Josh Thomas on making Everything's Gonna Be Okay

It's a word that is usually whispered to doctors and pharmacists, but Josh Thomas found himself having to describe it to American executives.

Trying to explain what thrush is to American TV executives is not a conversation Josh Thomas ever thought he would find himself in.

“They didn’t know what thrush was and I didn’t know what they called it,” Thomas told news.com.au. “So I had to try and explain it using descriptive words, and that’s actually such a hard thing to do in a professional situation!

“Turns out they call it a yeast infection.”

But you can just imagine it, Thomas turning red in front of a bunch of Yanks looking at him in confusion while he tries to describe a burning vaginal sensation. Welcome to the glamorous world of making TV.

After the critical and audience success of his previous series, Please Like Me, Thomas was scooped up by the American network and Disney subsidiary Freeform for his next creative project.

The result is Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, a 42-minute drama-comedy, streaming on Stan, in which Thomas stars as Nicholas, a 25-year-old Australian who visits his father and two younger half-sisters Genevieve (Kayla Cromer) and Matilda (Maeve Press) in Los Angeles.

Nicholas’ holiday is permanently extended when his father tells him he is dying from late-stage cancer. Nicholas ends up as the legal guardian to his teen sisters, and sometimes teen girls get thrush.

Nicholas is barely an adult himself and is now responsible for two other humans, teenage girls no less, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.

That’s where the thrush conversation comes in – as an Australian creator and writer penning the dialogue for an Australian character but in an American setting for an American TV network.

Yeast infections are infinitely more awkward than asking an American for a bin when all they understand is “trash can” – there are so many linguistic differences between our two English-speaking countries.

Thomas with co-star Kayla Cromer.

The Queensland-born Thomas, 32, has been around the traps in the industry since he won a Melbourne Comedy Festival award at the tender age of 17. He toured here and around the world with various stand-up routines and then landed a spot as the Gen Y captain on Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation.

In 2013, he debuted Please Like Me on the ABC, a funny, sweet and raw TV series drawn from his own life experiences. The four-season series won rave plaudits, even from the likes of Girls creator Lena Dunham.

Please Like Me opens with an episode in which his character, also named Josh, is called to the hospital after his mother Rose (Debra Lawrence) attempts suicide. It’s an experience ripped straight from his life – Thomas’ mother Rebecca attempted suicide when Thomas was in high school.

He was careful to consult with his mum about Rose’s actions on Please Like Me, especially the character’s eventual suicide in season four.

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Everything's Gonna Be Okay is Josh Thomas' second TV series

But now with Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, Thomas’ mother has less to worry about.

“This new show is fiction. My mum loves this new show a lot,” Thomas said. “She said ‘it’s like art’, which is, well, I’m not sure what she thought the last was like.

“I think maybe she finds it easier to watch because it’s her fictional ex-husband dying and not her. I should be careful saying that, the dad in this show isn’t based on my real dad.”

Despite the father character's death in the first episode, Everything's Gonna Be Okay is a sunnier, possibly more accessible series than Please Like Me.

“Both my parents took so long to watch this new show,” Thomas said.

“I think they get nervous watching it before they’ve seen reviews. It isn’t really their kind of show – my mum’s favourite show is Lucifer and I used to often catch my dad laughing to Two and a Half Men.

“With Please Like Me, once it started getting good reviews, they sort of took that opinion on as their own.”

Thomas says his mother likes his second series more

Despite his own early start and 15 years in the industry, Thomas didn’t feel particularly qualified to give any pointers to his young Everything's Gonna Be Okay co-stars Press and Cromer.

“I generally try not to give people advice because what the hell do I know? I don’t bloody know anything,” he said.

“Sometimes I try and encourage them to be more OK to saying no to things they don’t want to do, but also I don’t think there’s ever been anything Maeve Press wasn’t just gang-up for.

“Maeve is so sweet, polite and level-headed, and sometimes I get nervous putting her on TV so young, as if it’s going to turn her into a weird child star. Like I’ll run into her in a few years and she’ll be so insane, high on whatever weird new party drug they invented in the meantime.”

Everything’s Gonna Be Okay starts on Stan on Friday, January 17

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