Kousha Navidar: This is All of It. On WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, filling in for Alison Stewart today. The new sitcom English Teacher from FX made me laugh out loud multiple times. As a former high school Math teacher myself, English teacher felt like a fresh, hilarious take on what it's like to be a high school teacher today in a world full of big politics, personalities, personal relationships. Evan Marquez is a 30-something English teacher played by Brian Jordan Alvarez, the series creator, writer and executive producer, and director for a couple of the episodes. Evan is joined by a cast of fellow teachers, including his friend Gwen Sanders, who's played by Stephanie Koenig, who also writes for the show and is the story editor. Evan, basically throughout the whole story is trying to answer the question, can you really be your full self at work?

Whether that means navigating his identity as a gay man in a conservative community, being a role model for students, he's still frankly trying to understand or just understanding himself. Let's listen to a little bit of the trailer.

Speaker 1: This is Mr. Marquez. He is here to teach you all about non-binary. A non-binary person is somebody who does not identify as male or female.

Speaker 2: Like a hermaphrodite.

Speaker 1: No.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Speaker 1: Not at all. And that word is not in use anymore, is it?

Speaker 4: I don't know.

Speaker 1: The kids this year, they're not into being woke anymore.

Speaker 3: It circled back around, circle all the way around. They're saying the R-word again.

Speaker 5: Aren't we getting behind on the state curriculum here?

Speaker 1: Lot of questions for a doctor.

Speaker 6: Do you even have a master's? What'd you major in? Ranch?

Kousha Navidar: Ranch Time magazine calls English Teacher, "Easily the year's best sitcom to date. A must-watch for anyone who yearns for television that elicits actual audible laughs." We're joined by the series creator, executive producer, writer, and actor, Brian Jordan Alvarez. Brian, welcome to All of It.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Hi.Oh, man. I'm beaming over here, not least of which because you keep calling it a sitcom and I love this. I love this idea of the great American sitcom. We're really trying to make you laugh, and I'm just so happy it's working. Thanks for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. It's such a pleasure to have you here. And we're also joined by fellow actor, story editor, and writer on the show, Stephanie Koenig. Stephanie, hey, welcome to All of It.

Stephanie Koenig: Hi. I'm so excited. Thank you for having me here. I can't wait to talk about the show, and I'm just delighted.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: And we're, and we're so grateful, as people that live in LA to be on something in New York, because it ups our cool quotient.

Stephanie Koenig: Yes. We're way cooler.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Well, as soon as you have any involvement with New York City, you're just skyrocketing in the cool department.

Kousha Navidar: You're also on NPR, so save that for the end in case the question's getting nerdy.

Stephanie Koenig: I can't believe it.

Kousha Navidar: Cool is being your authentic self, so I'm sure that'll be a fun, cool [inaudible 00:02:54].

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Exactly.

Kousha Navidar: You know, first of all, congratulations on this show's graduation. From an idea to a bona fide production, it's just the start. I suppose doing press around it is like getting the diploma, right? Does this feel like a moment for you of real graduation?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: The metaphors are hitting, yes. This does feel like-- actually, I have often thought-- because sometimes you're in your late 20s or 30s or whatever, and you're thinking, should I go to grad school? And I've often said to myself, no, just keep doing this real hard stuff. This is your grad school. So I like the analogy because we are graduating, in a way, to the next level of amazing things to come, hopefully.

Kousha Navidar: Stephanie, how does--

Stephanie Koenig: After so much hard work in school and school of life in Hollywood, working so hard to get here, I'm pinching myself every day.

Kousha Navidar: How has it been getting to talk about it on the other end? Are people asking the kinds of questions that you are hoping for, getting new things out of it that you were excited to discover yourself?

Stephanie Koenig: That's a good question.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Yes. For me, it's very gratifying just seeing when people really get it. I mean, you're aiming for this particular sense of humor, and we were aiming really for a very specific texture, I would say, with this show, and it was making us all laugh like crazy. I mean, I had some of the biggest laughs of my life on this set, but you don't technically know that it's going to make other people in the world laugh like this so seeing that pay off is priceless.

Stephanie Koenig: Yes. It was so fun, though because we were doing it and the crew was really into it. The crew was so much a part of it and so much-- I think their buzz really got us excited because we were like, oh, my God, it's working. And coming from the writers room, working so hard and then doing it, it's like, oh, it's working.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Yes. These great camera guys. Jared, Jeff. Yeah. Our DP, Brian Burgoyne, he always really got the show. We can't get our same DP back up for a-- Well, maybe I'm not supposed to talk about a potential Season Two. Anyway, we loved our crew very much, and when we could really make them laugh, it was really gratifying, too.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, absolutely. That's one of the joys of having a big group. You can feel the vibes, and it just elevates the work. Brian, you've worked on sitcoms before. I'm thinking of your recurring character on Will and Grace. Now you're at the helm of creating your own sitcom. What was it about high school and specifically an English teacher that felt compelling to you?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Paul Simms came to me in this wonderful way, and he was like, let's make something together. I had tried to get through the actual system before and make things on a real professional level and I had found it very difficult. I didn't know how to get my voice through that. And he said, "I'm going to help you. I'm going to guide you." And he's never let me down once.

Paul Simms is this incredible guy with this unbelievable resume. Right now, he does what we do in the shadows, and he did Atlanta with Donald Glover. He goes all the way back to News Radio, which I grew up on and loved and that is one of the great American sitcoms. And so Paul came to me and said this, and I just think something from some of our initial conversations, I started thinking, well, a school is a good environment where people from every part of life are forced to interact together and work together for a common goal of educating these kids.

There's just so much texture there. There's so much to play with and so it felt like a no brainer and then I grew up personally in Tennessee, in a very small town in Tennessee but then I went to high school in a very liberal town in the much more conservative Tennessee. And so Austin, to me, felt like a grown-- And I've spent a lot of time in Austin. Austin felt like the grown-up version or a different version of that, where it's this liberal outpost in a more conservative place. There's so much to play with there and so many different personalities and lives to explore.

Stephanie Koenig: So much plot.

Kousha Navidar: Brian, your discussion about, you've tried to break in before and you found it tough. I'm paraphrasing there, but that's what I heard. Paul Simms, this veteran TV personality, comes up to you, says, "Hey, I think that we can do this." Was there any trepidation or were you like, all right let's wait and see.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: No, I literally said to Paul, I said, oh, thank you, but I'm more just acting now. I just booked Megan, which is an amazing movie. I'm shooting the sequel right now in New Zealand. I love Megan. I love Gerard Johnston, the director and Alison and everybody but I had booked Megan and I had just come off of Will and Grace, and I said to Paul, I'm more just acting now. That I can do without having to figure out too much new stuff.

He said, "No." He said, "You're coming out of retirement. We're going to do this." That's really what you want in life. You want for Yoda to come down from the sky and say, "I will guide you." And I remember calling Steph and saying, this guy spoke to me in a way that was real and I think we're going to be able to do this. It took years, but these things take years and even helping me have the stamina for that, everything, I mean, Paul, he's an amazing guide and an amazing guy.

Stephanie Koenig: He's like the godfather of the show, I would say.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Yes, exactly. And then we have Jonathan Krisel also, who's this incredible director who came on when it was getting closer to actually shooting the pilot and just is--

Stephanie Koenig: I mean, talk about a long journey, Krisel-- we've really tried-- we had different development deals. Brian and I had another show with Peacock and that it was with Comedy Central first, and then it was with Peacock, and Krisel was Ep-ing that show as well and we really wanted to work with Krisel. Then again, you make shows and then it doesn't work out or the pilot doesn't get picked up, and it's so-- And that takes years in and of itself. It's three years just doing that. That's why I just feel so good that everybody's finally coming together to [crosstalk].

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Yes, it's so great. Naomi Watts calls herself a 20 years in the business overnight success. [crosstalk].

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Overnight successes are just long journeys that take a lot of grit. Grad school or not. Like, you're saying, Brian, your own grad-- Listeners, we're talking about English Teacher, which is a new comedy series from FX. It premieres on September 2nd at 10:00 p.m. on FX. You can also stream it on Hulu. We're talking with Brian Jordan Alvarez, who's the series creator, executive producer, writer, director, star.

We're talking as well with Stephanie Koenig, who's a lead actor, the story editor, and the writer. Stephanie, while I was watching this, especially the second episode, I saw that you wrote it, and I was very interested in talking to you about the topics that you chose. You all chose, but you specifically as a writer, because English Teacher doesn't back down from talking about sensitive stuff.

In the second episode of the series that you wrote, it's about the school's powder puff football game, and it brings up issues like gender roles, drag, the reality that women face in a world that doesn't make them feel safe. As you, Stephanie, look back on the series as a whole. How did you decide what topics you wanted to tackle? Which is a great football pun, actually, but go ahead.

Stephanie Koenig: God, you and your puns. No. Well, I remember we were talking about this in the writers' room, and this is what I love about the show the most. This is what it does best, is it takes something like a really hard topic, and it'll take you somewhere you don't expect it to go. It continually takes the left turns. You think somebody's going to be against something, and it's somebody else, and then you think somebody is the most wonderful thing, and then they're just not.

Not to give any spoilers away, but it was a topic-- We knew that this was going to be one of the episodes, and I really strongly felt that I wanted to write this. I knew that I could take this, especially because there's a lot of dancing involved in this episode. It's a dirty dancing-type episode. I was like, let me nail this. And I was so excited to-- And especially, with Gwen and the self-defense, we were watching these really funny TikToks at the time where this-- it was like this woman was teaching self defense if somebody was coming at you from behind, like in a car, choking you or something.

The videos were funny because it was a very hard instruction on how to get out, and it was like, take your two fingers, wrap around the seatbelt loop with your thumb.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: It was just nothing anybody would ever be able to do in that situation.

Stephanie Koenig: It was too complicated. That's what made us laugh about that. But then it really got into us-- just me thinking about how much I really would want to teach these girls some self-defense.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: And you did powder puff in your high school stuff, right?

Stephanie Koenig: I did powder puff in my high school.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I didn't. I did not grow up with that.

Stephanie Koenig: It's a very midwest, more southern thing I'm finding, but yes, I felt honored to write that episode. I really felt like it was in good hands with me and I was excited to write dialogue to make Brian laugh, specifically.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I remember when we were assigning episodes and you snatched that up. You were like, powder puff. I'm doing powder puff.

Kousha Navidar: Well, speaking of nailing it, you literally took the words out of my mouth because how did you nail the vibe of high school today? Did you go into high schools? What was that process like?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I think for me, at least personally, it's more about how I'm terminally online. I feel generally just up to date with how things are, what people are fighting about, what people are agreeing on, what people are disagreeing on. We make use of that. Sorry, I'm pouring myself some water. We make use of that because we have some of these famous TikTokers that I just organically discovered, or not even discovered. I mean, they have their own followings, but people that just really make me laugh online. We have this hilarious guy, Ben Bondurant, who plays Jeff in the show, and he just has all these total zingers. Did you see the school safety episode?

Kousha Navidar: I did.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: YeS. He even has this hilarious scene with Gwen where he's-- Well, we don't want to spoil that, but, yes, he's so funny. Then Aaliyah, who goes by Aaliyah's interlude, she's-- basically, since shooting the pilot, she became an outright pop star and still came back to do the series and we were just so grateful. she's so funny in the season. And Savannah Gann, so many of the kids, you know, Dave and Scarlett Hernandez.

I mean, these kids, like, in the show-- I mean, most of them are maybe 20 or something, but they're teaching us little things about how to talk too. The show is extremely well written by a lot of great writers that I'm so grateful to have and we are very free with coming up with stuff in the moment, too. I remember we had this great writer, Jake-- We have this great writer, Jake Bender. He's part of an amazing writing duo, him and Zach Dunn.

We had this line where this girl says-- where Savannah's character, Becca in book club, she says-- her friend says, "You aren't even doing cheerleading anymore." And she says, "Yes, because I died for three minutes last year." Then in the script, her friend responds, "Stop talking about that." But Jake comes up to the girl and he goes, "Can you actually say, yes, because I died for three minutes last year? I literally went to hell." I don't know. We're learning as we go.

Stephanie Koenig: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Listen, we got to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk more about The English Teacher. We're here with Brian Jordan Alvarez and Stephanie Koenig. We're going to talk a little bit more about the students and go into a little bit about how you go from digital to television and back. Stay with us. This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar talking about the show The English Teacher.

It's a new comedy series from FX, premieres on September 2nd at 10:00 p.m. on FX. You can also stream it on Hulu. We're here with Brian Jordan Alvarez, who's the series creator, executive producer, writer, director, lead actor. And Stephanie Koenig, who is the story editor, writer, and also a lead actor on the show. We talked before the break about portraying high school, portraying students. I want to dig into the students a little bit because they are really a highlight.

Let's listen to another clip from the pilot and then, Stephanie, I have a question for you coming out of it. In this clip, Evan is trying to lead his school's book club, but his students just want to talk about how Evan can get out of being investigated from kissing his boyfriend in front of a student. Let's listen.

Speaker 1: Well, whatever I did or didn't do, I'm not going to talk about it with you guys, okay?

Speaker 2: Just claim that they're attacking you because you're Hispanic and they have a racist agenda.

Speaker 1: Yes, but that has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 3: Hispanic would never work anyway because they can do one of those DNA tests and disprove it.

Speaker 4: Oh, my God, Becca. He is hispanic.

Speaker 3: In what way?

Speaker 4: His mom from Colombia.

Speaker 3: That's not Hispanic. Hispanic means Mexican.

Speaker 5: I'm calling the cops.

Speaker 3: You're bullying me.

Speaker 5: You're bullying me because I told you not to look to me.

Speaker 2: Look, Mr. Marquez, you're gay, you're Hispanic. This is a slam dunk here.

Speaker 5: I'm telling you, gay doesn't count anymore and he talks like a straight white guy.

Speaker 3: I think your voice is a little gay, actually.

Speaker 1: Really gay.

Speaker 4: Oh, thanks.

Speaker 6: If they're going to get you, they're going to get you. There's nothing you can do about it. They got me, and I had everything going for me.

Speaker 7: Jeff, they got you for selling Molly at the junior prom.

Speaker 6: I was doing it is a bit.

Kousha Navidar: Stephanie, how did you think about representing the current generation of high schoolers?

Stephanie Koenig: In my writing?

Kousha Navidar: Yes.

Stephanie Koenig: Well, it felt quite easy, which is weird. I had talked to a couple of friends of mine, I know Brian had done this, too, who are right now English teachers, specifically with 9th grade and 12th grade. Their stories were so funny. I remember I was talking to Hannah, one of my friends who's an English teacher, and she was telling me that the students have these Chromebooks that they treat like garbage.

She said she looked down the hall and she saw her student open up the Chromebook into the trash, and the keyboard pieces were falling out, and he shook it and then just walked away. I was like, oh, my God, that's just a perfect-- I also think it was really fun shooting the pilot with all of those students and just getting to hang out with them. I don't feel too far away from that. I'm basically 20.

Kousha Navidar: Just right from what you know. Speaking of what you know, you both have such a strong digital presence, and it's so interesting and wonderful seeing folks go between formats. I thought about that a lot when I was looking at character in this series. Brian, for you, your character work on Instagram and TikTok has earned you so many followers. For listeners who aren't aware, Brian has a cast of recurring characters who appear in videos. Brian has different filters for each character and you show--

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I think this is going to be so hard to follow for people like, wait, the guy who's making this TV show that we're talking about also does a bunch of characters on Instagram?

Kousha Navidar: I'm wondering how building a character for an Instagram Reel compares to building a character for a sitcom. When you were developing TJ Mac on Instagram and Mr. Marquez in the sitcom English Teacher, did you have to think about character development differently for how it would appear on the platform?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: No, it's a great question because I assume you're intuiting the answer, which is it's the same work, it's the same thing where since I was a little kid, I was doing impressions of people, and I was keenly observing people and parroting their energy back or doing it to my parents. We would go home-- I remember some people from New Zealand stayed with us when I was little and they were part of something called the friendship force, I think.

My parents would go stay with people in other countries and then people from other countries would come and stay with us and some people from New Zealand stayed with us and when they left, I started just doing a Kiwi accent and I remember my parents cracking up. I just think that little sense of observation has always been with me. And so when I'm doing it on Instagram, mostly I'm just inspired by a filter and then I just start doing some character, but it comes from observations of people.

Then when I'm writing, it's a bit of the same process where I'm just seeing a character in my head and I feel equipped to write in these voices that aren't exactly mine, to create a world, a universe. It's such an honor to be able to do so.

Kousha Navidar: Stephanie, go ahead.

Stephanie Koenig: There's something really unique about that. He's creating these characters on TikTok, and you feel very close to these characters because it's on your phone. You feel like you're seeing it every day. You feel like you can interact or message Brian or share Brian. It feels so personal. What I think is translating with this show is that it's having that same vibe because you have that Brian. You have that, I don't know. It feels very personal like it's. I don't know, not up on some--

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Right. What's that called? Approachable. No, there's another word.

Kousha Navidar: Well, in radio, we'll call it being eye level with the audience. You feel like you can talk to--

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I'm going to use that.

Kousha Navidar: Well, give me credit, but you're welcome. Also not my term. Somebody here--

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I love it.

Stephanie Koenig: We'll still give you credit.

Kousha Navidar: Stephanie, I'm so happy you brought that up, because that sense of community was also something that was big in my mind. Brian, my sister and brother-in-law are huge fans of yours so much that they ordered a cameo message from you as your rich southern aunt character for my sister's birthday and I have seen that cameo, and it was really heartfelt.

For me, I was thinking, you have built this community. You both have built a community. I'm wondering, how has building a community influenced the way that you think about success, either of a given project or of a career? Brian, let's start with you.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: I think that's the whole thing. This idea of being, you know, in our case, maybe 10 years in the business, overnight success is also this thing where you're building the house brick by brick and it's just people starting to get what you do, and you just keep putting your art out there. I'm just continually gently putting my work and my art out there, and more and more people start to gather around and say, "Hey, I like this." And then they send it to somebody else.

Some people make jokes where they go, "I watch every TJ Mac video," which is a character I do for people that don't know. "I watch every TJ Mac video and I can't get anyone else in my house to care about it. Who do I talk to about this." Sometimes for some people, it works, for some people, it doesn't but community is everything because that's what brought the show together.

Even making the show, you end up with this amazing community of writers, and like Stephanie was saying, the crew. As you get older, you start to learn that life is all about togetherness and just spending time with people, having fun at best, and enjoying life. It's a point well made. Community.

Kousha Navidar: Stephanie, how about you? How does that resonate?

Stephanie Koenig: I completely agree with that sentiment because there's something about when we started getting noticed in the streets from either spy movies or a movie that we made on [crosstalk].

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Stephanie made this incredible movie called Spy movie that everyone should watch on YouTube.

Stephanie Koenig: It's still free on YouTube. Or Caleb Gallo or whatever it felt so-- I don't know, it was just very personal like, oh, I like you, or I get you, or, like, this is my kind of humor. And the community is sharing it with your friends, being like, I know this is maybe not your humor, but this is what I think is funny, is so cool to be a part of that or to be considered that.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Some people will say, I'll show a first date, one of your videos and it's a test.

Kousha Navidar: I see such a strong corollary, a beautiful corollary with the relationship of Evan and Gwen in the show because they support each other throughout the show and it's really genuine. In real life Stephanie, you and Brian are writing partners in addition to being actors on camera. And so I'm wondering-- maybe I'll toss this to you, Stephanie. How do you think writing together, then influences the way that you show up for each other as a scene buddy on camera?

Stephanie Koenig: I mean, we're best friends, so I'm always-- He's my favorite person. I love making him laugh off camera, on camera. It doesn't change in front of the camera. I also thought it was really important for Gwen to have that same care about Evan that I do for Brian. We write-- It just feels very easy. Writing together, working together, it feels the same as hanging out.

It just couldn't have been-- I'm not nervous if I'm like, God, I got to do a scene with Brian today.

Kousha Navidar: Brian--

Brian Jordan Alvarez: It's like butter.

Kousha Navidar: It's like butter?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Oh, yes. I mean, it's easy to write. I mean, Stephanie, she's basically the best person I've ever met. Getting to spend time with her in any way is one of the great privileges of my lifetime. Straight up.

Kousha Navidar: I'm looking at the clock. We have time for a couple more questions. Here's more of an Easter egg nerdy question for you, Brian. The show's title is English Teacher, and I loved the books that we see characters holding throughout each episode. I don't want to ruin anything. Stephanie, I see you pumping your fist, so I feel like I'm on a good track here. I don't want to ruin anything so I'll just mention I like seeing one character holding Song of Achilles and another holding The Outsiders and all felt like little Easter eggs.

I'm wondering, Brian, what were those discussions like about which books we'd actually see on screen?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: They weren't as heavy as you'd think. Sometimes it was like, hey, we need a book here. What should we use? Song of Achilles specifically-- recently, Stephanie and I had a moment where I read Song of Achilles. It destroyed me. It's one of the best books I've ever read. I was weeping in the streets for weeks after. I didn't know what to do with myself. Song of Achilles is amazing and so I recommended it to Stephanie and she read it and loved it, but then she read Circe, which she loved even more.

I would like to say that the story ends with me reading Circe and loving it, but I have not got. I have not read Cersei yet.

Stephanie Koenig: To my dismay.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: But in the same scene, I'm reading Song of Achilles and she's reading Circe, which is a nod to just some books we've read in real life. Then the other ones, they're little nods to whatever's happening in the moment.

Kousha Navidar: And I feel like we should shout out Madeline Miller, who is the author of those books.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Absolutely. Madeline Miller forever.

Kousha Navidar: I was wondering, Stephanie, for you, as we're wrapping up here, what was the toughest topic of the season to get right, do you think? Where you really wanted to thread the needle between treating it with good familiarity of the topic but also making it funny? Was there any thorny topic that you really had to think through?

Brian Jordan Alvarez: Well, making sure her hair looked right.

Stephanie Koenig: It was the hair.

Kousha Navidar: It was the hair.

Stephanie Koenig: Making sure the blowouts were on point. No, I mean, I think they all in their own right, all the topics you want to make sure that you're being smart and sensitive and seeing all angles or for the right reasons. I think everything was treated with care. Every topic was treated with care.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: We hope that the show has empathy and we say it's a show for everyone. We hope it's a welcoming show. The show's not mad at you. It's a show for everyone.

Kousha Navidar: The show is English Teacher. It's a new comedy series, a new sitcom from FX. It premieres on September 2nd at 10:00 p.m. You can also stream it on Hulu. We've been here with Brian Jordan Alvarez and Stephanie Koenig. Thank you both so much for your work. Really appreciate it.

Stephanie Koenig: Thank you so much for having us.

Brian Jordan Alvarez: What a pleasure. Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: All right, that's our show for today. Coming up tomorrow with the news that the groundbreaking Brit pop rock group Oasis is reuniting. We'll talk about musical reunions and take your calls. It's also going to be my last show, so be sure to stay tuned for a special last segment where we're going to party. That was All of It for today. Thanks for hanging out with us. As always, I'm Kousha Navidar and I will see you here tomorrow. Have a good one.

 

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