Interview: Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly – From Saturday Night Live to ‘The Other Two’

Comedy Central’s critically acclaimed new scripted series, The Other Two wrapped its first season in March 2019 and is currently in production on season two. The Other Two is created by, written by and executive produced by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider ( Saturday Night Live ) and after serving as co-head writers during one of the series’ most memorable seasons, this comedy was born.

I caught up with both Chris and Sarah to discuss their formula for writing one of the funniest shows of the year.

How did this begin, at what point did you turn to each other and think it’s going to be a great idea?

Sarah: We were still at SNL when we started talking about doing a half-hour show. Chris and I would spend our off weeks pitching ideas to each other and seeing what stuck. We kept coming back to this idea because we felt it had legs to it and we were excited by the characters and the idea of being able to write music videos for a little kid.

We were like, “Let’s go upstate and write a pilot for it.” We spent a weekend in a cabin and when we came back we had a rough idea for this show sketched out.

In the pilot, we meet Brooke and Cary and there were so many jokes, it’s a laugh a minute. Talk about writing that entry point for the characters and how you crafted that.

Chris: We wanted something that was iconic for the characters and something that told you everything you needed to know about where they were starting off. Cary is a struggling actor and his little brother becomes famous out of nowhere after Cary has been trying for ten years. We thought if your little brother is on The Today Show, what is a good example of a bad acting job that you’d be auditioning for in contrast. We wanted something quick, dumb and funny. So we thought, he auditioning for a fart commercial seemed to do the trick.

We actually wrote a version of that as a sketch for SNL a few years ago and that idea always made us laugh. We thought it was a good contrast.

For Brooke, it was a bit harder to think of her in the pilot. We just really liked the idea that this woman doesn’t know what she’s doing next so she’s using Chase as a launchpad to figure out her own life. Chase is a cool, young, up and coming person. She’s, “I’m young and cool and I’m going to figure out what I want to do next.”

I saw so many of my friends in these characters. Were they based on anyone in particular?

Sarah: Their experiences are based on stuff that Chris or I have experienced or there were periods in our life that we could look back on and digest. People in the writer’s room would tell us stories that would fit into the characters. So, they’re kind of an amalgamation of the two of us and our writers.

We mostly wanted to write characters who were living through things that we related to. The idea of starting over, the idea of not being sure if you’re on the right path. Thinking about leaving it all behind and moving to the suburbs. Should you double down on this? There was a lot of stuff on relationships and feeling comfortable with yourself and deciding to leave something behind that didn’t work for you. Those are universal experiences and we molded them into the two characters.

You’re writing this 12 months in advance. What’s the secret to being so in tune with pop culture and your pop parodies?

Chris: It was hard because there’s a year lead time. We struggled with trying to make sure that we weren’t commenting on anything so specifically that it would feel old.

There were some things we talked about that we knew would feel old a year later. Then there were some things that were evergreen. When it came to the music videos, we tried not to parody one specific music video, but the idea behind a music video or the type of music video that seems prevalent.

For music videos, in particular, these types of music videos are always being made so we can parody that. As opposed to, Ariana Grande just released this music video, let’s parody that verbatim.

A lot of it was hoping that what we were parodying didn’t seem old and we crossed our fingers.

Sarah: It was also spotlighting particles of pop culture that we hadn’t seen parodied yet. Or things that felt new or interesting. When someone brought it up in the room, we hoped no one beat us to the punch. It was interesting for us to just explore different facets of pop culture.

I’m completely obsessed with “My Brother’s Gay.” How did that come up?

Chris: We actually pitched that as part of the show. We knew it was going to be in the show just because Cary is struggling with his own identity and how could his younger brother’s fame exacerbate that. We liked that that song outs Cary and makes his sexuality front and center – not that he was closeted before, but it makes him take stock of himself by asking, “Am I living up to this gay man that is in this song?”

We thought it was a funny and stupid way to force Cary to have to deal with some issues. We wrote the lyrics and wrote the song with Leland, who writes for Troye Sivan and a bunch of other real people. He made our jokes sound more legitimate than it should have.

How do you strike the balance between dealing with the comedy and drama?

Sarah: It was so important for us to find that balance. The shows we like the most are really funny and make us laugh out loud, but then they have a deeper and more emotional throughline. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what they’re going through and the situation they’re being put through because their little brother is famous and that’s funny, big and pop culture satire. But, their true emotional journeys are through discovering themselves and coming to terms with their sexuality and these larger and dramatic issues. They’re coming to terms with the death of their father and grieving. We tried to put them through the lens of the larger and comedy world. We love to write jokes, but it was important to find a balance and to fit in the drama. You’ve had twenty minutes of fast-paced comedy and when the drama comes, you can sit a little bit because hopefully it feels earned.

It is. Is there a difference between writing comedy for SNL and a sit-com?

Chris: It’s very different. It’s the opposite. For SNL, you have to write something on a Tuesday and it’s up on Saturday. If you write something you’re proud of, you get immediate gratification. If you write something you thought, “Eww, I don’t like the way that turned out” you only have to sit in that for a day because you start on Monday all over again.

That’s definitely a fun thing about SNL that we miss, but it’s been nice working on this show. You can tell narrative stories, you can write funny stuff and you can make them 3 dimensional. The characters can change, learn and grow. You can deal with things that are not just funny but a little more dramatic. Longer storytelling has been nice.

Sarah: With the fart commercial that we put in our pilot. We were surprised they put up at SNL because it got cut up in dress rehearsal. It was such a small observation, it was such a tiny acting move. We were happy it had a second life. You can do smaller performances and be in with the person and edit it.

Let’s talk about Chase and creating his character. I just loved that he’s not the annoying little brother, but they actually love and care for him. He’s not a jerk. 

Chris: We thought if you were Brooke and Cary and envious of your borther’s success, it would be easier to write him off if he were an asshole. We think it’s more complicated if you are envious or jealous of him but you love him and you care about him. They’re worried about his well-being and so that complicates things. It allowed us to make something more well-roounded and gave us more storytellign opportunities.

We’re jealous, but we’re scared for him. Chase Walker was a kid we found on the internet. He’d just turned 14 when we auditioned him and it was his first audition. He just felt so similair to the character and he was so open and game. He came from the Music.ly world and he felt as close to the real thing.

What can we expect in season two?

Sarah: If you’ve seen the frist season. Molly now has her own talk show and that’s opene du pthe world that their brother is off to colleege and thier mother is in the spotlight and that opens up a new sied of cleebirity and hwat ti means to be a famous woman over fifty. It’s exploring a new and different side of things.