HBO’s latest effort “Hung” is a grower, not a shower on first look in the premiere.
Thomas Jane as Ray, courtesy of HBO
Showrunners Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson took time out to talk to Monsters and Critics about this excellent new series that is worth viewing for a few episodes, to take in all of the big and little ideas these two writers throw at you.
Hung - Lipkin and Burson, courtesy Jeff Kravitz/HBO
The combination of loss and reinvention has been stitched into a clever dramedy that reels you in with the salacious hook of a big Willie.
Previously noted in my review
Ray develops an unlikely bond and business venture with Jane Adams’ character Tanya, an invisible, over-educated and under-utilized creative soul who toils daily at nothingness and like Ray, yearns for a chance to call the shots in her life.
Colette Burson expanded on their unlikely friendship, “It’s like a red state-blue state thing, here we have an unlikely pimp and unlikely ho situation, and in a certain way Tanya was that weirdo drama high school girl who meets up with the football player in the hallway in high school...and eventually Ray realizes there is no one else he can express his emotions too, that she is his only friend.”
"It’s more about 'How did these people who did not have a lot of friends find each other?" added Colette’s professional and personal partner, Dmitry Lipkin.
“They are both in their own way isolated; their coming together is fascinating to us," added Colette, about the strange bond that develops between Tanya and Ray. Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin have layered this drama with melancholy and humor, introspection, regret and sexually charged moments that are tender and absurd.
"He does dive into the world of prostitution, but it’s really about a man and woman alone in a room, there is something really electric about that,” Collete explained. "I also think it’s more about how to be a real happiness consultant,” added Dmitry. “And how Ray succeeds in satisfying these women with complex wants, it is somewhat sexual but they have real emotional needs."
"He has to figure out how to make them happy without being emasculated in the process,” said Colette.
When asked if Ray's manhood would be revealed, "Every woman who sees that penis thinks it is the perfect penis for her," added Colette."Plato's penis, the platonic penis...We haven’t shown it thus far because it’s in the mind for each woman who experiences it differently."
"It’s the perfect penis for whoever encounters it,” added Dmitry.
There are many thematic similarities with Payne’s “Sideways,” as well as Lipkin’s FX series, “The Riches” which was a brilliantly cast show that examined the hijacking of the American Dream by grifters looking to reinvent themselves, trying to make it all right after the big wrong.
“Hung” also shares the mid-life disillusionment that most face when the gears of life crush early hopes and aspirations. Jane’s Ray is a regular guy, likeable, a good man, a loving father who is coping with tremendous loss on many levels.
Colette noted, "There is something really benevolent in Thomas Jane's Ray, he could have been a boy scout and I don’t mean that in a trite way, there's certain goodness in him, I sense. Underneath Ray’s problems."
Jane’s prowess as an actor makes you feel deeply for him as he has to ask for money from an ex wife who left him for a wealthier man, and when he has to deny his son some cash for a trifling expense because he just doesn’t have the extra to spare.
"Artistic battle" is how Colette described their workday in shaping “Hung.” The two writing partners fuss over every line, and obsess over "the truth" of Ray’s story. Together since grad school, Colette and Dmitry don’t always agree on the path of their character Ray. "We each have veto power over the other’s lines," shared Colette. "I tend to be the more conceptual one, and Dmitry more grounded, rooted in the story.”
“We came at Ray’s character thinking, ‘what sort of male character would be fun to write?’ We considered socioeconomic factors; we were not interested in guns, the mob, just how can we create this manly guy without being violent? Is he a 1.50 a cup of coffee guy in a 3.50 latte world?”
Colette elaborated her point. “Then there is the politics of water, of access, having real estate on the water, and feeling pinched, and with nothing going for Ray, he needed… something. So I thought, 'what if he had a big penis?'
"There are advantages to being hung" Dmitry said, but the burdens...guys that are hung perhaps might not be as ambitious, maybe Ray never felt like he had to work and struggle to get ahead."
"Life comes too easy for him, and then there’s that whole idea of peaking in high school; we are playing with these ideas for Ray," added Colette.
Anne Heche's Jessica was the hardest role to write for, according to Dmitry and Colette. “Initially we were to write Jessica as an immigrant, a restless soul,” said Dmitry. "Jessica says she is shallow because she chooses to be, it's hard to find an actress who can say that line and pull it off."
The location of the series is a visual metaphor for the Ray's own gutted life.
"Detroit represented the great golden city that fell on hard times; we wanted to show suburbia differently, more in nature. Michigan has great lakes where houses are set right on them, wild places, and Michigan is so into sports” shared Dmitry. "Michigan is also very DIY," added Colette, who has her character Ray rebuilding his burned out house by himself, after he cannot raise funds for the contractor.
"We wanted it to be on a lake, in Michigan the houses and docks are literally right up on the water, I have to give Alexander (Payne) a lot of credit to steering us to Detroit,” Colette noted. “He (Payne) brings a real rootedness of place in his films - he found that location for Ray, that little house of his is right next to that big house outside of Detroit, on a lake,” explained Colette about the picturesque setting of Ray’s inherited family home for the series.
There was debate in this interview whether or not “Hung” should be categorized as a comedy, or a drama.
"We are a comedy," said Colette. "In a way it does get more graphic, each sexual encounter is different." We don't really 'make jokes' in the writing room, we don't think of penis jokes," said Dmitry. "People ask us how many dick jokes fly in the writer's room," added Colette, "but we aren’t really interested in the gag of it, we think of him as being really well hung, that he had that on his side."
"We didn’t want to make a show just about prostitution, we wanted to approach it from these two people, in Michigan, a proof reader temp/poet, how would these two people who know nothing, in this place, doing something interesting, extraordinary and illegal," said Dmitry.
"They know nothing,” added Colette. “Unlike real pimps, Tanya wants to be paid up front; Tanya approaches that this is something good, she sees it from a poet’s perspective, that they are doing something groundbreaking, bringing happiness into the world. Maybe it’s misguided or not, but we embrace that idea, that it is not just a money making adventure," said Dmitry. "Interestingly enough, some people think it’s very funny, some people think it’s too shallow to be called a comedy, too obsessed with the penis… some people do find this funny, we think of it as a comedy of awkwardness, a comedy with a heart. It is not a sex farce, and the funny comes from very painful situations.”
"I also think episode four is particularly touching, complex and compassionate. Episode five is a bit funnier; when you write a pilot I think… after even though you have to reassure the network in a pitch meeting, you really don’t know what the second episode is going to be, the pilot is your whole world," shared Colette. "Then, as you follow the characters, certainly in the training we had in New York, you get so deep into your character that they begin to write it for you; it becomes a mix of what your hearing in the news, and what your sub-conscious and conscious mind put into it, and then your character just flies. Some episodes are very funny, and some are very deep and complex."
"We are writing for the Rays and Tanyas, we try to make him a real enough man so men see themselves in him. With Tanya we are speaking to all these educated, creative people stuck in uncreative places, maybe with misguided idealism, with artistic yearning. We try to speak to these two constituencies."
The "Hung" premiere re-airs this Sunday, July 5 at 10:00 p.m. on HB0.
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