Created for television by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who adapted her acclaimed novel of the same name, the eight-episode FX original series Fleishman is in Trouble (which is available to stream at Hulu), follows Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a recently divorced single dad of two, an 11-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son, who’s navigating the world of app-based dating, rekindling friendships with Libby (Lizzy Caplan) and Seth (Adam Brody), and learning unexpected things he never knew about his wife, Rachel (Claire Danes). As he attempts to understand how his marriage fell apart in the first place, he must also move forward and find a new balance between parenting, career success, and personal fulfillment.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Caplan and Brody talked about why they wanted to be a part of telling this story, how Brody approached his character, what makes Libby reevaluate her own marriage, that bleeped family vacation, and how just because other perspectives aren’t the same as your perspective, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong.
Collider: As actors, I would imagine that you sign on to projects that you connect with in some way and where you find something about a character that you like, or you want to explore. What got you interested in this? Was it the story? Was it something that you wanted to take on with this character?
LIZZY CAPLAN: It was everything, honestly, for me. I loved the book. Maybe I had read the first episode. Maybe there was a second one. And just speaking to Taffy [Brodesser-Akner] about it, and just seeing that the book was going to be translated in an impressively accurate way from the book, we weren’t gonna lose things.
Also, as an actor, when you sign onto a television show, you always get so little. It’s very rare to get everything at once, so it’s a leap of faith. It felt like a safer leap of faith than some other things, just because of how much I trusted Taffy. I have to say, I think it was a hidden superpower for Taffy to be so new to television because her greenness allowed her to never take no for an answer from executives or anybody that was trying to change her vision into something that felt more like a traditional TV show. She was like, “No, this is exactly how I wanna do it,” and she fought for everything. It’s a hundred percent Taffy. It’s one person’s vision, and that just never happens. But for this, it had to be just her.
ADAM BRODY: It was so flawless to me and so polished. It doesn’t feel green, in any way.
CAPLAN: No, it doesn’t feel like a first-timer. It’s the bravery to have the courage of her own convictions. If she had been a TV writer for many, many years, you’re just used to taking bad notes.
BRODY: Yeah, you’re used to playing the game. Her enthusiasm was at a 10. She was so happy to be doing it. I was the latest one to join, and I felt like they rolled out the red carpet for me. It was such a lovely, welcoming group, and it was a joy.
Adam, your character, in particular, comes across as the most surface character, at least initially. The flashy job, the beautiful women, and the status all seem really important to him. How did you find the character underneath that? Was that challenging, or were you able to see through those layers of him?
BRODY: I don’t wanna say it was even necessarily challenging. For starters, I didn’t always have to play much more than that. I don’t even want to say he had superficial viewpoints, but they were youthful viewpoints, at the very least. At the same time, there was a weariness there that comes with being the age he is, and I certainly feel that in my own life. That was easy to tap into. There was ultimately a loneliness that we all can be prone to. The map was very laid out for me on this. So much of it was about having a rapport with Jesse [Eisenberg] and Lizzy, which was so easy and fun, and one of the true joys of it.
Lizzy, things become quite complicated for your character because she’s there for Toby, and she’s listening to everything he’s going through, but her own marriage isn’t all roses. Do you feel like she had a real sense of awareness of that, or did spending time with Toby, and seeing and hearing everything he was going through, make it more glaring and harder to ignore for her?
CAPLAN: Definitely, reconnecting with Seth and Toby ignited these questions within Libby about her own life, if she was happy, and if she was living the life that she’s meant to live. I think it’s really common for people to do this, but she thinks her issues are with her marriage and her life in the suburbs, but they’re so much bigger than that. Libby says stuff about this, that you think it’s your spouse because it’s the easiest person to point your finger at and blame, when it’s that other things in your life are looking different than you imagined them when you were younger.
It’s really easy to think – I have friends like this, and I’m sure you do too – if you get divorced and excise this one thing, then you’ll be you again. That’s just not how life works. Unfortunately, time keeps marching on, and it’s not about your husband. It’s you. Sometimes it’s about your marriage or the choices that you’ve made, but for a lot of people, and definitely for Libby, it’s mourning the loss of her youth. She turned around and, all of a sudden, she was middle-aged. That’s something that I fully identify with. It’s grappling with how, even if you’ve gotten rid of your husband, and you blew up your whole life, that will still never make you 22 years old again.
BRODY: There’s nice symmetry there, between these guys. Toby is in the middle, and then you’ve got Libby and Seth on complete opposite sides of the spectrum, both going through their own reflective crises.
Adam, because Seth really is in a different spot than the other two, how do you think he really views them? What does he think about each of them, and does that change, as he learns more about the situations they’re both in?
BRODY: Yeah. I think he genuinely loves them, and I think he misses their company and their camaraderie. Those are relationships that he hasn’t had in other areas of his life, in the same way. That’s the closest he has to family, really. At least initially, he probably views their life as drab, and then he’s excited for Toby to come live the bachelor’s life. At the same time, and I don’t know how much of this is driven by him losing his job and the ground under him shifting, but I think he increasingly finds himself longing for the family and connections that they have, and that he doesn’t. With the mark they’re leaving on the world with their children, everything is tethering them to a time and place.
Lizzy, I thought it was funny that every time you talk about your family vacation, you get bleeped out.
CAPLAN: Uh-huh.
What was that about? Why did that get bleeped? I’m guessing you were talking about a trip to Disney World. Was that always in the script like that?
CAPLAN: No. It was in the script by the time we shot it, but there was an iteration in the early days where we were going to go to Disney World, and either shoot at Disney World or shoot something standing in for Disney World. But Disney owns us, so you can’t say anything bad about Mother Disney.
BRODY: We love you, Mother.
CAPLAN: Yes, we love you, Mother.
Libby certainly gets a different and more complete perspective on the life that Toby and Rachel were sharing, as the one listening to Rachel’s point of view. What was that like for you to experience, as an actor, along with Claire Danes?
CAPLAN: I wish that I had more shooting days with Claire because I love Claire. I was a fan of hers before. We had never met or crossed paths, but she’s wonderful. Working with her was a dream. I really just got to sit there and observe her. The stuff we do have together is me just reacting to what she’s going through, and the seismic shifts that she’s going through, and it was just great. It’s so fulfilling to meet somebody who you’re a fan of, and then they exceed your expectations.
I’m happy for Libby that she gets to be the one that sees both sides of the story because, if you have close friends, and I certainly can identify with going, “Oh, we’re talking shit about your spouse because we hate them, and they suck,” especially when people are breaking up. I love the pile-on of the ex. But you very rarely are confronted with that person and with the truth of the matter, which is that that’s a person too, with their own point of view of everything. We should never be the ones piling on, based on one person’s perspective. That’s one of the main lessons of the thing, and one of the main lessons that we could be paying attention to right now in the world. There are other perspectives, and just because they’re not your perspective, it doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong.
Fleishman is in Trouble is available to stream at Hulu.