“The idea for this came a few years before Modern Family ended and the whole Roseanne debacle happened when their reboot blew up,” Reboot creator, showrunner, and executive producer Steven Levitan revealed during a TCA press conference. “I had a few years left on Modern Family and I figured it was such a ripe area that somebody’s gonna do this before I have time to do this, but they never did.” Premiering September 20th on Hulu, the already meta show takes a peek behind the scenes of a rebooted sitcom-within-a-sitcom on Hulu. “We were doing everything we could to make it as real as possible. If you’re constantly hearing about some fake network executive, I think it just takes you out of it a little bit. And the Hulu people were really cool about it and they’ve never said, ‘Oh, we don’t want you to say that,’ or anything.”
(Michael Desmond/Hulu)
Reboot not only features actors playing actors but actors playing writers and executives. Corporate Hulu was most smitten with Elaine, played by Krista Marie Yu. “My character is loosely based on a real, live, badass writer-producer of Modern Family called Elaine Ko,” Krista shared, explaining that she got to meet the inspiration behind her character. “She read the stage directions for our very first ever table read. So it’s been an honor.”
Rachel Bloom has lots of experience in both creative and starring roles, thanks to her work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but it was the little details that really made Reboot special for her. “I was basically playing, not myself, but let's say a version of myself that didn't have to worry about also being on camera, which was nice,” Blook explained. “Set deck made sure the writers' room table was like always a little bit disgusting, because the table of a writer’s room, like that's where COVID started. It’s the worst place in the world. And so I'm always glad there was like a tissue or a stray almond.”
Paul Riser plays the creator of the show-within-a-show, representing a generational divide in an increasingly more sensitive Hollywood. “It’s really fun being the representative of the old-school because part of what this show is, all these characters are saying we want to reboot our lives, we want to come back,” the Mad About You star revealed. “My character, Gordon, has sort of been out of it for a while, so he’s walking into this cold, wouldn’t even have a clue that maybe don’t do Eskimo jokes or don’t presume that everybody’s an intern. But part of the ‘journey,’ if we can use that word, is like, oh, he’s finding out… It’s so on-the-table, it’s so clear. Here are the young people, here's the old guy, and here’s the old guard. And that world, I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t jump into that and show that contrast and the struggles that everybody has.”
(Michael Desmond/Hulu)
The adorable child on the show-within-a-show is now a young adult, played by Austin & Ally star Calum Worthy. “It was very therapeutic to play this role because I started acting when I was a kid,” the 31-year-old shared. “I was on Disney Channel, and I know the experience of being a child actor and trying to be an adult, even though you don't have experiences that lead you to becoming an adult. You often miss high school. You missed out on the normal activities that normally lead you to becoming a normal adult. And Zac is frozen in time. So I did pull on real experiences for that.”
“It felt like making a very fun documentary sometimes,” laughed Keegan-Michael Key, who plays an actor who takes himself too seriously. “His opinion is that he’s always been [a good actor]. In regards to improvement, he doesn’t feel that there’s actually that much to be had. It’s the material that should catch up to him, to his talent, which is a little bit delusional. You know, he’s a really, really good actor, but he’s not that great. But this show really provides a fun challenge for all of us, I believe, which is that you’re looking at a call sheet and it’s fascinating to look at a call sheet where it has your name, what time you’re gonna get picked up, then your character’s name and then sometimes a character that a character’s playing’s name.”
“We just all made a decision early on to make things as authentic as possible,” added Steven Levitan. Reboot assumes viewers will have a basic understanding about how TV shows are made, not taking the time to explain industry terminology. “Hopefully everybody can understand about 99 percent of it and the rest of it they can imagine what it is and maybe get curious about what that is. And, you know, Google’s at their disposal. But that was really the mission here. We work in television. We do this. Let’s make sure that we're doing it correctly at all times. And that necessitated staying true to a certain way of talking and certain assumptions that everybody has and we'll stand by that.”
Reboot launches exclusively on Hulu on Tuesday, September 20th.