Joe’s character Jackson appears in Virtually Single‘s second episode, and he told me how he approached giving his alter ego a full life when the guy might not get to a second date. “That’s going to vary depending on the role. I always say one thing I really like about this industry, but [that] can also be frustrating, is there’s no one way to do it. There’s no one way to approach it,” he said. “Name your five favorite actors and they probably have five vastly different ways of preparing roles.
“A lot of it depends on the writing, how much you’re given to work with, and some you have to just know what your job is to do and move the story forward. You have to figure out the best way to do that in a way that you like to do it artistically.”
When it came to Virtually Single, “I would say all the bones were there,” he continued. “A lot of it was written. A lot of it was thought of by Kate and developed. And then it was okay, now that we’re in it, let’s just have fun. Things go off on tangents and you’re talking about this and then you go to this. Like I said, I’ve known Kate for a while and when you know someone and you’ve worked with them before, it can be really easy to just have fun with it.”
The most memorable aspect of filming for Joe was something—or rather someone—that Kate pulled from his real life. “For me personally, it was just my wife being in it, who is not an actor,” he explained. “Kate asked me if she would do it. And I was like, I don’t really know the answer to that question. I don’t know if she’s going to want to do it or not. But she was a great sport about it, and we had a lot of fun. We have two kids, so we’re like ‘Kids, be downstairs, watch a movie,’ and we were upstairs in the closet filming it!”
He’s not the only person who worked with someone close to him. Kate also called on someone very close to her for the show’s sixth episode, putting herself out there in a way that most writer-creators wouldn’t have the fearlessness to do. “I reached out to someone from my past,” she told me, “and I basically said to this person, ‘We have some unresolved issues from like 15 years ago.’ I said ‘I’m doing the show. The catch though, is, would you be willing to not talk about it at all before the cameras roll? So you’re literally going to show up on the day of shooting. We’re going to roll cameras and we’re going to have a really real conversation about what happened between us and where we are now.’ This person said yes. I don’t even understand why, to be totally honest with you. That’s a crazy thing to ask someone to do, especially when you watch the episode and realize how complicated the issues were between us that need to be worked through and talked about.
“But this person said yes, and we have this really intense conversation that almost plays out in real time in the episode. It’s going to feel very different from anything you’ve seen before,” she continued. “[Kaylee]’s worked to this point with an intimacy coach. A lot of those lessons that she’s been learning are about not running away from your feelings, not running away from conflict, not running away from hard situations, sitting in the fire. In this episode, we get to see can she put all of what she’s learned into practice and sit in that fire and burn and not run from it? We’ll see what she does. That episode was really important to me, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. As much as that person didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t know what was going to happen either.
“You feel that when you watch it, that we’re both really going through an organic conversation where neither one of us knows where it’s going to go. Other than reality TV, which can also be kind of contrived, I don’t know where else I’ve seen that happen…That changes the whole trajectory of the show after it too, because my character’s really changed by this experience. It completely affected my writing. I have two levels going on. I have Kate, who actually does have a past history with this person and is having a very real conversation. Then I have my character too; my character’s journey mirrors mine. The way I wrote the rest of the episodes definitely was altered because of what happened.”
Countless people have strived to write TV series that offer real commentary on relationships, and there’s no shortage of writers who have reframed that idea within the pandemic. Virtually Single thrives because of people like Joe and Kate being willing to commit so much of themselves to the project both personally and creatively. As Kate explained, her past work on cult hit series like ABC’s Castle and NBC’s Blindspot ultimately was about characters and relationships, giving her plenty of perspective on this subject.
“I always write my episodes rooted in character because that’s where it all comes back to,” she said. “The reason Castle was such a popular show is because everyone really cared about Castle and Beckett. They really cared about that relationship and they cared about the supporting characters’ relationships with them as well. If you don’t have that, then it doesn’t matter how cool your mysteries are. You want to understand why this matters to the characters. You want to understand what is bringing them together, tearing them apart, or causing friction. Even though I write crime shows primarily, I always come up with the idea for the show based upon how it’s going to relate to the characters and how the characters are going to react to the situation—how it’s going to either further and evolve their relationship or potentially make them go separate ways or have some sort of conflict.
“If you watch any of [my] episodes of Castle, CSI: Cyber, NCIS: New Orleans, which are very straightforward, procedural shows, all my episodes of those shows usually centered on a character that I really wanted to dig into, learn more about, get more background on that person that we hadn’t seen before on the show…They always feel a little bit different,” she said. “It’s because I’m thinking about writing for actors. I’m thinking about writing for characters. Virtually Single is a way of showing this is what I would write. If I could write anything, if I could write any genre, if I could choose, this is my sweet spot. This is where I feel the most at home. This is where I feel like my voice lands.
“There’s humor, but there’s also real emotion, and there’s levity, but there’s also moments of real darkness,” Kate concluded. “I think that’s what life is. [Virtually Single] was striking that tonal balance because it is about my experience going through the pandemic, and we all are living it still. It was trying to find a light and levity and humor in that that people could hold onto and say yes, she’s writing about this time, but she’s making me laugh so I’m in.
“Castle definitely was about this on-again, off-again, will they, won’t they romantic comedy relationship. That was the heart of the show. Blindspot honestly is the same because at the heart of it, it’s really about Jane and Weller and their relationship. Every season is about whatever the obstacles are that are thrown their way, will they be able to survive them, and will their love survive?” she concluded. “I think it’s all about love and relationships. Even if it’s about murder mysteries and crazy nuclear blasts and all the things I’ve written about on these shows, it all comes back to character and love and relationships.”
Virtually Single is now streaming on YouTube.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
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