Mike Schur Isn’t Panicking (Yet)

Mike Schur’s résumé reads like a hit list of 21st century comedy: Saturday Night Live, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place and, his latest, Netflix’s A Man on the Inside.

For more than two decades, Schur has maintained his status as a leading sitcom writer — even as he juggles other roles, including 2023 WGA negotiating committee member and, more recently, author, publishing the philosophy survey How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. But now, for the first time in as long as Schur can remember, he finds himself in uncharted territory, and he doesn’t seem to have answers or a punchline.

“Writers and executives feel exactly the same: We’re all uncertain about the future,” he says. “And if you went all the way up the ladder, to the people who run these companies, if they were being honest, I think they’d say, ‘We don’t have a firm handle on a 10-year plan for the company — or for Hollywood.’ ”

Fortunately for Schur, he has a comedy writer wife, J.J. Philbin, with whom he can commiserate. The pair are also working together for the first time on a forthcoming Peacock comedy starring Amy Poehler. “We are actively teasing out problems together, which is a fun twist in our marriage,” Schur says. “It’s been 20 years, so we ought to be able to survive this.”

Speaking in his Universal lot bungalow in late October, the morning after his 50th birthday, the NBCUniversal-based producer mused on buyers’ murder obsession, Hollywood’s aging issue and why recent mega deals aren’t a new trend.

Since The Good Place and your book, you’ve earned a reputation as an amateur philosopher. How has that changed your interactions in the industry?

Not in the industry, but there have been a number of times when friends texted me, “Can you walk through this weird little ethical dilemma?” I love it so much. I am always extremely cautious in those situations. One of the things my editor made me do was remove 20 different instances of me saying, “I don’t really know what I’m talking about” in the book.

What do your wife and family think about this preoccupation?

They enjoy making fun of me. My wife is very smart, and at my 50th birthday party, she made a lovely speech, and one of the things she said she likes about being married to me is that I care about this stuff. That is wonderful to hear because I love her and don’t want her to leave me. And I believe that she’s telling the truth, even if they’re bored silly by my dithering sometimes.

How are you handling turning handle 50?

There were certainly moments after I turned 49 where I was like, “Oh Jesus, here we go.” But I’m excited about what I’m working on, and my kids are an interesting age. I don’t know. It all seems fine.

At the dinner table, are you and J.J. more likely to discuss ethics or comedy writing?

Comedy writing. Thegreat thing about being married to another writer is that it’s a weird job. We’ve essentially had parallel careers. Now we’re working together for the first time on this show, Dig, so we’re actively teasing out problems together. It’s a fun twist in our marriage. And it’s been 20 years, so we ought to be able to survive this.

Tell me about your initial conversation with Ted Danson about A Man on the Inside. He’s worked consistently for years, but he’s never been cast as “old.” You put him in assisted living that first season.

That’s what really appealed to him. He wants to see what it is like to be funny at every age. He was the funniest, most important actor on TV in 1982 when Cheers started, and he’s been funny and great ever since. One of the many problems with Hollywood is how it treats older actors. It’s shameful. Even when you’re 75, you’re supposed to be 67. Everyone’s been pretending forever that they’re younger than they are. There’s a nice, easy zone you can get into when you don’t have to pretend. You can’t pretend.

Oh, there are many here who’d argue you can pretend …

I don’t judge! Aging in general is a thing that people aren’t very good about dealing with or talking about. I have an Irish aunt who was blown away when she learned people in America lie about [being younger]. She’s like, “You’re doing it all wrong. Lie up. If you’re 58, say you’re 64. People will go, “God, you look amazing.’ ”

It is very hard to get anything on TV right now, especially comedy. What are buyers looking for?

TV is very good about reflecting the mood of the country, and the mood is very sour and unpleasant. That’s why, if you go to any streaming service, it’s, “Murder in Pennsylvania!” “The tragedy in Missouri!” Find another state and another serial killer and another limited series about another miserable, dark soul because the last 23 of them worked well. Everything is murder, even comedies. Look at Only Murders in the Building. But I do think The Pitt was so big because, besides being excellently made, it portrayed hyper competence. It’s a fantasy.

How so?

A lot of TV right now succeeds when it shows people as the last line of defense or doing difficult jobs under great duress because everyone is under duress. Tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs to robots. When the world gets super unpleasant, there is an antidote that TV can provide, which is good people doing good work in the face of all of that. I don’t know that that’s a conscious thing. I don’t know if TV executives are like, “We need optimistic shows!”

What else feels like an obstacle?

There are algorithms that send you videos that they know you’ll like. And they’re right. From a TV point of view, it [changes a method that has existed] for decades, which is a group of people had an idea, another group of people believed in that idea, and then they made the show and presented it to the world and said, “We think you‘ll like this.” Now, the magnetic pole has reversed. We know there are a certain number of people who liked this, so someone needs to make another show that’s like this. I get trying to minimize risk, but when you reverse the polarity like that, when you let the audience’s previous tastes dictate decisions, you’re basically ceding control over the creativeprocess.

And you’ve seen that in pitches?

We just did the series finale read-through for Hacks yesterday. It’s a show I don’t work on a ton, but I’m very proud to be associated with it. We pitched it all over town, only Suzanna Makkos at HBO Max identified it as a good idea. There were others who liked it, but they were like, “We can’t roll the dice on this now.” Without that kind of decision-making, everything will be squished toward the middle.

Your deal is at NBCUniversal, so we’re on a lot that’s not currently listed on Zillow …

Well, not on Zillow, but it might be pocket listed.

… but with consolidation everywhere, how does it change your approach to the work?

Industry consolidation is bad. Full stop. We cannot get to a situation where there are three companies that buy TV shows and movies. That’s a death knell.

One read on Taylor Sheridan moving his TV business from Paramount to NBCUniversal in 2029 is that it bodes well for Peacock’s future. Do you agree?

I don’t know anything about the deal, but the beneficiary is Peacock. It means Peacock has this North Star now, starting in 2029. That’s good for me and everyone who works at this company. They’re investing in that service. One weird thing about the past five, 10 years has been these companies pop up and you don’t know whether they are legitimately long-term content providers or a merger play. We’ve all been on our heels, trying to read tea leaves, so when something like that happens, it’s great.

There have been a few huge overall deals of late — Taylor, the Duffer brothers. Are we heading toward another bubble?

I remember when Tina Fey was writing 30 Rock, NBC announced another series [Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip] set at a late night show from Aaron Sorkin. Tina, appropriately, was like, “Hey, I’m writing a show that’s behind-the-scenes SNL.” Kevin Reilly at the time says, “It’s Sorkin. The West Wing just ended. I’d be fired if I didn’t buy his next show.” [30 Rock] worked, the other didn’t. But if you’re a company that makes TV and the guys who made Stranger Things are poking around, are you not going to offer them a ton of money? They made something that lasted a decade and was watched by billions. Taylor, too. That doesn’t feel like a bubble to me.

You were on the WGA negotiating committee during the 2023 strike. What did you learn?

The image that you might have of how these things are handled by both unions and the companies is not accurate. People aren’t sitting across the table and pounding their fists on the table and saying, “How dare you?” It’s a lot of sober, technical jargon being handed back and forth. There is a little bit of strategy and gamesmanship, but ultimately, for most of it, you’re not talking to the people who run the company. When they came in, things moved quickly. We’re all on Team Hollywood. We have ideas. They pay for them, market them and put them on their services. If that relationship doesn’t flow properly for any reason, the whole thing breaks down.

How much easier might it have been if everyone just wore “Team Hollywood” jerseys?

It’s hard to remember sometimes the relationship between unions and management is inherently adversarial. It has to be. It’s the only way to make it work, right? But we’re all Team Hollywood. I feel this way about sports, too. I watch as labor problems emerge, and I’m like, “Are the NBA owners and management not going to give the WNBA players a lot more money?” It’s insane. The reason that Brittney Griner was detained in Russia and held in a prison for months is because, when the season ends, WNBA players have to travel overseas to supplement their income and play in other leagues.

Speaking of sports, your Field of Dreams series was un-ordered a few years back. Are you still holding out hope for that one?

Yeah, I am. I don’t know why or how, but I believe in that project. The movie has themes in it that would be very resonant. Somewhere, sometime, it’s going to have a moment where it might happen. I’m hardly the first person who’s ever worked on a project that then didn’t go to fruition. But I believe it would’ve been good, and I hope that I’ll have a chance to prove it

When your mentor Greg Daniels conceived this idea of The Paper as a pseudo spinoff to The Office, did you give any thought to how you’d revisit Parks and Recreation?

No, I did not. (Laughs.) That show had a very specific argument to make about government at a very specific moment in time, the Obama era. We left nothingunsaid.

This story appeared in the Nov. 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.