New Show On FX: Tyrant
- Thread starter SamSneed
- Start date
Wait...hold up a minute...
I'm trying to remember the conversations that Bassam had with Jamal...
about how rarely they actually see each other.
I could have SWORN Bassam wasn't at the wedding
Yo she LYING to Ahmed!!!!!!!!
I'm trying to remember the conversations that Bassam had with Jamal...
about how rarely they actually see each other.
I could have SWORN Bassam wasn't at the wedding
Yo she LYING to Ahmed!!!!!!!!
and homeboy PROMPTLY got a new gig...
https://blog.21cf.com/blog/2016/07/...-fx-tyrant-middle-east-diversity?sf31797540=1
As a show featuring an American family wedged in a tumultuous power struggle in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Abuddin, FX’s “Tyrant” looks and feels different from just about any other television drama today. With that distinctiveness comes a certain responsibility to accuracy and entertainment, which holds particular weight in today’s world.
To learn more about the behind-the-scenes work, thinking and decision-making that goes into “Tyrant” (which is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions), I talked with executive producer and showrunner Chris Keyser. He discussed how the show strikes a balance between truth and entertainment, how its stunning scenes are achieved, and the one powerful theme the show features in Season 3.
As one of the few American TV shows set in the Middle East, do you and the other showrunners feel a particular responsibility to portray that culture accurately and with sensitivity? What kind of research and consideration go into this?
We take very seriously our obligation to accurately and sensitively portray the culture and politics of the Middle East. To help us do that, we have many, many advisors on the show who sit in the writers’ room with us, who give us notes on every outline and draft of our script and on every cut of each episode. We try never to be disrespectful – or knowingly inaccurate – even as we take seriously our obligation to entertain and inform. We are, after all, a television show, and just as a show about lawyers or doctors is hardly a documentary on the medical or legal profession, we never pretend that we are an undistorted mirror held up to the life of that region. We balance – or try to – some level of truth with a healthy dose of drama.
The scenery and sets on "Tyrant" are quite striking. It all makes it easy to become immersed in the show. How do you and the crew find shoot locations and design sets?
Though we periodically use practical locations in Budapest when we film “Tyrant,” more than 90 percent of the show is shot on sets that we have built. We have two full stages to house the palace, and we have a backlot the size of the backlot at Universal where we film the sequences in Ma’an, in Asima and in Caliphate territory. We have an amazing production designer, Ricky Eyres, who works with an incredible staff of people including Gwyneth Horder-Payton, our producing director, and Pavlina Hatoupis, our producer, to create the entire world of “Tyrant.”
Chris Keyser, executive producer and showrunner for FX's "Tyrant."
What goes into creating that world? And how has this evolved with each season?
There is an enormous amount of research that goes into creating each season’s new sets – and a good deal of plain imagination. Much of that planning goes on well before the first word of the first script is written. The writers sit with the production staff of the show to talk about where we see stories going and what new sets need to be built to accommodate them. This year, for example, because we planned to tell so many stories in and around the University, we designed and built University Square, which is now one of our favorite sets. And because we knew a new family (Bassam’s) was moving into the palace, and that they had a whole different style from the Jamal and Leila’s family, we built a kitchen. That way, this more casual family had a place to gather other than the palace’s formal dining room. Those are just two examples. We keep imagining new worlds and then building them. If we’re back for a fourth season, we already have some designs in our back pocket.
"Tyrant" weaves many themes together -- the delicacy of family relationships, temptation of power and turbulence of political instability among them. Which of the show's themes resonates most with you?
The show is about all kinds of themes – the complexities of family dynamics, the temptations of power, etc. For me, it’s the smaller relationship stuff that happens underneath the larger chess match of politics that excites me the most. This year, though we have a lot of plot – and plot that moves very quickly – we’ve also tried to slow down a bit, from time to time, and explore those individual relationship, talk about who loves whom, for example. Having said that, I think the single most powerful theme we deal with this year and the thing that is at the very heart of “Tyrant” and makes it – to whatever extent it can claim to be this – universal is the conversation about how we respond to evil. We ask the questions: How can one respond to the evil perpetrated against us? Is it possible to destroy evil? If we try, can we do it without changing ourselves in the process? Given how the world is changing around us, I think that’s one of the most fundamental questions we need to grapple with as a world.
You were a political speechwriter early in your career. Does that experience inform your approach to the show when you write or make decisions as an executive producer?
I don’t think being a political speechwriter has too much to do with how I approach the show, except maybe when I write characters’ speeches. Maybe that’s not fair. It’s the speechwriter’s job to turn political (or social, or economic) arguments into emotional arguments. In a show that’s set against the backdrop of regional and world politics, but ultimately has to be about people, I suppose that’s what we do all the time.
What aspect of making "Tyrant" do you wish viewers could know more about?
I suppose I wish people could appreciate how much it means that this is a show made by the most diverse group of people with whom I have ever worked – Muslims, Jews and Christians from so many countries around the world. Even as the show itself can sometimes seem like a pessimistic musing on the impossibility of the world working together peacefully, the making of “Tyrant” itself is the most beautiful representation of what cooperation across national, religious, ethnic and cultural lines can produce. What else? Sometimes we kill off characters because the actors are no longer available. It’s not always just to drive the audience crazy.
What was the most satisfying part of making Season 3? What do you hope viewers will enjoy the most?
I think Season 3 is the year that “Tyrant” kicks into high gear. No character can sit on the sidelines anymore with the luxury of saying he or she is safe – that the fate of Abuddin is somehow separate from their own. I think that makes the show very exciting. And, in a terrible way, the changing nature of Middle Eastern, European, U.S. and world politics makes our story increasingly relevant. In some sense, none of us are immune from the implications of the questions the show is asking.
As a show featuring an American family wedged in a tumultuous power struggle in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Abuddin, FX’s “Tyrant” looks and feels different from just about any other television drama today. With that distinctiveness comes a certain responsibility to accuracy and entertainment, which holds particular weight in today’s world.
To learn more about the behind-the-scenes work, thinking and decision-making that goes into “Tyrant” (which is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions), I talked with executive producer and showrunner Chris Keyser. He discussed how the show strikes a balance between truth and entertainment, how its stunning scenes are achieved, and the one powerful theme the show features in Season 3.
As one of the few American TV shows set in the Middle East, do you and the other showrunners feel a particular responsibility to portray that culture accurately and with sensitivity? What kind of research and consideration go into this?
We take very seriously our obligation to accurately and sensitively portray the culture and politics of the Middle East. To help us do that, we have many, many advisors on the show who sit in the writers’ room with us, who give us notes on every outline and draft of our script and on every cut of each episode. We try never to be disrespectful – or knowingly inaccurate – even as we take seriously our obligation to entertain and inform. We are, after all, a television show, and just as a show about lawyers or doctors is hardly a documentary on the medical or legal profession, we never pretend that we are an undistorted mirror held up to the life of that region. We balance – or try to – some level of truth with a healthy dose of drama.
The scenery and sets on "Tyrant" are quite striking. It all makes it easy to become immersed in the show. How do you and the crew find shoot locations and design sets?
Though we periodically use practical locations in Budapest when we film “Tyrant,” more than 90 percent of the show is shot on sets that we have built. We have two full stages to house the palace, and we have a backlot the size of the backlot at Universal where we film the sequences in Ma’an, in Asima and in Caliphate territory. We have an amazing production designer, Ricky Eyres, who works with an incredible staff of people including Gwyneth Horder-Payton, our producing director, and Pavlina Hatoupis, our producer, to create the entire world of “Tyrant.”
Chris Keyser, executive producer and showrunner for FX's "Tyrant."
What goes into creating that world? And how has this evolved with each season?
There is an enormous amount of research that goes into creating each season’s new sets – and a good deal of plain imagination. Much of that planning goes on well before the first word of the first script is written. The writers sit with the production staff of the show to talk about where we see stories going and what new sets need to be built to accommodate them. This year, for example, because we planned to tell so many stories in and around the University, we designed and built University Square, which is now one of our favorite sets. And because we knew a new family (Bassam’s) was moving into the palace, and that they had a whole different style from the Jamal and Leila’s family, we built a kitchen. That way, this more casual family had a place to gather other than the palace’s formal dining room. Those are just two examples. We keep imagining new worlds and then building them. If we’re back for a fourth season, we already have some designs in our back pocket.
"Tyrant" weaves many themes together -- the delicacy of family relationships, temptation of power and turbulence of political instability among them. Which of the show's themes resonates most with you?
The show is about all kinds of themes – the complexities of family dynamics, the temptations of power, etc. For me, it’s the smaller relationship stuff that happens underneath the larger chess match of politics that excites me the most. This year, though we have a lot of plot – and plot that moves very quickly – we’ve also tried to slow down a bit, from time to time, and explore those individual relationship, talk about who loves whom, for example. Having said that, I think the single most powerful theme we deal with this year and the thing that is at the very heart of “Tyrant” and makes it – to whatever extent it can claim to be this – universal is the conversation about how we respond to evil. We ask the questions: How can one respond to the evil perpetrated against us? Is it possible to destroy evil? If we try, can we do it without changing ourselves in the process? Given how the world is changing around us, I think that’s one of the most fundamental questions we need to grapple with as a world.
You were a political speechwriter early in your career. Does that experience inform your approach to the show when you write or make decisions as an executive producer?
I don’t think being a political speechwriter has too much to do with how I approach the show, except maybe when I write characters’ speeches. Maybe that’s not fair. It’s the speechwriter’s job to turn political (or social, or economic) arguments into emotional arguments. In a show that’s set against the backdrop of regional and world politics, but ultimately has to be about people, I suppose that’s what we do all the time.
What aspect of making "Tyrant" do you wish viewers could know more about?
I suppose I wish people could appreciate how much it means that this is a show made by the most diverse group of people with whom I have ever worked – Muslims, Jews and Christians from so many countries around the world. Even as the show itself can sometimes seem like a pessimistic musing on the impossibility of the world working together peacefully, the making of “Tyrant” itself is the most beautiful representation of what cooperation across national, religious, ethnic and cultural lines can produce. What else? Sometimes we kill off characters because the actors are no longer available. It’s not always just to drive the audience crazy.
What was the most satisfying part of making Season 3? What do you hope viewers will enjoy the most?
I think Season 3 is the year that “Tyrant” kicks into high gear. No character can sit on the sidelines anymore with the luxury of saying he or she is safe – that the fate of Abuddin is somehow separate from their own. I think that makes the show very exciting. And, in a terrible way, the changing nature of Middle Eastern, European, U.S. and world politics makes our story increasingly relevant. In some sense, none of us are immune from the implications of the questions the show is asking.
Still One episode behind and I have to agree with you... This is Definitely a star making role and it is just missing something.
Damn you are right and creatively... I think this is the best season. Clearly the people miss Jamaal.
@playahaitian - Your live status updates are hilarious and true.
Molly should have left 3 years ago.
Imagine if they had wrote it that she LEFT early on?
had her successful medical career
enjoyed the millions Bassam sent to her and had her career and the neighbors are scared and respectful at the same time (reminiscent of Carmela on Sopranos) enjoying the celebrity but none of the risk.
It would have been HILARIOUS if a network like FX was developing a mini-series about the Al-Fahids!!!!
and the US government starts pressuring her to get involved so we could actually SEE how this little Middle Eastern country registers HERE.
So I think they can do EVERYTHING else they did but she only comes over when she thinks he is dead...
Jamal keeps telling her that Bassam is alive and she thinks he is CRAZY...
She leaves the US treats her damn near like Princess Diana....THEN Bassam is alive and she returns to the family.
And NOW we have a lot of NEW and DIFFERENT tension.
she hasn't seen him in months he has completely changed so has she he loves another woman, she got to witness all the craziness with a different set of eyes she is VERY American...
because THAT Molly?
Would have told Bassam to kill Ihab from the jump.
and so and so on...
but this all contingent on the acting ability of Molly so.....
just forget all that sh*t I just wrote.
It can't be any other way.
I agree this sounds like the final season to me too.
Jamaal is the life of the show.
Killed him
Son gotta take his place
Daughter was a safe kill
She was never integral. Not gonna kill the gay guy. It's "shocking" but not really honestly.
Basaam is bitch cac to the highest degree
And I'm tired of fucking out of shape old ass cac dudes supposedly having anything a fine ass specimen like Jamaal wife wants
That's just fucking ugh
She'd never look at that cac if not for the writers now she can't get enough of him since he's back
And the boy ain't Basaam it's the cacs
Killed him
Son gotta take his place
Daughter was a safe kill
She was never integral. Not gonna kill the gay guy. It's "shocking" but not really honestly.
Basaam is bitch cac to the highest degree
And I'm tired of fucking out of shape old ass cac dudes supposedly having anything a fine ass specimen like Jamaal wife wants
That's just fucking ugh
She'd never look at that cac if not for the writers now she can't get enough of him since he's back
And the boy ain't Basaam it's the cacs
I was Damn he would have been better off blowing up the hospital
Jamal was TOO REAL...I bet they had some type of poll or focus group come in and they said Jamal 'scared them"
daughter was too easy though, at least make us CARE before you do that
I also blame Ihab's so-so acting
they were NEVER gonna kill the gay son although THAT would have made much more sense and added a dynamic of tension to that show that would have been CRAZY.
I can't believe they brought back Bitch-sam...he was a damn HERO last season.
Hey cuz that's Mr. Big they had to do it.
And we also agree that woman LIED - Bassam want even at that damn wedding.
Jamal was TOO REAL...I bet they had some type of poll or focus group come in and they said Jamal 'scared them"
daughter was too easy though, at least make us CARE before you do that
I also blame Ihab's so-so acting
they were NEVER gonna kill the gay son although THAT would have made much more sense and added a dynamic of tension to that show that would have been CRAZY.
I can't believe they brought back Bitch-sam...he was a damn HERO last season.
Hey cuz that's Mr. Big they had to do it.
And we also agree that woman LIED - Bassam want even at that damn wedding.
I like Basaam in the sense of he's a piece of shit pretending not to be. He is fully white in a muslim country.
I already know what's going to happen lol. He's going to end up not dropping out of the race as he promised and he's going to take over as dictator.
Yeah there is no other way to go...
but I'm wondering how they gonna have him murk Fauzi, cause it is so OBVIOUS they want to create some type of love triangle.
Won't be a triangle. They're just going to be enemies.
Basaam will have "Lost his way"
Fauzi is already bout to move in with the mother of the revolution.
Molly is still there. So there's nothing he can really do.
If he was smart he would've let Molly go die and then remarried the mother of the revolution
But when you want it ALL you end up with nothing
I'm gonna give the writers some credit
the scene in Bassam office with her on lap crying and hugging each other...
the son walks in
Bassam jumps up embarrassed
the some looks at him with no judgement loves his dad and looks like he understands and just says
My mother needs you.
now THAT is a scene
and I wanted MORE of stuff like that.
But we don't REALLY know what Bassam HIMSELF even wants anymore.
It's not bad man just some of the fire is gone.
I find myself watching feed the beast and everything before I watch Tyrant.
Trailer doesn't do it justice. It's a good summer show. Not the best thing in the world but this season has been far more interesting than Tyrant has been to me. They keep rehashing the same ideas.
i'll check for it.
Sssssshit Ibrahim killed a white American girl on TV !!!?
They're coming harder and faster than peter north. The US military will go Zod on all of Aubudin for that transgression (start wiping down the Enola Gay)
They're coming harder and faster than peter north. The US military will go Zod on all of Aubudin for that transgression (start wiping down the Enola Gay)
You know jokes aside?
I think this picture says a lot...
I think ideally in the writer's room THAT IS how Molly was supposed to be portrayed
as a take no sh*t White American liberal feminist woman. Who wasnt afraid to back down to any one and more than willing to fight for woman's rights and her son.
But for whatever reason it ain't work.
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