“As a child, I loved The Muppets and Fraggle Rock, that’s like such a part of my DNA,” Amy Schumer revealed during a TCA press conference about her return to television in Life & Beth, now streaming on Hulu. Amy Schumer wears a lot of hats behind-the-scenes as showrunner, executive producer, and director in addition to starring as Beth. “Comedies are hard,” she confessed. “Especially the critics watching, comedies get it tough, usually, especially comedic movies. The criticism, it's rough, because it is subjective, I guess.
(Scott McDermott/Hulu)
While Life & Beth is unquestionably a comedy, it also tackles some deep themes and has a good amount of drama. “It also helps alleviate my pain about it and it is sort of therapeutic,” Amy shared about putting some of her personal life into the show. ”Beth's definitely based on a side of me and I think one of the things that surprised people is that I actually am an introvert. And I think so many of us have these conflicting sides of ourselves. And I, as myself, feel supremely confident and also I do consider myself as someone with really low self-esteem.”
Joining Amy Schumer as a cast member is Michael Cera, who rose to fame on one of Amy’s favorite shows, Arrested Development. “Amy’s not intimidating,” the actor shared. “I mean, Amy’s talent is inspiring and invigorating, and it makes you want to meet her at her level, which is a good thing. But, I mean, as soon as you meet Amy and being invited to work with her kind of eliminates any intimidation. You just feel included and excited.”
For comedian Yamaneika Saunders, who plays Kiana in the show, a scene between Amy Schumer and Michael Cera had a profound impact on her as a woman. “There were moments when we were part of this whole thing and as women we were crying,” Yamaneika revealed. “One of the most vulnerable scenes for me is when Amy and Michael are in the woods and it’s sort of this miscommunication that happens and it’s sort of like she has a really vulnerable moment in expressing that she trusted him. And as a woman, we all feel that. We feel like we’re still vulnerable but we also have to be powerful for some reason. And it all kind of collapses on us. And Amy does a really great job. She always thinks about women, which is great, which is why I love working with her. It’s like somebody who’s always trying to tell a story about stories that haven’t been told or things we’re embarrassed to share and we can all just collectively sit down and go, ‘Well, thank God somebody said it because I felt that way.’"
“We wanted to also show a sort of more sensitive man,” Amy Schumer added. “Like the toxic masculinity that we’re all raised with hurts everybody, so I thought it was a really great opportunity to introduce sort of a gentler character.” Throughout the ten episode season, viewers will get to know the ups and downs of Beth’s life as she goes on a journey to discover who she is and how she got to be that day. “I think any show that evokes emotion and thought is worth people's time and we really wanted to make something special and grounded in reality, but also having fun. Because that’s life is major trauma and pain, and then being able to laugh about it and grow from it is all we can do. So we wanted a show that represented that.”
The entire first season of Life & Beth is now streaming exclusively on Hulu.