Few TV shows of 2020 have been as thrilling, funny, and heartbreaking as The Great. The Hulu series is a tonal tight-rope walk as it chronicles (and fictionalizes) the early days of Catherine the Great’s marriage to Peter III of Russia, with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult playing off of one another like they’re having a fierce tennis match. It’s jubilant and harrowing and romantic and hilarious at equal turns, and the fact that it works so well is a testament to the performances and, of course, the writing.

Before showrunner Tony McNamara earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the 2018 film The Favourite, he wrote a play based on the life of Catherine the Great. He previously attempted to adapt the play into a feature film, before eventually deciding on a TV series format. Enter Hulu, Fanning, and Hoult, and you have one of the best TV shows of 2020.

The Great is Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for McNamara’s work on the pilot (and Matt Shakman for Best Director on the same episode), and while I’m still mad as heck that Hoult and Fanning weren’t recognized for their brilliant performances (and that the show itself wasn’t nominated for Best Comedy), I was more than happy to speak with McNamara by phone recently about his work on the series.

During our interview, he talked about the key casting of Fanning and Hoult, the purposeful pace of the show, and why he didn’t want to write all the episodes before they started filming. McNamara also shed some light on some specific plot points from the show’s first season, including why Marial betrayed Catherine and whether Leo’s death was always part of the plan. And with the show renewed for a second season by Hulu, he offered a tease of where The Great Season 2 might be going.

Check out the full interview below.

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INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY
Pamela Adlon, “Better Things” – FX
Christina Applegate, “Dead to Me” – Netflix
Elle Fanning, “The Great” – Hulu
Catherine O’Hara, “Schitt’s Creek” – Pop TV
Issa Rae, “Insecure” – HBO
Ramy Youssef, “Ramy” – Hulu

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM
“The Great” – Hulu
“The Mandalorian” – Disney+
“The Morning Show” – AppleTV+
“Never Have I Ever” – Netflix
“Watchmen” – HBO
“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” – NBC

The Great star and executive producer Elle Fanning, star Nicholas Hoult, and creator Tony McNamara joined Alan Sepinwall for a special Film at Lincoln Center Members Q&A.

When it came to playing the hijinks of Russian empress visionary Catherine the Great and her buffoon husband Peter III in Hulu and MRC’s period series The Great, Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult “threw out the history books.”

More specifically, rather than have their performances become bogged down by all the historical facts, they left that to creator Tony McNamara, who is quickly establishing a flair for melding historical drama with absurdist comedy. Not having to hit the books, allowed Hoult, who worked on McNamara’s Oscar nominated The Favourite (he was nominated for original screenplay) to “mess around”; of sheer delight being Peter III’s physical antics of brawling and sharp Month Python-esque one-liners.

That great chemistry between Fanning’s deadpan and Hoult’s foolish king is chemistry the actress says came about during the six month shoot of The Great, even though it’s the second time the duo have worked together after the 2014 sci-fi western Young Ones.

Says Fanning, on which The Great reps her first time as a TV series EP, “Tony has done so much research on the period and in Catherine and Peter, and used the facts that work specifically for our tone. The real work was humanizing the character, making her a character that that could come to modern audiences and show how she became this feminist icon.”

Watch the clip from Tuesday night virtual screening of Hulu’s The Great.