Search Party,to quote star John Early, is the little show that could.
(This oral history contains quotes from recent and, where noted, past interview conducted by EW.)
We decided to make a feature film calledFort Tildenin our third year of film school.
Alia Shawkat as Dory in ‘Search Party’ season 1.TBS
That was our thesis film.
We sent it off to film festivals and that did well.
It kind of told the world that we had this millennial, satirical point of view.
Alia Shawkat, Meredith Hagner, John Early, Brandon Michael Hall, and John Reynolds on ‘Search Party’.Ruvan Wijesooria/HBO Max
They came out to L.A. and we started talking about working on something together.
They wrote on [Netflix’s]Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.
It was going to be set in L.A. and Silver Lake.
The cast of ‘Search Party’ in season 1.Macall B. Polay/HBO Max
My feeling about it from a producing perspective was what we need is a hook.
ROGERS:People kept throwing ideas at us for how to like put a hook on our voice.
SHOWALTER:What was happening in the culture at that time wasSerial.
Mark Schafer/HBO Max
We were working onWet Hotand we were all listening toSerialand talking about it.
ROGERS:It was the quickest premise writing we’ve ever done in our life.
It’s not a comedy.
Jon Pack/HBO Max
Or is it a drama?
Make it a drama."
This was before the time [when] every show was a hybrid.
Alia Shawkat and Shalita Grant on ‘Search Party’.Jon Pack/HBO Max
So it was definitely something we felt that we needed a proof of concept.
ROGERS:Michael, Sarah-Violet, and I had lunch with Alia and it was like a date.
And it was effortless.
Jon Pack/HBO Max
Like she wanted to do it and we wanted her to do it.
I was on board from reading it.
It was probably my way of putting on a front, “I’m a professional, okay.”
Cole Escola and Alia Shawkat on ‘Search Party’.Jon Pack/HBO Max
I wanted to personalize Dory more, which we ended up doing.
It just seemed like a natural, really good fit right away.
We got along beautifully, and I think there was a real kind of match in sensibilities.
Jon Pack/HBO Max
They just sent me the script to the pilot.
I was really scared.
The scene is great [and] deliberately there on purpose.
Dory (Alia Shawkat) greets her disciples in ‘Search Party’ season 5.Jon Pack/HBO Max
It’s consciously playing with the trope that was so kind of in the culture at that point.
And I just had an audition and [read] the scenes in the pilot.
But I guess she liked me, and she put me up and then Charles and SV cast me.
Alia Shawkat as Dory on ‘Search Party’.Jon Pack/HBO Max
[Bliss and Rogers then] cast me inFort Tilden.
And so [the role of Chantal] was written for me.
I didn’t audition.
But thank God it worked out and yeah, it’s a life changer.
EARLY:There was no hair and makeup trailer.
I just assumed like, “They know what’s best.”
I didn’t know you could collaborate and say something.
I just was horrified.
In a split second I was stuck with an alt-right haircut.
I was walking around Brooklyn like, “No, no, no.
No, this isn’t me.”
HAGNER:Literally I’m wearing clothes that the costumer came to my own closet and picked stuff out.
Wardrobe was in there, hair and makeup.
We changed in his bathroom.
Don’t let the cats out."
It was just this thing of everyone meeting each other.
EARLY:I remember finding outJudy GoldandChristine Taylorwere in the pilot.
I grew up on theBrady Bunchmovie.
That is deeply influential to my sense of humor and especially her performance.
REYNOLDS:I still hadn’t fully grasped the idea of eating on camera.
I just think I asked for ketchup a million times.
I’m never going to see you again."
I thought it was really fun.
And I was surprised because it was unexpected, I guess.
And then yeah, who knew it ended up being this wild, crazy ride.
After completing the pilot, the producers shopped the show around to several networks.
Eventually,Search Partylanded at TBS, which immediately picked it up to series.
Whoop de whoop."
I thought I had everything sorted out.
I get on a plane and I’m going to L.A. to do a testing.
We have this thing calledSearch Partythat’s coming up.
Be on the lookout."
I was like, “Ah, whatever.
I don’t know how this thing works.
If it happens, it happens.”
Lo and behold, I have to send in a tape for the audition and they accepted my tape.
I was like, “Oh, my God, that was months ago.”
That twist was memorable for Hall and Early for very different reasons.
That’s what I thought.
I thought the joke was he was exploiting something that had actually happened to him, mercilessly.
I remember doing the speech and Charles walking up to me kind of confused.
He was really struggling with how to give me the note.
He was like, “Can you do it where it’s just more real?”
I got so confused, because in my head I was like, “Well, it was real.
He did have cancer.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
He was like, “Elliott’s breakdown, it’s amazing.”
Then when that happened, I was like, “Okay, what’s going on?”
It just did not click.
The gang tracks Chantal down to a house in Montreal.
Keith follows them there and winds up in a physical altercation with Dory after she breaks up with him.
In the fray, Dory and Drew accidentally kill Keith.
We had like a placeholder for who that person would be.
But yeah, that wasn’t something we figured out until a few weeks into the writers room.
REYNOLDS:I started being excited for the chance to play that scene.
So then when the murder happens, it completely changes everything.
It was just a really juicy moment.
Filming those definitely also was a departure from sort of the light, “what is this?”
punch in of on set vibe too.
It’s like, “Okay, now we have to act, and these are real stakes.”
I’ve loosened up a lot more.
I remember just pacing in the kitchen for hours.
There was a lot of choreography for that scene.
But he somehow feels like he’s the victim here.
Is it self defense?"
It turns out Chantal was never missing.
She simply decided to ghost everyone after a bad break-up.
In other words, Dory’s quest for meaning created all of this chaos.
That twist both elevated the show’s entire premise and clarified things for the entire cast.
This new idea came to us the first day of the writers room.
MCNULTY:I thought it was genius.
It took me a second to reorganize how I thought about Chantal, you know?
SHAWKAT:I felt like they had to tell it to me a couple times.
I was like, “Well what do you mean there’s no mystery?
You mean it’s all in her head?
It’s not like some kind of dream sequence, like,Mr.
It’s just definitely a lot more boring than that.
It’s just like you saw it or you made it all happen.
And none of it really happened.
I thought it was genius.
I wanted to do a good job for all of them.
I also wasn’t totally sure how Chantal was supposed to be.
So, I was learning a lot about her as we were directing the scene.
And it was really hard, and it made everything else after it more fun.
I realized pretty quickly that that really wasn’t going to do it this time.
SHAWKAT:And then I remember being in the bathroom for the very last shot of the first season.
I was just like, “Okay yeah let’s do this.”
And I just remember that last moment and them being like, “It looks really good.
It looks really crazy.”
Whereas season 1 was inspired by Nancy Drew, season 2 drew from Hitchcock.
But then like the new swing is that somebody is blackmailing them and knows about it.
EARLY:Season 2 is personally my favorite season.
Our job description got so specific.
My arc in that season was so deeply satisfying.
Then just the total freak-outs, like running around the street in my underwear, asking for fresh ice.
That just was such a dream for me.
I loved all this stuff withJay Duplass.
“This is serious, we murdered someone.”
Shortly thereafter, the police arrested Dory for Keith’s murder.
I remember one of our writers said, “We have to allow them to make mistakes.”
It was like, “Oh, yes.
ROGERS:We didn’t know our ending until later, until towards the end of the writing process.
So then you have to go back and look at everything all over again.
Like where were we going if she’s anxious?”
So the first season I’m looking at myself in the mirror at the end.
So the idea is, it’s all about search for identity.
And when you find out who you are, do you like that person?
Like I’ve split myself.
SHALITA GRANT (Cassidy Diamond):I auditioned.
When I looked at the character description I immediately thought this is going to go to a white girl.
I didn’t know if I should take this seriously.
They’re really serious about finding the right actress for the role.”
I met Alia and Charles, and SV, and did their callback.
I read with her and it was just instant.
Like the character she created, we were like, “What is that?”
GRANT:My process is I look up everything.
This is going to be like a Kardashian kind of thing."
Because of that judgment, it was really important for me to actually look up the vocal fry.
Then I’m also a Black woman, so I always bring as much of myself as I can.
I thought about this vocal fry and how inappropriate it is, and how people shun it.
I thought of the clicking and was like, why can’t she do that too?
Then I thought about how we have an incredible affinity for language.
We take words and pronounce them a certain way, and that connotes a feeling.
I went to Julliard and we had these books calledSpeaking with Distinction.
It’s basically [explains] how to properly say words and sounds.
To speak with distinction, “circumstances” becomes “cir-cum-stences.”
I was like, “What if Cassidy does the same thing?”
For the audition, what they gave me was the opening monologue.
That was one of the themes.
I worked that monologue with all of that in mind.
I was like, “This is real.
I really want to crack you.
I want to win you over.”
We’re just going to get these angles.
My wedding was in no way as gauche as that.
ESCOLA:I remember that the rats would not do what we wanted them to.
Meredith’s body wasn’t actually there.
I also remember pouring all of that honey colored shampoo all over her.
Even though it was obviously acting, I felt horrible having to do that to her.
And it got in her eyes and burned her eyes, and got in her mouth.
HAGNER:It was really terrifying actually.
But in my head I’m like, “I was really actually terrified.”
But the problem was I wanted it to feel so real.
I said instead of honey, let’s just do shampoo, but my mouth was open.
All the soap went down my throat and into my ears.
Which is probably a dangerous way to [work]… We loosely thought up like a million different versions of who that person could be.
Like Cole has never been in the show.
It’s so the right tone.
It’s so the right villain, like we all want to spend time with Cole.
It’s the right move."
We would’ve never had Twinkies Catering if we hadn’t known it was going to be Cole.
I am fan of them and also friends with them, and friends with John Early and Jeffrey Self.
I just was hoping that the show would get a fourth season because then it wasn’t confirmed.
Yeah, it was fun.
People still sometimes point at me on the street and say, “The twink.”
So the show filmed two seasons back-to-back in a vacuum.
It was all very corporate and kind of over our heads.
We didn’t know what that would be like.
It feels like a show built for streaming.
It’s so binge-y in that way, and every episode ends with the cliffhanger.
But I think that we felt that it was always really suited for streaming.
We were excited when that move happened.
And it’s weird.
I live in Brooklyn and there was a noticeable change going outside after three and four.
So everyone finally watched the show.
Some people are really cool about it and then some people are not.
And then they’ll just physically touch and be, “Are you Drew?”
And it’s, “Yeah, don’t grab me by the shoulder.”
Did season 4 kill the case on Search Party?
So the big swing is that she’s also being brainwashed into being a new person.
SHAWKAT:That was one that Charles and SV were like, “You got it.”
And I was like, “Are you guys crazy?
I’m going to kill myself on this show.”
It was all Alia doing the heavy lifting for those scenes to seem horrified.
I try and track Dory as much as possible.
So Dory is in survival mode.
In a way her greatest strength is that she’s actually a tough assed bitch.
I remember when we shot that we only did a couple takes.
You’ll be able to pull that off."
And I was like, “Yeah, but that’s an important moment.
If I don’t sell that beat, none of it really works, at least my choices.”
And we all hugged after that at this freezing cold gas station in the middle of nowhere.
When the writers starting working on season 4, they all assumed it would be the final one.
But inspiration stroke at the start of the season.
So we wrote with the ending where Dory dies.
This does not feel like the end.
Nobody’s not getting along anymore.
This is too fun."
Or at least let’s greenlight an extra day of shooting for an alternate ending."
We added that onto the shooting schedule right at the beginning, and the web connection was down.
Thank God it wasn’t the last one.
So it just felt for fans and for us, it just didn’t feel right.
HAGNER:I’m like a bit of the cheerleader, like Pollyanna, of the group.
I constantly was like, “This isn’t the last season.
This is not the last season.”
And they were like, “No, Meredith, it is.”
They kept saying it was the last season.
I’m like, “I totally refuse to believe that.”
SHAWKAT:I was so tired after season 4.
I was like, “I don’t know if I could do this again.”
But you know, Charles and SV are always thinking and they had the idea already.
EARLY:I just remember they wanted four to be responsible for the end of the world.
What would the idea behind it be?
And everyone’s like, “Yeah, that could happen.”
SHAWKAT:I listened to a lot Ram Dass [to prepare].
It’s hard to know exactly what Dory saw when she died.
By the end of that call, I was wildly enthusiastic and intoxicated.
Being nothing if not conscientious, I immediately watched the first four seasons (40 episodes/20 hours).
SHAWKAT:We were so excited to have gotten Jeff Goldblum to play the role.
He always just came fully dressed in these amazing elaborate costumes, fully off book with room to play.
His acting style is very musical and he always tries to make it new for himself.
It was breathtaking and trippy.
As Dory and Tunnel’s business venture gets underway, Dory recruits several disciples and essentially creates a cult.
BURNS:I think the cult stuff was really derived from Dory as a character.
I think that it is these people with this cult of personality.
Whether or not it’s intended to be that way, it’s just fun.
And then also people who are like not great at doing their thing, like building their self-help world.
Elliott eventually tries to get it on it because he feels left out.
HAGNER:I was like, “What the hell?”
when they first told me [about] my small obsession.
But I had to have these seductive scenes with one of my close friends.
It was just so funny and weird.
It’s not actual sexual energy.
It’s just that they’re competing for Dory’s attention, and they go about it through sex.
When we were shooting, I get up first and then I’m just waiting off camera.
So I was watching the camera while they were all doing it.
“We were, again a night shoot, out of it.
Meredith was falling asleep in between takes.
And then the minute they’re all on they’re just so specific and know exactly what to do.
And Meredith flipping her hair and coming back!
HAGNER:When we did that scene, it was just so fking funny.
He was doing that over and over, and I literally couldn’t keep it together.
For everyone involved, the ambitious genre flip somehow just made sense for the show’s themes.
That’s how it felt to act it.
We didn’t have time to try and rationalize what was going on.
You just had to run.
It’s really, really hard.
I don’t know how anyone can be on a show likeThe Walking Deadfor so many years.
We did it for three episodes, and I literally had back surgery afterward.
It hurt my body so much, just like running down streets in my crazy-ass shoes.
EARLY:We were doing overnight shoots for two weeks in a row.
We were so delirious and doing such incredibly physically demanding stuff.
With all the running you don’t have time to think about your performance.
It just becomes so immediate.
I think that really shows.
I think everyone’s operating totally on instinct.
It was really, really crazy.
We’re like the little show that could.
But we were shooting under the Brooklyn Bridge.
It was so incredible and beautiful.
You feel high you’re so tired.
I was like, " What could that possibly mean?”
And I didn’t find out until I got the scripts.
But for me personally, it was really fun.
Production on the fifth season wrapped late summer 2021.
SHAWKAT:Something hit all of us.
It was really cloudy, like a storm was actually coming.
And we were all like, “Oh my God, what’s happening?
It really is the end of the world.”
And there’s a FEMA tent, which is similar to the COVID tents you see.
And it was the first time we weren’t really rushing and we all just took a moment.
HAGNER:I don’t remember who the first person to cry was.
Maybe it was me, but probably it was me.
We all held each other and John Reynolds was crying and it was such a sweet moment.
EARLY:It was very surprising, because it’s a ruthlessly unsentimental sow.
It was really sweet, so that’s a very memorable day.
SELF:That guy is my husband, August Prew, in real life.
EARLY:That scene got cut short.
They literally just had to stop us.
Charles and SV walked out with giant bouquets.
They’re like, “That is a series wrap onSearch Party.”
We were like, “What?”
Then they were like, “Go, go.”
Then John had to put on big boots to get into his trailer because it was flooding.
It was a disaster, and we didn’t shoot a whole scene because of the floods.
We were so sad, but it was also hilarious.
SELF:My trailer was on the beach in Red Hook that would have flooded immediately during a hurricane.
When we got back to the trailer there were literally all halfway under water.
Later in the fall of 2021, the cast reunited for a day of reshoots.
We were like, “This is the last scene?
This is so dinky.”
Watching them, they seem happy, but it doesn’t feel really happy.
And then Portia is like, “I made it to Broadway.”
Like, really that’s not exactly how we all thought that would look.
Drew and Dory just have such a beautifully complicated romance.
At the end of the world they’re just like, yeah let’s all just hang out.
REYNOLDS:I thought this was as happy as it was going to get for Drew.
Yet he has no tools to do that, so he tries to leave the country.
He tries to revert to his childhood behaviors.
He tries to be a tech bro.
This as normal as it’s going to get.
It worked out for him I guess in the end in some way.
HAGNER:[Portia is] completely, unself-actualized in the most poetically perfect way.
And then she finally gets what she wants, where she’s [performing] on Broadway.
So I think it’s the most perfectly poetic and correct ending.
I was very happy with it.
EARLY:The sweetness of Elliot actually comes through.
He says he’s going to move to L.A., which is so brilliant.
I’d like to think that he stays in a post-apocalyptic New York, moves back in with Portia.
But that final shot in particular speaks to the idea that this has always been Dory’s story.
And we only have so much access to what that would mean for her.
Search Partyseason 5 is available to stream on HBO Max now.
