‘Youth’ Creator Addresses That Finale Breakup and the HBO Show's Future

From creator Sharon Horgan, the HBO series Youth follows a 50-year-old divorcee juggling family responsibilities with a complicated love life while on an ever-evolving journey of self-discovery. Alex (played by Horgan) is a literary agent who cares for her aging parents while raising a teenage son. She’s drawn to Patrick (Rupert Friend) but is unsure if they have any sort of future together while they figure out whether their priorities line up. In the finale, Alex ultimately makes some decisions about her romantic relationship before returning home to spend some bonding time with her son.

Collider recently got the opportunity to chat with Horgan about how Youth evolved into the series it is now and why she’s glad that she didn’t write it until a few years after she got the initial idea. During the interview, she discussed why she was in a better place by the time she was ready to make the series, learning to trust her voice as a storyteller, always wanting to challenge herself, wanting to bring her real-life UTI trauma into the story, the relationship between Alex and Patrick, and whether she’d like to do a Season 2. She also revealed how often she thinks about doing a third season of the Apple TV series Bad Sisters.

Sharon Horgan Is Glad That She Waited a Few Years Before Writing ‘Youth’

"Tragedy plus time equals comedy."

COLLIDER: Very few projects happen overnight. You’ve said that this TV series started living inside your brain a few years before you wrote it, and that two seasons of Bad Sisters happened in between. When you then returned to working on Youth, you said that you were in a different place, so you were able to write about love in a more interesting way. How different is this version of this TV series compared to what you originally thought it might be?

SHARON HORGAN: That’s a funny question. It’s not like I’m scared to go to dark places or to show difficult times, but I think there is a hopefulness or an optimism, here and there. I think if I had written it when I first started hitting menopause, coming out of a divorce thing and back on the singles market, I wouldn’t have been writing it from a place or perspective of love, so I was able to do that. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. I think it would have been a bit darker and a bit less funny, is what it would have been. It was also better for me to have that perspective and also more experience. I feel like I’ve come out the other side a little bit. So, yeah, I think it would’ve been quite different.

I’m actually glad that I didn’t get to write it. And also, just from a practical point of view, I was very much part of a writing duo with Catastrophe, with Motherland, and with Pulling. Even though Bad Sisters had a writers’ room, I felt very much like it was my voice and I was in control of the narrative. Just from a practical point of view, I was in a better place to write it with that experience behind me.

When it came to creating and developing and starring in your own TV shows, did you always have confidence in your own voice as a storyteller, or were you just trying to convince other people of that confidence until you also convinced yourself of that confidence? Because it seems like a little bit of a scary place to be in, when you’re also the storyteller of the show that you’re in.

HORGAN: No, I definitely didn’t have any confidence in my voice as a storyteller, to start off with. I just had to leap into it, close my eyes, and hope for the best. And it didn’t necessarily get any easier, the more shows I did, even though I was continuing to, if not draw from my life, then definitely infuse my emotional experiences. I always just had to hope that if I was talking about that thing in a truthful way and I was being honest about it, then other people would have, if not that experience, then their own version of it. I just had to take a leap of faith and see what happened. And it’s still there. When Youth was coming out, I was like, “Oh, shit, what if that is taken the wrong way? What if that makes me seem like a bad mother or a bad human?” You certainly feel it more when you put yourself on screen as well. You just have to trust your instinct with it. In actual fact, every time I’ve done it, people have responded by saying, “Yeah, I experienced that,” or “That was me a few years ago.” So, it’s worked out okay. I should start trusting it because it’s worked out all right.

You’ve previously talked about how you say yes to things that scare you because that’s how you learn to evolve as an artist. But when it comes to your own projects, what do you do to ensure that they also challenge you in that way? How do you find the balance between writing to your wheelhouse while also still challenging and scaring yourself?

HORGAN: Moving out of half-hour and into drama. Bad Sisters was an adaptation, it was a thriller and it was an hour. It was something I had never done on that scale before, and that was really scary. That’s why I did it. The safe thing to do would have been to stick around to do another Bad Sisters, but I wanted to try telling this new story in the half-hour space but without a writing partner and also talking about a period of time that is really difficult and not necessarily, on the face of it, funny. That’s what I mean by trying to continue to scare myself. In other projects I do as well, I try not to do the obvious or take the easy route. That’s boring, and I think people will get bored of it as well. It has diminishing returns if you stay in your lane.

Sharon Horgan Still Thinks About the Possibility of ‘Bad Sisters’ Season 3

"Any time something gets a reboot, I think about it."

Do you still ever think about the possibility of doing a Season 3 of Bad Sisters? Would you like to get those sisters together again?

HORGAN: I think about it all the time. I think about it more when I’m with them. They are so important to me, and I love them so much. It was such a special, singular time. I think about it a lot. Any time something gets a reboot, I think about it. People do it.

There’s something that I found really funny about your character having a UTI that keeps coming up. She’s sitting at a table at an awards show while the person sitting next to her is having a medical emergency and all this chaos happening around them, but she still asks the EMT for something to help with her UTI.

HORGAN: Listen, I have had UTIs so bad that I feel like I should be on a gurney. And also, it gets worse as you hit menopause. I really desperately wanted to have an episode where I was dealing with something huge while also dealing with a UTI. Not just because the idea of it made me laugh, but just because I’ve found myself in that situation many times. Dealing with heartbreak when you have a UTI or dealing with a medical emergency or a work thing or trying to be in a high-pressure situation when all you want to do is go sit on the toilet, I just thought, “If I can’t write about that in this show, I don’t know when I’ll be able to write about it.” I hope people enjoy watching me in pain. I think a lot of people have found themselves in that situation.

In the episode before the finale, your character finds Patrick’s list of pros and cons about her, the con being not being able to have children together, and it sends her walking out the door without explanation. Why do you think her preferred response to that was just to leave without saying anything? Do you think she ever considered saying something first?

HORGAN: Because they had that conversation when he convinced her that wasn’t an issue anymore. Before she got involved, she told him, “I can’t do this.” And he was like, “It’s fine.” I think that, because she opened herself up to be vulnerable and to fall in love, and she was assured, she just couldn’t see a way back. But also, she’s a bad communicator sometimes. That is part of her personality. And also, it comes from a place of experience. I experienced that exact thing, and I stayed and talked. I often think about it and wish that I had just skedaddled. And also, Episode 8 is where I wanted them to have the conversation.

I was not surprised that she tried to hide behind the car when she sees him. Who hasn’t tried to hide behind something when you know you aren’t really hiding?

HORGAN: Yes, it was a desperate measure, wasn’t it? It was all she could do. You know when you have a hangover and your brain just stops working? I think that was a big part of that decision.

There was no way for that conversation not to turn into a fight.

HORGAN: Yeah, exactly. It was very vulnerable.

There was something oddly funny about her walking away from Patrick, telling him she’s making it easy for him, only to have a man on a bicycle crash in front of her.

HORGAN: It’s a good metaphor, isn’t it? It’s a loving thing that she does. It comes from a place of her being a mother and knowing how important that has been in her life and not wanting to be the reason why he doesn’t get the experience. It’s so fucking hard and complex. But at the same time, leaving him with that mess to clear up was, to me, a good payoff for that moment. It’s why comedy is such an amazing medium. You get to really dig into those dark, tricky times and have a laugh. You take the pressure off and release the valve.

Sharon Horgan Has Ideas for a Possible Season 2 of ‘Youth’

"These characters have been in my head for so long."

Is there still more story that you want to tell with these characters? Are we going to get a Season 2? Do you know what you would want to do in Season 2?

HORGAN: You can’t help but have ideas. You just do. These characters have been in my head for so long, and you just sit around thinking about them. We’ll see. I don’t know. It would be nice. We’ve got to see what the appetite is. I enjoyed writing it. It was a lot of work, but I feel really happy about how people have responded. So, who knows?

Even though it would be interesting to see her with other people, I think it would also be interesting to see more of Patrick and what could still happen there.

HORGAN: Yeah, I agree. For sure.

Youth airs on HBO and is available to stream on HBO Max.