Pluribus’s Vince Gilligan talks about making shows that ‘attract really smart viewers’

He is now famous for his crime-fueled duality Very bad and You’d better call SaulBut when Vince Gilligan first started his television career, it was in the world of science fiction. Over the course of seven years he penned a number of classic episodes for X-Filesranging from Monster-themed parody Policemen to High speed exotic car chase This was his first collaboration with Very bad Star Bryan Cranston. And now he’s returning to the genre with an upcoming Apple TV series For manywhich begins airing in November.

But Gilligan told me that while he was itching to return to science fiction, getting there was actually an accident. “I haven’t made a conscious decision to do another sci-fi show,” he says. Edge. Instead, he came up with a specific idea and discovered that there was no other genre for it. “I realized there was no other way to explain the events other than science fiction.”

For many It follows a woman named Carol (Rhea Seehorn, who previously worked with Gilligan on… You’d better call Saul) who finds herself thrust into a very strange world. It seems that everyone on the planet, except for Carol and a few other individuals, is afflicted with a never-ending kind of happiness. Not only are they always smiling, but they seem like they will do whatever it takes to make Carol happy and eventually include her in their delightful obsession.

It’s a story that Gilligan has been toying with for the better part of a decade. While working on You’d better call SaulHe was taking a long walk on his lunch break, which is when the concept began to grow. “It started out almost like a daydream,” he says. “I was thinking about this guy and he lived in a world where everyone was nice to him all the time. It wasn’t that he was a particularly good guy, or particularly special. He was just an ordinary guy. But suddenly he woke up one day and everyone loved him. And that idea tickled me, and it never went away.”

He continued to ponder the idea, and in the following years also developed a strong appreciation for Seehorn’s work. So when? You’d better call Saul It was nearing the end, he made the decision to recast For many Understandable with her in the lead role. “Something clicked in Rhea where I thought, I want to work with her again. Just like years ago when I used to X-Files“I knew I wanted to work with Bryan Cranston again,” Gilligan says. “I basically designed the part for Rhea. I wanted her to be a star, and I thought it was long past time for her to be number one on the call sheet, and I wanted to be the one to get her there.”

One of the most difficult parts of Seehorn’s character is that she is largely unhappy even before the events that occur. For manyStory in motion. This feeling is only exacerbated when you experience a relentless wave of joy. This creates the potential for completely unwanted leadership, which is one source of negativity in a sea of ​​happiness. For Gilligan, this meant that Carol needed to strike a delicate balance, and Seehorn was uniquely equipped to handle it because of her background in both drama and comedy.

“Carol is caustic and sarcastic, and she’s a bit of a misanthrope, but that’s only because of the way she sees the world,” he explains. “And suddenly this terrible thing happens in the first episode and she’s alone and desperately wants to take back the world. She decides she’s going to have to take matters into her own hands and be a hero, and I love the idea of ​​the reluctant hero.”

The period before For manyThe premiere was full of mystery. I started with Mysterious teaserswhich followed Trailers that only hinted at the extent of what’s really going on. “We’ve done such a good job of keeping it secret that part of me can’t wait to reveal it to the world,” Gilligan says. But he also points out that this level of self-control is a key part of how to do it For many It unfolds – something he could perhaps only achieve at this stage of his career.

“I don’t think I would have had the confidence to leave so much of it for the audience to discover,” he says. “Ten or 15 years ago, I might have felt an overwhelming need to explain everything. Now I realize – and Rhea helped me realize – that it’s amazing how little dialogue you sometimes need when you’re watching really great acting. Of course, with something like For manyThere are rules you have to explain. But the older I get, the more confident I become, not in my abilities but in the wisdom of the crowd. The kind of shows we create attract really smart viewers.

In addition to Seehorn, there’s another element that will be familiar to fans of Gilligan’s previous works: the setting. Just like Very bad and You’d better call Saul, For many It takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gilligan says the decision was made primarily so he could stay with the same crew, with whom he had worked for 20 years, spanning two shows and a film. Although this choice may prompt Internet sleuths to search for a connection between all of Gilligan’s series, he insists that For many It is its own universe, so they will search in vain.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he says. “It’s going to turn blue.”

_{For many It begins streaming on Apple TV on November 7.}