Miriam Shor Breaks Down Younger Season 5, Episode 5

Hi I'm Miriam Shor and this is

Notes On A Scene from Younger.

(upbeat music)

So I directed episode five.

There's something pretty special about it,

besides just being my directorial debut.

It was an episode that was directed by a woman,

written by a woman, the first AD was a woman,

the editor was a woman, the script supervisor was a woman,

and we had our first gender fluid character,

portrayed by a gender fluid actor.

So I was pretty proud to be a part of that.

(upbeat music)

So this is when you see Molly Bernard's character, Lauren,

sort of introducing her friends

to her pop-up edible makeup event.

I actually asked if we could have some

go-go dancers strategically placed throughout.

And then I also suggested that maybe the waiters,

the people passing around the edible makeup have wings.

And then the fabric that sort of adorns these

is all in an earlier scene in Lauren's apartment,

as well as all this makeup and these

little signs that say Boof!

And you can really see that it is a temporary space

and I wanted it to look temporary because it's a pop-up

and I wanted it to look vaguely like she could have

put this all together herself and set this up herself.

Our camera op, Hollis, was up on a balcony

that happened to be in this space just grabbing shots.

I told him I wanted establishing shots

and he took it upon himself to get

this really beautiful shot of Molly

looking in the mirror, which I loved.

I asked him to do it again so we could

sort of establish Molly, in all her glory,

looking into a makeup mirror,

introducing Lauren and her makeup event.

Hi!

Hey, this event is so cool.

Oh, I know, I know.

Lip stain?

Oh, do I eat it or wear it?

I'm not here to tell you what to do.

What I love about the wardrobe for this,

and what I love about our wardrobe department in general,

is that they really know how to

explain the setting beautifully

through costume and also hair and makeup.

One of the things that the wardrobe department has to do

in this show is show a woman who's

trying to seem younger than she is.

Sutton Foster plays Liza, who is that person,

who is in her 40's and playing someone in her 20's,

so sometimes it'll look like, well,

she's trying hard, and that's 'cause she is.

This was a makeup event so everything is sort of,

you know, a pop of the lips, and of course,

Tam, who's her assistant, also

has a beautiful face of makeup.

And this outfit, I think, was actually

Jesse James' own beautiful outfit.

They're just serving the makeup here, which is edible,

and what it is is actually frosting with food coloring.

This hair, I like to say, is like

Shirley Temple on the best kind of drugs.

Aren't they great?

Who?

Tam, my assistant, you just met them.

I only saw one person.

Tam is genderqueer.

Genderqueer?

Oh, so he's bi?

Oh my god, Liza, no, please do not use that word here.

Tam is pansexual, homoromantic,

and their pronouns are they, them, and their.

Alright, no more questions, it's offensive.

The LGBTQQIPK community has been through enough.

You lost me after T.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning,

intersex, asexual, pan, poly, kink.

The fact that she said that line over and over

and over again and every time got it right, she's a miracle.

Molly Bernard is a force to be reckoned with.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning,

intersex, asexual, pan, poly, kink.

Thank you.

You're welcome, please keep your mingling to a minimum.

Oof, I was less confused in the closet.

Oh, how's the mascara?

It tastes like burnt ass.

So this is Hillary Duff coming into the scene and taking,

in terms of camera angle, the place of Tam.

I tried to set up the camera's so that,

since this was a long scene, and the thing

about television is you need to keep things moving,

you don't want your day to get too long,

you don't want to get behind,

'cause you don't have a lot of time,

so I set up the camera so that people coming in and out

of the scene would fold into the camera angles

as they would come in and out. and here's Hillary Duff

coming into this camera angle that we had on Tam.

And she was actually sitting just off camera,

just behind this person, on a little apple box just waiting.

It had some padding.

Just waiting for her queue and she would

walk onstage eating her edible mascara.

Mot enjoying it, which made me laugh every time.

And video village, which is what we call the area

where the director and the script supervisor and writers,

is just off here, so we're kind of

part of the party but you don't see us.

We're having a good time though.

It's loud enough that my guffawing,

I could have messed up many a shot

with my really, really loud laugh.

Our show does a lot of close ups and a lot of

reaction shots because the relationships between

these characters are really what the show is about.

We'll have wide establishing shots of a party like this

but we do go in for close ups more often than not

so we can really tell the story,

not just of when they're talking to each other,

but when they're listening to each other.

I love this particular look that Sutton has

because this is a Liza look that she gives

to Kelsey a lot when she's like Is that a good choice?

When the mother in her comes out

about the choices that Kelsey's making.

Not judgemental but just like,

Do we wanna make good choices?

And, I mean, you just want to keep a camera

on Miss Sutton Foster at all times

for her reaction because she's comedic gold.

This is gold, she's shiny like it, she's worth a lot, gold.

Kelsey.

I know.

Just eat your mascara.

(upbeat music)

Younger has a lot of party scenes.

I would say almost every episode there's a party scene.

In my episode in particular, episode five,

we had two party scenes so I had to find a way to really

differentiate between the vibe of those two parties.

It comes down to all the colors that you choose,

and the music that you choose.

Tam, lean in.

I will not, this is humiliating.

Oh yes, no, you're right, you're right, selfie's are dead.

Oh, Maggie, Maggie, will you take a picture of us?

Yeah sure.

No, you're making a spectacle.

Yeah, that's the whole point.

Lauren, everything can't be in all caps.

What do you mean?

Let me put this another way, it's not cool.

Nobody posts anymore, it's all word of mouth.

Oh, yes, no no, okay, I was just being ironic.

This is for my Finsta, that's fake Instagram.

Millennials are so sad.

Oh my god, okay, that just happened, I'm old.

I remember giving Jesse the direction

that they're not angry, they're just sort of

melancholy, there's a sadness to it.

Sad.

And the best is that they look like

they almost might shed a tear, like it matters that much.

So then I popped to a wide shot as Tam leaves

because I wanted Lauren to feel the impact

of what was just said to her,

which is that she is an older generation.

I wanted witnesses, I wanted Maggie to be a witness,

and then all of these extras to be a witness

to the moment that Lauren is realizing

that she is not the youngest one

in the room and is, in fact, sad.

You know, I have to admit that I was

pretty nervous about directing my co-stars.

Not because they're not wonderful people,

they are, they're amazing people,

but I wanted to do a good job,

I wanted them to feel that they were in good hands

and this was my directorial debut.

I really took to it and I feel that our give and take

as actor and director was better

than I could have ever hoped for.

Millennials are over, we are done.

No, we're still happenin'.