I wasn't able to articulate it until after audience members gave feedback. And then, similarly, when we talked about the bromance being unique, I don't think Mark, Jay, and I really saw how special that aspect of that bromance was until our audience members sort of gave us feedback and let us know, "Hey, we've never seen a bromance like this before on television."
Steve ZissisBut to your point - you also raise a point, too, that it's not that, like, a bromance is necessarily a new thing. It's happened a lot in sort of big budget comedies in the past decade or so. But people have pointed out to us that we're doing a bromance, so to speak, but doing it in a different way that's even more authentic and real and sincere.
Steve ZissisI don't think we're necessarily drawing from that specific sort of storyline, because I think we're all just super-blessed and grateful to have a show on HBO and to be working together and employed. But we are definitely speaking to things that our friends have experienced and others in our realm have experienced, for sure.
Steve ZissisTo be honest with you, I don't know how even to articulate it at this point, because sometimes the real difference in the seasons perhaps will come in the way the viewership responds and the audience responds. The thing about the show is - we realign a lot about it once our audience watches it. We learn things that we can't even anticipate.
Steve ZissisI love working that way, and that's sort of the way that Mark, Jay, and I have been working for years, where we start with scripts that are really solid and well-written. But once we get into the scene and we start doing the work, we definitely loosen things up.
Steve ZissisI mean, growing up in New Orleans when you're in seventh and eighth grade and you're into music and you're a dorky dude, you know, you listen to the entire Rush catalog and the entire Zeppelin catalog and you go through these, like, phases of classic rock. It definitely speaks to our dorkiness and the similar hometown that we grew up in, the similar sort of schooling we went through and friends we had.
Steve Zissis