INTERVJU / INTERVIEW
never quite the right idea. This time he said: “Right, she’s being offered the lead in a multi-camera sitcom, which is her dream, but the script is written by artificial intelligence.” I said, well, yes, of course”! How was it to become Valerie again? Was it easy to step back into that character? “I mean, it was. The good thing is that, since everything happens every ten years, Valerie is ten years older too, and I think everyone is a little different ten years on. We saw that from the first to the sec- ond season – she began to stand up for herself a bit more. She still pan- icked about certain things and felt the need to take action, but she ul- timately remains just as resilient as she has always been. It was really fun, and a little frightening.” Was it a challenge for the show to work as a standalone story for new viewers, while also satisfying long-time fans? “It didn’t feel like a challenge. We have to include something for peo- ple who know every episode by heart. Those people will immediately no- tice if we’ve left something out or ig- nored something that happened earlier. I mean, she’s still herself – she thinks she’s witty and sweet.” How do you see the current state of the industry, and how interesting was it to bring those elements into the script?
There will always be a desire for stories told by people… “I think so too. I mean, why is Friends still something young people want to watch? It’s like unconscious nostalgia for connection.” Finally, what would you like Valerie Cherish’s legacy to be? “Perhaps that she is resilient, and that we all have to adapt. Because there are things you really can’t influ- ence very much. But I feel that things eventually fall into place if they’re on the right path. In the end, it happens. And the greatest challenge is simply to survive that period. Just keep breath- ing and find a way.”
“There is always some kind of pan- ic in this business. In the first season, we were dealing with reality television. Everyone thought that was the end of television. I mean, the end of script- ed television. And it wasn’t the end, but it definitely reduced the number of writers needed, so there was less work. Then, ten years later, prestige cable came along, with half-hour dramedies that were sharp, realistic, and had only eight, ten, or thirteen episodes at most. Again, you don’t need fifteen writers in the writers’ room. So, the number is halved. Now, ten years on, it’s been halved again. Also, studios and television networks are now owned by larger companies that de- mand tighter budgets. So, the panic is always there, although I’m not actually worried about artificial intelligence.”
Ona zna da ć e je javnost uvek pamtiti kao Fibi Bufe iz serije „Prijatelji“, ali Čeriš ipak zauzima posebno mesto She knows the public will always remember her as Phoebe Buffay from Friends, but Cherish occupies a special place for her
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