Colman Domingo On Returning To Comedy In ‘The Four Seasons’ On Netflix
‘The Four Seasons’ is a breath of fresh air for two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo.
Decider.com
NEW YORK — When you think of quintessential preteen movies, you likely don’t imagine a cozy marriage dramedy starring Alan Alda and Carol Burnett.
But growing up, “The Four Seasons” was a formative touchstone for a young Tina Fey, who worshipped at the altar of “M*A*S*H” and “The Carol Burnett Show.”
“I was like, they’re married? It was basically my version of ‘Twilight’ fan fiction,” says Fey, 54, who has now reimagined the 1981 film as a Netflix series (streaming May 1). Also, “at that time, there was something about it that defined for me, ‘Oh, that’s what grownup life should and will be like: caring, intelligent people who wear sweaters and walk around in the fall.’”
“That’s goals,” adds actress Erika Henningsen, 32, reuniting with Fey after Broadway’s “Mean Girls” and Peacock’s “Girls5Eva.” “And we did that! We really wore sweaters and walked around!”
Tina Fey gets to flex a new muscle with dramatic ‘Four Seasons’
Co-created with Lang Fisher (“Never Have I Ever”) and Tracey Wigfield (“Great News”), “The Four Seasons” follows three sets of couples – Kate (Fey) and Jack (Will Forte), Nick (Steve Carell) and Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver), and Danny (Colman Domingo) and Claude (Marco Calvani) – as they navigate children, health, divorce and marital frustrations. Like the movie, the eight-episode series is set over one year and four (seasonal) vacations.
The show was “an exercise in restraint” for the razor-sharp Fey, who spent nine seasons as a writer and cast member on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and went on to make offbeat, joke-dense comedies “30 Rock” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”
“It was like, ‘OK, so we’re not going to end this on a joke? These people are just going to have their feelings and the scene’s going to end?’” Fey quips. But anecdotally, “people seem to appreciate it. Sometimes, when there’s 10,000 jokes, it can inhibit you from actually caring about the story.”
The series follows many of the same beats as the film while giving added depth to characters such as the bubbly, outgoing Ginny (Henningsen), whom Nick starts dating after leaving Anne. The close-knit pals initially rebuff her as the younger “other woman” but come to discover someone who is patient, empathetic and right for Nick at that stage in his life.
“She’s a disruption to the friend group, but not an antagonist,” Henningsen says. “Between Ginny and Anne, you’re given two compelling, interesting partners for Nick. The goal is that you walk away loving both these women.”
The show’s candid, droll observations will be recognizable to anyone who’s been in a long-term partnership. “Many of us in the writers’ room have known each other for 20 years, so everyone was very generous about sharing specifics of their relationships,” says Fey, who has two daughters – Alice, 19, and Penelope, 13 – with composer husband Jeff Richmond.
“Four Seasons” proved cathartic for the nine-time Emmy winner, who filmed the project last fall, mere months after she lost her mom, Jeanne, and Alice went off to college.
“It definitely kept me in the world, because I could have easily kept more and more in my house,” Fey says. “There are certainly themes and topics in this that were a little close to the bone, and it has been good for me to reenter the world.”
The series also resonated with Henningsen, who in 2023 married her “Mean Girls” co-star Kyle Selig. Both actors are back on Broadway this spring: she in Bobby Darin bio-musical “Just in Time,” and he in the Stephen Sondheim revue “Old Friends.”
During filming, “I was soaking up life experience through this cast, just hearing them talk about how they’ve maneuvered their incredible careers, remained very present parents, and are still with their spouses,” Henningsen says. “I would come home and tell my husband, ‘I’m working with people who are doing it the way I want to do it.’”
Erika Henningsen feels ‘lucky’ to be part of Fey’s TV multiverse
Fey and Henningsen met in 2017 in a sweaty audition room for the “Mean Girls” musical, in which Henningsen played brainy new kid Cady Heron. “I remember Erika was very clearly a great choice from the moment she came in,” Fey recalls. “She has this intelligent, wholesome quality to her,” which worked for Ginny, too.
Henningsen always appreciated the way that Fey would ask for her feedback throughout the show’s inception, and the two soon became good friends. They fondly remember their post-pandemic hangs, when Fey’s family rented a house outside New York and invited Henningsen and her husband to come barbecue by the pool.
“Penelope made me act in a music video; Jeff had gotten really into meats,” Henningsen says with a laugh. “You really make everybody feel right at home.” Through the years, “just seeing the way you take care of your deep-rooted friendships, it’s not surprising that you wanted to work on ‘The Four Seasons.’”
Fey has long kept a close circle of collaborators, beginning with her “SNL” days. (“The women there were so strong,” she says. “We were, in some ways, raising each other.”) Fisher and Wigfield also wrote for “30 Rock” as they were starting out.
“It was huge for me, to see her be a mom and running the show,” Wigfield says. “Now, I’m happy to say there are lots of women who do it all, but it didn’t seem possible before her.”
Forte (“SNL”) and Carell (“Date Night”) both worked with Fey previously, and much of this show’s crew came from her past TV projects. She’ll next reunite with “30 Rock” favorite Tracy Morgan on a potential NBC comedy.
“When you work with someone who’s great and smart and a good person, you want to do that again,” Fey says. “Why would you want to do it any other way?”
“You’ve crafted a little family that you carry with you,” Henningsen adds. “I feel lucky to be one of those people in the Tina Fey ‘Avengers Assemble’ Universe. The world is burning – let’s have a good time.”
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