Going from “Broad City” to “6 Balloons” is quite the jump.
Usually, we don’t have hiatuses in “Broad City” but we really wanted Season 4 to be in the winter and so we pushed production to shoot over the winter. And so, we had this break, we’d never had a break before. I had just finished writing season 4 and then went into “6 Balloons.” So I was in writer’s mode.
I don’t think you’ve ever tackled such dramatic role before in your career.
Yeah, it was very scary. I’m trying to do things that scare me now, which I really want to do. I need to be challenged and I was very scared of this part.
Dave had to challenge himself as well. He lost 20 pounds for this and he was already a slim dude.
Yeah, Dave’s not a meaty guy. I also felt so comfortable because Marja thought of both of us and this is our first forays into drama. We were both in it together. So that made me very trusting of Marja.
I read that Dave had some health problems because of his dramatic weight loss. How was it working with an actor that seemed to be so invested in a role like that?
It was really difficult for him and he lost the weight really quickly too. But as far as our friendship goes, we went to dinner at rehearsals and really hit it off and instantly became friends, but when we were shooting there was an unspoken professionalism. It was a very unsocial set for me. I ate alone, I also wanted to be alone because I needed to just stay in that mode and so did he. I think he really had to serve himself with this and he was just really hungry with nailing this performance down pat, and we’re better friends now.
What can you tell us about the upcoming season of “Broad City?”
Last season we leaned into it becoming more serialized. I feel like in the first three seasons you could watch them not in order, but 4 we were trying to have more of a storyline and some kind of character arc and in 5 we’ve expanded on that, which is exciting for us to do. We’re going to go back to summer, which is exciting to do because winter wasn’t the most fun temperature-wise. I can’t give away much because there are still rewrites to be done but we have a bunch of guest stars in mind.
Will it premiere this year?
We’re still waiting on that. I am not sure.
Hopefully, some of the risk-taking of Season 4 will be there, especially the mushroom episode.
Thank you, there’s definitely an episode, which we just wrote, that is very stylized and that is as challenging as that episode you mentioned. [laughs]
“6 Balloons” is now streaming on Netflix worldwide.