![]() Konkle and Erskine in “Pen15” - Credit: HULU Konkle’s father died just two months after being diagnosed, while “Pen15” was in the midst of filming the newest episodes. I didn’t end up writing the script until after he passed away because every weekend was spent being his caretaker and it was just hard,” she said. “ played it off like he had a cold but when I saw him, I knew that wasn’t true. In fact, the very weekend she had been planning to write the episode, she visited her father and learned of his diagnosis. The episode, which features Anna and Maya participating in a fundraising walk for cancer, had already been planned when she received the news that her father had been diagnosed with cancer. ![]() Call me Yuki.’ So she became this actress in front of my very eyes and it became this meta experience with this episode because I was no longer seeing my mom as my mom, but I was seeing her as a strong woman, a smart woman, so beyond talented, it moved me to tears.”įor Konkle, her writing and directing of the episode “Luminaria” also evoked profound emotions, but for far less uplifting reasons. At one point she asked me to stop calling her mom. “And as I was directing, I kept saying, ‘Mom, stop!’ and I would talk to her as a daughter but not as a director. “The premise for the episode was to take you out of the child’s view of everyone and putting Yuki front and center as a woman, not through lens of her, so she’s not mother, she’s just a woman,” Erskine said. Mutsuko Erskine in “Pen15” - Credit: Hulu Complicating matters emotionally, Yuki is played by Erskine’s mother, whose own life story cleaves closely to what’s depicted in the series. With Erskine, that meant taking the reins of an episode - titled “Yuki” for reasons that will immediately become clear - that takes place entirely within the point of view of Maya’s mother Yuki (Mutsuko Erskine) and delving into the life, both past and present, of the woman who left Japan to raise her family in America. While painful, the choice to conclude the show was not one forced upon them by Hulu, but a carefully considered decision by the pair that felt like the right thing to do.įor as much as Erskine and Konkle were doing in previous seasons, the addition of directing duties also gave them a new perspective on the series and new experiences that made the pursuit even more emotionally intense. “The other part of it is, we’ve learned that showrunning, acting, producing, it’s all the most creatively fulfilling experience I could ever imagine in my entire life and, like, a recipe for burning out.”Įrskine added that because Maya and Anna never age, trapped in the interminable hell that is adolescence and seventh grade, running indefinitely would betray the show’s conceit. ![]() She went on to explain that if the first season was focused on “firsts,” and the second season focused on identities, then the third season encompassed maturity and adult experiences, including death, drugs, sex, and so on. And even though are called 2B, this feels like a third season to us,” Konkle said. “When we first talked about making the show 10 years ago, we talked about it in three chapters. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle - Credit: Vince Bucci/Hulu/PictureGroup That was followed by a Q&A with Erskine and Konkle, who discussed the factors involved with choosing to conclude the series now, as well as how their characters have evolved during the time the audience spent with them and so much more. With just seven shooting days left, production was paused until it was safe to resume work and, in the meantime, both women gave birth and are currently promoting the final episodes of the show while also raising newborns with their partners.Īnd yet, both were luminous at the FYC event held at The London in West Hollywood, where two new episodes of the series, “Bat Mitzvah” and “Granny,” were screened for a warm and highly responsive group of Screen Actors Guild members. The women co-created the series with Sam Zvibleman (who departed the show before production of the upcoming episodes) and serve as executive producers, writers, and now directors. Konkle and Erskine don’t just star in the series, they are involved in nearly every aspect. The twist is that real life best friends Konkle and Erskine are women in their 30s, portraying fictionalized versions of themselves, while surrounded by a cast of young teens. ![]() “Pen15” is the story of 13-year-old best friends in the year 2000, Anna Kone ( Anna Konkle) and Maya Ishii-Peters ( Maya Erskine), as they attempt to navigate the pain and humiliation of middle school as kids who don’t quite fit in.
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