“You’re the Worst” Makes the Best of Los Feliz-Silver Lake

The FXX comedy You’re The Worst begins its third season Wednesday, August 31st. Set largely in the Los Feliz-Silver Lake-Echo Park area, this smart romantic-comedy focuses on the relationship between writer Jimmy Shive-Overly (Chris Geere) and music publicist Gretchen Cutler (Aya Cash), two cynical Angelenos who embark on a relationship after hooking-up at Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The show has received critical acclaim for its depiction of modern romance, depression and contemporary Los Angeles life.

The Ledger sat down with You’re The Worst creator Stephen Falk to discuss the show and its use of real life eastside locations.

First, where did the idea for the show come from?

It came from a couple of places, one my frustration with network television. I had just created a network show that got canceled before it could air. At the same time I really love rom-coms and I thought there hadn’t been a good one on TV in a while, and I felt that the 20-year run of romantic comedy movies had gone stale and that the genre itself was in need of a little updating and a sort of complicating. I thought television was the place to do it and the TV landscape was ready for characters who didn’t behave, quote unquote, well, thanks to cable and the influx of British sitcoms where characters could be flawed, but still serve as actual protagonists. I thought FX was a good place to do that and to my luck they agreed.

Why did you set You’re The Worst in L. A., specifically in the Los Feliz-Silver Lake-Echo Park area?

I had to move to New York to film the network show and having to uproot my life was a big inconvenience, especially when I had to uproot it back six months later, so a big part of it was selfishness and laziness. I live in Los Feliz and just wanted to shoot things in my neighborhood, jump on my bike or Vespa and roll up to set, since we shoot only on location. I like television where the location is meaningful to the tone of the show. I wanted this to be a case of this couldn’t just exist anywhere. I didn’t want you to watch my show and say “Is this set in Milwaukee? New York? Austin? I don’t know and I don’t care.” I think for a lot of shows, that’s fine as it’s not central to the show, but I wanted the environment to be a part of the show and to say something about this specific neighborhood in which our characters live.

On that note, was it important the show use real locations?

The eastside of Los Angeles was underexplored on screen at the time I conceived of the show. There’s been a giant wave of creative types to the eastside in the last 15 years. For so long, comedy writers lived on the westside of L.A., so a lot of shows had that Beverly Hills, Brentwood kind of feel. I wanted to explore something a little different.

I had a lot of fun figuring out what parts of the eastside to shoot for the pilot. It’s really gratifying being able to say “I’m going to set this scene in a record store. Well, I’ll put it in this record store on Sunset.” It’s also nice because it gives these establishments, which aren’t big retail chains, a few bucks. It’s actually putting money back in the community.

What’s the writing process like when it comes to working real locations into the story? For instance, Gretchen and Lindsay doing brunch at Brite Spot. Did you have Brite Spot in mind when the scene was written or did you say: “We need a diner. They’d probably live near Brite Spot?”

I’d say it’s 70/30. Usually we write “a bar” or “a diner,” then we go to our location team who have a vast knowledge of what businesses are out there open to shooting and fun to shoot at. They show me photos and I say “Yes, that looks like what I had in mind.” Then we look at it and try to work out a deal.

In the show, Jimmy, Gretchen and Edgar live in a house that overlooks the Silver Lake Reservoir. Is that a real house or a standing set?

It’s an actual house in the hills that’s empty right now. Usually my location manager goes knocking on doors because they know what I’m looking for. In an ironic twist of living in the neighborhood, the location team actually knocked on my door the other day because they were looking for a house with a specific kind of tree in the backyard and they left a card with my nanny saying “You’re The Worst locations” and she thought “Isn’t that his show?”

That house specifically is an architecturally significant house. It’s a Rudolph Schindler. I’m fascinated with Schindler and when the location guy for the pilot walked me into the house, I immediately identified it because of its characteristics. I said “Oh my God, it’s a Schindler! It has the reservoir as a backdrop. We’re shooting here.” The downside is it’s not very film friendly because it has tight corners and a cramped environment that’s not friendly for crew people, but it’s a beautiful house.

I suppose the cramped environment really worked when you got into Gretchen’s depression arc in season 2.

Absolutely. This year however, since the reservoir was going to be drained, the neighborhood didn’t love having filming constantly happening. [So], we’ve recreated the house on a stage. So for the third season we won’t be in the actual house, but you won’t be able to tell the difference.

This will be the first time the show will film on set?

Yes, this is the first time we’ve done setwork. We’re still about 70% of the time on location, but this is the only set we’ve built for the show.

What new locations will we see in season 3 and how do they play a role in the plot?

We just shot at Jeni’s Ice Cream on Hillhurst Avenue. That’s a scene where Gretchen is trying to woo a new client, Ben Folds, and the meeting is at Jeni’s. I thought it would be more interesting to have them meet over ice cream than over breakfast. We’ve shot big sequences at the L.A. River and outside the “Happy Foot/Sad Foot” sign at the Sunset Foot Clinic. There’s nothing like filming at a real location, even if you recreate it. There’s something about the fabric of real places, and showing the real Los Angeles, at least through my very specific eyes, is very gratifying and adds to the reality of the show.

Editor’s Note: You’re the Worst additionally shot at Glaze Fire on Hillhurst Avenue on August 1st. Season 2 also mentions Silver Lake’s “Camelot Kids Preschool.”