Creating Netflix’s “The Boroughs”: Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews Interview

Following the success of Dark Crystal on Netflix, screenwriters Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews received a call from none other than Matt and Ross Duffer, who are big fans of the show. They wanted to meet the writers with the aim of producing their next project. So, Addiss and Matthews met with the Duffer Brothers to discuss potential television series ideas. The Boroughs was the result.

Set in a picturesque New Mexico retirement community, The Boroughs follows a group of unlikely elder heroes who band together to defeat an otherworldly threat. Striking a perfect balance between cosmic horror and heartfelt drama, the supernatural mystery series has captivated global audiences.

Screen icons Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, and Alfre Woodard anchor the misfit crew of sleuths alongside Clarke Peters, Denis O’Hare, and Bill Pullman. Together, these seasoned actors deliver an unforgettable blend of wit and grit, proving that saving the world isn’t just a game for kids.

Jeffrey and Will shared their experiences on creating the show with Creative Screenwriting Magazine.

How did you conceive The Boroughs world and its residents?

Will Matthews

Will Matthews: The physical world of The Buroughs had to walk a very fine line. We needed it to be a place that you would want to live in, if it wasn’t for that pesky monster problem. It can’t be obviously scary or creepy like Stepford, where you take one look and you’re like, “I gotta get out of here.”

It has to be that Sam Cooper (Alfred Cooper) is wrong for not wanting to move in, and the audience is then cheering for Sam to change his mind and want to stay there. Then, in a specific place like the Manor, it’s even harder, because the Manor is only scary if you shouldn’t be there. Sam is there under false pretences even though it looks a little weird to have a fake town, that actually is based on real research about dementia.

Jeffrey Addiss:  The one touchstone for us was Salem’s Lot. It is about a town and the monsters within it, but ultimately, what Stephen King is saying is that the people don’t deserve to be saved. That idyllic facade is just that. It’s a facade and there’s rot underneath.

We wanted to tell the opposite story. The Boroughs is a town and a place and people worth saving. That is why one of the characters is reading Salem’s Lot in Episode 7.

What is the genre of the show?

Will Matthews: We wanted the show to first and foremost be an adventure show, because we wanted to show these characters at this age having adventures, fully enjoying them and driving the story.

We have a lot of different tones in the show and it was difficult to make sure that all of those tones add up to one show, not a mishmash. It has to feel like one show, one place, one group of people. And then within that, each person is specific and different. That’s what led us to different tones.

What is the North Star of The Boroughs?

Jeffrey Addiss: There were two.

One was a very simple question that we built the whole first season around, which is said in the pilot,

“What will you do with the time you have left?”

 

If we started to stray too far from that question, we were probably going off the road. The other thing was in balancing all these tones. Could I watch this show with my mother and my grandmother, who are not genre people? Would they want to go on the ride? Would they fall in love with these characters? Would they finish watching this show? Could we watch it together?

That was a big goal of ours – co-viewing across a lot of different ages and generations. If it started to feel like my mom would not watch this, then we might have been drifting.

How did you decide the character ensemble?

Will Matthews: As Jeff said, we start with a central question, “What would you do with the time you have left?” So, if that’s what the season is about, then every character, including the bad guys, has to have a distinct and believable answer to that question.

That’s how we started coming up with the different characters. Who’s the person who answers that question with, “I’d like to just accept that. I don’t actually need more time. I’m going to enjoy the time I have?”

Then you start with Wally (Denis O’Hare) seemingly accepting death. No one really accepts death. Why does Wally accept it? He is dying. He’s terminal. He lived through losing an entire generation in the AIDS crisis. Death is not new to him.

You start getting more specific character stuff starting from that answer. Then the actors come in and they add another level of specificity. They actually are the ages of their characters, whereas Jeff and I are not. So they have some insight. Some of it’s just as small as language or blocking, and some of it’s as big as, how 70-year-olds fight about marriage.

So those groups working together create specific characters.

Jeffrey Addis

How do you explore the idea of ageing?

Jeffrey Addiss: If it’s an adventure, then our leads are our heroes. We didn’t want them to ever be the butt of the joke. We didn’t want them to ever make their age a punchline. We wanted them to be heroes. In some ways, their age is their superpower.

Their life experiences are what allow them to win in the end.

Why don’t the residents of The Boroughs leave if there are monsters there?

Will Matthews: There’s the haunted house problem in any TV show or movie. It’s particularly tricky in a series because you have so many more episodes.

And so, across eight episodes, you have to find a way to answer that question in a way that is believable and grounded, and makes you want your hero to stay. For us, it was really balancing all that with Jack’s (Bill Pullman) death.

Jeffrey Addiss: We gave Sam a reason to stay and something to fight for that the audience would believe and want him to do. Which is part of the reason there is so much more horror in death. The first episode is very scary. You lose the most people in the beginning because we wanted the stakes to be there so you were afraid that we would kill more of these characters. But ultimately, we realized it didn’t help our story.

What will you do with the time you have left wasn’t helped by any of them dying. They all had to live so they could answer that question.

Art (Clarke Peters) and Judy (Alfre Woodard) Photo courtesy of Netflix

Are the monsters more than a metaphor for death?

Will Matthews: All monsters are metaphors. You could say all characters are metaphors because TV’s not real. You’re making choices. We wanted to talk about how it represents death because it’s quiet in the shadows. It’s waiting. You’re never sure if it’s there or not.

It comes in the night quietly when you’re alone. The monster itself is old. The monster is older than the characters that are in the show.

Blaine (Seth Numrich) and Annelise (Alice Kremelberg) bring death. They’re also running from death.

The monster represents death. So how are you going to face it? That’s why Sam’s relationship with the monster had to change partway through. He starts off as a man who sets off to kill the monster. And by the last episode, he is a man who saves the monster. That represents his shifting relationship with death over the course of eight episodes.

At the end, it’s stated very clearly, the bad guy says, “Time is a thief.” And Sam’s late wife says, “Time is a gift.”

Which is he going to choose? Sam is struggling with this. He starts out not accepting his wife’s death. So he hates the monster. He comes to accept death as part of life. He comes to accept his wife’s death.

He comes to have sympathy for the monster and set the monster free. So rather than destroying death, he embraces it and lives. He doesn’t embrace it for himself, but he embraces it as part of his life.

Blaine Shaw (Seth Numrich) Photo courtesy of Netflix

Are there any more memorable lines of dialogue that capture the essence of the series?

Jeffrey Addiss: “Death is banal,” which is a line that Wally says in Episode 2. Will also wrote a line, “Grief makes your past feel too close and your future too far away.”

What did you want to achieve in the season finale?

Jeffrey Addiss: We didn’t get a second season of Dark Crystal. We ended on a cliffhanger and we regret it.

We left some of those characters that we love in some very precarious positions, ostensibly forever. So we wanted The Boroughs to feel emotionally complete.

If we never came back, you would get the sense that these characters were okay. Sam had made friends. He had answered the question of what is he going to do with the time he has left.

He’s going to spend it with these people he loves. And that was enough. But we did want to crack the door open because it is an adventure show and there’s another adventure that we would like to tell.

We talked a lot about how much to reveal (or not reveal) in that final denouement. It was actually the Duffers who recommended us to pull back because we were doing a little bit more.

They said two things: Number one, you don’t need to do as much as you think. And number two, don’t lock yourself in.

Don’t lock yourself in because you’re going to learn more about the show by putting it out in the world.

So we wanted to crack the door, but not crack it too wide. And of course, we put it in the mirror, as a nod to the end of Stranger Things and the Duffer Brothers laughed at us when they read it.

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.