A nostalgic tribute to classic sitcoms that adds an envelope-pushing edge, Mid Century Modern is Hulu’s next hit. It follows three gay best friends – played by Nathan Lane, Matt Bomer, and Nathan Lee Graham – who decide to live out their golden years together in Palm Springs after the unexpected death of a close friend.
The whole production is an assembly of legends. Hatched by the groundbreaking duo behind Will & Grace, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, they teamed up with Hollywood’s most prolific producer, Ryan Murphy, and tapped Broadway legends Linda Lavin and Nathan Lane to play mother and son. Then the sad part happened: Lavin passed away at the end of December, soon after shooting the seventh episode.
While impossible to fill her shoes, five decades of comedy stars arrive throughout the season to keep the laugh-a-minutes coming, from Lane to guest stars like Judd Hirsch, Rhea Perlman, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Pamela Adlon, Richard Kind, Vanessa Bayer, and Billie Lourd.
At the LA premiere, the cast and producers paid special tribute to Lavin, their “spiritual showrunner.” Matt Bomer shared that he grew up on Alice reruns, and when he was a broke actor in New York, he found a way to see her on Broadway in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife – twice. “She worked from 5 to 87 and went out blazing like the star that she was,” said Mutchnick.
Kohan and Mutchnick wrote the show with Lane in mind and pitched it to him as a gay Golden Girls. “Which, you know, made me a little nauseous,” Lane deadpanned. But he got on board after he read the script, drawn in by the idea of a man of a certain age who never had a great romance, but realizes his closest friends are the loves of his life. “This chosen family is so important to him, especially at this point in his life,” Lane added.
The other legend involved is the show’s director, James Burrows, the co-creator of Cheers and a 60-time Emmy nominee who has directed episodes of just about every hit show of the last half century: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Laverne & Shirley, Taxi, Friends, and Will & Grace, to name just a few.
When asked what lured him back to the sets for yet another sitcom, the writing team or his enthusiasm for the story, Burrows didn’t miss a beat. “Enthusiasm left me a long time ago,” he said to big laughs. “These are my kids [Kohan and Mutchnick]. I did every episode of Will and Grace and I didn’t have to. It made me laugh so hard. Will and Grace knocked that door down.”
Rounding out the cast is Nathan Lee Graham (Theater Camp, The Comeback) as Arthur, a former Vogue editor who has to suck it up and find work in the desert town. And you’ll recognize Matt Bomer (Fellow Travelers, Boys in the Band, White Collar) as Jerry, a flight attendant and former Mormon who is all heart and happiness. After nearly a decade of playing characters wrestling with “repression and trauma,” Bomer was excited to try comedy, especially this comedy. “They’re a great group of friends who celebrate and appreciate each other exactly as they are. It’s like an icon party that I got invited to.”
Of course, his character presented a special challenge for the creators and their premise, as he’s clearly a generation younger than his fellow roommates. “I pitched that he had some rare disease and only his balls aged,” Mutchnick joked. Ultimately, they came up with the idea that Jerry had been the younger lover of the friend who passed away, and he became one of the tribe.
Soon after Lavin’s sudden passing, many of the cast and crew were impacted by the fires. The back-to-back tragedies disrupted everything, but also drew everyone together. That leads to the point of all this, a story about bonds formed in the wake of loss, and the need for this laugh-out-loud sitcom that will take you back.
The arrival of Friends, Seinfeld and The Office on streaming gave the genre new life, Kohan mentioned, adding that they’re a kind of comfort food that’s a part of American culture, “familiar in the absolute best way.”
Burrows added that it’s closer to the experience of being in a theater. “You hear the laughter, and you feel you’re part of the crowd.”
You can join the crowd and the icon party at Hulu. Two episodes stream today, followed by weekly episodes each Friday for the next nine weeks.
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