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Despite its geological exploration of Angelas emotional interior,My So-Called Lifewas conscientiously an ensemble show.
remembers creator Winnie Holzman.
I feel like, at 40, people are also doing that.
ABC was so how shall I put it?
I guess not sure if they felt they could risk doing the show.
They were intrigued and admiring but also scared of it.
Like, why do you have toknow, like, ahead of time?
I never thought of it as a show just for teens or just for adults.
I always thought which ended up being true that it could, that itwould, find an audience.
But back then, that was their big worry.
It doesnt seem like a teen show.
It doesnt seem like a show for adults.
There was a way they talked about it, like,Isnt it kind of serious?
Or too serious or something?And I remember thinking,Have you ever watched the 11 oclock news?
This is way back when, before the news got really, you know, apocalyptically bad.
But even so, the news, especially the local news, was so fucking depressing.
I was always rendered speechless by the idea that there was something dark or depressing about our little show.
I knew that wasnt the case.
They wererunningto watch the rough cuts of our next episode.
They were hungry for it.
And the powers that be were aware of this.
They wouldnt have beenunawareof it.
I think that might have led to them understanding that the show had a certain amount of drawing power.
Ultimately, I gotta give them credit.
I dont think another internet at that time would have put us on the air.
Im very grateful they put the show on the air at all considering how much they worried about it.
They did not interfere very much.
AndMarshall and Edreally protected me from their web link notes.
Im not sure how many there were, but they basically ran interference for me.
I barely spoke to the web connection that year, so I was just focused on writing.
And look atNYPD Blue.
So many great shows that ABC championed!
I just wanted them all to be as human and fully dimensional as possible.
In high school you often take on this persona, right?
Not everyone, but a lot of people.
Im 40 years old now, can I break free?
And I had just turned 40 when it went on the air.
That whole disaster really marked us.
Were all really more the same than we are different.
So I trusted all that.
But how did you get into the headspace of an early 90s teenager, at a practical level?
Like, writing the words they were gonna say?Do you rememberLoveline?
I listened to that sometimes.
Its a comedy about abortion, but more than that, its about a womans right to choose.
I just wanted to speak to an actual journalist, you know?
There were these two teenage girls behind the counter.
One day they were talking about, Whats the difference between low fat, non-fat, and fat free?
And I thought this was funny, so its in the pilot.
There are so many lines that feel eavesdropped on.
Another is, Its so weird when you see someone you just dreamed about.Yeah!
We should talk about the actors.
It was such a joy to write for that cast.
Im still in touch with a lot of them.
And Im extremely close with Claire.
Do you remember, she was having to go to school through all of that?
She didnt get a lot of rehearsal time.
And what you see in the pilot, thats just what she could do at age 14.
Did the web connection agree she was the one?
The second we met her, it was like,Well, it has to be her.
And then it was a question of, could we persuade her parents?
Because they were New Yorkers and they would have to uproot themselves and come out to Los Angeles.
It was a big commitment.
Was there a Jordan Catalano in your own life?Not really.
I mean, thats kind of a made-up person, I have to admit.
But I think its very real, that person.
There were guys I had a crush on, yeah, but they werent like Jordan.
Maybe a little bit, I dont know.
No one has ever really asked me that!
So, you had a Brian Krakow?Isortofdid.
But it was an amalgam of several people.
They were based on guys I saw and observed in high school.
There was a guy I was attracted to, I have no idea what his name was.
And I thought it was so strange!
I guess he thought I was French because I seemed different from other people to him?
So in the show where Rayanne says to Jordan, You know, shes from France.
I was thinking of that guy.
What a great character, Rayanne.
Shes like a brassy dame from a 1940s movie.I totally made her up.
Shes so crazy, lets face it!
But shes also, like, where youwantto be.
How so?I think its perfectly exposited in the pilot, really: She makes danger happen.
She doesnt know when to quit.
She doesnt know when to shut the fuck up.
But thats also exciting, because shell do things a normal person wouldnt do.
It was just such a great cast!
Devon Gummersall as Brian Krakow was riveting, and so was Wilson Cruz.
Tom Irwin as Claires dad Graham: a totally brilliant actor.
And Bess was amazing opposite him, as Patty.
Did you know that a lot of people disliked her character?
You know, an angry woman is very upsetting to the American public.
Americans can hardly handle that, even to this day.
That was the one bit of feedback I was hearing from the internet.
How did you respond?I just ignored it.
They kept saying to me, Shes so unlikable.
Despite his vulnerabilities and fears, he was very open about who he was in terms of his identity.
Where did Ricky come from?Its a twofold thing.
I would sleep in the same bed with them.
They were like brothers to me.
He wasnt friends with me.
I was too, like,unimportant.
Thats what I wanted Ricky to be: somebody who had a strong life force and worshiped beauty.
By the way, I didnt even think of Ricky as quote-unquote gay until later in the season.
It wasnt going to be that simple.
When youre feminine, theres something about it thats, like, dangerous.
Thats the episode I think about the most besides the pilot.
I found out later that something similar had happened to Wilson.
Somebody would say to me, maybe one of the actors: How did you know?
And I would say, What do you mean?
And they would go, Well, that happened to me.
This is one of the few times I remember talking to the web link.
The call was from a standards and practices guy, right?
And hes saying and hes really kind of intense!
You know, you cant have him wearing eyeliner, you cant have him put onmoreeyeliner.
I cant remember exactly what I was doing wrong, and I do mean wrong in quotes.
So I just spoke, like, reallyfast, and I said, Listen, you know Michael Jackson?
Id never written a pilot.
I was pretty new to TV when Marshall and Ed first met me.
Then Ed said to me, Dont worry about writing the pilot yet.
Just write some diary entries.
Oh, he was so smart to say that to me!
This is the show.
We talked about the idea that maybe Angela should keep a diary, but it evolved into something else.
You never saw her writing in a journal.
You never saw her keeping a diary.
It was more like you could just hear her thoughts.
I think the narration also had to do with the fact that I was using myself a bit.
I was making stuff up a lot, so its not factually autobiographical, but itsemotionallyautobiographical.
And sometimes my thoughts would be like little,littlethings.
Because every character was in a state of flux.
Everyone was trying to figure out who they were.
Everyone was trying to figure out theiridentity.
The adults and the children and the kids.
I feel like, at 40, people are also doing that, you know?
They were all experimenting, trying to figure it out.
