I was totally okay with not having cable, then The Warrens entered my life via The Family hit ABC. I can watch The Walking Dead on SlingTV, Sons of Anarchy has wrapped and I’ve gotten used to catching Grey’s Anatomy the next day on Hulu, but The Family? Next day on Hulu doesn’t cut it for me. This twisty, turny, edge of your seat drama is SO good I had to buy a digital antenna so I can watch it on ABC every Sunday night at 9 PM ET!
(Thank you to Disney/ABC/Marvel for this all expenses paid experience!)
(Many of these amazing photos are credited to Lovebugs and Postcards)
Ten years after the disappearance of her son, Adam, Claire Warren (Joan Allen) still can’t sleep at night. She not only has survived the heart-breaking loss of her son, but has used her resiliency and surrounding adversity in the aftermath of this tragedy to fuel her own political aspirations. Now the Mayor of Red Pines, ME, she is considering running for governor when suddenly Adam (Liam James) reappears, forcing the entire case to be brought into question and freeing the Warren’s neighbor, Hank Asher (Andrew McCarthy), who was convicted of his murder. Deceptions and indiscretions have taken the place of what used to be a happy, loving family. The unfolding mystery impacts the entire family: Willa (Alison Pill), Claire’s daughter and savvy political advisor; Danny (Zach Gilford), the Warren’s cynical eldest son; and husband John (Rupert Graves), whose relationship with Claire is about to come apart at the seams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UmzR9Xyh_0
Riveting and Twisty: The Family on ABC is Must Watch TV
{+ Cast Q&A}
Okay, that’s out of the way so the rest of this will make a lot more sense if you haven’t seen the show. 😀 Last Sunday I had the unique pleasure of sitting down for a family-style dinner with Zach Gilford (Danny), Alison Pill (Willa), Floriana Lima (Bridey) and Executive Producers Jenna Bans and Laurie Zaks. Our plates loaded with turkey, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and veggies, we gathered around a conference table to watch last week’s episode of The Family together, while asking them questions during the commercial breaks, AND live tweeting with all of you! One thing we had to find out was where the idea for The Family came from.
“I’ll tell a brief version of the story. I lived in a house, and across the street was a sex offender, and I freaked out and got really scared. So part of it sort of came from there. The other part was, ABC had been wanting to do this idea and imposter was sort of in the ether. They were like, what about that, and make it into a mystery thriller. So I sort of married the two ideas.: – Jenna Bans
I was pleasantly shocked to see how young and innocent Alison Pill looked when she entered the room. Her character,Willa on The Family, is young but nowhere close to innocent as we’ve come to learn over the last few episodes.
Photo Credit: Lovebugs and Postcards
Alison is an AHmazing actress who makes me feel all the feels during each episode….the scene with her under the desk gave me goosebumps! I had to find out how she gets into character and pulls of the incredible scenes that she does.
“First of all, we have really good writers, and it really makes sense to me. And then I think, the sort of touchstone for me is the moment, when me and Madeline Arthur switch places on the bed in the motel. She’s fully frozen at thirteen. Like she is somebody who will do anything to keep her family together. Everything else that is built up – all of this armor is only to get to her ultimate goal, which is having her entire family under one roof again. That’s it. And every, literally everything else, is driven by that, so when anything threatens that, that is the worst thing that can happen in the world. So all of the emotion just comes from that thought of being thirteen and trying to keep your family together, and I was a very emotional thirteen year old, as most are. [laughs].” – Alison Pill
“I’ve gotta say that I had that same question because Alison’s good. Like, ninety percent of my stuff is with these two (Alison and Floriana), and our stuff is fun and we work together, so I know she’s dope, and she’s cool to work with. You and I have never worked together, and it’s like in episode five, I think it was, where we were fighting into the dusk, it’s over her shoulder; you can’t even see her; it’s my coverage and she’s giving me, like, a Denzel Washington one tear.” – Zach Gilford
“She does that when she’s not even on the screen!” – Floriana Lima
“I’m like, Allison, you’re not even on the camera. Like, stop. I’m not gonna do that for you. I don’t even know how you do that for me? Stop, stop.” – Zach Gilford
“She’s a very giving actor.” – Floriana Lima
“Yeah, she’s good. She’s good. So I don’t know how she does it either.” – Zach Gilford
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino)
ALISON PILL
Zach Gilford plays Danny on The Family, Willa’s bad boy brother. He was the comedian of the bunch during dinner, which actually didn’t surprise me as he has some funny one liners on the show when we do see him. Your favorite quarterback from Friday Night Lights was actually the first one cast for The Family 😉
I think Zach was the first person cast. I think you were the first person cast. – Jenna Bans
So they built the show around me. – Zach Gilford
No, you were awesome. I remember you came in on the day…. – Jenna Bans
They made me shave in the bathroom. Do you remember this? – Zach Gilford
I do. We had to put it on tape; he was going on tape and we made him shave because he had the president of the company was watching him. – Laurie Zaks
And then we ended up making you kinda scruffy, anyway. So what was the point?- Jenna Bans
I know, but I was bleeding in the bathroom. You made your assistant go out to a store somewhere and buy me a razor- Zach Gilford
It was a Disney store. It was right in the building. – Laurie Zaks
Photo Credit: Lovebugs and Postcards
Scenes with Bridey (Floriana Lima) are some of the only times we see Danny, who is one of my favorite characters on The Family, but he’s gotten little screen time so far. Danny’s screen time is going to change though, as there is a Danny-centered episode coming up that will show us his past.
The Danny-centric episode is very good. – Laurie Zaks
I think so. Ten, is it ten? Yeah, because it’s Danny-centric with young Danny… – Jenna Bans
One of my favorite things about the last four episodes is Danny’s and Willa’s character, and knowing that he’s gonna find about Ben. Knowing just how much of a wrench that’s gonna drive between them in terms of their relationship. You just love them together. We joked in the writer’s room, we’re like, this the romance of the show. – Alison Pill
It’s a great thing, too, because there’s so much going on in this show that you don’t have toforce me down anyone’s throat, and I think it sets it up. I’m really excited for a season two because I think it sets it up for… – Zach Gilford
Again, the finale sets him up in a big way. – Jenna Bans
Photo Credit: Lovebugs and Postcards
If you’ve been watching The Family, you may have noticed that John and Danny rarely have scenes together. I had been so focused on Willa, Danny, and Jane that I didn’t realize they hadn’t even talked until Zach Gilford pointed it out.
I think my favorite part of the show is, I’m pretty sure I never exchanged dialog with Rupert Graves (John) who plays my dad. It got to the point where, if we even make contact, we’d start laughing. Eye contact, we’d start laughing. It got weird. – Zach Gilford
Speaking of John, is it just me or is his marriage to Claire beyond saving? I’m going to be honest and say that I would be pleased as pie if they got divorced. Ever since Adam’s disappearance and John’s shenanigans with the detective, I’m surprised he’s not sleeping in the basement like Pat on The Real O’Neals. 😉 Only time will tell….or did Alison let us in on a spoiler….
The constantly shifting relationships is amazing, too, even looking at Claire and John. What a heart-breaker that’s gonna be – or not. [laughs]. No, I don’t know – it’s not. It’s not. It’s just, like the back and forth of these alliances of us getting close, and me and Claire drift, you never know where you will stand week to week. – Alison Pill
Which is the way I feel about my own family. Maybe that’s too telling… – Jenna Bans
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino) ALISON PILL, JOAN ALLEN, RUPERT GRAVES
We can’t talk about Claire without praising the fabulously talented Joan Allen. When I first started watching The Family on ABC, I really thought Claire was behind Adam’s disappearance, then I though that Adam was the her and Hank’s love child, and now I feel so terrible for the position she is in. But, I’m sure before the finale my feelings will change yet again, but it can be hard to dislike someone who bakes amazing cookies and sets up potato bars.
You guys, Joan Allen is so good at acting. – Alison Pill
She is. She’s really nice, too. – Floriana Lima
She made cookies from her grandmother’s recipe; she made a hundred and fifty cookies on her day off and brought them in before our holiday break. They were cakey, amazing cookies with delicious icing. – Alison Pill
They were so good. – Jenna Bans
They were really good. She made them by hand. She also did the potato bar. Do you rememer that? – Alison Pill
Yeah. She made a whole baked potato bar for all of us. – Jenna Bans
She bought potatoes for… – Alison Pill
Like, shucked them. – Floriana Lima
She didn’t do that. – Alison Pill
She’s very nice is the point. – Jenna Bans
She shucked potatoes? Nobody shucks potatoes. – Zach Gilford
Nobody shucks potatoes like Joan Allen. – Floriana Lima
I didn’t even know you could….Joan Allen could. – Zach Gilford
Oh, you don’t shuck your potatoes? – Floriana Lima
It’s peel. It’s peel. Anyway, she’s great. She’s just nice. – Alison Pill
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino)
JOAN ALLEN, LIAM JAMES
I was a teenage girl that loved Mannequin, and love that Andrew McCarthy is back on TV in this nail biting show. Even if he does play a sex offender that has a huge percentage of fans feeling bad for him. I feel bad for him and still don’t know his whole story. I do know that I disagree with the restraining order, don’t blame him for eating an entire cake to himself, and hope that someday he can eat in the mall food court without scaring everyone away. Oh, and I hope he directs more episodes of The Family too because that ones he has directed are fantastic!!
Can I just say Andrew McCarthy directing sexy scenes is incredible. Me as a teenager, I was like, wait, and then we should kiss? Do you wanna test it out? 😉 He’s so intense, and wonderful, and brilliant, and it’s so weird because I never saw any of his stuff as Hank Asher. He’s amazing. I had known him as our favorite director and to see him in between setups and crossing paths… – Alison Pill
It’s weird that he’s a director and also playing Hank, which is this intense character, and he’s just so present as a director, so you’re like, whoa, you’re doing that, too, at the same time? – Floriana Lima
I know, I sort of triply appreciate everything in seeing it now. Whoa, that’s what you were up to? That’s crazy. – Alison Pill
He’s really good. – Floriana Lima
Yeah, he is really good. – Jenna Bans
Big MVP this year for us. – Alison Pill
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino) ZACH GILFORD, ANDREW MCCARTHY (DIRECTOR)
Andrew McCarthy’s character, Hank on The Family, is still a main part of the story, even after knowing he didn’t kidnap Adam. When I’m watching, I almost forget that Hank is Andrew because he does such a good job at being this quiet observant fly-on-the-wall character.
He walks different as Hank. He’s so stiff. He’s obsessed with his walk. I could watch him walk all day. It’s sort of a muppet, like this Scottish Muppet. No, it’s not that…but it’s my favorite. – Alison Pill
(ABC/Giovanni Rufino)
ANDREW MCCARTHY
One of the things I enjoy about The Family are the flashbacks. I like getting flashback scenes to help tell me how things happened, especially with a story-line like this. I think it makes more of an impact and evokes more emotion than it would if it was told in chronological order. Are you curious as to how they film a show when there are present day scenes and flashbacks? We were!
We sort of do it at the same time. We figure out the present stories we wanna tell, and then we look at what flashbacks could possibly inform those stories because ideally, they’re always connected together. Thematically sort of tied together, where the past story is directly telling you something about the pre- present story. So we tried to play sort of loosey goosey with it this year and not always, as you’ll see in the back four, there’s an episode – I think nine; the next one only has three flashbacks, but they’re three super important flashbacks that directly give this present day story a big sort of boost. So we tried not to be tied to ‘we must have six flashbacks an episode’, and really only use what we needed to use because we didn’t want it to feel tired, and wanted it to feel important when you were watching the past. There’s a reason we’re telling you the story. – Jenna Bans
The Family on ABC is a show about two things that sadly affect someone somewhere almost everyday. A lot of research was done for these story-lines and that’s probably what makes this show so riveting. It’s as close to the truth as it can get when it comes to these experiences. Executive Producer Jenna Bans talked a bit about the research done for The Family.
Yeah. It’s not my favorite part of it. We had a psychiatrist, consultant who dealt with police psychiatry or how police would handle forensic. How they would handle a kidnapped child and also how they would handle a kid like this going to therapy, and what the treatment would be, and the not shocking answer was, there’s not really a treatment. I mean, there is. There’s a lot of different things you try. Reading all of that stuff makes you not happy. It’s hard, but we had a lot of good consultants and one of my favorite writers, who you guys never met because she had to leave early, she created Prime Suspect, the NBC Prime Suspect that was on a few years ago, and she’s been on NYPD Blues; she’s basically is a cop at this point, she’s worked on so many cop shows. So our go-to was Alex….would they do this? If she gave it the okay, we knew we were in the ballpark. We always have people helping, or at least people you can call and go, can you read the script? Is it generally right? – Jenna Bans
Reliving my experience with the cast of The Family last weekend has me excited for tonight’s episode all over again. A little secret…..I got to screen tonight’s episode last week and holy guacamole you don’t want to miss it! You can catch tonight’s episode of The Family, “Sweet Jane”, on ABC at 9 PM ET! If you can’t watch live, DVR it and watch it within 3 days to help boost ratings, which will help the show get picked up for Season 2!
Claire wrestles with the emotional ramifications of Willa’s scheming. Meanwhile, Nina observes that Adam disappears every night from his home and sets out to track down his mysterious destination, while Clements investigates Jane’s connection to Doug, the pock-marked man. When the Governor’s wife threatens to reveal Claire’s drinking, Willa handles the situation by exposing another Warren family secret, potentially changing the outcome of the election. Finally, Hank makes a shocking discovery that reveals his true involvement in Adam’s kidnapping.
Catch The Family on ABC at 9 PM ET every Sunday!
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Photo Credit: Lovebugs and Postcards
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