Coming to TBS this month is the new heaven-set workplace comedyMiracle Workers, based on creator and showrunnerSimon Rich’s book, “What in God’s Name." The seven-episode limited series turns the perception of heaven on its head while also making the case that humans are worth saving, and while the angels might get the lion’s share of the screen time, a pair of mortals down on Earth have a big part to play in it all.
Miracle WorkersstarsDaniel Radcliffeas Craig, a low-level angel responsible for handling all of humanity’s prayers.Steve Buscemiplays Craig’s boss, God, who has pretty much checked out to focus on petty hobbies. To prevent Earth’s destruction, Craig and fellow angel Eliza (Geraldine Viswanathan) must answer a seemingly impossible prayer: help two humans, Laura and Sam (played bySasha CompereandJon Bass), fall in love.
During a visit to the Atlanta-area set with a small group of journalists, I had a chance to chat with Compere and Bass aboutMiracle Workers, how much of the overall story their characters get to experience, and whether they’re aware of any celestial interference over the course of the story. Their responses follow below, with Bass first, followed by a separate chat with Compere.
Also starringKaran Soni,Miracle Workersalso features guest starsTituss Burgess,Margaret Cho,Angela Kinsey,Tim Meadows,John Reynolds,Lolly AdefopeandChris Parnellappearing throughout the season. Look forMiracle Workerson TBS starting February 12th!
What is the show about for you and what does your character see?
Jon Bass: What I see is very little. For me it’s just a regular two weeks in the life of Sam, who works at The Container Store, loves his Nana, and pretty much just is living his life. It’s almost as if there are two different movies going on.
There’s the Heaven movie, which is high octane, trying to save the world, everyone’s trying to get everything to work perfectly while everything is going terribly. And then my world which is trying to get a sheet onto a bed, and that’s like a big day for me.
It’s completely different. It’s almost like a mumble oracle of just a guy who is strictly living his life as if nothing in the world is ever going to … you know, he’s not thinking that the end of the world is imminent.
If we were to watch just your story, without all the weird, surreal stuff, what would that story look like for us? Would it just be very mundane, or is there still stuff that drives sort of the human story?
Bass: It would be pretty mundane. It would be pretty much two people meeting a couple times and liking each other. You’re sort of in this world of utter normalcy. Sam and Laura are both very normal and that cannot piss off the angels more. I’m so shy. I can barely talk to Laura. You know that thing when you like a girl but you don’t know if she likes you? That’s the story. It’s a girl who doesn’t know if a guy likes her and a guy who doesn’t know if the girl likes him.
It would be like watching that. I think the audience, if it was just our side of the story, the audience would be sort of like, “What’s wrong with these two people?” It’s really fun. I haven’t watched one take of Heaven.
You read the scripts though?
Bass: I read the scripts. I try to stay as far away from Heaven as possible because there’s no reason to have any semblance of what’s going on with it.
Your scenes are done now, right?
Bass: I’ve got one more scene. I have to eat a gyro. That can sort of explain what Sam and Laura are doing on Earth. We’re eating food. We go to a couple parties together. Things get a little out of control. Like, we’re at a party and someone gets lit on fire, and we’re like, “That was weird.” But, that’s as far as it goes. It’s not like we’re assuming that Heaven is interfering and angels are watching our every move.
You’re not witnessing miracles and that sort of thing?
Bass: No. No, no, no. We don’t witness miracles. We make one prayer at the Sub One saying, “I really like this girl, please make this happen,” and then we leave it up to the angels to make it happen.
So, you guys are more of a grounding element for the higher concept?
Bass: Yes. Yeah. That’s a perfect way of putting it. We’re extremely grounded. Every time I try and do something a little high volume, every single one of my directors on this show has said, “Jon, just bring it down.” It’s great. It’s been so much fun. It’s been so much fun just being the crux to these angels who want nothing more than us to kiss to save the world.
Just to clarify, have you met prior to the angels trying to coordinate it? Or you already had met and are trying to feel each other out and they attempt to help with it along the way?
Bass: Yeah, yeah. The first shot of episode one is us at a party and we are talking to each other and then we say goodnight and we both make a prayer to a higher being saying, “I really like this person. Please make this happen.”
From then on, it’s up to Heaven to decide if we’re going to be together. I don’t know how much the angels told you about miracles, but getting two people to kiss is an extremely hard miracle. Miracles are extremely difficult. A big day for getting a miracle to be done is someone finding their keys. So, to get two people to kiss is like next level.
So, this is a mutual prayer that the angels are trying to fulfill? Right? It’s from both sides, it’s not just Sam?
Bass: Thankfully, yes. Thankfully, it’s a mutual prayer and we’re just hoping that it happens and then they facilitate us running into each other a couple times.
Do you guys ever get into the idea of like free will versus destiny?
Bass: We talk a little bit about if we ever feel like we have control over our lives, but it doesn’t really affect us in a way of like getting into a huge speech about it. You know? It’s more just like, do we ever feel like we have control our lives?
I think that the takeaway for, I won’t speak for Sasha, but I think the takeaway for Sam, for my character, is that … and I think that the takeaway of the whole series for the Earthlings, for the Earthbound part of it, is that no matter what people try to interfere, love will find a way in a very saccharine, sweet version. This show is not saccharine. It has moments of saccharine and sweetness. It is not a saccharine and sweet show.
What was the meet-cute like?
Bass: Oh, extremely awkward. Yeah, it’s an extremely awkward meet-cute where we talk about badminton for a couple minutes and we talk about a bathroom line. Sam, much like me in real life, is not very good at reading signs. It’s very much an awkward … pretty much every single one of our interactions is awkward, which is just driving the angels more and more insane.
You guys are the more down-to-Earth side of the show, but is it like a complete dichotomy or do you guys get any kind of more fanciful moments?
Bass: I don’t want to ruin the fanciful moments because they’re so great, but, yeah, we get some really … I mean, the ultimate episode, some crazy stuff happens and we get to have this sort of amazing, wonderful moment together. Yet, even though it’s very grounded and it’s pretty much just a day in the life, or about two weeks in the life of these two people, we are being interfered by a higher power and they definitely make some things happen that make it a little odd for us.
Sasha Compere
How did this project come to you originally?
Sasha Compere: I just auditioned for it back in August actually, and I think it’s gone through a couple of iterations. I didn’t get the part originally, and then in November they were still casting and I auditioned again on tape, as I was like rushing home to the airport and quickly put it on tape and sent it in. A week later, I read it with Jon and it was, I mean from the first moment we even met, we are one day apart for birthdays, we both used to live in New York, there’s so much we have in common. We hit it off, and the next day I got the part. I quit my job and I moved to Atlanta, and here I am.
Can you tell us a little bit about your character since we haven’t got to see any scenes or anything?
Compere: Yeah, Laura is just kind of your average, awkward, lovelorn girl. I think that her main objective, obviously, in this show is to find love, which I think we all do, and as you’ll see, just can’t get it together.
But apparently each one of you after the initial, first interaction does a little prayer, “Hey this would be kind of cool if this worked out.”
Compere: Yeah, that’s sort of the impetus, and it really kicks off the show. Both of us pray to fall in love with each other, and in Heaven, I don’t know if you guys have heard of this, but God has decided to destroy the world, and the angels, sort of lonely angels come together and say, “If we answer one more prayer, can we save the world?” They pick my prayer and Sam’s prayer to fall in love, and that kicks off this two week battle of us sort of meeting each other at parties, and being put together in these situations that we don’t know are being forced by these celestial beings somewhere. It’s really a sweet story, and I think that people are really gonna relate to Sam and Laura’s awkward love and also to Heaven, just to that sort of underdog triumphant story or really trying to help people and to do something good for mankind.
I presume, Heaven is very different from what you guys are experiencing.
Compere: Oh it’s very different. Sam and Laura are just in the real world, we’re two really normal people who are shy and awkward, but we’re just trying to live life and get a date. And in Heaven it’s sort of this high stakes, highwire, comedy. There’s a lot of mishaps happening and it’s a very broad world, but I think that when you see the juxtaposition between the two, it’s gonna be really funny.
This is supposed to be the middle of the summer, of course, right?
Compere: Yeah, I wish. No, it’s actually right around New Year’s, so its' perfect, Atlanta really amped up the snow game for us. Yeah, so we’ve just been shooting all around, different places, and Atlanta’s been great, there’s so much beauty to the city, so this is my first time here, its been fun to see it.
Does is culminate on New Year’s Eve? Or do they meet on New Years Eve?
Compere: It starts on New Year’s Eve, so that’s our first shot, first opening scene, and then it plays out for, I think, two weeks after that.
Are you guys living in a generic city, or are you actually in Atlanta?
Compere: Yeah it’s a generic, your small town/city, and I think that that helps make it more relatable to people as well.
We heard from Jon a little bit earlier about the meet cute and how you guys talk about. Can you elaborate on that scene at all?
Compere: Well, we have some very cute banter with each other. I think working with Jon is amazing because we play so well off of each other. But, I think we’ve talked about bathroom lines, and playing badminton. Honestly, the most awkward stuff that you might not want to bring up on a first date, but it’s cute because we both, you know, we both don’t know what to say, or our characters don’t know what to say, so we come up with random things like, you know, “Have you eaten a donut?” or “What time is it?” or, “Have you played badminton?" He shows me pictures of his grandma for a very long time. It’s all really cute, charming, and endearing conversations that we have.
Was that all scripted, or did you guys get a chance to sort of play off different ideas?
Compere: We’ve gotten a lot of chance to play off book, and there’s a couple things that have been suggested, and we think we like to have fun and run with it from there, so we’ll see what makes it, but we definitely have a lot of fun shooting it.
He works a The Container Store, what do you do?
Compere: I work at “Solitary Confunment”, which is escape room adventures.
Oh escape rooms, we have a million of them here.
Compere: I’ve actually never been to one. It’s my worst fear, because I don’t want to be caught and in a tiny space where someone could scare you, or where you have to spend so much time figuring out how to get out, but she is a warden in a sort of like a prison cell staged escape room adventure. So she’s really layin' down the law.
What do you hope viewers take away from this show?
Compere: I think that its a very lighthearted comedy, and I hope that people sort of look at it and see that there’s hope, and I think it really is an underdog story. I hope that they’re just uplifted and motivated, and it’s not supposed to be completely a religious show, but I hope that some people maybe have more faith in a different way, or more belief that maybe good things can happen.
Do we get to see any of your characters' other friendships or relationships? Or is it just them?
Compere: No, we’re really loners in this version, and it’s based on a book called “What in God’s Name”, and the book is a little more fleshed out, but this is really our meeting story, and think that’s really part of it. So you don’t see a lot of Laura and Sam’s friends, and I think that that actually makes our characters a little sweeter, because we do spend a lot of time alone, so us finding each other is so important.
Is it weird to be on a show where you have two really big name stars and you don’t get to interact with them?
Compere: You know, it feels like we’re on a totally different show, but it’s been amazing. Both Dan and Steve are idols of mine, I grew up watching Steve all the way back,The Wedding Singereven, and Dan obviously inHarry Potter. But it’s been great to watch them, and to be inspired but I might come to set sometimes and just watch their scenes, and they’ve been so gracious, and nice and helpful, so its been an amazing experience.
But do your characters ever get a hint that maybe there’s something more?
Compere: No, we made a joke in one of the scenes like, “Maybe something’s happening,” but I don’t think it’s gonna make it, but no we’re completely separate. So we have no idea and the crazy stuff that does happen to us you think we might catch a hint, but I think that Laura and Sam are just so grounded that we have no realization that there’s something happening in another world.
Ideally they envision this as an anthology series. So if they reworked it, would you be up for playing God? If there’s a different storyline?
Compere: Yeah, I would be up for it, whether or not they would be offering it I don’t know, let’s talk. Yeah it’s an anthology. I don’t know fully what Simon’s vision is for the next season, I think it’s a surprise to everybody, and I think my understanding is, at least for Sam and Laura we’re just in this world, but we’ll see. TBD
