Interview: Executive Producer and Showrunner Lee Eisenberg on his Emmy-Nominated ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ and Why He’s Optimistic About the Future of Television

Lee Eisenberg is no stranger to the Emmy awards. He earned his first two nominations for producing and co-writing his first series, The Office in 2008. He would be nominated twice more for The Office, followed by 2015 nominations for the HBO television movie Hello Ladies: The Movie. Last year, Eisenberg was part of the nominated team for the surprise Amazon FreeVee hit, Jury Duty.

His most recent series, Lessons in Chemistry, has been nominated for ten Emmy awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, several craft categories, and three acting nominations for Brie Larson as Lead Actress, Lewis Pullman as Supporting Actor, and Aja Naomi Harris as Supporting Actress.

It is Eisenberg’s third project with Apple. He previously produced the series We Crashed and Little America. With Lessons in Chemistry, he brings Bonnie Garmus’s best-selling novel to the screen with great care. Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott, an aspiring chemist in the 1950s and early 1960s who surprises herself when she falls in love with renowned scientist Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). Their lives take an unexpected turn and Elizabeth finds herself as a single mother and the star of her own television cooking show.

As a fan of both the novel and the series, it was a delight to talk with Eisenberg about some of the series’ twists and turns and biggest moments. This interview is lightly edited for clarity and contains plot spoilers.

Karen Peterson: First of all, thank you for taking some time to chat with me today about lessons in chemistry.

Lee Eisenberg: Of course!

KP: And second of all, congratulations on 10 Emmy nominations.

LE: Thank you very much. Yeah. It’s amazing.

KP: You’re no stranger to Emmy nominations and awards, but how does it feel when your show gets recognized like this?

LE: Getting recognized is always incredibly exciting. It’s preferable to not getting nominated. (laughs) I would say this show was really, really special. It felt really personal. I had never really done anything like this. It was definitely a departure from what I’d worked on and written in the past. And at the time that we started the show, I was a relatively recent father and I had gotten married quite recently. And so much of the story of love and loss and resilience and finding your people really resonated for me. I think I read the book and came to the project at just the right time in my life to feel that I would be the right person to take it from the page to the screen. And it was just a beautiful collaboration.

We really wanted to imbue the show with so much warmth and heart and these really strong relationships. And I think behind the camera as well, starting with Brie Larson, who is the world’s greatest collaborator to Michelle Lee, my Apple executive that’s been kind of arm in arm with me for the last five years, and Natalie Sandy who’s been my executive for years now, and Sarah Dina Smith and Kat Smith, our production designer. Sarah directed the pilot. It was just a really great group of people, and I think the book resonated with so many of us that we really wanted to do right by it. And Elizabeth Zott as the central character, I felt more than anything else I’d ever worked on kind of the passion coming from everyone. And hopefully I think that translates on screen.

KP: It’s a beautiful show. I was a big fan of the book too, and I have to say Brie was… I couldn’t imagine anybody else playing Elizabeth.

LE:  No, it’s amazing. Yeah, she’s astounding.

KP: What was the process of casting her?

LE: Oh, Brie came to the project before I did. So she cast me, it was not the other way around.

KP: Did you read the book first and then you got involved in the show, or were you approached to do the show and then read the book?

LE: I read the book. My wife had recommended it, and I listen to everything that she says. And she said, “This is going to knock your socks off.” And it did. Bonnie Garmus’s writing is just so beautiful and surprising and tender and funny, and just really ticked off everything that I want out of a book, and then ultimately what I aspire to do in my own writing and the shows that I love to make and the shows that I love to watch.

KP: What was it specifically about the story, about Elizabeth or just this novel that made you really excited to get involved in the show?

LE: It really went to places that as a reader took me completely by surprise. And when Calvin died in the book, I put it down and I turned to my wife and was like, “Wait, what’s happening? What’s happening?” She’s like, “Keep reading, keep reading.” And life, you set out on a plan, you set out on a path in life and life rarely goes the way that you expect it to. And I thought that the book really captured that and we attempted to do the same in the show. And you start off with this woman who is a scientist, and somehow from there she’s going to end up having her own cooking show. That’s not the way that I think she intended for things to go. And yet when you meet Elizabeth, she is a character who has these walls up and she doesn’t want to allow kind of unknown variables in, contaminants. And I think that so many people do that.

And as she starts lowering these walls, she meets Calvin. Calvin’s the first person who’s able to connect to her in this way. And what starts off as this kind of mutual love and passion for science really becomes this deeper love and respect for one another. And they’re so like-minded in so many ways. And then we wanted to tell this beautiful love story, and then it gets yanked away from her. Just when she’s finally allowing herself to open up, she doesn’t get what she wants. And as a result of Calvin’s death, which is never what you would expect when death is as sudden as his is, all of these other things happen as a result of it.

And so what we tried to end the show with is Elizabeth is now a professor. We wanted to combine the science aspect of it that she’s going to continue doing her research. But we saw that Elizabeth is so great at standing up in front of a group of people as she is at Supper at Six, and really could be that one of those professors that you remember for the rest of your life, that the course of your life will change as a result of having had her as a professor. And we thought that you see her ability to speak to her audience at Supper at Six, and it felt like carrying that through felt really important to us.

But when Elizabeth reads Great Expectations, a section that Calvin had dogeared, and it’s all about how when things are happening, you don’t understand it. But it’s only when you look back that you’re like, “Oh, yes, of course I met my best friend because my flight was delayed and I was at the airport and two people were reading the same magazine article,” or you know what I mean? “I met the love of my life because I went in for a job interview and I was in the waiting room,” or whatever it is that life doesn’t go the way you plan it. And it’s only looking backwards that it does start to make sense. And that was something that we really wanted to kind of capture in the show.

KP: There’s a great moment before that, it was interesting to me. And I don’t remember it being in the book, but I love that’s in the series. And it’s when Elizabeth takes her daughter Mad to the science fair where she’s judging, and Mad makes the comment that she’s really more interested in Humanities. I love then then you go into this scene of Elizabeth reading Great Expectations to the chemistry class and sort of this blend of human humanities, human nature with science. I thought that was such a beautiful combination.

LE: Oh, thank you. My niece is the girl, the young sixth grader who talks to Elizabeth and Elizabeth starts to tell her about all the books she should read. Yeah, no, I thought there was something fun and charming about keeping science alive with Elizabeth while still being at Supper at Six and kind of thinking about what the next chapter is in her life and her judging the science fair and seeing this younger generation and seeing almost a young version of herself finding that kind of early passion and seeing really the power of teaching and the power of these relationships. It’s possible that as a result of that young sixth grade budding scientist meeting Elizabeth in that fair could change the course of her life. And those types of random encounters again is something that exists throughout the show.

KP: The novel goes back and forth in time a lot, but the show is told much more linear from start to finish. Can you talk about the decision to change that structure for the storytelling?

LE: We started later and then we flashed back, and we do have flashbacks kind of throughout it. So we did change the structure. I think it was really what we were trying to capture thematically in every episode. And so what was the best path for us to execute that? In episode six, we’re flashing back and seeing Elizabeth as a child. Episode seven was something that was a departure from the novel, but really was inspired by it, which was the letter writing between Calvin and Wakeley (Patrick Walker). And that was really a result of, there’s a mystery hanging over the show, which is what is Calvin’s backstory and who are Calvin’s parents and how did he end up here?

And having the opportunity to dig back in and seeing Lewis Pullman, who’s so brilliant as Calvin and seeing all these scenes but told through a different perspective was really something that was exciting to us. And getting the chance to flashback and see Calvin as almost a young Walter White, working and creating his own moonshine and seeing this budding scientist there. What the goal was with the show was to make every single episode immediately distinctive and declarative. And I jokingly said that Friends would do, every episode would say “The One Where,” that’s how every Friends episode was titled. And in my mind it was always to have every episode of the show thematically deal with grief or loss or her finding a chapter two, what’s next for her? Showing how the past informs the present, all of that.

KP: Harriet’s (Aja Naomi Harris) story is completely different. And really, she gets to be a totally separate, completely new character really. Can you talk about developing a new arc for Harriet?

LE: One thing we talked about as we were developing the show is this idea of surprise. And Calvin talks to Elizabeth about it. It’s like this world famous scientist who’s basically saying that you have to be open to surprise in your life and that things don’t go the way it’s planned. And Elizabeth kind of laughs it off at the time, and then it resonates more for her later. And the writing process and development of the show, that was very much the way that we did it. And things didn’t go according to plan, and we were constantly adapting. And so we had Aja Naomi King, who plays Harriet, we had her pinned for a different role. And we loved her as an actress. And we’re like, “Oh, we’re so excited to have her in the show,” and we still needed to cast Harriet.

And the more I thought about it, I started thinking, “Well, now we’re going to have to compete for screen time.” And I am so in love with Aja, and the idea of her and Brie having scenes together is incredible. But now we’re going to have to find a Harriet. I’m sure we would’ve found someone amazing and those scenes would’ve been great, but now it’s going to be pulling from this other person that I know will deliver at such a high level. So that was the beginning of it. And then we just started saying, “Well, what if? What if?” And a lot of the what ifs, we started going down the road and we really started thinking about what would happen if Harriet was this young Black lawyer who is dealing – certainly with sexism – but really is dealing with systemic racism. And we started talking about where Elizabeth might live, where Calvin might live, and we landed on this Sugar Hill neighborhood.

And all of a sudden things started to fall into place very quickly. We looked into the history of the 10 freeway here in LA and that they were considering all these different neighborhoods and what would happen. And there were all these community organizers that were trying to fight it, fight this bureaucracy. And then ultimately, it was years. It took years of going back and forth and lawsuits, and ultimately they just decimated this predominantly Black upper middle class neighborhood. And seeing that story felt like a very powerful one to tell. It felt very topical. It felt like Elizabeth is someone who’s speaking truth to power throughout, and particularly at Supper at Six.

And then to see someone in Harriet that can connect with Elizabeth, that can challenge Elizabeth, and that is not only dealing with sexism and misogyny, but is really contending with the survival of her neighborhood and her community and like I said, challenging Elizabeth to stand up for what’s right, even when standing up for what’s right has real consequences. That was an exciting story. And I think this kind of unlikely friendship that is brought… The two of them are brought together by Calvin’s death, but that this deep relationship full of love and respect emerges from it through the shared loss was something that was exciting for us to explore.

KP: It’s really great. And I also love how it shows the audience, “This is how you can be an ally to people that need you to.” And there’s a scene with Harriet and Elizabeth talking about the fact that Elizabeth has a platform and Harriet does not, and she needs to use that.

LE: Thank you so much. Thank you.

KP: You mentioned that Brie was involved with the project before you, but how did you come to find Lewis and Aja? And Alice Halsey is just adorable.

LE: Yeah, the casting of the show, it just felt right. And as soon as I started talking to Lewis about the character and saw those first scenes… You never really know until you’re on these sets. And they put on their lab coats for the first time, and the jazz starts playing. Sarah Dina Smith who directed the first two episodes and is brilliant and won a DGA award for the show really helped set a tone for these two actors. And in short order, you just felt that chemistry between the two of them immediately.

And I would work on the show, and because I had a young daughter, I would kind of race home as best I could to get home for dinner and then would continue working on the show late into the night. And I would stop to watch the dailies every night with my wife. And I saw the way that she reacted to Lewis as Calvin early on and realized that we really had something special with him. Initially, we only had him contracted to be in three episodes, and I needed to find a way. I did not want it to ever feel cheap or feel maudlin or treacly, but I want it to feel earned. And so we started talking a lot about loss and how the people that you’ve lost in your life, how they reappear to you. And is there an organic way? And having these flashes of Calvin, having episode seven, which was this kind of Calvin’s backstory that we called “The Book of Calvin,” and you see his life in chapters, those are ways of keeping him alive.

And then in episode eight, one of the final images is him watching this life that Elizabeth has built, and she’s never going to lose. The loss never goes away. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t build yourself back up. And I think that was one of the messages that we wanted the audience to take away from the show.

KP: It’s a beautiful final moment.

LE: It was one of those things, I wasn’t on set when they shot it. So the first time I saw it was in a cut. And I saw him and my throat just clenched immediately. What he does with his eyes. He’s just a brilliant actor.

KP: He really is. My final question is this. You’ve worked now with Apple for a while, and you worked in network television too. What is it that keeps you optimistic and excited about where TV is and where it’s headed?

LE: There are all these articles about the state of the business and where everything’s landing and the strikes were so crippling for so many people. I think there’s so much creativity. There’s so many fresh voices that have emerged in the last five or 10 years. There’s so much ambition. And the experience that I’ve had at Apple, I’ve now made three shows there. I made Little America and We Crashed and Lessons in Chemistry, and every show, the executives are as ambitious as the creators and they have trust. And it is a true collaboration. I have felt the most creative version of myself there because it’s a company that’s built on creativity. Yes, they’re the biggest company in the world, and their market cap is something, a number that I can’t count. But they truly, truly… It’s a company that starts with creativity and it matters. And we are all so invested in it. And some of the greatest moments in the show are based on the collaborations that I’ve had with my executives.

And when I hear people… and I’ve had those experiences where you have executives that are phoning it in or really it’s important for them to get their notes in or whatever. That’s just not the way that Apple approaches it. It’s not the way that I approach it. And when you can find these collaborations that are built of mutual respect… And that’s the only way I know how to do my job is I want everyone to be smarter than me. I want to be challenged and I want to challenge. And I think when you can do that, I think that TV really does have an opportunity to move people to endure and to really feel like art and to entertain people. And that’s all I really want.

There’s a little speech that Walter gives Elizabeth about the power of TV, and that was me channeling my passion. I grew up and probably watched too much TV or maybe not based on where my career ended up. But to get sucked into a show, to get sucked into any storytelling, whether it’s a book or a movie, podcast, a TV show, that’s what I live for. I live for telling stories. I love being creative. I love surrounding myself with other creative people. And I think as long as we’re able to do that, I think that great things can emerge from it.

Lee Eisenberg is Emmy-nominated as a producer of Lessons in Chemistry for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.