What’s new on Hulu this fall: A steady stream of Jewish talent
If comedies and science fiction top your TV viewing list, you’re in luck: New series from Sarah Silverman and Seth Rogen are coming to the streaming service Hulu, along with a show about superpowered teens with a real reason to hate their parents.
Meet the Jewish talent working on camera and behind the scenes on these Hulu shows.
“I Love You, America”
Creating a news/talk show for Hulu, Sarah Silverman didn’t want to preach to the urban, liberal choir. With “I Love You, America,” she aims to bridge the widening political gap between left and right thinkers through what she calls “aggressively dumb comedy.”
“It’s not going to be derived from, ‘We’re smart and right and they’re wrong.’ The comedy won’t come from that. It’s about connection,” Silverman said, noting that the mix of in-studio pieces and field reports will aim to find common ground among Americans.
“We may be getting our facts from very different places in a time where truth has no currency and facts don’t change minds, but I think comedy at its best can get people’s porcupine needles to go down,” she said. “We are ultimately the same, and we have to get back to that. With this show, I want to get to the root of humanity in this country.”
One field segment will send Silverman, also a writer and the executive producer of the show, to Slidell, La., to have dinner with a family that has never met a Jew.
of “I Love You, America.”
“There are 10 of us on the writing staff and I’m the only Jew. It’s shocking!” she said. “What happened to ‘liberal Jews’ who run the media?”
Other Jewish references and bits are likely to surface. “I can’t get away from it. I am Jew-y, I am Jewish — culturally,” Silverman said. “I can’t imagine there’s a God, but I don’t know.”
She attributes her edgy, no-filter comedy to her upbringing in Manchester, N.H. “I’m a product of how I was raised, by a couple of liberal agnostic Jews,” she said. “I come from a family that expresses themselves how they see fit.”
In another project, Silverman plays a Jewish character, Tennis World magazine founder Gladys Heldman, in the film “Battle of the Sexes,” which chronicles the 1973 match between Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). It opens in theaters Sept. 22.
“I Love You, America” begins streaming Oct. 12.
“Future Man”
Actor Seth Rogen has broadened his showbiz horizons in the past few years, adding producer and director to the acting and writing on his resumé. His latest project, as both executive producer and director, is “Future Man,” a time-traveling comedy series about a movie- and video game-loving slacker (Josh Hutcherson) whose joystick skills get him conscripted for a mission to prevent the apocalypse.
“It’s a guy’s journey from janitor to the potential savior of mankind,” Rogen said, describing the format as “a serialized comedy with a lot of plot and story to it. It’s inspired by a lot of the science fiction movies that we grew up on. Pretty much any science fiction movie from the last 35 years influenced the show.”
Rogen won’t appear in “Future Man,” but he will be seen in the film “The Disaster Artist,” a dark comedy opening in December about the making of a notoriously bad film called “The Room.” The cast includes Ari Graynor, Dave Franco, James Franco (who also directed it) and Hutcherson.
“I got to act in great things that, thank God, other people put me in, but I don’t expect it to happen. I’ve never had an acting career that I put in other people’s hands,” Rogen said. “I’m used to doing my own thing. If there’s something I really want to do, I’d write it.”
Born and raised in Vancouver, the son of Jewish socialist parents who met on a kibbutz in Israel, Rogen was a “funny kid” whose flair for comedy emerged early. After realizing he could make his family laugh, he started doing stand-up routines at 12. But his shtick didn’t quite fly at a big occasion the following year.
“I did terrible at my bar mitzvah,” Rogen said. “If you could get ‘fail’ at a bar mitzvah, I would have.”
“Future Man” begins streaming Nov. 14.
“Marvel’s Runaways”
Those familiar with tween-oriented TV fare may recognize Gregg Sulkin from his roles in “As the Bell Rings” and “The Wizards of Waverly Place” on Disney Channel and Freeform’s “Pretty Little Liars.” But it was the Jewish actor’s first major role as a bar mitzvah boy in the movie “Sixty Six” that launched his acting career when he was 13.
Three years later, he moved from his native London to Los Angeles, where now he’s starring in “Marvel’s Runaways” as one of six affluent Brentwood teenagers who discover they have unusual abilities and their parents belong to a secret, murderous cabal.
Sulkin’s character, Chase Stein, “is from a dysfunctional family. His father is an egotistical maniac and they don’t get along. The other kids have family issues, too, and they don’t really like each other,” he said. “But they have to get to the bottom of one thing: Are their parents evil? And if they are, what are we going to do about it?”
Chase is a lacrosse star, but Sulkin excelled in soccer and took part in the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel. It wasn’t his first trip to Israel: Sulkin became a bar mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
“It was the most special day of my life,” he said. “I remember the rabbi saying to me, ‘Gregg, may God bless you always and in all ways,’ and from that day I’ve been very lucky. My career has continued to grow.”
“Marvel’s Runaways” begins streaming Nov. 21.
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