Dan Levy and co-stars On ‘Big Mistakes’ – “A Family Who Communicates Though Yelling”

Nona is on her death bed and all she wants is a kitschy necklace as a parting gift. Morgan (Taylor Ortega) steals the perfect gift after it was repeatedly declared not for sale from a trinket store. Display only means exactly that. That is when her adventure into the dangerous world of organized crime begins with her brother in crime – Nicky (Dan Levy). Families can be so… complicated.

Of course, we’re talking about Big Mistakes, the high-stakes comedy, crime thriller created by Dan Levy (Schitt’s Creek, Good Grief) and Rachel Sennott (Bottoms). It also stars Laurie Metcalf, Jack Innanen, Boran Kuzum, and Abby Quinn. The creatives that push family comedy drama to new extremities discuss their characters in the show.

Family Life After Schitt’s Creek

Dan Levy (Nicky Dardano): When Schitt’s Creek ended, I had a long period of time to think about the next thing that I wanted to tackle. Making television is athletic and it requires a lot. I needed to sit and think about what would make me laugh and what was a story that felt like I wanted to tell for many seasons. Naturally, I settled on crime because I thought I would not do well in a criminal situation; which means that would be funny for a character.

I also have an irrational fear of being blackmailed into the mob. It could happen to anyone – and it does. That sounds terrifying, and also hysterically funny. I was developing the idea that I brought to Rachel Sennott, who I thought would have an equally as bizarre take on it. Then we found this incredible cast. Performing crime and comedy within the same moment is such a skill.

I have three family stories in me. We call Big Mistakes like another family saga. I love writing family dynamics. I think there’s nothing funnier. I think how we are with our family members is so weird. And oftentimes, they are a version of ourselves that we don’t want anyone else to see.

Writing that personal behind the scenes stuff is so fun for me. And then, we throw in high stakes drama and crime into the mix of a family that can barely handle everyday life is the dream. It’s a very different family story than Schitt’s Creek, but one that I think of as – different book, same shelf.

Dan Levy. Photo by Rich Polk. Shutterstock for Netflix

How We See Our Characters in Big Mistakes

Taylor Ortega (Morgan Dardano): Morgan and I are very similar. The place that we see Morgan in this first season is because she’s been going through a hard time. She’s been at her lowest and she has a bit of a sour outlook.

Jack Innanen (Max): Max is a little oblivious, but very endearing. You have to love him.

I told my mom about this role, that it was kind of like a man-child, pathetic, and she says, ‘Oh, you’re going to do great.’  I think that there are also parts of Max that were hard to find that endearing because he’s always fighting with Morgan. You have to think of him as a real, fully-developed person.

A lot of his motivation was through Max and Morgan having been together for 17 years. How does that feel? Morgan is his anchor, but that’s drifting away. I tried to think about him through that lens. He really cares about Morgan, but maybe that ship has sailed, but he’s still really trying.

Taylor was incredible to bounce off. Elizabeth Perkins, who plays my mother, is terrifying on screen. She’s really scary.

Taylor Ortega: We had a real journey finding the actor to come in and play Max because on the page you needed an actor to walk in with the inherent warmth, charm and sweetness that Jack has as a person. And the fact that he cares so much is the reason why we like Max, even though he might not be right for her, but he cares. And what Jack brought into the room was a character that is over-therapized. He’s misguided. He’s really trying. He’s a little forgotten.

Max (Jack Innanen), (Morgan) Taylor Ortega, Nicky (Dan Levy) and Natalie (Abby Quinn) Photo by Rich Polk/ Shutterstock for Netflix

Boran Kuzum (Yusuf): I was in Istanbul and I was at a karaoke night and came back home drunk.

I just received this email from my managers in Los Angeles saying there’s a Dan Levy Untitled Project audition call. And I was like, ‘Is this Dan Levy from Schitt’s Creek?’ I’m too drunk for this. I’m gonna read it tomorrow. And then I went to this Zoom audition and I got the part of Yusuf. I thought it was going to be one episode role in the beginning. It’s like a dream come true moment for me, coming from the other side of the world.

Abby Quinn (Natalie Dardano): I love the relationship between Natalie and our mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf)

We were bonding as people and she is one of the coolest, smartest people I’ve ever met. That impacts the relationship on screen.

It was in the writing and in the characters that we had developed individually. Whenever we came together, we were on the same page, but it was unspoken. We just worked very well together.

Dan Levy: It’s a family that yells at each other. If you come from a family that expresses love through yelling at one another, you understand what’s going on in the show. And it’s been really interesting to see because this was a love story about “yelly” families. This is very common for a lot of people. And I love writing specific family dynamics.

If you understand it, great. And if you don’t understand it, this is a story about drawing an audience who doesn’t quite understand it, to understand how and why this family has chosen, or inherited, this form of communication.

I think it is very specific in what it speaks to. I want this show to be an exploration of all that we inherit from our families – the good and the bad, the things we embrace, and the things we push back against. The pilot opens on Nona screaming in a hospital bed, and then you understand Linda and her kids. It was a very specific tone.

There’s a beautiful moment where Linda gets herself in a situation and all the kids show up for her. I got very touched by that scene because everybody’s got all this crazy stuff going on, but they hear mom’s in trouble, and everybody’s there. I love that that heart is also there.

It’s not just yelling, there’s love throughout the show. It’s moments. It’s moments when the light shines through.

Yusuf (Boran Kuzum) Photo by Rich Polk. Shutterstock for Netflix

Abby Quinn: I’m so alienated from Nicky and Morgan. And I’m pretending that I want nothing to do with them at the beginning of the show.

But I think deep down she just wants to be accepted and recognized for her smarts, especially from her mom. I think she wants her siblings to respect her, but she doesn’t know how to communicate that. So, she just acts like she hates them. That’s all she knows how to do. We have a moment of hugging at the end of the show that was so uncomfortable.

Taylor Ortega: I feel that this is so unexpected because we ended up spending so much time together and being forced into these spaces. It did alienate Natalie. And Natalie’s way of being close to her family is by being useful, which is very different than Morgan. Morgan is not interested in that at all. I think no one expects her to be useful. And then, that upsets her in the same way.

I would like to be seen as useful or competent. All I have to know is that I am, and no one else has to recognize it. That puts us further and further away.

I think really quickly, we realized we have so much in common. But Natalie hasn’t had the opportunity to be that way yet. She hasn’t been forced into our space. She hasn’t had to spend that amount of time with us. She’s had to be like a second mom.

Dan Levy: Abby has a monologue at the end of this season that I wrote for the audition process that ended up making its way into the show. You learn why Natalie is the way she is. This character is so much weirder than I thought she ever could be. That’s what you want from the casting process. You want to find people that make your characters more interesting than you could have ever imagined – weird, crazy and dysfunctional. You root for these people and it just keeps getting warmer the more we tell the story.

I like to leave room in scenes for improv. Part of it was allowing the freedom for people to personalize their characters in ways that might live slightly off the script. I feel like all the characters managed to do that in very special little ways where they took the script and lifted it to a place that I couldn’t have written.

Taylor Ortega: Morgan and Yusuf start out so volatile, but even in the back of my head, I wonder what would happen if, and then things develop a little bit.

But can you talk about why these characters aren’t drawn to each other? We see it start kind of slowly, I think by episode four or five, maybe you really see it kind of starting. Sorry, Jack. I had to put you in the middle.

Boram Kuzum: I think there’s a similarity between Nicky and Morgan’s character and Yusuf’s character that they both find themselves in a situation that they don’t belong to, but they are trying to find their powers in it. And I think that’s the connection between it.

Morgan is one of the first people after a long time who sees actually who he is and it makes him feel better about himself. I think a lot of that is in the script and then kind of throughout our performances. It became more fun when our real life dynamic of the three of us would enter it.

Dan Levy: Elizabeth Perkins who plays Annette and Laurie Metcalf are two very powerful mothers but you want them to be distinct as well as characters. Elizabeth can be wickedly funny and she can play a kind of elegance in a way that lent itself to this character. Laurie’s character is such a mess, and Annette is this polished sort of ‘anti-person’ to her. She was equal parts funny and loving, and then very bone-chilling.

by Staff Writer

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