PEN15: How Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle made quirky TV show mandatory viewing

The description wouldn’t do the returning PEN15 justice. You really have to see it to understand why it’s mandatory viewing.

When it came to write the second season of their acclaimed series PEN15, creators and stars Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle were scared.

“We were really nervous because there was the fear of ‘do we have more to share?’,” Erskine told news.com.au.

Konkle agreed, explaining that they gave the first season everything, thinking they were only ever going to get “one shot at this”.

“We went into it [at the beginning] with ‘we have one season’ and it’s a miracle it got made, it’s a miracle we get to do this, so let’s just give it our all.”

In many ways, it was a miracle a series like PEN15 was ever greenlit. Ten, maybe even five, years ago, PEN15 would’ve had TV executives running in the opposite direction, unable to conceive of how a show as original and unique as this would ever attract the big audiences necessary to be sustainable

But we’re now living in an age where mass audiences are not the be-all-and-end-all of TV, with the surge of myriad streaming platforms, which allows shows such as PEN15 to find a smaller but passionate fanbase.

The handkerchief hem was all the rage 20 years ago (Photo by: Erica Parise/Hulu)

“For the first season it was, this is a weird concept, it’s very much the underdog,” Konkle said. “Even the feedback from the network, which was very supportive, was that not everybody gets it.”

Well, people got it. Not only was it renewed for a second season, which starts on Stan this weekend, it was also nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy Writing.

If you’ve never seen the series, its description does sound odd.

In PEN15, Erskine and Konkle, both 33, play 13-year-old semi-autobiographical versions of themselves in the year 2000, living through all the awkwardness and emotional turmoil puberty entails and the friendship that sustains us through the trauma.

The idea of their adult bodies trying to be teenagers less than half their actual age sounds like sketch comedy, especially given that their fellow cast members, those playing their friends and crushes, are teen actors.

But the choice was made to emphasise that when you’re a teenager, you never feel like you belong to the crowd and Erskine and Konkle’s characters are the “ultimate outcasts”.

All the other teen characters are played by teen actors (Photo by: Lara Solanki/Hulu)

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There’s an emotional authenticity to the writing and performances that make it seem much more plausible than it is – and it’s what makes it so resonant to anyone who went through puberty, especially anyone who went through it around the turn of the millennium.

If the relatability of talking on a corded phone with your friend and blu-tacking posters on your wall doesn’t take you back, then the soundtrack will – Des’ree, Marilyn Manson, Incubus, Len, Leanne Rhimes, K-Ci & JoJo, Lifehouse and so much more.

Of course, it’s not the world-building elements that hit the hardest, it’s those coming-of-age experiences that will. Getting your first period, the confusion of discovering sexual desire, the high stakes of high school friendships and the daily fear of being embarrassed in front of your peers whose approval meant everything at the time.

Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine are best friends in real life too (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

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For Erskine and Konkle, who in addition to being creative partners are also best friends, reliving those moments during production was a mixed experience.

“There’s the part where you get to live in the innocence of the characters and just having your best friend around and leaning on them, and being your most wild self,” Konkle said.

“But that comes with the lows too, where these experiences were pre-therapy, pre-understanding what’s happening or having some grasp on your emotions.

“That was an age where your brain wasn’t totally developed and while that’s an awesome storytelling frame, going through it again and sharing all the autobiographical stories, it can be fun but you can also cry a little in the writer’s room if you’re me.”

It wouldn’t be awkward puberty without braces or a bowl haircut (Photo by: Lara Solanki/Hulu)

Erskine said there was a cathartic release on set when they were doing those scenes – “I don’t think we anticipated how triggering it would be”.

The added benefit of re-charting their teen experiences on screen meant an opportunity to “rewrite” their own histories.

“The beautiful part of it was we get to rewrite some of those things that really happen to us because we didn’t have each other in those moments [back then],” Erskine, who didn’t meet Konkle until their third year of university in New York, said.

“So, if I’m going through a tough moment, I have Anna right there, who’s either in the scene with me or supporting me.”

But that revisionism doesn’t extend to making themselves come off the winners in PEN15.

Whereas the now-adult writers of teen shows have a little moment of revenge by giving their underdog characters quip snappy comebacks in scenarios where, realistically, they would’ve been left shamed and silent, Erskine and Konkle don’t indulge.

“We don’t want to give our characters too many heroic moments because we’re trying to hold up a mirror to what it was like,” Erskine explained.

Backyard pool parties are a rite of passage (Photo by: Lara Solanki/Hulu)

In approaching the second season, having not really exhausted everything for their “one shot”, Erskine said the pair just asked themselves, “What do we want to make?”.

“The thing Anna taught me a long time ago was to find what makes us laugh,” Erskine said. “So we try to remind ourselves of that every single time we approach work. What makes us happy?

“I think it helps to have a partner that you respect so much because if she likes it or if she’s laughing hysterically, even if no one else is laughing, I don’t give a f**k.

“There have been so many times on set where everyone is silent, but Anna would be on the floor laughing with me and that would make my day. That’s how I know it was good.”

That’s the key to why PEN15, which is truly unlike anything else on TV, has found so many fans. Because it’s exactly what Erskine and Konkle wanted to make for themselves.

PEN15 season two is streaming on Stan now

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