Hey All!
On my recent Media Trip with Disney I had the amazing opportunity to view tonight’s episode of the Trophy Wife which airs on ABC and get the chance to chat with the Executive Producers/Show Creators Sarah Haskins (below) and Emily Halpern.
The show is loosely based on Sarah Haskin’s life as she herself married an older man who has previous wives whom she is in contact wife. I also got the opportunity to meet Malin Akerman who plays Kate Harrison the main character on the show.
She too was a pleasure to chat with, but stay tuned for that interview…
Spoiler Alert! Tonight the episode focuses on Kate and her husband deciding they want to renew their vows and have a real wedding. But here is the thing that really got me, Kate wants to have a Muppet Wedding! I kid you not folks! I feel like someone has a camera in my house and literally is documenting the things I do and say. It’s really weird to see a show and a character literally wanting to do the same things I’m actually doing. In case you didn’t know, I am having a Muppet wedding! It was a really fun episode to watch and I’ve seen a few episodes of this show and have always laughed and enjoyed it. Honestly after seeing these episodes with the Executive producers, I now am a big fan of the show and will continue to watch. It’s great to see so many women are running shows on TV today. I believe 99% of the show executive producers I interviewed on this media trip were women. It’s an exciting time for TV!
Ok, Enough raving about the show. When we sat down with Executive Producers/Show Creators Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern they answered a few of our questions.
How did you come up with the idea for Trophy Wife?
Sarah Haskins:
We’re the creators, so we came up with the idea together. It’s very loosely based on my life. I married an older man who’d been married a few times before and has children from those different marriages. Kind of like Malin Akerman’s character, without rocking the short shorts.
It’s a situation that while unique and highly specific, is also very universal. People have dealt with divorce and co-parenting. It’s very common and we thought has a place on TV.
How’d you come up with the specific characters? Who were the influences?
Sarah:
We talked about my emotional reactions to meeting my husband’s exes. His first wife is super intimidating. She’s French and she’s a lawyer and she went to Brown and blah blah blah. So she was so intimidating that we took that intimidating factor and made that Diane. I think everyone probably has an experience with an intimidating ex who you don’t want to hear about.
And then the Jackie character came out of dealing with the boundaries of a blended family. No one in particular. It’s just hard to say where your nuclear family ends and your everybody family begins. And Jackie is someone who is strongly on the everybody is family portion of the spectrum. That’s just a fun character to have.
Do the ex wives know it’s about them?
Sarah:
One of them watches it and one of them doesn’t. The intimidating one does watch it.
Emily:
And she has notes every week! I do think we consciously try to write all three women as strong characters. And once we sort of had whatever the stereotype was, we really worked hard to try to make sure that they felt like complete characters and strong women and had their own independence.
What’s the writing process like?
Sarah:
There’s a lot of diverse life experiences in our writer’s room, so people would pitch stories. The Lice Story came from a writer who just had a super embarrassing lice breakdown with her kids at school. They had to take home all the pillows in school and wash them. It sounded horrible.
And just issues like The Punisher, was actually from one of our male co-Executive Producers who was just like, “How does she learn to do that? How do you do that?” And I think that’s just his anxiety about being a parent some days. So that’s where The Punisher episode came from.
Emily:
We also try to think of what’s the funniest one line story we can think of. And then just build a bigger story on top of it. If the premise is funny, the story is funny. We can make that work. We have an episode coming up where Warren joins the girl’s field hockey team and that idea made us laugh and we built a story around it.
Why do a wedding episode now?
Emily:
We were kind of trying to think of a big episode idea. Honestly, we knew this was gonna air in March. It was a 2-parter. In a comedy, we can’t shoot the president, so how big can we go? A wedding felt good to us.
What’s next for Trophy Wife?
Sarah:
Hopefully season 2!
Emily:
We just finished editing our season finale and our fate is in ABC’s hands. But we hope we get to come back to do some more.
Sarah:
Yeah, and appropriately, our season finale is a Mother’s Day episode. It helps wrap up Kate’s arc all season of “Am I a mom in this family’s eyes or am I just a trophy wife?”
It’s sure to be one great season finale. I hope this show gets picked up. It is a keeper! I’ll be tuning in and it was a pleasure to chat with Emily and Sarah about Trophy Wife!
Trophy Wife airs on ABC Tuesdays at 9:30/8:30c so tune in tonight! You will definitely enjoy tonight’s episode.
For more info follow Trophy Wife at @TrophyWifeABC on Twitter or Visit their Official Website.
Photos Courtesy of Disney, The Queen of Swag, and Andrew of Mommy’s Busy.com.
I received an all expense paid media trip to participate in these interviews. All opinions are my own.
Welcome!
Comments
I haven’t heard much about this show. I’ll have to check it out.
I loved meeting the executive producers and Malin! Such a great show 😀
I haven’t watched this one yet. Your interview was great and I will have to check it out tonight!