As the creator of the Apple TV+ series Physical, Annie Weisman set out with a vision to tell a story that painted an honest and authentic depiction of disordered eating and mental illness through her central female character. Three seasons later, the story of Sheila Rubin (Rose Byrne), the 1980’s San Diego housewife who finds empowerment through aerobics classes, has come to a close.
Awards Radar had the opportunity to discuss Annie’s vision and how it grew and evolved throughout the show. She details how the collaboration and creative partnership with Rose Byrne, Rory Scovel, and others in the cast and crew enabled a culture of courage and creativity in the development of Physical over three seasons.
Annie also discusses her experience directing Episode 9 of Season 3 as well as some of her upcoming projects.
Read below for our full conversation with Physical creator and showrunner, Annie Weisman.
Hi, this is Danny Jarabek here with Awards Radar, and I’m very delighted to have with me today Annie Weisman, creator and showrunner for the Apple TV+ series, Physical. Annie, thank you so much for joining. It’s a pleasure to get to reconnect with you now after season three of the show after we recently spoke after season two. So, thank you so much for the time, and it’s a pleasure to chat, as always.
Thank you so much. It’s great to talk to you again.
First of all, congratulations on the series coming to a close. It’s one that I have been, of course, following from the beginning, and was excited to see it conclude. I thought it was a wonderful, wonderful series. So, thank you so much, and congratulations.
I was grateful for the opportunity to get to have this final act for our characters and bring the show to a close on our terms. It was really gratifying.
I think it shows in the work, and I’m excited to dig into that with you a little bit. But just to start it out, at the beginning of this project, did you have sort of a mental outline of where you wanted the story to go, where you wanted it to end, and potentially how long it might take to get there?
I did. You know, we started the series with a flash forward, and then we kind of crashed back into the difficulty and chaos in the depths of her current life. So, the dream was to get to that place where we could fully realize what felt like a fantasy of a future and a vision that she had for herself. It felt like we had a great goal to get to. What we didn’t know was whether or not we would get the opportunity. So, we were lucky enough to get to do it.
Yeah. Well, I’m glad that you were able to realize and come back to that point because something I think is compelling but also challenging about this series is, of course, dealing with the authenticity and struggles that come with mental illness and disordered eating. And the reality that is the recovery process takes time. To see that through in a series, you also have to let that time develop. Was that something that you were aware of going into this and how you wanted to grapple and deal with that?
Yeah. That’s a good way of putting it. That was really how we felt about it. Rose [Byrne] and I, both in our approaches to the character and how we would present her illness, wanted to be honest about the struggles. And then we wanted to be honest about recovery, but we wanted to get there. We wanted to have ultimately a positive story of growth and change, and then the struggle of making it happen. It felt like we owed that to the character. We owed that to the audience. We owed that to the people who responded to us about how reflected they felt in their struggles be it disordered eating or other types of addiction and mental illness. So, we wanted to get there, and we wanted to get there in an honest way, meaning obstacles, setbacks, all of it, on the way to change.
Mm-hmm. So, looking at season three specifically and where Sheila ends at the end of season two, what were some of the major focuses and things you wanted to address narratively going into this final act, the final chapter for her story, as you put it?
Because we were able to show, at the end of season two, we saw her really at rock bottom in recovery, and seeing how she was able to start to put her life back together, that quieted that very ugly inner voice in her head. So, we found this new way to express that voice. It sort of pops up in this other way. It’s through this, what we now call a parasocial relationship with a woman that that enters her consciousness and becomes the focus of a lot of her anxieties. It felt like a way to explore how the hydra can grow a new head and kind of get ahead of you. You quell one part of the disease, and it pops up elsewhere. It felt just relevant today because so many of us, with the availability of access to celebrity lives that social media gives us, there’s so many of these parasocial relationships where people get unhealthily obsessed with the image that someone else is presenting of their life and how they’re making it seem easy to be who they are in a way that might start to erode your confidence. So, it felt like a way to explore that, so that’s how we created this character that Zooey Deschanel inhabits so well in in the show. It was just a way to evolve that idea. So, we had a lot of fun with that this season.
Yeah. And that inner monologue, that other person, almost, in a way, that Sheila’s character refers to this voice, as you said, manifests itself in a new way in season three. What about Zooey Deschanel felt right to bring her into the project and looping her in as being this in-between between fantasy and reality as well.
Well, Zooey is such an extraordinary performer. She’s a triple threat as that singer, dancer, and actress. She hearkens back to an older time in show business of that kind of performer who used to do Vegas shows. We’re thinking back to the 80s, these women that were pretty incredible at presenting. A lot of times, it was that icon of the ditzy blonde, but in fact, there were these steely businesswomen. You think of Suzanne Somers, and you think of people in that time, and they were these kind of visionary entrepreneurs, but they were presenting it in the form of the ditzy Marilyn Blonde. So, that just felt like catnip for her because she’s able to bring all those levels to it. It was also really fun for her to play a part that’s so unrecognizable to her persona. You know? I think a lot of people were surprised to see her in this different look and role. She really could go toe to toe with Rose in a great way.
That’s kind of what I wanted to ask next. What was it like to see that chemistry unfold between the two of them? Two fantastic performers. Just to have them be scene partners and explore that space together.
It was really fun. Having gotten to know everything that Rose is capable of in the first two seasons, comedically, dramatically, just her technical gifts as an actor, they inspire you to keep challenging her and raising the bar because she keeps clearing it. That was the same with Zooey, that it was somebody who could go toe to toe with her in all those levels, and it just inspired all of us as writers to give them more complex challenges to meet. And they kept meeting them. It was great.
It’s wonderful to see. I love the addition of her to this final season. Speaking to some of the other characters in season three—I’ll come back to Sheila, of course—but what was your vision wrapping up some of the additional characters outside of Sheila as well, bringing Bunny and Tyler back into the mix to close that loop a little bit?
They were beloved characters and fan favorites. And when their story ended naturally at the end of season two, it just felt very important to give them their due and bring them back, especially since our main character had kind of done them dirty, as we would say today. We wanted to close that loop and bring them back. We also just love them so much as people, those actors. So, one of the things you do in making a series together is you all form these bonds, and you want to pay them off, too. It was really fun to close the loop on their characters and story.
Speaking a little bit more about Rose Byrne specifically, what was your experience with the whole creative partnership with her? Because, of course, she’s the central engine that makes this show run. She’s just wonderful from beginning to end and has such honesty and intensity about her. From the beginning, what was that creative partnership like and the back and forth that evolved throughout the development of the series?
Yeah, I love talking about it because it needs to be more talked about. I think when these positive, wonderful experiences that we have … because it’s catnip when people want to talk gossip or say bad things about people, but I think in this case, it’s just so much fun to [talk about] a fruitful collaboration that I had with her. In the beginning, I approached her so deferentially, just wanting her to please read this and be interested in it. And by the end, I think we were just such partners. She inspired me to be braver as a writer because she’s so brave. There’s nothing she’s afraid of exploring as an actor or doing, and she does it with an extraordinary, I’d say, discipline and technique that it’s easy to overlook because she makes it look so effortless. She does make it look so natural, but her abilities are exceptional. Everyone else rises with her tide. She lifts everyone to her level. That’s true for writers, it’s true for all of the creative collaborators, and the other actors, too. So, it was a dream to work with her. I can’t say enough about it. We have a shorthand and an ease that developed over time and a trust because she knew that I was going to be there for her, and she was always willing to be there for me. I think it comes through in the performance and storytelling, and it’s true for the two of us that I think we both felt like it was one of the great professional creative experiences that we’ve been able to have. I can’t recommend her enough to anyone. I say, have an idea, you want to make it work? Get Rose Byrne involved.
Rose Byrne’s number one reference right here. But with this season, you also had an opportunity to direct an episode, so I’d love to hear what that experience was like.
I did. I mean, I should also say, I can highly recommend Rory Scovel, who was someone I wasn’t familiar with before we worked on the show. Rory is primarily a stand-up comedian, a brilliant stand-up comedian, beloved in the stand-up community, but less experienced as an actor, especially as a dramatic actor. But it’s wonderful. Our casting director, Susie Farris, gets credit for this, really going to bat for him and his abilities. It is extraordinary how someone who has that stand-up talent and the charisma to hold a theater in his hand with his words can also do such great subtle dramatic work, often. And he didn’t know that either. That was new to him. Anyway, I’ll just say, that when I had this opportunity to direct, my colleague Coleman Herbert wrote a more intimate episode. It was just about the marriage, and it was more like a play. So, it was a comfort zone for me with those two actors in our one set, and I was able to dig in. They had a lot of trust in me, and I had a lot of belief in them, so it felt like a good opportunity to step into that director role. And I had a lot of support from our collaborators and crew. It ended up being a difficult, challenging, fun experience, and I was grateful for it.
Something that I’d love to ask because, of course, the series is wrapping up. Is there anything that you felt you’ve changed or grown as a creator alongside the development of this and seeing through the series?
Yeah. I think the experience taught me, as a writer and creator, that the thing that connects most with people is what you’re most scared of and most vulnerable about. It gave me that little bit of extra courage, to be honest and write to where you’re tender and afraid because that’s where people are going to see themselves and come to it. And that’s the most gratifying part, the people who reach out about the show being meaningful to them, that they feel seen by it, that they understand people close to them because of it. I didn’t necessarily set out to do that, but in being honest, I did that for a lot of people. It just taught me that that’s where the good stuff lies.
That’s amazing to hear. Something that I think resonated with me a bit watching the series come to a close, and I think it’s important to note, too, is although this series specifically comes to a close, I think the idea of Sheila’s journey is something that she’s going to continue going on. And her healing process, the recovery process, is something that doesn’t stop with the end of the final episode, too. So, I just want to ask, where do you think, in your head, Sheila goes from here?
Oh, that’s such a great question. I love it. Well, I think one thing that we definitely wanted to show—in that flash forward and then where we ended up in the finale—that she was inspiring other people, other women, to become powerful in their bodies, powerful financially. So, I think she’s out there mentoring and inspiring other women, but she’s also still battling her own demons and trying to find balance because I think that’s what we ultimately got to. Recovery is not about everything being finally perfect. It’s about letting go of perfection and finding balance. Right? So, she’s still on that little balance board trying to find that sweet spot in the middle where she’s not pushing herself too hard but she’s challenging herself and others just enough.
Is there anything that you had in mind that wasn’t able to make it into the show?
Well, I always wanted to give her an era of finding her … it’s so funny to say that. I did have an idea along the way that it would be fun to have her and Paul Sparks‘ character, John Breem, have time together, that her Mormon wife era where she could be on a ranch somewhere riding a horse. It’d be sort of her Jane Fonda/Ted Turner moment that I knew it would come to an end, but it would still be a moment she would have. So, we didn’t totally get to do that. We didn’t really have the time for that, the real estate, as it were. But yeah, maybe that’s in her future, too.
Well, sign me up. I’ll check out the Rose Byrne Mormon-on-a-horse era.
[both laugh]
Yeah, right? Maybe we can do that in the movie someday.
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this series and the honesty and authenticity that you brought to it. I want to close out—I know I’ve heard that you have a couple of projects that you’ll be involved with. What’s up next for you?
I’m lucky enough to be doing a limited series for Apple coming up, it’s based on a thriller called Imperfect Women, and I’m going to be working with Elizabeth Moss and Kerry Washington. We’re developing the limited series and shooting it next year. So, I’m really excited about that, bringing some more complex female characters to the screen.
Of course. I definitely am excited to check it out. So, thank you so much, Annie. It’s been a pleasure to speak with you throughout the series and to see how this show has developed. I hope that it resonates with a lot of people out there and continues to have a life as more people come to it. So, thank you so much, and congratulations on this series. Best of luck with everything.
Thank you, Danny! It’s great to talk to you. Thank you for your thoughtful questions and responses. It’s really meaningful. Thanks.
Of course. Have a great rest of your day!