So, you’ve forsaken Hollywood for South Carolina.

We were here for eight months shooting “Vice Principals.” We loved it, our kids loved it, and we had been talking about how every time we make something, we always end up leaving Los Angeles anyway. So it’s like a pilgrimage. We’re trying to push the work to where we live, and live somewhere we actually like living.

Where do we find Gamby this season?

He’s broken physically, and he’s trying to navigate his own perspective of himself, his own moral code. A lot of this story is about how far these two are willing to go to get what they want, and what happens if you get what you want but you’ve completely compromised who you are. And once you get what you want, are you going to still enjoy it?

“Vice Principals” began as a movie script before you and Jody turned it into a two-season series.

We didn’t look at this like a traditional television show. We did look at it like a novel. These seasons continue the story but thematically they’re made to stand on their own. Where the first one pulled from a lot of clichés and tropes from your ‘80s high school movies, this one is a mystery, a whodunit, a [expletive] weird Brian De Palma movie.

Aside from the fact that you’re a Southerner and were once a substitute teacher, where did you come up with these nut jobs?

We were just writing what we knew, and interpreting these people we had come across when we were younger. “Vice Principals” is about how people choose to lead, and we were like, “Instead of making one character, let’s break it into two.” Gamby is out of touch, he’s gruff, but he says what he means, and you can take him at face value. And Russell knows what he’s supposed to say, and he knows what he’s not allowed to say, and uses that to hide the truth. And so Gamby was the extension of Russell: one didn’t exist without the other.