"Men driving [women] to all sorts of hideous deeds. Yeah, that's that's my bread and butter," laughs Marc Cherry, as he discusses the winning formula that fuses his love of soap opera. drama, glamour, and acute observation of the way women walk in the world. It has served him well across a career that includes the international network TV phenomenon Desperate Housewives, and his new hit, Why Women Kill.
With the launch of Why Women Kill's second season, Cherry joined SBS On Demand head of curation for a lengthy chat on , SBS' culture podcast that offers a deeper dive into movies and series, with Fiona in conversation with the creators.
The hit show fuses comedy and drama, and returns with an all-new cast and era: this time the anthology series is out to bust some of the beauty myths of the 1940s. The second season stars Allison Tolman (Fargo), Lana Parrilla (Once Upon a Time), Nick Frost (The Nevers), B.K. Cannon (Switched at Birth), Jordane Christie (The Haunting of Hill House), Matthew Daddario (Shadowhunters) and Veronica Falcón (Queen of the South).
In the wide-ranging chat, Cherry reflects on the origins of his career, which got its big break 32 years ago, when he sent a spec script to the producers of The Golden Girls, and he became a regular writer on the iconic '80s sitcom. Speaking before the death of Betty White, Cherry credits his experience working with the ensemble cast as teaching him "the importance of casting and simplicity", and setting a high bar for his career in Hollywood.
Highlights of the conversation:
On Why Women Kill's origins as a movie
"I keep taking my movie ideas and making them TV shows and then elongating them. [Season 2] was a movie idea, and when CBS said, 'We want a second season of Why Women Kill', I had a kind of moment of 'What should I do?', and then I realised, 'Wait, wait, I got an idea!'. And so I brought it in to my writing staff and we added some characters and just expanded and I got 10 hours out of it, which was was lovely.
On the show's anthology format and the "freedom to reinvent"
"I wanted to not artistically be tied into any constraints so I could bring something new stylistically. New characters, new setting, new style. I can look at the story we're telling every season and to decide the flourishes based on that. It's wonderful because as much as I loved, you know, creating Desperate Housewives, after I did 180 episodes that show and you felt a little hemmed in and it's lovely to be able to do a beginning, middle and end in ten episodes.
On Why Women Kill S2's focus on the 1940s
"Women's beauty was a theme, and I was kind of looking at various eras in terms of when women were at their most glamorous and the late '40s was a great time for women's fashion. [...] It was about a time when women worked harder at being ornamental, and then how do you contrast that with a woman who's not good at that sort of thing? So that was really my my entry point is to show glamorous women who have it all together and then show the one who's on the outside looking in."
On Allison Tolman as 'Alma'
"They gave me a big list of names for Alma, and Allison Tolman was the only name I didn't recognise because I had never seen the show that kind of made her well known: Fargo. And so I said, 'Who's this Allison Tollman person?" and everyone screamed at me: 'You haven't seen the first season of Fargo?!' , and I was like, 'Oh, leave me alone!'. And so they they they hooked me up and I watched and I started watching it, and I binged that sucker in two days and from the moment I saw it [I said], "Oh yeah, she's she's the gal, she's the gal!'.
On his beloved mother's legacy
"My mother was the great inspiration of my life because I was so fascinated by the way she handled life. [Her] attitude about trauma or something that induced grief, was, 'Well, the way I handle it is, I take my feelings about it and I just put it in a box in the closet, in my mind. And when I have time, I'll take the box down and examine it. But until I have time, I don't want to deal with it'. I thought every mother repressed her emotions in the same way. So the older I got and started seeing how other people dealt with stuff, the more fascinated I became with how my mom did it."
On working on The Golden Girls at the start of his career
"Over the course of my career, 32 years now, you know, I've bumped up against a couple of people who aren't so pleasant. And I always think, if The Golden Girls can show up at their age and always be nice to everybody, come on. So you know, you learn things about humanity and you learn things about technique and you learn things about acting."
Listen to the full conversation below or and subscribe to for deep-dive interviews with the cast and creators of your favourite shows. Listen on your preferred podcast platforms.
The full 10-part season 2 of Why Women Kill is streaming now. Double episodes of the new series continue weekly on SBS VICELAND on Saturday. Start with season 2's first episode:
You can also catch up with the first season starring Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin and Kirby Howell-Baptiste. It's all available at SBS On Demand:
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