There’s a 1970s movie sensibility in Steve Conrad‘s HBO limited series DTF St. Louis, which tells the story of a bromance between two co-workers, a River City TV weatherman played by Jason Bateman and his hearing-impaired interpreter played by David Harbour. The former gets the latter into a kinky dating app. In between them is a love triangle involving Carol, played by Linda Cardellini, the wife of Harbour’s Floyd. The outcome, a weird murder. Or is it suicide?
Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge comes to mind when watching DTF St. Louis, but for Conrad it’s more Dog Day Afternoon. On today’s episode of Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, the screenwriter-director tells us about mining melodrama in the Midwest going back to such movies as the 2005 title he wrote, The Weather Man starring Nicolas Cage.
“I like the juxtaposition of the electricity when you hear ‘DTF’ — how exotic those three letters sound,” he says. “Then followed by ‘Saint Louis,’ which isn’t always that exciting to hear.”
“It feels normal. And obviously one of our themes is that nobody’s normal; it just looks that way from across the street. So I thought I would pick a place that people mistakenly think is a little more ordinary than other places, and it is a mistake… there’s freaks galore in the Midwest,” he adds.
Some of Conrad’s friends had their lives go a bit sideways with dating apps. It was that inspiration that made him “flirt with the idea that there can be intimacy without consequences. Whatever that promise is ultimately from dating apps that say you can come and experience intimacy and then go back to your normal life, I was skeptical that could be true entirely,” he says.
The limited series scored 13 Emmy nominations including for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, Harbour and Bateman in Supporting Actor Limited or Anthology Series, Cardellini for Supporting Actress, and Conrad up for writing and directing. Conrad submitted the series finale for Emmy consideration.
Listen to our conversation below:
