Elizabeth Meriwether, creator of Fox’s New Girl, revealed that it was a “game-changer” for her once she was finally allowed to use a certain curse word in the sitcom.
In an interview with THR, Meriwether compared the process of dealing with lawyers for Hulu’s The Dropout to standards and practices of the Zooey Deschanel-led comedy series. “It was challenging [dealing with lawyers]. I compare it to standards and practices when I was working on New Girl,” Meriwether explained. “They are so intense, and they were worse back then. We were finally allowed to say the word ‘dick’ in the last couple of seasons, and that was a game-changer.”
Meriwether continued, “Those external rules can sometimes really help you, though. I learned to love the process of running things by the lawyers because they kept me honest in a lot of ways,” she said. “When you’re in the writers room, you go toward the drama. We want to write the most dramatic thing. But in real life, there are a lot of gray areas and things that don’t make sense. I appreciated moments when the lawyers were like, ‘Well, you can’t do that.’ I had to go back and figure out a different way in, which helped me a couple of times.”
Premiering on Fox in 2011, New Girl ended up becoming successful enough to go on for seven seasons before ending in 2018. Many members of the show’s cast and crew have gone on to find continued success following its conclusion, including Into the Spider-Verse‘s Jake Johnson and The Mandalorian and Black Panther‘s Ludwig Göransson.
Recently, Meriwether created the miniseries The Dropout, which stars Amanda Seyfried as the controversial head of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes. Along with the similarities in the bureaucracy of both shows’ production, Meriwether has also explained how her experience on New Girl helped with creating the Hulu original. “[The Dropout is] a really fascinating story about a young woman in a position of power, in over her head [and] grappling with what her power means,” Meriwether said at the time. “I was definitely drawn to that part of the story, too, having started New Girl when I was 29 and not really having the experience and getting thrust into that position. To me, there’s not a lot of stories on television about young women in positions of power that aren’t the ‘girlboss’ version of that story. I was just really drawn to the story. Every time I thought I learned everything about it, there was something new to learn. There’s so many layers. It’s a really complicated, juicy story.”
All seasons of New Girl are available to stream on Netflix. The Dropout is available to watch on Hulu.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter