Darren Star was 28 when he made90210.
Thirty-five years later, hes still making hits.
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Emily in Parisreturns to Netflix August 15.
Nostalgia doesnt interest him.
Im a shark, he says.
I like to keep looking forward.
As I always say, You really only need one hit show at a time, he tells me.
You were 28 whenBeverly Hills 90210was green-lit.
There was nothing relevant on TV.
Its hard to imagine now, but it was the biggest long shot ever.
Aaron Spelling at the time hadnothing going on.
Fox was this young edgy web link.
It was like, Okay, try it.
I was very involved from the pilot through the second year of the series.
Aaron and I cast it together.
To everybodys surprise, the pilot tested through the roof.
The first year, the ratings werent good.
It was always on the verge of cancellation.
I remember Aaron talking to the web link, saying, Just give us three more episodes.
He was a fighter for the show.
It limped along until the reruns started to do better.
Then it came back in the summer and caught fire.
The cast was not much younger than you.
Did you feel like you had to learn to have authority?
I would look at them and think they were having fun and I wasnt.
I was just trying to keep my head above water.
The thing about a web connection is they always kept you on edge a little bit.
When all these affiliates realized what theyd aired, a lot of them got bent out of shape.
And it wasnt just the fact that Brenda had sex but that she enjoyed it.
When we came back for the next season, they demanded there was an episode where she had remorse.
I was like,I cant believe I have to write this.She had a pregnancy scare.
She realized she was too young to have sex.
But if you look at the first season, its almost like before the Hays Code.
They werent paying attention.
There were a lot of edgier episodes.
Were there other ways the internet intervened?Yeah, they had a lot of notes.
Everything about sexuality was hard to deal with.
Initially, they were like, Where are the parents?
Where are the teachers?
And Im like, its not a show about parents and teachers.
Its a show about these friends who were there for each other, solving each others problems.
And were you doingMelrose Placesimultaneously?I was primarily writing90210heavily for the first 50 episodes.
Then my main focus wasMelrose Place.
The problem withMelrose Placewas, at the beginning, it inherited some of the baggage of the earnest90210storytelling.
The ratings were really bad.
It wasnt until Heather Locklear came on that she unlocked something, maybe because she brought thisDynastycred.
She literally could not say hello without an agenda.
I wanted to make it as addictive as possible.
That introduced outrageous storytelling, like a very unhinged nighttime soap.
It was very self-conscious about what we were doing.
Would you consider it camp?You cant have a go at do something campy.
Now, you’re able to look at it and think,Was it campy?Maybe.
I think that is always the danger.
Had everybody started at that high pitch, I dont think the show wouldve worked.
How were you able to generate such a high volume of story?
Were talking 22-, 28-, even 32-episode seasons for90210andMelrose Place.At the beginning I was shocked by the pace.
But I loved the deadlines, the amount of action, the continuous production.
To be writing and feeling like whatever Im writing is getting made next week I got addicted to that.
You were forced to write without thinking too much about it.
The more time you have, the more time youre going to take.
In a way, your ideas become more free flowing.
You let ideas fall.
Youre not censoring so many things.
You take more chances.
She disappears for like 17 episodes and then she comes back.
You dont know what happened, and shes acting a little odd.
Then she goes into her bathroom, pulls off her wig, and she has this hideous scar.
You let your crazy ideas happen, because you oughta create the story.
90210became huge, and all of these relatively unknown kids became wildly famous.
Its almost hard to imagine how popular it was.
They werent just on teen magazines there were many magazines devoted just to90210.It was out of control.
How did it affect managing the set?They were crazy.
How do you view it in retrospect?Everybody was a little off the rails.
They were working 13-hour days, five days a week, year after year.
I felt like the cast was in high school while they were doing the show.
It did force me to be more mature.
I remember directing an episode.Shannen wasnt there.
We were calling around like, Wheres Shannen?
By the way, I adore Shannen; I love her.
Didher deathcause you to reflect on your time working together?Shes an incredibly special, dynamic person.
Shannen gave Brenda so much spirit and determination and complication.
What she brought inspired me to write toward Brenda even more.
She was herself an independent spirit who felt everything deeply.
She captured something about being a teenage girl who really was a powerful girl.
I would like to hear more about that relationship.
I dont think youre the first gay man to feel drawn to a powerful woman.Or the first straight man.
David E. Kelley wroteAlly McBeal.Woody Allen has written many women.
That was written by straight men.
The idea that gay men write women is just not true.
Not only is it reductive, its 100 percent not true.
What Im more curious about is your relationship to that kind of woman.Okay.
Im making that point for you because I feel like Ive heard that before.
It just feels like its not true.
I have a lot of female friends.
On my shows, the female characters come from a position of being an underdog.
Im attracted to those characters because I think women are very complicated.
Theyre funny; theyre expressive about their emotions.
Is that how you became friends and eventually createdSex and the City?Yeah.
You wanted freedom.Yes, I wanted 100 percent freedom.
Whats ironic is I thoughtSex and the Citywas anti-commercial.
I thought people might misinterpret it and it could ruin my career.
Like, they would say, Oh my God.
I felt like my peers would get it.
It would celebrate, not demonize, sex.
The whole age of AIDS made people gun-shy about depicting sex.
It had a connotation of danger.
I really felt like, Americas discussing blowjobs around their dinner table.
Theyre ready to see this show.
It was conversations Id had with my friends.
I think the fun was seeing those different ideas percolate against each other.Yeah.
I wanted to create these women who had different points of view.
Everything the show is should be in the pilot.
The storytelling, how Carrie explores a question Can women have sex like men?
how the women all have different points of view and really express who they are through that discussion.
And in the end, how Carrie meets Mr. Big.
Her story with Mr. Big was something that would be arcing through the show.
You dont want to feel like their lives are resetting every episode.
So that even if we did standalone episodes, youd come back to this.
It made the character way more complex.
It brought up issues with her friends.
Then it humanized Natasha because suddenly, she was a character that Carrie was hurting.
Were there characters you felt closer to?Certainly Carrie.
Theres this sense in writing these characters where its about keeping a certain level of immaturity.
Its not through anything like that.
Except forUncoupled.That felt very close to home.
Were you going through a similar experience?Id been through something like that before.
But I feel like everybody has.
It could be just the fact that Ive been single at all ages of my life.
When youre single, youre still in your 20s.
It doesnt matter how old you are.
Its all the same.
Maybe thats part of it.
Those feelings dont change as you get older.
Ive been thrown back into those waters and been in touch with them.
So that maybe unconsciously has informed things Im able to write.
Uncoupledhad one season on Netflix before it was canceled and then picked up by Showtime.
You were supposed to shoot the second season but then Showtime canceled it too.
What happened?It just didnt get the big numbers on Netflix.
We were going to start filming after Memorial Day in New York.
I wrote it with Jeff Richman fromModern Family.
The second season was going to take off like a rocket, really.
You know what I mean?
Sure.Sometimes I think the gay community basically says, Thats not our story.
Well, no, its nobodys.
Theres many, many, many stories to tell people can relate to or not relate to.
Did you feel like that was happening with the show?Maybe.
You know what I think ultimately happened?
I think people expected a gay show to be funnier and jokier.
This was a show about hurt and emotions with gay people.
I think when people hear about a show about gay characters, they think its going to be hilarious.
It was funny, but it was dark and it had a lot of emotion in it.
Im trying to think about many dramedies about gay characters that arent joke-driven.
This was a show that was emotion-driven about gay men being single at a certain age.
Do you think theres a specific challenge with a gay audience that is harder to market?No.
I think its about a show with a gay leading man or woman breaking through to a wider audience.
It happened withWill & Grace.
I said a lot of what I wanted to say, and I wanted to do other shows.
It ran for ten years.
I was a creatively restless individual.
Three seasons felt like a lifetime.
Maybe the shows I did right afterwardwerent huge hits, but they were shows I wanted to do.
For better or worse, I like to take risks.
Is that still the case?Yeah.
Thats why I have more patience now.
You stayed withYoungeruntil the end, right?I stayed.
It was also hard to imagineYoungerhappening without me.
Like web link buy-in?No, creatively.
Fair.Ill tell you what.
I wouldve never had the creative interest to continue the journey.
For all those that are doing it, Im happy for them because they do have the interest.
So youre not involved inAnd Just Like That …?Im not creatively involved.
Did you ever want to be?No, I was busy doingEmily in Paris.Look, they rebooted90210andMelrose Place.
Nostalgia culture has a strong grip on decision-makers in Hollywood.Everythings a redo or recycled IP.
What do you make of it?I think its terrible.
Id rather fail with a fresh idea than do a reboot.
It feels like a product.
Its hard enough to do something the first time.
Im not sayingAnd Just Like That …doesnt have things to say.
Theres a relevance to it, no question.
Ive had three shows rebooted, and thats amazing.
He did an amazing job.
Shows evolve and Carrie certainly evolved.
But if that were the ending, Im not sure the audience wouldve loved it.
The show had a real audience-pleasing ending.
At the time, the TimesreportedBushnell and her friends felt betrayed.That was an awful piece.
Candace and I are very good friends.
At the time I had a deal with Sony.Lipstick Junglegot set up somewhere else, not with me.
I had committed to making a pilot with Kevin Wade, who loved the idea and he developed it.
Sometimes you have a learning experience when you have to say … Creative differences.
Its a spoof about making a teen show thats a lightly veiled version of 90210.
Was there a catharsis in writing it?Yeah, I had so much fun writing that show.
It made me laugh, but satire does not work on data pipe television.
I think the show wouldve had an amazing lifehad it continued.
I think it wouldve had a great, long life in todays world on streaming.
And they liked it.
Is Netflix that much different now if the numbers arent there?I dont think so now.
Maybe it used to be, but the streamers are starting to feel more like the networks used to.
Unless the shows winning an Emmy.
Because the book was calledGood Christian BitchesorGCB, I dug in.
You really think it was the title that did …Oh, yeah.
A lot of it.
Did you feel any trepidation doingGrosse Pointegiven the Aaron Spelling of it all?
Interestingly, I thought that character was kind of sweet.Yeah.
Look, just likeFrench people get offendedbyEmily in Paris,sometimes its hard to laugh at yourself.
There was a character inGrosse Pointethat was an avatar for me.
If you watch what he does every week, hes running scared, freaking out, anxious.
Its like having their head spinning with web link notes, trying to kindly everybody.
Its not the most flattering portrayal, but it was how I wanted to write.
You want to get as much comedy in there as you might.
It wasnt a documentary.
It was a satire.
I never wanted to offend anybody.
I think that all comes through.
Im like,Wow, why?
How are people taking this so seriously?Or finding things in there that feel somehow offensive.
Im curious what you think about that criticism now.Well, you know what?
I was intending to make a show that was aspirational.
I wanted to create an entertaining show about an American in Paris.
When I was 19 years old, I spent the summer in Europe backpacking.
I fell in love with Paris then.
If theres one thing the show could inspire people to do, it would be to go to Paris.
Beyond that, I have zero interest in what critics might say.
Im not quite sure what the question is in that regard.
Well, did you feel the criticism had any merit?
One of the critics wasDeborah Copaken, a former writer onEmily in Paris.
I care about the audience.
Literally, I dont care about critics.
I think a lot of them mightvechanged their mind, but I dont care.
It was the most successful half-hour Netflix ever produced.
I dont want to paint a black-and-white picture either.
What Id like to discuss is this question of whether the show should take on weightier issues.
The show was what the show was in the first season.
It wasnt about taking on weighty issues.
Were doing it now because weve set the table for it.
But in season one, the show was completely from Emilys point of view.
It wasnt about the other characters.
Then as the series evolves, its like,Okay.
Now I want to start telling stories about these other characters.Thats how a lot of shows evolve.
You know you have a show thats working when you want to tell stories about other characters.
Were you worried about upsetting the balance of the show in terms of fun and seriousness?Yeah.
The way we did it didnt overtake the show, but we were still able to tell the story.
The show has evolved past that initial premise.
Emily and Gabriel was such a romanticized relationship that it becomes a little more real.
I think it had been circling the same characters.
Theres a new city that comes in: Rome comes into the second half of the season.
And its airing in two parts.
Youre doing theBridgertondrop.They are.
Netflix is doing it.
Im not doing it.
Do you have a preference?I dont know.
They want to promote the show in two different months.
For any given show, it keeps engagement higher.
How long would you want to do the show?I can see two more.
Beyond that, Im not sure.
Interestingly because of Netflix, you get the feedback in terms of the audience numbers right away.
They share a lot of numbers and statistics now.
We knew the show was huge from the beginning.
It wasnt on Netflix.
It was on a small data pipe.
Im super proud of that show.
Its going to be on Netflix in October.
Im really happy about that.
Its going to see a bigger audience.
Do you think itll get the life it deserved?I hope so.
It got fantastic critical reviews.
The audience that saw it loved it, but its not a massive hit likeEmily in Paris.
My point is Im as happy and proud of that show as anything Ive done.
I didnt knowEmily in Pariswas going to be a hit.
I did it initially for the Paramount web link.
We took it to Netflix, and that all worked.
Were you pushing for that decision?Yeah.
This season you continue the Ami campaign.
In the past youve had McDonalds, McLaren, and others.
I assume you have brands pitching you.Yeah.
I definitely have brands that would like to be involved.
Heres the thing: They cant have any input into the story.
In the first season, we approached Cartier to do a party.
Cartier was like, No, we dont want to do it.
We changed the name.
It doesnt matter that much.
Its fun when we can use an actual brand because it adds a sense of reality.
But if a brand doesnt want to participate, we fictionalize the brand.
They came in with the luggage and Pierres face on it, and it worked terrifically.
Whether most of the audience even ever heard of RIMOWA, I dont know.
If it was a fictional brand, the story would be the same.
Does it become part of the production budget?Yeah.
It helps our budget.
It helps me do the show I want to do.
Its fun when it works with the story.
The fact that its based in Chicago where Emilys from was great synchronicity.
Was it difficult to get McDonalds onboard?No, they wanted to be.
Have other brands turned you down?We wanted Peloton at one point to be involved.
They didnt want to do it.
I think they mightve gotten burned by another show, so we fictionalized them.
You werent going tokill off a character on a Peloton bike?[Laughs.]
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*An earlier version of this piece misspelled Jeff Richmans name.
He was in fact involved through the second season.
