their falling out.
“I found as I grew up and got married and became a mother, that the world had reorganized itself so that I was less close to them than I had been once upon a time and becoming closer to their wives and girlfriends, ” Delbanco continues. “Society seemed to be sorting men and women into different social groups and categories and that there would be things organized at school that were like dad’s poker night or mom’s workout class or whatever it was. And I was caught up in it, but also unsure how it had happened and why the world had to have those social structures and why it had become harder and weirder for me to just go out with an old guy friend for dinner.”
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Stoller says they wanted to explore “something special” about a platonic male and female friendship. “There is something you get out of if you’re a man, there’s something you get out of a woman friend and vice versa,” he states. “And there is something sad about saying goodbye to those friendships for literally no reason or reasons that we try to explore in the show.”
Byrne and Rogen had previously starred together in Stoller’s film “Neighbors,” and the creators reveal that they had always had Byrne in mind to play Sylvia.
“When we were developing the show, we wanted to go to Rose from the get go to play Sylvia,” Stoller explains. “We didn’t know if she would do it, but she’s just such a genius and she’s so funny. And we approached her, and she was into it and then we said, ‘Who would you want? Who would be your ideal person to do this with?’ And she immediately said, ‘Seth.’ And at the time, I didn’t know if he wanted to do TV or not, if he was just focused on producing and movies and whatnot. But we approached him and they love working together and he instantly was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do it.'”
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