Exclusive Interview: Modern Family’s Steve Levitan

September 6, 2012 World Screen Top Stories

PREMIUM: Depicting frazzled moms, hapless dads, wisecracking kids, devoted gay parents and a voluptuous Latina wife and mother in all their dysfunction and hilarity, Modern Family has marked a comeback of the comedy genre; creator Steven Levitan talks to World Screen. 

WS: Jerry Seinfeld famously said of his show, "no hugs, no learning". No emotion and no teachable moments became the trend in comedy for a while. Modern Family seems to have brought emotion back.
LEVITAN: I can’t speak to the fact that it’s brought back emotions to comedy but we certainly don’t back away from emotions. That sort of colder, snarkier comedy really came into favor, ushered in by Seinfeld, and in the meantime there were other successful comedies that had real emotion, like Everybody Loves Raymond. We took it to it maybe to the next level, saying we don’t want to back away from it at all. We like shows that give you a dose of heart along with a dose of comedy. It feels like a more fulfilling experience to us when you have a little of both.
 
WS: Is it important for the viewer to be able to relate to the characters and say, yeah I’m married I get that, or yeah, I’m a parent I struggle with that, too?
LEVITAN: It certainly adds to the experience, but that said, people may not be in a gay relationship, or they may not know a gay couple that is raising a family, but they can still enjoy Mitch and Cam. They may recognize bits of themselves in their parenting, which goes to prove that people are more alike than we would often choose to admit. I think [relating to the characters] adds to the experience but is not necessary. One of the favorite compliments we get is, “Wow, it’s like you were sitting in my living room.” Or “I just had that same exact conversation with my daughter last week and there it was in the show this week.” It tells us that we are doing something right.
 
WS: Why did you choose the mockumentary format for the show?
LEVITAN: I had dabbled in it in a very low-budget pilot that I had made and really came to like what those interview [segments] could do to a scene, in terms of adding pace and allowing you to cut through the exposition. I also thought that it was a nice way to take a show with cute kids in it and [give the show] a little less cutesy feeling. We didn’t want people to think, “Oh no, here comes another one of those shows that is all syrupy sweet.” The documentary style just makes it feel a little more real, and that’s what we were going for, above everything else, to make it as real as possible.
 
WS: How would you define your style of comedy?
LEVITAN: I like it to be smart and not talk down to the audience and not feel familiar. I don’t like it when I [watch a show] and there is either a giant logic bump in the story or it’s very familiar material. It feels in some way insulting to the audience when I see that the writers didn’t care enough to say, boy people have seen this before, let’s find a new take on this. Above all I like smart comedy that feels fresh and relatable and new. I’m not big on hijinks, but when used correctly it can be very effective!
 
WS: Has Modern Family helped usher in a comedy renaissance?
LEVITAN: What Modern Family did, which is really nice and we feel lucky to be part of it, is it has shown that there can still be a show that is both a hit with viewers and with critics. A lot of people thought that ship had sailed. Also, a number of shows are proving that there is a business model that still makes sense. That is an important part, because in order to sustain the quality of these kinds of shows, it really requires a very large investment. For a while a lot of people were wondering if comedies really still can make the big bucks. Modern Family perhaps gave people a reason to continue to invest in this business.
 
WS: Modern Family depicts families that haven’t been seen much on TV. Has that been an important contribution to the television landscape?
LEVITAN: I’ve been told some very touching and heartfelt stories and it seems like it’s making a difference with a lot of gay people. Because Modern Family is accessible to a wide audience, people are beginning to understand what Mitch and Cam are going through, and see that they are, in fact, wonderful parents and that Lily doesn’t seem to be suffering for having two dads. We’ve heard story after story that Modern Family opens the door to conversations [within families] that otherwise wouldn’t have taken place. Many people have thanked us for what they said paved the way for them to come out to their families, and that is very meaningful to us.
 
WS: I tend to believe that in comedies, truths about human nature can be told more succinctly or even better than in a drama.
LEVITAN: Yes, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a great example of that. Nothing points out the lunacy of politics more succinctly than The Daily Show. So I agree with you. We are not trying to preach. We are not trying to make big points about being gay. We are just showing these two characters and staying true to those characters and viewers can draw their own conclusions from that.
 
WS: What are the advantages of doing a single-camera shoot?
LEVITAN: To me it feels more realistic. Multi-camera is a hybrid of film and theater, you are capturing that live theatrical experience. When done well it’s wonderful, it’s got a great energy. But we are going for the most realistic portrayal we can get.
 
WS: How long does it take to shoot and complete an episode?
LEVITAN: We shoot five days, we average less than eight hours a day, we move very quickly.
 
WS: Does that have to do with the fact that you have children on the set?
LEVITAN: No, it’s really because of the documentary style, the camera work does not have to be as precise or as beautiful. It’s all about the performance. You don’t need as much coverage because it wouldn’t be appropriate for a documentary form, so you can get through things much faster. You can sometimes wrap up a scene with five or six takes. We move quickly and it keeps the comedy much fresher. By the time you get to that great angle, you haven’t done it 50 times, to the point where it’s not even close to being funny anymore! We just try to capture the spontaneity of it and it doesn’t seem to hurt it at all.
 
WS: I have read that you and Modern Family co-creator Christopher Lloyd take many of the events and happenings from your family lives and incorporate them into the show.
LEVITAN: Certainly not just our lives, the entire writing staff does that. This year we have 13 writers, including Chris and myself, and everybody draws from things in their own lives all the time. So many of our best stories have come from our own lives.
 
WS: Is that an easy thing to do, transfer real-life situations into a scene in the show?
LEVITAN: It depends on the event, but it’s a great place to start because you can always fall back on the real thing that happened. When you are trying to do a show that feels real and relatable, knowing that it happened in real life is a wonderful place to start.