Dan Fogelman on "Life itself" and life itself



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By then, Fogelman had already been filled with some big events.

First of all, he was about to get married. This woman, Caitlin Thompson, had entered her life almost a year after losing her mother.

According to Fogelman, his mother battled cancer when she had to undergo surgery that was supposed to be a deadly operation.

He helped her make medical decisions. He said, "like losing someone in a car accident, but you drive the car and look all the time."

Fogelman admits that he had trouble getting out of the carpet afterwards.

"Life itself" is, in many ways, about the beauty, the pain and the tragedy of getting – or trying to get out of the carpet.

"I had lost that person who would not be there to meet that woman whom I had fallen in love with … I was happy, but I was still fighting this loss," did he declare. "And so I think a lot of things were spinning in my brain as I sat down to write it … I was obviously in a place where I was contemplating a lot of beautiful things, At the same time, I contemplated a lot of difficult things. "

Four years later, Fogelman was able to explore the most difficult moments of life with his show "This Is Us".

The multi-generational story, which was created in 2016 on NBC, found the narrative superpower in sentimentality.

His masterful ensemble and series penchant for heartbreaking twists helped make the series an instant hit and Fogelman one of the industry's most praised voices because he had done something that people have not seen in years:.

It's Fogelman's chance to see his hit series return for a third season a few days after his theatrical release. But critics have been mixed.

While the emotion of "This Is Us" has been widely praised, "Life Itself", which shares some themes with the series, has been criticized for it.

Fogelman is unfazed.

"I do not understand that," he says. "I think we're in a really strange place in film and art criticism – I think the world has become incredibly cynical and incredibly dark."

He knows, he says, that "it's never been totally cool to feel".

"I think there are 10 critics who want things to be restrained and dark, but I think the average human being and the average human experience are hugely great and emotional and dramatic," he said. "I mean, I think we have parents, families and children, we go to weddings, we go to funerals, we have children, we love … The human experience is like a beautiful, sad, emotional experience. "

Dan Fogelman

He continues, a little inflamed.

"I do not know why on Earth a critic could come out of something saying that it's emotional or that they're trying to manipulate me to have emotion," he says. "What else do we do?"

Fogelman himself is actually a "reserved guy," he says. He went to therapy briefly after his mother's death, but it was not for him. It does not emote easily.

One could theorize that he saves this for his script pages – even if he can not always anticipate the reaction.

"I did not expect people to start crying so much when I wrote" This Is Us, "he admits." That was not part of building that. "

But that has certainly become the case, much to the delight of marketing teams, who lean into the tissue box and cry emoji when they interact with fans on Twitter.

Fogelman, whose other credits include "Crazy Stupid Love" and "Guilt Trip", is aware of being cataloged.

"It's not something I'm going to do, but again, it means something is done right," he said. "I think crying – because it's fun to put emoji in tissue boxes on Twitter – it's becoming like a global narrative, and I understand it's actually an excellent sales tool, but I think we're trying to feel a bit smaller because it sounds like, "Oh, he's just trying to make you cry."

Fogelman's true inspiration comes from his "positive non-cynical view of human beings and what we all do here."

If movies or TV shows have the power to leave their audiences "in place where they are somehow open," he says, "I do not understand what else you would like to do."

"Life itself" opens on September 21st.

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