There is an old saying “don’t know your heroes”, but why TV creator, showrunner Bill Lawrence, it was a dream come true. Lawrence’s new series “Bad Monkey” for Apple TV+, premiering Wednesday, is based on a novel by Carl Hiaasen, one of your favorite authors.
“I started reading Carl Hiaasen’s books when I was 15 years old. There’s a direct line between Carl’s surreal skits and totally insane character pieces to, like, ‘Scrubs,'” explained Lawrence, who also created Zach Braff’s long-running sitcom. “The guy helped me become an accountant. of stories. be as nice as I expected and such a good guy.”
“Bad Monkey” stars Vince Vaughn, whose observational humor and snappy one-liners make him a good fit for Hiaasen and Lawrence’s writing styles.
Vaughn plays Andrew Yancy, a former Miami police detective who now lives in the Florida Keys and works as a restaurant inspector. (One scene where we see Yancy at work leads to a joke about how he’s lost his appetite for the foreseeable future and is Vaughn at his reactionary best.)
A friend asks Yancy for a favor: to deliver a human arm that washed up on the beach to a medical examiner (played by Natalie Martinez). Later, when he meets Eve (Meredith Hagner), the widow of the man whose arm it belonged to, Yancy finds himself unable to solve the case. The story unfolds, touching on themes of greed and power.
“He can’t leave something where he knows something is wrong,” Vaughn said of Yancy, who he describes as “like the Energizer Bunny.” “He can’t help it. And then, no matter how many times he falls, gets hit in the face, or things don’t go his way, he’ll just keep marching forward. That’s a very inspiring quality to have.”
Vaughn has been with Lawrence for more than 25 years – they played poker together. “He used to make me laugh. Just seeing his career doing so well from afar, it was easy for me,” Vaughn said about agreeing to the role.
For Lawrence, he said Vaughn’s 1996 independent film “Swingers” “helped shape a generation of writers.” “When he came on screen saying, ‘You have so much money you don’t even know it,’ everyone wanted to write that kind of dialogue.”
Michelle Monaghan plays Bonnie, a kind of girlfriend of Yancy who comes in and out of his life. She is a secondary presence in the novel and Monaghan credits Lawrence for fleshing out her story.
“She is in parts very delusional, but also very naive,” Monaghan said, laughing. “When we first meet her, she is very fun, playful and distant, but as the show progresses, we see that she is also quite predatory. … Bill creates characters who do outrageous things.”
When it came time to try alternate takes and improvise, not everyone felt as comfortable as Vaughn.
“Vince would encourage the other cast members, ‘I’ll set you up if you say that. It’s going to be funny,’” Lawrence recalled.
Ronald Peet, who plays a fisherman named Neville whose storyline is concurrent with Vaughn’s, said he had to get used to having the freedom to deviate from the script.
“Every day I showed up to work, I was doing something that, you know, my mind was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” Peet said. as you expand, then I feel grateful.”
The episodes were filmed on location in South Florida, so the cast experienced that kind of lazy humidity that slows down the pace of the everyday world.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When I’m in a comfortable studio, I don’t like it. When it’s hot, I’m not in my head the same way. And I kind of love thinking, ‘I’m not thinking.’ Hagner said.
“I think my hair needed a little more spray,” Vaughn recalled. “The Keys were spectacular. Nature, the ocean, wildlife. I really liked it.”
Martinez is from Miami, so the job gave him the opportunity to connect with family.
“I’ve been in Los Angeles for 20 years, but I was born and raised in Miami. My whole family is there, so it was nice to be able to have my goddaughter or my aunt on set and see what I do. I had some time off… and I was able to go to my grandmother’s house for lunch with her.”
Making “Bad Monkey” gave Lawrence a precious opportunity to work with his daughter Charlotte, who has a recurring role as Eve’s stepdaughter Caitlin. This was the first role for Charlotte, who is a singer and songwriter.
Charlotte is well aware of the baby nepo speech and said she is grateful for the “big break” she was given.
“I was in musical theater and plays growing up, but I always loved acting. I just never connected the dots, you know, or really imagined myself being able to do this as a career,” Charlotte said. “I think because my parents were so into it, I kind of wanted to rebel and make it my own. thing and not be connected to them. But it couldn’t have been more fun.”
“If you can work with your kids, do it forever,” Lawrence said. “That’s my advice to everyone.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
