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Katja Blichfeld: Yes, we do. I think it's 'cause we're all living in the same area code, really. [Ben and I are] always just capturing what we're seeing. When we worked with our art department, too, we were trying to make sure the spaces looked like people lived in them, and not like a set decorator came in and put a bunch of stuff in there.
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Sinclair: And also, we don't like exposition. We hate clunky exposition when we're watching TV, and there's no faster way of showing something about somebody than—Blichfeld: Just showing it.Sinclair: We don't have to tell why you want this, or what you like about it. If you're wearing it, I know you like it."I think the communal suffering is the glue of New York."
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Sinclair: I think the communal suffering is what is the glue of New York. The fact that communally we all understand that you don't come here and just skate by, unless you own an apartment here that you're never in anyway, so we don't see you. Oligarchs, whatever.We show all of these little indignities of living in New York. And that's what New Yorkers bond over. [It's] like: "What a pain in the ass." "God, you can't bring anything with you during your day, gotta go home and…" There are all of these things that are familiar to us, and that's really how we communicate with one another here.Blichfeld: Through complaining?Sinclair: Through complaining.That reminds me of that Onion article where it's like, "8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York Is a Horrible Place to Live" and then immediately leave.
Sinclair: I remember that one. That was a really funny one.
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Blichfeld: Yeah. "It's so fucking hot." Or, "When is this train gonna come?" or, "The MTA sucks…"How much do you consider High Maintenance to be a "New York show"?
Blichfeld: I think it's very New York. We are observing New Yorkers and writing specifically about what we observe, both in our personal lives and what's going on in the street. I think the show probably is still more about the urban experience than anything.Sinclair: I think the reason it is New York–specific is because weed dealing is still illegal [in the city]. But the system is such that people generally go into people's apartments. And that is the kind of interaction that we're chasing: the moment when somebody goes into somebody else's apartment and has an effect on their life.
You guys have talked about how each episode is drawn from your own experience. But in the new season, we get some immigrant stories, such as the Pakistani Muslim family and the Chinese bottle collectors and their experimental musician son. Has the process of writing these stories been very different than in the past? Has this been part of a goal for you guys, to kind of move beyond your immediate friend circle?"You might not think at the outset that a Chinese immigrant can-collecting couple would have anything to do with my parents, who were not Chinese and did not do that for a living. But there's overlap."
Blichfeld: Definitely. But one of the challenges to that was that it's a referral-based service we're characterizing. And so, logically, only certain kinds of people know one another. People know one another from a work circle, or a social context. So it would make sense that people coming to this character are mostly coming from the same pool of people. So there was an inherent challenge in trying to branch out without it seeming like, "Well, how did these people get connected?" And what we concluded was, we don't have to make them customers. The Guy can have a brush with some people, but he doesn't have to sell them weed. So I think we just started from there, and then we were just like, "Who do we see all the time in the city?" And obviously the answers are infinite, but I think––
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Sinclair: You know, we've attempted to write stories that are extremely personal. We almost wrote one story where you, as the viewer, would've been like, "Oh, they're writing about themselves. And they're being raw about it." And I think that episode—we had to stop. It was too hard to write. We had to keep some privacy to ourselves.
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Blichfeld: Not a fool or a clown, but we have demonstrated over and over that he has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth, or like––Sinclair: Well, he's too open.Blichfeld: Yeah, sometimes his boundaries are messed up. I think that's probably what they meant. In the very first episode we ever made, he puts his foot in his mouth and talks about prescription.Sinclair: "Bumbling" is a different word, though.Blichfeld: I might have used a different word, too.Sinclair: But I don't know what the word is yet. Someone else commented [that] the Guy's a little less cheery and more guarded this season. And, you know, we're the writers, and I'm the Guy, even though he's a better version of my best side or whatever.Blichfeld: But also we had to acknowledge that.Sinclair: It's New York.Blichfeld: It's fucking hard to live here. Why would the Guy be any exception to crumbling under the stress and anxiety of being a small business entrepreneur? Of course he's getting beat down, too.Will weed ever not be inherently funny?
Sinclair: When you deal with people getting over terminal diseases, it's not very funny.Blichfeld: Or when they're an addict, and it's just, like, one of many things they're addicted to. When they're shirking real responsibilities and neglecting people's needs and their own needs. Then it's not funny.What's going to happen to the Guy if/when weed becomes legalized? Is he worried about eventually losing his job? What would he do instead?
Blichfeld: Wow, people really want to know the answer to that. It doesn't really concern us at this time. It's not something we think about, it's not something we consider when we're writing these stories. It's going to be quite a long time that recreational legalization is so widespread that there's no need for the Guy's services. That being said, could he have another career? Absolutely. Are we going to talk about it here? No way, José!Follow James Yeh on Twitter.High Maintenance premieres on Friday, September 16 at 11 PM on HBO.