Ilene Chaiken – Empire

By starrymag | March 23, 2016

Q) I’m so glad in these first two episodes a lot of the sexuality questions about Jamal come up and from a lot of different sides because those were initially my first questions. I wanted to back up just a little bit to when that Jamal/Skye hookup happened. I was curious why we didn’t see it because we see a lot of sex on the show, but that was something that happened off-camera and I know that was probably the choice. Can you talk about why we didn’t actually see that happen?

 

Illene: We didn’t think it was necessary to see it happen. It was the last moment of the episode, and it’s the way that we often do our last moments—kind of a big, gasp-worthy moment in which a lot of things are implicit. Sometimes we do sex implicitly.

 

Q) A lot of talk about sexual fluidity ends up in the show from Jamal, and I love Cookie’s reaction to that. Tell me how that applies to the characters on the show across the board. Is it only something that applies to Jamal or could we see some of the “straight” characters go there in the future? What do you think about that?

 

Illene:  I think that you never know where people are going to go in terms of their sexuality until they go there, and people often don’t know themselves. So absolutely we could explore sexuality with other characters, not just with Jamal, and I’m sure we will.

 

Q) We often hear from producers about how after they cast an actor in a role, how that sometimes changes the direction of the character. I just wondered when it comes to the Andre character, if you could tell me a little bit about casting Trai Byers and how having him in that part has impacted the direction of Andre’s character and sort of what the theme for him the rest of the season might be?

 

Illene: Firstly, I didn’t cast Trai. Lee Daniels and Danny Strong did. Of course, they play a large role in determining the story we’re going to tell for an individual character. It was the writers who chose to tell the story of Andre dealing with issues of faith, but Trai is a man of faith, and it’s very important to him that that story is told in an honest and insightful way. So we discuss it with him and do our best to make sure that he or any actor who feels strongly about a subject we’re tackling is comfortable with the story we’re telling and believes in it. It doesn’t mean that he determines the story, it doesn’t mean that we’re telling the story of Trai Byers, but he certainly has input in how we tell that story.

 

Q) In terms of where that character is going the back half of this season without, obviously, giving away plots but maybe thematically?

 

Illene:  Well, as you know, as everybody knows, in our mid-season finale something tragic happens to Andre’s wife. I won’t talk about the outcome, but I certainly will say that it causes him or necessitates his grappling with issues of faith. Why would such a thing happen to me? What does it mean to my faith? Will I be able to continue down that path in light of what’s happened?

 

Q)  I wanted to explore a little bit of the who pushed Rhonda question. We’ve gotten some intel from a couple of the cast members that said that we are leading to a very dramatic cliffhanger at the end of this season. How big a role is that story arc going to play in the second half of the season—who pushed her, why, and leading to finding out? Will we find out before the characters do or is that something that you’re saving for the end as well for us?

 

Illene: I’m not going to tell you when we’ll find out. I will say that the story arc plays a large role at times, and it ebbs and flows in terms of how prominent it is in the relationships among the characters, but ultimately, in the end, it plays a large, significant, and I would hope very surprising role.

 

Q) Do you feel as you’re leading toward a season finale, is there an urgency to either kill someone off or have some kind of explosive—I mean, you guys are sort of known for, even at the ends of regular episodes, finishing off with, like, an explosive sort of cliffhanger, but do you feel the need to ratchet that up as you head towards an actual season finale?

 

Illene:  There’s certainly not an urge or an urgency, rather, as you put it, to kill someone off. We never said, “Oh, we have to kill somebody.” Should that happen, it will happen organically. I’m not saying that it does happen, but we didn’t set out to do it. In terms of the need to top ourselves, I think we’ve—it’s not how we’re approaching it. We’ve gone big, we sometimes try to just follow the stories and let the stories lead, and I think we’re trying to mix it up so that we don’t constantly have to top ourselves and become more and more outlandish. Rather, we’d like to be true to story, true to character.

 

Q) Lee Daniels has talked a little bit about guest stars and pro and con. Can you talk about the status of are you going to have a lot of guest stars in the back half of the season or are you cutting back on that?

 

Illene: Far fewer guest stars in the back half of the season than there were in the beginning of the season. The eight episodes that begin on March 30^th are much more about the family, and the guest stars that are in those episodes are there to serve as the stories and are driven by the stories. There’s not an instance in which we said, oh, so-and-so wants to be on the show. We have to write something for her. Every single person that appears on the show is on the show because we’re telling a story.

 

Q) Well, there as a little bit of criticism about the pacing in the first half of the season. Have you changed that for the second half?

 

Illene: Well, we haven’t intentionally changed the pacing, but I think that maybe the pacing changed by dint of the stories. We really are very focused on the family, on telling the family stories and telling them thoroughly and on following through on every thread that we’ve set up.

 

Q) Empire tackled the Black Lives Matter movement earlier this season. With it now being officially an election year, will we be seeing any political discussion in the back half of the season and maybe even in the beginning of season three?

 

Illene:  Well, we haven’t begun breaking season three yet. I would say that it’s safe to anticipate that you’ll always hear political discussions on Empire because it’s in the fabric of this world and in the lives and minds of the characters we’re talking about. I don’t know that we’re telling a story explicitly that’s about a political subject, but I think the show by definition lives in that world of culture and politics.

 

Q) Also, when Lucious told Jamal that Skye “fixed” him, that was extremely heartbreaking for me and I’m sure a bunch of others as viewers. Will Lucious continue to try and take the gay away from him, especially now that they’re facing or nominated for song of the year?

 

Illene: Given where Lucious began in the pilot, the depth of his homophobia, Lucious has evolved. He’s become more open. I hate the word “tolerant,” but in Lucious’ case it might be an apt word. He’s tolerant, but he certainly hasn’t vanquished homophobia in his own world view. It will come out in different ways. He’ll take steps forward and he’ll backslide from time to time because that’s who he is and that’s how life goes.

 

Q) I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the character of Anika, the decision to take her in the route that you did?

 

Illene:  The casting or the decision to take her in the direction that we did?

 

Q)  The decision to take her in the direction you did with the storyline now with her being pregnant, etc.

 

Illene: Well, the decision, it was a story that we all believed in. We were talking about how Anika would continue to stay in this story and our fundamental belief about Anika is that the thing that she wants most of all is to be a Lyon. That’s been the thing that she’s wanted from the moment we met her. When she lost Lucious she clung to that hope and pursued it in other ways, in ways that ultimately were not healthy for her. She may have become slightly unhinged for a little while, but we see her as a grounded character who struggles to regain her footing in this crazy and abusive family, sometimes abusive family that she so much wants to be a part of.

 

Q) The first two episodes of this back half, it seems like the stories flow a little bit—I don’t want to say fast, but it seems like they come to conclusions more. Is that going to be more of a theme for the rest of the episodes?

 

Illene: No, I think that some—we like to think that each episode is self-contained in a way, some of them more so than others, but we always are telling stories in an ongoing way, and most stories in life don’t conclude. So while there are conclusions and finite moments, everything—life goes on in our stories, and things that were begun as far back as the pilot will come home to roost in episode 21, for example.

 

Q) I was wondering for you, who’s your favorite character for these next few episodes? Who’s arc are you most excited for people to see either because it’s super-crazy or super-uplifting or for whatever reason?

 

Illene: I could never say that I have a favorite character because it changes from episode to episode or from storyline to storyline. The story that I’m most excited about in the latter half of this season or the character whom I’ve most enjoyed is Lucious. He goes through such extraordinary things in such a deep and intense way, and Terrance Howard’s performance in those episodes is just remarkable. I’m really, really excited for people to watch and see where we go with this character and where Terrance takes him.

 

Q) In which way do you think the show is important in this issue about the racial inclusion?

 

Illene: I mean, the show is a TV show. It’s entertainment, but we are commenting on what’s happening in the world, and I feel like we’re a part of the conversation. I think that it’s important in that millions of people watch the show, feel represented, feel that perhaps their voices that aren’t heard elsewhere are being represented on this show, and that’s exciting for us and I suppose in some way important.

 

Q) The show has a great audience and ratings, so why do you think people seem interested in this show, a part of the story? I mean, does a multi-cultural cast help to generate audiences?

 

Illene: I believe it does. I believe that the multi-racial cast is a part of why there’s such a large audience. I think that it’s because the show is telling stories that haven’t been told before, and audiences, diverse audiences, come because it’s something fresh and new, because we’re really talking about something that’s meaningful and shining a light on lives and experiences that haven’t been represented in this genre on television before.

 

Q) How hard is it to keep the public’s interest in the show now that [indiscernible] like Netflix are releasing their content in one day?

 

Illene:   We can’t even think about that. All we do is tell our stories and hope that they’re great and entertaining and that the audience continues to love them. We let the programmers figure out how to make sure the audience knows we’re there. We believe that they’ll continue to come and love the show as long as we tell stories that mean something to them.

 

Q) These two episodes that we saw, I felt like they really were a great example of the dichotomy that’s always been a part of Empire. You have, for example, the way characters use sex and the way it’s portrayed, and then you have a very nuanced portrayal of sexuality, or you have characters who are sometimes displaying some outrageous and antisocial behavior, which is fun, but then you’ve got a very nuanced portrayal of someone living with mental illness. I was wondering how you find that line, how hard it is to find that line between the fun soap opera part of it and the serious character part and what you do to make sure you’re toeing that properly?

 

Illene:  It’s the greatest challenge of the show and ultimately, I think, I hope the thing that makes it work, that we can take these big swings and at the same time tell stories and portray characters with nuance and insight. We do work really hard to find a way to make both of those things live within the same world of the show and feel like they’re a part of the same world.  One of the greatest opportunities in doing this show is portraying those character nuances, those complexities of character, not simply telling the story of a gay character and saying that’s all there is to him—he’s the gay character—but talking about sexuality as a complex thing that’s unique to every individual.

 

Q) If there’s someone who’s outrageous and antisocial lately, it has to be Lucious. There was a little bit of foreshadowing that perhaps we might get to hear some more of his life story, and I thought okay, here we are swinging back, right? Are we actually going to get to learn more about Lucious’ back story?

 

Illene:   Lucious’ back story, Lucious’ life story is a very big part of the second half of season two. A lot will be revealed. It will have repercussions and huge consequences for everyone in the family. Lucious is the start of Empire—his story, where he comes from, and why he is who he is, is what the show is all about in so many ways just in the way that children are in part a result of their parents’ experiences.

 

Q) So there’s been a lot going on lately talking about the killing of lesbian characters on television, which is something you dealt with before in The L Word. I’m just wondering, what does that look like inside the writer’s room when you’re discussion? Because Empire is a show that is not afraid to murder off a character. What does that look like if you’re considering the trajectory for not just lesbian but LGBT characters?

 

Illene:  We hold ourselves to a rigorous mission of being true to all our characters and treating LGBT characters no differently than characters who fall anywhere else on the spectrum of sexual orientation. I would certainly not say to you that we’d never kill a gay character, but we certainly aren’t going to kill a gay character in the way that gay characters have been killed on television shows historically. I’m pretty sure that—well, I won’t say who’s going to die and who’s not going to die. I think you might know if you’ve watched our first two episodes about some of the things that happen, but I’d rather not reveal them yet before the episodes air.

 

Q) In the bio for this press conference it said that you’re continuing work on The L Word series and franchise, so I’m wondering if there’s something that is coming up that we don’t know about?

 

Illene: id it actually say that in the bio for this press conference?

 

Q)  Yes, it said something about how you’re continuing that, so I’m like, what is happening?

 

Illene: God. Well, maybe they know something I don’t. I want to, and I have conversations about it all the time. There’s nothing official happening, but I’m hoping that sometime soon I’m going to be able to figure out a way to do this thing that I’ve been promising and hinting at for quite a long time.

 

Q)  Last season’s finale and the ratings were big, and then the season two premier ratings were off the chart. From a show runner’s point of view, are these numbers intimidating to match and how do you not let it affect your overall process?

 

Illene: We really can’t think about those numbers when work. We try to focus exclusively on the stories we’re telling and the episodes that we’re shooting, and we try to do them as well as we possibly can. We certainly don’t make decisions based on the ratings. We look at the work we’ve done. If we think that we’ve gone off course, we course correct, and we’ve done that once or twice this season, but the ratings are a thing that belong to someone else. Other people worry about those. I worry about telling these stories.

 

Q) You talked about that there was possibly going to be less guest stars and really focusing on the core characters of the show. Will we be seeing some supporting characters? They’re just great. Like, Porsha and Becky and Cookie’s sisters, will we be seeing more of them in the stories?

 

Illene:  All of those characters you just mentioned are in the latter half of the season. They’re part of our world. They’re the characters of Empire, so yes, you will be seeing them. We also are running the Porsha/Becky B sides promos because in the amount of time that we have to tell these stories we wish we could tell more Porsha/Becky stories, and it was a great, fun thing to be able to spend a little bit of time just with those two girls, seeing how they are separated apart from the stories that occupy most of our television.

 

Q) I was wondering about what is now going to happen with Lyon Dynasty now that Hakeem is taking over Empire?

 

Illene:  Well, I don’t want to give too much away before the two episodes have aired, but you’ve seen the episodes in which Cookie sells Lyon Dynasty back to empire and folds it in. Lyon Dynasty will continue to exist as a sub-label under Empire. I think Andre gives the business rationale for that which is modeled after a number of things that have happened in the real world of the music business.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*