‘St. Denis Medical’ Knows Comedy Should Be Fun

If anyone knows the potency of good sitcom chemistry, it’s probably Eric Ledgin.

The writer and producer who co-created NBC‘s “St. Denis Medical” has been involved with “Superstore,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Rutherford Falls,” and recently “American Auto” — and he knows how to get an audience on his side. Sometimes it only takes a pilot, but sometimes it takes several episodes or a full season to invest in a new workplace comedy, like the hospital mockumentary which premiered in November.

The core cast includes a “Superstore” mainstay (Kaliko Kauahi), familiar TV faces (Alison Tolman, Mekki Leper, Josh Lawson), comedy legends (David Alan Greer and Wendi McLendon Covey), and a fresh face from the film world (Kahyun Kim). Viewers get to know them little-by-little, but the actors gel enough to be a driving narrative force — a welcome result for a casting process that Ledgin told IndieWire “almost killed me.” Even with talented performers coming in and the guiding force of “Wet Hot American Summer” casting director Susie Farris, Ledgin began to doubt his own creation until he saw the cast fall into place.

“Piece by piece, we found people who were just phenomenal, and not only brought everything I could have hoped for to the role, but then added these other dimensions to it,” Ledgin said. “What I love about the cast is how every one of them is a star. They all have so many moves. I have the benefit of having seen all 18 episodes, so I know what they all do in these episodes, and I would not ever rethink that decision.”

With shorter seasons in vogue and streaming giants continuing to loom large, Ledgin said network sitcom is still his happy place.

“We’re just trying to make people laugh and entertain them, and that I find a lot of meaning and joy in that goal,” he said. “I love ‘The Bear,’ I just don’t expect it to make me laugh, and accordingly, it almost never does.”

Below, Ledgin discusses finding humor in a hospital setting, assembling his writers room, and how network limitations actually worked in his favor.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

IndieWire: Tell me more about building out your writers room and the kind of talent that you have in there.

Eric Ledgin: I made a list of my dream writers room. I’ve been on a lot of different shows, I’ve worked with a lot of people who are talented in many different ways and that list, I ended up being able to hire pretty much almost everyone on it, plus a couple of people that we discovered through the process of just reading samples and meeting with people.

I wanted to find new people that I had never been exposed to, but also for running my first show, that security blanket of knowing that I had some real killers around me that that I knew could help and lead and be funny and call out when something wasn’t good enough. Those are all pieces that really were important to me. I ended up being very lucky in the timing of things and getting a great group of people of very different backgrounds, perspectives, and all spectacularly talented in different ways.

Thinking about sitcom and sitcom archetypes, were there specific types of writers you want to have a table? Like this person’s good at punch lines, and this person can write a good template for the actors to improvise from — kind of checking those boxes?

I don’t have a lot of room in in my writers room for a wallflower, for someone who just doesn’t speak. Sometimes it’s scary to talk, but it’s just something we all have to learn how to do and learn how to pitch stuff that may not be the good thing, but it’s going to be the thing that gets you to the good thing. So a big part of it was like people with personality who are going to throw things out there and just suggest things and have faith that we’ll get to it. It is kind of like improv. You’ve got to just “Yes, and” each other till we get to something good.

But it’s also true that you do have to think about who are the real killer joke writers here, when it’s late in a day and you’re just trying to write something that can live in the script. Who are the people who will keep the story moving when we’re stuck and we don’t know what interesting thing a character could do next? Who’s going to come up with that out-of-the-box idea and just go, “What if this happens?” And it sounds a little crazy, but then we all start to flow with that. There’s a lot that you have to look for in terms of people complementing each other, but the biggest thing is just people that have open minds, that don’t shoot each other down. I like that “No asshole policy” has become a phrase that people use because that’s a big one. You want it to be people that you’re comfortable with, to be around all day, every day for many months.

You’ve been in so many incredible rooms, so what are some of the key things that you’ve learned that you were able to then bring into “St. Denis?”

Definitely something different on every show. “Always Sunny,” one of the biggest lessons I took from there — because they were people running the show were also the actors on the show, they were really good at: “I need to know what I’m playing in every scene, so I need to know what this character wants.”

I also have learned the value of people who are tolerant and patient with each other and can sit and have an academic debate, with the agreement that we all trust each other and no one’s going to take it super personally. For comedy, sometimes the funniest joke or situation is on a line of appropriateness, and sometimes to find that line, you have to cross it and realize “Oh shit, we’ve crossed it.” We need to have people that can call us back to the right side of it, but also the ability to cross it sometimes and all assume the best faith in each other. Nobody’s trying to be offensive or say the wrong thing or hurt anybody. It’s just sometimes the process of finding the funniest situation.

I want to know more about where “St. Denis” came from, especially because medical shows are usually dramas.

Like most people, I’ve had a finite number of experiences in hospitals in my life. I’ve been lucky enough to not have too many of my own personal stays. But I did have a long time girlfriend who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I ended up spending a lot of time in hospitals with her in my mid 20s, and she was somebody that had a very inappropriate sense of humor. The way that the two of us coped with those hospital stays was often making each other laugh and gallows humor. Dark times have led to some of my biggest laughs, and it was also true that when we were very lucky to get a nurse or a caregiver who shared that energy, it could make your day at a hospital memorable in a good way.

A day that could be so miserable and uncomfortable, it could make it fun or hopeful or feel good. There’s something very interesting about these places that have some of the most relieving, funny moments that are possible, but also some very real moments, sad moments, sincere moment — so it seemed to me like, “Man, I know there have been medical comedies, but why haven’t there been like 100 of them?” It’s such a good ripe area for the full range of human experience.

How do you go about finding the right tone, balancing out the humor, the sincerity — and at the same time you are on a network, so you can’t go full gallows humor, you can’t curse, you can’t do like “Veep” in a hospital.

I worked for this kids show called “Word Girl” for a while, and at first I was really scared, like “How am I going to be funny when there’s so much you can’t say?” I ended up learning from that that those limitations are just opportunities to dig in creatively into what you are quote, unquote allowed to do. I ended up finding that the limit of being on a network was actually very helpful to shape the tone of a show that I wanted to be hopeful. I didn’t want it to be as dark or as cynical as “Veep,” even though that’s one of my favorite shows as a viewer; I felt like I wanted this show to be a little bit more of — I wish there was a less corny term for this — a love letter to the people who work in these places and are doing a very hopeful, optimistic thing every time they go to work.

But it’s also true that they’re dealing with like the humdrum aspects of being in a workplace and the challenges of working with people that you don’t always connect with, or sometimes clash with. So that tone was kind of finding itself the more and more I thought about the idea, and the more I talked over with Justin Spitzer, who created the show with me, but also I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people in the medical industry. The most interesting things they said or stories they had, I let that guide … tone and the types of stories we tell on this show.

‘Superstore’ alums Nico Santos and Kaliko Kauahi in ‘St. Denis Medical’NBC

Tell me about assembling this cast. They have such great chemistry, especially as we get to spend more and more time with them.

They’re all wonderful people to be around, and they make it seem so effortless when, in reality, casting the show [was]… the hardest part of the process by far. Things felt like they were really working, in our process with the studio and the network and the writing of it. I was feeling very proud of it, I felt very attached to these characters — and then you see a bunch of people reading for it, talented people, who just either aren’t doing what you were hoping for, or not hitting the humor. You start to question your writing, like, “Did I write this wrong?”

Shows like this are more and more rare in the streaming era, so I’m curious about the experience of working on a more traditional piece of television, within a more traditional television structure.

Even when I was starting in network, the writing was on the wall that like, all the cool kids were doing streaming, all the cool shows were doing six to eight episodes a year. There was a big part of me that was like, “Oh, I want that. I want to do a cool show that wins awards.” That’s what you’re supposed to want. And then I actually worked a bunch of those jobs. I did two shows for FX, I did a show for HBO, I’ve done shows for ABC and NBC, and I know that consistently, I’ve been my happiest self when I’ve been working on network shows.

Part of that is because they’re longer and you only need to do one job a year. You’re with the same family all year long. Part of it is because you’re making episodes while you’re writing them, so you get the excitement of being on set and actually learning from what the actors are doing, and rewriting accordingly. The other shows you write them all in a room, and then you go home, and then a few people make those episodes, and you don’t really get to be a part of it. I just don’t prefer that. There’s something so joyous and clear about network comedy. We know what our mission is: We’re here to entertain people, to make them laugh, to tell a story and to work together to do that. We’re not beholden to one person’s vision about what their childhood was like growing up, and that’s what we’re trying to blast out into the world. And God bless those shows when they work! I am moved by them, and it’s not that I don’t like them.

People have so little patience these days. Why would you tell an audience member to watch “St. Denis,” and why would you tell them to stick with it?

Reason to watch it would be that I don’t think anyone would argue with the idea that we could all use a laugh right now. No matter who you are in this world, when can’t we use a laugh? Especially now. Because of the strike, because of hopefully, the quality of the scripts, we were able to assemble such a talented cast that you’d be doing yourself a disservice to not at least give them a shot and see what they have for you.

As a reason to stick with it, I genuinely believe — I believe this to be true about all sitcoms, but certainly this one — the more you get to know these characters, the more fun the show gets. The jokes become deeper, the storylines become more interesting, and you start to really expect something from these characters, which makes it even more fun when they surprise you. This is one of the few shows — I’m not saying this with any sense of being full of ourselves or anything. I just think it’s true that it’s one of the only shows on TV whose primary and biggest goal is just to make you laugh and entertain you. And as a side benefit, I think it’s attempting to humanize these people that you see at your most vulnerable moments, and I think and hope that it gives people a little bit of a different perspective on healthcare workers.

“St. Denis Medical” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. and is streaming on Peacock.