“The time in between was about two weeks from when I stepped off set of This Is Us and stepped on set with our pilot for The Company You Keep,” star and executive producer Milo Ventimiglia revealed during a TCA press conference for the ABC crime/romance series, which premieres today. An Americanized adaptation of the hit Korean series My Fellow Citizens, the series was still in development by Jon M. Chu’s Electric Somewhere Co. when Milo Ventimiglia’s own production company, DiVide Pictures. And while The Company You Keep is a brand-new series, behind-the-scenes, there’s a lot of This is Us to be found. “[We] brought over about 90 percent of the crew from This Is Us, so the shorthand, the expertise, the level at which This Is Us operated from a production standpoint, we carried it over to ours. And everybody folded together, and everyone works well together… We believe it will show in the actual episodes and people will see what kind of show we're enjoying making.”
(ABC)
The Company You Keep follows a conman named Charlie and an undercover CIA officer named Emma. “Instead of doing the ‘will they/won't they,’ [we] answer it: They do, immediately,” reflected co-showrunner and executive producer Phil Klemmer about the pilot’s introduction of the two characters through their hot-and-heavy introduction to one another. “Then it's just a question of, but what then? It's not a fairytale. It's not they kiss, and that's the end. They kiss, and that's the beginning. And it's like how do you make a life out of this after that white-hot passion?” Part of the fun is the inherent nature of both characters. “Charlie is a romantic at heart, which you wouldn't expect from a conman, and Emma is a real pragmatist and is much more guarded. And just to feel that tension between two people, who shouldn't trust one another, it is a dance.”
“Movies like Crazy Rich Asians have opened the doors,” expressed Catherine Haena Kim, who plays Emily and got to speak with John M. Chu while finding her character. “It's on us to open them as wide as possible. And at the same time, this is one character. It's one family. It's one story.” In a video introduction, John M. Chu shared that Emily’s family would be unlike any other on TV, a point that Catherine elaborated on. “We have a mom who's third-generation Chinese American. We have a dad who's a first-generation Korean American. And they are two completely different countries. It would be like saying one person's from France and one is from Italy. They're both European, but they're so different. And I think it's something that we are absolutely taking into consideration. And we want to keep telling all different kinds of stories so that we have a more complete human story.”
“I was compelled at first by the idea of two professional liars who see one another's truths,” co-showrunner and executive producer Julia Cohen said about why she was so intrigued to help develop the series back in 2020. “When you think about it, what is dating if not sitting across from somebody else trying to convince them that you're someone that you're not or that you're better than you are? And that theme, I think, runs through the idea that lies are necessary for us as humans and an endemic part of our lives. So I think we're really playing with both truth and lies in a big way in this show.” And while Hollywood is full of smoke and mirrors, one thing that was clear is that the working relationship all four participants on the panel had was authentic. “It is obviously a dream when one of the biggest TV stars signs up to attach himself to your project. Then on top of that, to find out that, in Milo, we also had an incredibly additive creative partner and executive producer from prep to production to post. I hadn't realized until we started working together that Milo, in addition to obviously being great in this role in front of the camera, he came up through production like myself and has spent just as much time behind the camera. So it's been a real gift of a partnership both on camera and behind.”
The Company You Keep premieres tonight at 10/9c on ABC. Episodes will be available to stream on Hulu the day after they air.