Hulu's hilarious showbusiness comedy Reboot drops September 20th with a three-episode premiere. Reboot tells the story of the cast of a fictional early 2000s family sitcom called Step Right Up as it is rebooted in the present day. Taking place across television sets, studio lots, trailers, and executive boardrooms, Reboot delivers sharp meta-commentary on the state of television in addition to compelling character-driven humor.
Reboot features an all-star cast full of sitcom and comedy veterans with resumes that perfectly complement the show's premise. That cast includes Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, and Calum Worthy as actors from the fictional Step Right Up, Krista Marie Yu as a Hulu executive, and Rachel Bloom and Paul Reiser as warring writers on the show's reboot.
Reboot was created by Steven Levitan, a television juggernaut who is perhaps best-known for the creation of the hit ABC sitcom Modern Family. Although Levitan has created a number of successful network television shows, Reboot is his first major foray into the streaming landscape. Levitan spoke with Screen Rant about his casting process, coming up with a streaming show, and more.
Steven Levitan Talks Reboot
Screen Rant: Most of your work has been in network television. In your mind, was this show always going to be on a streamer, and if so, why?
Steven Levitan: Yes, it always was. I wanted it to be authentic, and I wanted the language to be authentic, and frankly, I really wanted the freedom just to be able to do whatever I wanted. You know, after doing specifically the last eleven years of Modern Family, which was wonderful and was appropriate for network television because it was a family show, this isn't so much a family show. It's a weird family show. But I felt like I wanted it to be adult in nature.
And I also wanted the freedom of time. When you're on network television, you've got to hit, in the case of Modern Family, it was twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds that an episode had to come in at. And here, we have more flexibility, so we can let moments breathe and use music to effect, and so I really wanted that kind of change after all that time.
And I've read a few of your comments about writer's rooms, and there's so much meta stuff going on with this show. What made you want to create a show that was kind of a comment on TV?
Steven Levitan: I wanted to do a show that was very real, but also had larger-than-life characters. And I looked around my world, and it's right in front of me. Between actors, and writers, and powerful network executives, there are a lot of big egos and insecurities, and interesting personalities, and so it just seemed like a natural arena. I had explored my family life in great detail on Modern Family, and the other half of my life was my work life, and it gave me a chance to sort of take a look at that after all these years.
I've talked to a few of your cast today, and a number of them, when I asked them why they wanted to be on the show, just said your name and moved on. But on your end, can you talk about what went into choosing the actors that are on Reboot?
Steven Levitan: It's always a very tricky process. You see a lot of people, you go through names... we saw hundreds of people for various roles. But at the end of the day, it's just a gut feeling.
Certain people, we had in mind from the beginning. Keegan-Micahel Key was the first person I spoke to, several years ago, about this project, so I wrote it with him in mind. But other people, they're just kind of prototypes. I had some ideas of prototypes, and then once you start casting, you have to be open. You have to say to yourself, "I can't be too rigid about what I had in my mind, but I also can't go too far away or it'll change the character too much." And it's a balance, and you try to learn over time, but I still make mistakes sometimes, because it's not math. It's a very delicate process.
But you're looking for a gut feeling, like "Ooh, would that person play well off of that person," or, "Can I believe the sexual tension between these two people?" Or, "Ooh, he seems like he'd get under that one's skin," and it just starts to feel good. And then I also want to work with smart people and nice people, and I always do that check as well.
About Reboot
Hulu reboots an early 2000’s family sitcom, forcing its dysfunctional cast back together. Now they must deal with their unresolved issues in today’s fast-changing world.
The series stars Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville, Paul Reiser, Rachel Bloom, Calum Worthy, and Krista Marie Yu.
Check out our other interviews for Reboot here:
The three-episode premiere of Reboot drops September 20th on Hulu.