Lauren Graham on Returning to Her Half-Hour Comedy Roots with ‘The Z-Suite’

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for The Z-Suite.]

Summary

• The Tubi original series ‘The Z-Suite’ explores workplace dynamics when Gen Z takes over, highlighting the clash between experience and ambition.
• Co-stars Lauren Graham and Nico Santos discuss their love for the comedic material in the show and building their character relationship.
• The cast expresses interest in continuing the series, emphasizing the enjoyment of working together and potential for more seasons.

The Tubi original series The Z-Suite shows what can happen in the workplace when you push out the longtime, experienced advertising executives and you shift the power dynamics in favor of rising Gen Z employees. When Monica Marks (Lauren Graham) and her loyal right-hand Doug Garcia (Nico Santos) make a career-canceling blunder, social media manager Kriska Thompson (Madison Shamoun) steps in. But ambition quickly proves not to be a replacement for experience and Kriska has to figure out how to get her team on the same page while Monica is just waiting (in an actual home replica of her old office) for her to stumble.

During this interview with Collider, co-stars Graham and Santos discussed why they wanted to be a part of The Z-Suite, getting into a comedy groove, finding the rhythm of their relationship, whether Monica would get along with Joan from Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist, how the tribute to Rent found its way into an episode, never wanting to try to replicate Gilmore Girls, focusing on the comedy over the tears, and whether they’d want to keep making more seasons. Graham also talked about an agonizing decision she once made to either do an episode of Sesame Street or to be a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race while Santos shared his experience on The Muppets Mayhem.

Lauren Graham and Nico Santos Were Excited To Collaborate on Comedy for ‘The Z-Suite’

“I love ridiculous and absurdist humor.”

Collider: When this came your way, what was the thing that you found most appealing about it? Had you been looking for a comedy series? Did you find yourself immediately connecting to the characters? What was the thing that really made you want to sign on?

NICO SANTOS: For me, it was the material. I am a very silly person. I’m not a serious person at all. I love ridiculous and absurdist humor. When I read the script, I was like, “This is crazy. I’ll do it.”

LAUREN GRAHAM: I just like to be surprised. When my agent first called and was describing the show to me, my first response was, “Wow, they thought of me for this?” I’m so delighted when anybody envisions me as the boss of anything. I just really liked the world and I loved the idea of being at the start of something. What is Tubi? We don’t know. We’re just gonna try to put our stamp on it and be a part of the Wild West. I thought that was cool. And then, when I met with Katie O’Brien, the writer and showrunner, I just thought, “Here’s a really smart, creative person who I would enjoy spending days with.” That’s a big part of decision-making for me now. Is my day gonna be collaborative and enjoyable? And it was.

Lauren, what would Monica from The Z-Suite think of Joan from Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist? Would they get along? What would they think of each other? Would each one think they’re better than the other? Would they ever work together?

GRAHAM: They’re rivals who pretend to be friends, and then talk about each other behind each other’s backs, but also have a healthy respect for one another. You’re right to bring that up. I don’t want these characters to be stereotypes, but they are archetypical as that female boss who has had to claw her way to the top, and who might have a kind of tough exterior, but what lies underneath? They’re definitely related, though.

You guys have both spent quite a bit of time making the same TV series. Lauren, you did over 150 episodes of Gilmore Girls and over 100 episodes of Parenthood. Nico, you did over 100 episodes of Superstore. You must have a sense of creating that magic when everyone knows the show they’re making and the characters they’re playing and it all just clicks. When did you feel that groove with this? Have you felt it?

SANTOS: I’m used to sets where you’re allowed to improvise a lot. We did it all the time on Superstore, and when we were given the chance to do that for The Z-Suite as well, everybody who improvised came up with some really great stuff. It just reminded me of how we did things on Superstore and I was like, “Oh, this is gonna work great. The people are great.”

GRAHAM: I didn’t know Nico, but I knew of him and we have friends in common. I knew our producing director, Tristram [Shapeero], and Katie became a friend fairly quickly. In all those ways, it felt like something we could do for a long time. It felt like a really safe, collaborative show. We weren’t fighting anything. We weren’t fighting executives. All the stuff you want to feel that says we could do this for a while was there. It felt like everyone was on the same page.

What do you guys most enjoy about working together and playing with this relationship between your characters? What was it like to find that rhythm together?

SANTOS: It happened pretty fast. It really helps that we have mutual friends and the love of shopping and sushi.

GRAHAM: Yeah, we do have some basic things we’re both interested in. Most of my friends are people who’ve been in my life for a really long time. I also have such respect for Nico and his work. Monica bosses Doug around a little bit, but she also really needs him and values him, and I just understood that.

SANTOS: It was great. I was worried about how it would work, and then the first day, I was like, “Oh, okay.”

I love character relationships that just feel totally lived in. We don’t know what that history is or exactly how these two ended up together in the first place, but you sense their history.

GRAHAM: Good. That gives me an idea for an episode, which would be a flashback to how they came together. We’ll work some CGI filters and age ourselves back. It would be fun to see where it started.

I loved all the Ad National magazine covers of you guys together that we see at the beginning of the first episode. Did you pose for others? Do you have a favorite? How many did we not get to see?

SANTOS: That was a really fun day.

GRAHAM: I think we both got the level of silliness that we could get away with. I kept saying it reminded me of Tootsie, where it tells you the journey of this character through all these magazine covers that she gets. I just loved that. And I think we used them all. I don’t think there were any that we didn’t use.

Nico, could you ever have imagined that you’d be adapting a Rent song for burgers?

SANTOS: That was not the original. I forgot what the original was, but we went through a lot of different alts for that moment. I love to always improvise some sort of singing thing whenever I work, but then everybody’s like, “We can’t pay for it. It’s not gonna clear.” So, I was very happy when that line cleared and made it to the episode.

How unhealthy is the fact that Monica has this replica of her office at home, so that she can just keep working?

GRAHAM: I loved it. It’s so inventive. That’s the brain of our beloved writer. Sometimes I’d be like, “Really?! Is this believable?” And everyone was like, “Yeah.” And I was like, “All right.”

Lauren Graham Reflects on the Impact of ‘Gilmore Girls’ on Her Life and the TV Landscape

“TV shows started talking faster and there was a bantery style.”

Lauren, you’ve talked about how you’d never want to try to replicate the beauty and magic of Gilmore Girls. It was such a specific show with such a specific writing style that it would seem impossible to even come close to trying to repeat that. But at the time the show ended, did people try? Did you ever get scripts that felt like they were just trying to copy what that show was, or did people know better than to even try?

GRAHAM: Even besides things coming to me, that style of that show began to have an impact. I felt like, in general, TV shows started talking faster and there was a bantery style. Very few writers have such a strong voice. So, it was more that I kept getting and continue to get more that kind of character, like the single mom or somebody with similar circumstances. That was Parenthood as well, but Parenthood was such a different style of show. Sometimes I’m just looking at something and going, “Okay, it’s a single mom, but she’s this and that and this other thing.” And also, to some degree, if things are coming your way, it’s because someone can picture you in it, so it makes sense, how you can maybe picture me. That’s why it was such a delight to get to do something so different. And I had really been dying to be in a half-hour. By the end of Parenthood, I was like, “I don’t want to cry anymore. I just don’t want to cry at work.” And I loved that show so much, but this is just a different tone. It’s fun to do.

SANTOS: Half-hours are the best.

GRAHAM: They really are. And it’s where I started, by the way. I started in a four-camera audience show. That’s all people were making in the late 90s, and I loved that. This is a single-camera that’s filmed, but I was like, “Oh, yeah, this is so fun. I missed this.”

Nico, because I love them so much, I have to bring up the fact that I’m highly jealous you got to work with the Muppets in The Muppets Mayhem. How was that experience? Had you been a fan of the Muppets prior to working with them? And Lauren, what was it like to do an episode of Sesame Street?

GRAHAM: I was such a fan. My dad used to take me when Jim Henson had a puppet show in some park in D.C. I don’t know that I knew that was Jim Henson at the time, but they meant a lot to me. Sesame Street meant a lot to me growing up. I believe that was the week that I was offered both Sesame Street and to be a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I couldn’t do them both. I was like, “I love this job.”

SANTOS: Oh, my God! That’s incredible. What a dream.

GRAHAM: I was like, “I have range.”

SANTOS: I really loved it too. It was really surreal to see the puppets.

GRAHAM: They’re not puppets.

SANTOS: What is the correct term for them?

GRAHAM: No, you’re correct.

SANTOS: It was really surreal to watch them being puppeted, It was really, really neat. I also loved Sesame Street. I remember sobbing as a kid, watching the Sesame Street movie.

Lauren Graham and Nico Santos Are Having Fun Together on ‘The Z-Suite’

“If we were stuck together for six seasons, I’d be very happy.”

Is The Z-Suite a TV series that you’re hoping will go for a bit? Have you heard ideas for a possible Season 2 yet? Have they spoken to you about the bigger picture of what this show could be?

GRAHAM: With the first season of something, you’re always thinking about Season 2. You’re always thinking about it from a creative standpoint and also from a, “Do you know what would be great? If in Season 2, we had another set, or we did this episode.” When something feels so fun and fresh, and the people are so great, you would love for it to continue. I would love for it to continue.

SANTOS: Same. Beyond being able to do this kind of material for longer, it’s the people that we all work with. If we were stuck together for six seasons, I’d be very happy.

GRAHAM: Me too.

The Z-Suite is available to stream on Tubi. Check out the trailer: