Emily Halpern '02 & Sarah Haskins '01 (Writers & Producers, TROPHY WIFE, BOOKSMART)
By D. Dona Le '05
“Writing’s fun,” declares Sarah Haskins AB ‘01.
Emily Halpern AB ‘02, sitting across from her in their adjoining offices at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, agrees. “The early brainstorming and outlining stages, we do together, just sitting with coffee and talking—kind of like this.”
“Some light complaining, a little brainstorming,” Sarah quips.
This writing duo, co-creators of the ABC show Trophy Wife (2013-2014), met while they were Harvard undergraduates and Emily was dating one of Sarah’s friends. They didn’t know that ten years later, they would be successful writing partners, producers, and showrunners in Hollywood.
At Harvard, Sarah hewed closely to her Chicago roots and joined the Immediate Gratification Players, Harvard’s improv comedy troupe. Emily wrote for the Lampoon and worked part-time for David Mamet.
Emily, a Massachusetts native, made the cross-country move to Los Angeles to pursue writing after graduation. “There’s a lot of Harvard people [in Los Angeles] and a great network. Having so many college friends in LA made the move a lot easier.”
Shortly after Emily’s move to Los Angeles, Mamet created The Unit (2006-2009) and brought her on as a writer.
“With my time on the Lampoon, I was always interested in the comedy space,” says Emily, “but I really enjoyed being in the drama world, and I got to work for David Mamet, Shawn Ryan and some really great people. That was my first foot in the door—although all the comedy ideas I pitched on the show got shot down."
In the meantime, after concentrating in American History & Literature, Sarah returned to her hometown to continue pursuing a career in improv and sketch comedy at renowned Chicago institutions, the Second City National Touring Company and i.O. Chicago.
“I wanted to be on SNL,” Sarah confides, “and I knew that a lot of people started at Second City and i.O., so I auditioned and went from there."
Although she enjoyed her work in Chicago’s vibrant comedy scene, Sarah moved to Los Angeles in 2007 after being offered a job with Current TV as a writer for its weekly series, InfoMania. She became widely known for her role as the “Target Women” correspondent, a segment that made satirical commentary on media, products, and advertising directed at women.
While Sarah was forging a name for herself as a comedian and comedy writer, Emily was a full-time writer and story editor on Private Practice (2007-2013).
Having learned from a mutual friend that Emily was also living in Los Angeles, Sarah met with her for dinner and discovered “we had similar ideas and areas that we wanted to write about.”
And thus, their writing partnership was forged on the belief that working together would help them actually bring those common ideas to fruition.
“We both had full-time jobs,” explains Emily, “and we thought that having a person you were accountable to would help us stay on track.”
“We are now the two most disciplined people ever,” Sarah says, barely keeping a straight face.
Their first collaborative project was a feature called Booksmart, written in 2009. Natalie Portman’s production company, Handsomecharlie Films, signed on to produce the high school comedy, which follows two overachieving girls who realize that the only thing they haven’t accomplished is getting boyfriends, and so they resolve to do so by prom. The script is now at Annapurna.
“We wanted to do a teen movie that was from the girl’s perspective,” says Sarah, “especially a teenage girl who is not represented on screen a lot—a girl who is very smart and successful in all these ways, except personally.”
Sarah and Emily tackle the initial stages of any project, whether a TV pilot or a feature film, in the same room together. Then, after establishing the basic outline for each scene or section, each writer will work on her separate pieces of the draft. Having collaborated for over five years, they have developed similar writing styles that enable them to link those pieces seamlessly.
“When we first wrote Booksmart, you could tell who wrote which page because our voices were so different,” Emily admits, “but we’ve been working together long enough now that we have a really similar tone and voice. We’ve synched up now.”
They quickly followed up Booksmart by writing and starring in a comedy short, Dilf (2010). Also, Amy Poehler, who had read and loved Booksmart, enlisted the pair to adapt Lunch Lady, a graphic novel about a cafeteria worker with superpowers, into a feature; the project is in development with Universal.
Then, their writing careers moved into the world of television. In 2010, Sarah married writer Geoffrey Edwards, a life event that inspired the premise of their ABC show Trophy Wife, starring Malin Akerman, Bradley Whitford, and Marcia Gay Harden. Trophy Wife revolves around Kate (Akerman), whose former party lifestyle dramatically changes when she marries Pete (Whitford) and is abruptly thrust into a larger family unit with his two ex-wives and three children.
Asked whether there was any tension with the public knowledge that Trophy Wife was based on her life, Sarah laughs easily. “No one has been judgmental to my face.”
She goes on, “My family was comfortable handing that loose [family] structure to us, but then we fictionalized it. [Writing Trophy Wife was] about separating fact from what’s funny as a story, and exaggerating what’s already funny to make it funnier.”
Trophy Wife was widely praised by critics, especially for its memorable child characters. Albert Tsai, a young actor who plays Pete’s adopted son, was also nominated for a couple Best Supporting Actor awards.
Emily says, “The important thing to us was that the kids feel real because we’d seen a lot of kid characters who are much smarter than their age or have some quirky attitude. So we let the [child actors] inform their own characters a lot.”
Of course, the pair weren’t focused solely on making just the young characters realistic and believable.
“Going into it,” Emily continues, “we discussed wanting all the characters to feel real, and wanting the women, the ex-wives, not just to feel like ‘the villain’ or ‘the crazy one.’ We wanted them to be real, well-rounded characters who are coming together with different perspectives but the same goal: raising these kids.”
Emily and Sarah’s scripts, from Booksmart on, consistently feature strong, dynamic, and likeable female characters. Emily and Sarah themselves are distinguished and visible female showrunners in an industry traditionally dominated by men, in which gender imbalance remains an issue in both writers’ rooms and executive boardrooms.
That said, it seemed natural to explore their perspectives of feminism and how it relates to their work.
“To me, to be a feminist means that you believe men and women should have equal rights and be treated the same,” states Emily.
Sarah adds, “Maybe part of being a feminist is that you write women as people. When we write men, we don’t go, ‘Ah, we don’t know what to do!’ We write our characters, male and female, as people who have perspectives."
As the co-creators of Trophy Wife, Emily and Sarah took care to create an environment conducive to developing all of their writers’ voices.
“It’s nice to be the boss in TV and to think, ‘Well, now that I’m one of the people who dictates the environment, how can we make this a great environment for everybody?’” says Sarah.
Sarah and Emily encouraged Trophy Wife writers to go on set when their scripts were shooting to ensure that the tone and their jokes were working well—and if not, the writers would have the opportunity to revise those jokes on the spot.
According to Emily, “Our general philosophy was, the more people can be empowered, the better for everybody.”
Sarah acknowledges that “it’s a good time for women in comedy and there are a lot of women who have paved the way” for other female writers, producers, directors, and showrunners.
Their next project, also for ABC, is a half-hour family comedy with Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (who were also Executive Producers of Trophy Wife) and will star Eva Longoria as an “affable meddler, a busybody who can’t help but get involved,” in Emily’s words. Or, as Sarah describes the character, “a nice Larry David.”
They are also developing another comedy pilot about estranged sisters who must reunite to care for their elderly father.
For the time being, Emily and Sarah will continue pursuing and producing TV projects, while the features they have written are in development. Which do they prefer, writing for TV or film?
“If we’re judging by who has produced and put our stuff on the air, then TV,” answers Emily. “In TV, even if your project doesn’t go forward, it’s a yes or no answer. But the feature world can be a lot more amorphous; your projects can be in development for a long time.”
Sarah adds, “And who has paid us more consistently? TV.”
“That said, in film, you have a lot of ownership over your material,” Emily concedes. “You’re really able to hold onto your voice in a way that you can’t always do in TV.”
But TV offers the benefit of structure, which is important for a pair of writers who initially partnered to create accountability and deadlines for themselves.
“There is not a ton of security in this business, but there’s something comforting about TV that you’re on a schedule,” Emily comments. “There are strict, hard-and-fast deadlines. You can have writer’s block, but come Friday morning, you’ve got to turn your episode in. Yes, writing is a creative process and you need to be inspired, but it’s also how you make a living, so you need to turn your draft in.”
Cultivating a strong and consistent writing career that pays the bills, as Emily and Sarah have done, is no easy feat.
Sarah’s advice for everyone starting out in their entertainment careers is, “When you’re not getting paid for it, you should be working on things you love and care about. That’s how your voice will come through. It’s important to write, direct, perform, and produce things you care about.”
Emily has a heartening piece of advice to add as well. “I think success in the industry is a combination of luck, skill, and timing, so it’s a question of persistence. If you’re pretty sure you’re talented, just stick it out because the stars will line up at some point.”
The stars certainly aligned the evening that this talented pair of writers reconnected in Los Angeles, and no doubt their collaboration will continue to yield many more laughs for comedy fans.