“It’s a story that always resonated very deeply with us where you’re an adult but you’re still struggling to get it right,” reveals Sarah Kucserka, co-creator and showrunner (alongside frequent collaborator Veronica West) of why she decided to re-imagine the classic “High Fidelity” for a new audience on Hulu. Watch our exclusive video interview with Kucserka above.
“High Fidelity” follows Robyn “Rob” Brooks (Zoe Kravitz), an unlucky in love music fan who owns a record store in Brooklyn, NY. While trying to get over her one true love Mac (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Rob revisits her past relationships through music and pop culture and shares her innermost feelings with the audience (by breaking the fourth wall), alongside friends and co-workers Cherise (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and Simon (David H. Holmes) and on again off again love interest Clyde (Jake Lacy).
The romantic comedy was developed for Hulu by Kucserka and West, based on the acclaimed novel by Nick Hornby. It premiered last February, 20 years after the Stephen Frears film adaptation of the same name that starred John Cusack, Jack Black and in some fascinating casting, Kravitz’s mother Lisa Bonet.
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The show turns the source material on its head, as its three main characters are two women of color and a gay man. And yet the show deviates from expected archetypes by focusing on characters that feel authentic and lived-in. “We were really conscious of not falling into any stereotypes with the characters on this show,” Kucserka explains. “To us the most important thing in the storytelling was showing the multiple dimensions of every kind of person in the world and giving people an unexpected version of somebody although very much like somebody that they probably know.”
She was also deeply connected to the show’s location, which is apparent from the first few frames of the series, which lovingly incorporates Brooklyn, New York as a character itself. “It was important that we made sure we got the vibrancy of New York on camera,” she says. “We spent so much time in the outdoors, we were on location a lot in this show and it made New York and Brooklyn a character, which was our intent from the start.”
Kucserka is hopeful for a second season pickup from Hulu, so that she can return to shooting alongside West and their beloved cast and crew. “We are still waiting for the go ahead, but we’re really hopeful,” she admits. “The response, particularly with everything that’s been going on in New York, so many people say ‘I loved watching this show,'” she says. “I really hope we can get back there and give the community everything that they gave us.”
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