Admit it. When you first heard Noah Hawley was going to make a Fargo TV series you thought it was a terrible idea. After all, when he got the greenlight to make it at FX back in 2014, he had only done a small amount of television, and he had no track record that showed he would be successful trying at bringing the Coen brothers mentality to the small screen.

But with Fargo Season four now airing on FX Sunday nights and the series continuing to get fantastic reviews, I think we can all admit we were wrong. Hawley has done an amazing job with the anthology series and I’m going to be very sad when he finally decides to wrap it up.

Shortly before Fargo Season four started to air, I landed an extended video interview with Hawley. During the wide-ranging conversation, he broke down how Fargo is typically made, what it was like making Year Four, how COVID impacted the production, why the series went from ten to eleven episodes, the way they put together the storyline and scripts, casting, and so much more. If you’re a fan of Fargo and curious how it’s made, you’ll learn a lot.

In addition, as a huge fan of Hawley’s other FX series, Legion, we spent a decent amount of time talking about the making of that show, the unique visual style and how they pulled it off on a weekly schedule, and the series finale,

Finally, Hawley also talked about what happened to his Alien TV series idea at FX, if he thinks a Star Trek film can happen with how many Trek series are currently on TV, the status of Cat’s Cradle, what TV series he’d love to guest write and direct, what he wants to do next, how the TV business and the movie business are switching seats, and more.

Check out the interview below and, as usual, I’ve listed out exactly what we talked about so you can watch the parts that interest you if you don’t have the time for the full conversation.

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Noah Hawley:

• How he quit Twitter the day after Trump got elected.
• What TV series would he like to guest write and direct?
• If he could get the financing together for anything what would he make and why?
• What happened to his Alien TV series idea at FX?
• What’s the status of Cat’s Cradle?
• Does he think a Star Trek film can happen with how many Trek series currently on TV?
• How the movie studios are not in the business of only making a little bit of money.
• How the entertainment business is going through a massive shift.
• Did he know Legion would be a three-season series?
• On what he learned in the second season making Legion.
• Did he always know what the series finale would be?

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  How he didn’t know the first and the last images would be the same.
• How the series never got huge ratings but always got great reviews.
• How Legion was a different kind of superhero show.
• The unique visual style of Legion and how they pulled it off on a weekly schedule.
• How he wanted the series to feature bold, iconic images and when they showed the next episode’s trailer he wanted people to always wonder how did they pull off certain shots.
• Has he sent the people that told him not to do Fargo the reviews and ratings?
• Why he felt so liberated making the first season of Fargo.
• How he was able to take his most creative ideas and hide them behind how he was adapting a Coen Brothers movie to get them approved.
• How does it work collaborating with FX on Year Four?
• How the script is the best blueprint you can have and it’s a terrible blueprint for what cinema feels like.

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  How Fargo Year Four was going to be ten episodes and why it changed to eleven episodes.
• What was it like casting Year Four and how much did the actors want to know the full arc of their characters?
• A fun story about meeting with Jason Schwartzman for the first time.
• Did the final two episodes change as a result of having more time due to the pandemic?
• Who directed the final two episodes of Year Four?
• How they shot the final two episodes with two main units.
• Did he think about directing more than two episodes of Year Four?
• How many scripts are typically done before shooting begins and how much is figured out?
• How much is figured out before writing the first script?
• What does he want to do next?
• How the TV business and the movie business are switching seats.