The Four Seasonsis a new miniseries from the comedic minds of Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield. Adapting a 1981 movie of the same name (which was also adapted into a miniseries in 1984)The Four Seasonsis about six friends–three couples–who go on a weekend trip together, discovering along the way that one pair is on the verge of splitting up. Naturally, the news threatens to upend the longstanding dynamic between everyone involved.
And when it comes to everyone involved,The Four Seasonsgets especially exciting.The Four Seasonscastincludes some of the best-known and most-loved comedic actors of all time, as Steve Carell, Tiny Fey, and Will Forte take center stage in the series. Also starring in the film are the standoutSing Singactor Colman Domingo, Marco Calvani, and Kerri Kenney-Sliver.
ScreenRant’s Ash Crossan interviewed the cast and creatives behindThe Four Seasonto learn more about their new Netflix miniseries. Across three separate conversations, Tiny Fey and Will Forte, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, and Marco Calvani, Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Colman Domingo discussed the comedic highs and dramatic lows of their new series. See what they had to say below–The Four Seasonsis on Netflixnow.
Tina Fey & Will Forte Reflect On The Beginning Of Their Friendship
“I Just Remember Thinking, ‘That Guy’s Really Weird’”
The Four Seasonsis a movie about groups of friends, so it’s only fitting that Tina Fey and Will Forte reflected on the start of their own friendship during the interview. It turns out, it was as they were about to spend years working together onSaturday Night Live, said Fey:“The first thing I remember [about you was] seeing your audition, and you did your bit where you’re the guy with silver face paint.”
What bit, you ask?“Which is so inappropriate, I can’t even repeat,”Fey said, adding,“I just remember thinking, ‘That guy’s really weird.’”
“This was late nineties stuff,”Forte interjected, although he joked it was“still inappropriate then.”
“From my end,”Forte said,“I knew her watching from watching SNL. It’s very interesting when you come in and meet somebody in person that you have so much respect for and have laughed at.”To Fey, he admitted that“I think it took me a long time to not get all nervous around you.”
Fey then gave what might be a definitive explanation ofSNLrelationships:“I think also just working at SNL for so long, I feel like, I don’t even know how I know you, but I just know you … You see someone at three or four in the morning a hundred times, you just feel like you know them. You see someone pick up a meatball with their hands… and that’s me I’m talking about. Not Will.”
Lang Fisher & Tracey Wigfield Explain The Creation Of The Four Seasons
“Tonally, We Wanted To Do Something Different”
InThe Four Seasons, the couples at the heart of the story vacation together four times a year–once per season. When asked about her favorite season to write and shoot, Tracey Wigfield had a quick answer:“Summer was fun because you set up the premise already. We’re comedy writers, so the comic promise of the premise lies in summer where it’s this older guy [who] made the choice, he left his wife and now this new girl is here on this vacation, so all the comedy of it is there. So for me, that’s the most fun.”
But for the writers, it was ultimately the joys and woes of marriage that fueled the story and, in Lang Fisher’s words, provided the writers a good time.“[It’s] the fun of relationships,”Fisher said, continuing,“We assembled a writer’s room of people who are exclusively in long marriages. Maybe one person had already gone through a divorce, but we were like, ‘Let’s just mine everyone’s experiences of what happens when you’re married for 20 years and what happens when you’ve had the same friend group since you were in college.’”
“It was really fun to get down to the nitty gritty of how couples interact after being together for that long.”
Wigfield also revealed how the 1981 movie was chosen for adaptation into this series:“Tina and Lang and I wanted to do a show together, and Tina was going to act in it. Tonally, we wanted to do something different than 30 Rock or Great News. We really liked the idea of a show about middle-aged people in relationships [and] a show about marriage and friendships–something that felt real and warm–and she kept referencing, as a comp, The Four Seasons. And finally Lang and I watched it and we all kind of decided like, “Oh, we should just do this.”
Source:ScreenRant Plus
“There’s A Couple People That I Won’t Trust With Airbnb Selections”
Of course, talking about the many dynamics ofThe Four Seasonsled to a discussion about the do’s and don’ts of vacationing with real-world friends.“There’s a couple people that I won’t trust with Airbnb selections,”Lang Fisher said, continuing,“I once went to an Airbnb with a group of gal pals and I was like, ‘I should choose’, and they were like, ‘No, we got it.’ Then, there was a natural pool that was filled with algae and there was a horde of bees around it. I was like, ‘We could have gone to a nicer place than this.’”
Colman Domingo weighed in as well:“I’m about to go on a trip with some friends. We’ve never traveled together. We’re leaving on Sunday to Mexico and one friend is like, ‘So what are we doing? Are we planning this?’ I’m like, ‘Nope, I don’t plan. You’re going with us, we chose the trip, and you have to go our way.’ So we’re trying to relax into it. I’m trying to get them to lean into having some looseness to the plans, but one, I can tell, wants things organized. We’re going to figure it out.”
“The older I get,”Kerri Kenney-Silver shared,“One thing that’s nice about [my friend] group and what continues to be nice about our social thing is [that] I think we all have a very similar threshold for, ‘Okay, we did it. Let’s go.’”
Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons Cameo, Explained
“He Has This Lovely Little Monologue In The Second Episode”
The 1981 movieThe Four Seasonswas helmed by actor Alan Alda in his directorial debut, and the new series even includes the man himself.“He’s the one who wrote and directed it, it was his baby, and he and Tina are friends,”Fisher said, continuing,“We were so thrilled that he allowed us to adapt this, and so he has this lovely little monologue in the second episode where he gives them all advice about marriage and what it’s like to be much older and having been married for so long.”
Marco Calvani Returns To Acting In The Four Seasons
“This Is Really Kind Of New And Old At The Same Time”
Marco Calvani, a playwright and director, returns to acting withThe Four Seasons.He reflected on the process, saying,“This is the first time I’m acting after a long, long time–probably 16 [or] 17 years. I’m mainly a writer-director. I trained as an actor and then I started writing in my early twenties and then directing and that was it. So, this is really kind of new and old at the same time. I was terrified when [I] started to act with such giants next to me. I was like, ‘What am I doing there?’”
When asked what new fans of his should check out after this show, Calvani said,“I just hope that they can discover my work as a filmmaker.”His most recent work on that front isHigh Tide, a 2024 film that is on digital platforms now. “We had a beautiful life in festivals and in theaters,” Calvani reflected, saying,“[And] now it’s released in Brazil because the lead actor, [who] is also my husband … is a star in Brazil.”
Kerri Kenney-Silver Shares Her Key To Not Breaking On Reno 911!
The Actor Loves To “Let The Uncomfortability Steep”
Kerri Kenney-Silver has been nominated for four Emmy Awards due to her work as Trudy Wiegel onReno 911!When asked how she didn’t break and begin laughing during scenes, Kenney-Silver responded,“You are giving me too much credit, because, especially on Reno, we’d overshoot, overshoot, [and] overshoot because tape is free and now digital is free. So, there’s a lot of breaking. But I really find those uncomfortable moments delicious. The more uncomfortable, the better … I try not to allow myself to break, to just let the uncomfortability steep.”
Tina Fey Reveals She Pitched A 30 Rock-The Office Crossover
AlthoughThe Four Seasonsis very much not a rehash of30 Rockstyle humor, Fey reflected on the show during the interview when asked why there was never a30 RockandParks and Recreationcrossover. She began by talking about a very different–but even bigger–show:“At one point, I think I approached Greg Daniels to see if they would ever cross over with The Office and he said, ‘No thank you.’”
“I think The Office was too hyperrealistic to cross over,”she explained,“And there is actually a thing where Steve’s character comes to New York and thinks he sees me and it’s Miriam Tolan. It’s like a whole whatever.”On the topic ofParks and Recreation,Fey said that it was“probably that [Amy and I] both were just buried under having young children, and we shot in New York and Parks shot in LA.”
“But yeah, we should have crossed over for sure,”she said.“They should have met at an airport and fought over a waffle.”
