[Interview] Gemma Hall, ‘Single Ladies’ Director

Q. Catherine and Nina are quite developed characters from the offset, are they based on people you know, or are they entirely fictitious?

A. Well, they started off very close to the two actors themselves, the drafts were very heavy Megan and Alex. But where they ended up is entirely made up. I think there’s a little bit of all of us in them, they kind of represent all women, but no-one in particular. Very early on, they were exactly like the actors, but they moved further away with each draft.

Q. What was a big change you made?

A. I don’t know, I think we did a lot of rehearsals with the girls to help them make decisions independent of themselves. The girls changed throughout the process, so it became really important to separate their own decision-making process from the characters. Just because if you’re making decisions as yourself, you’re probably not going to be as ridiculously wild as these girls are sometimes, heading into bunny cults and everything else.

Q. That was probably the one part that I really, really didn’t see coming.

A. Yeah, that was how I felt when I read it as well, it was hilarious but, I was not expecting this.

Q. Which character do you relate to more? I’d like to think I’m a Catherine but I’m probably more of a Nina to be honest.

A.  I think I’m both. I kind of side between the two of them. Sometimes I’m really gung-ho, got to get this done, got to do this, got to save the world, you know? Other times I’m quite measured. So, it really depends on the situation and I think who’s around me? If I have a Catherine in the room, then I don’t need to be her. It’s sort of that balance I think, that we all slip between the two a little bit.

Q. Where did you get your idea fir the web-series?

A. The original concept, which has shifted slightly in sort of how it works. The idea of two girls running a radio show has stayed the same, that all came out of conversations between the two actors and our writer. It was a lot of them discussing their bad dating stories and how hilarious that was. They’re always way funnier than we thought they were.

Q. Speaking of the writer, was it a bit weird having these very female problems, being written about by a guy?

A. It did feel a bit strange. The first couple of drafts he wrote, he got feedback from the girls. Once the directors were on board, we gave quite a lot of feedback, as a group but also individually, just to make sure the voice was distinctly female. And that was something all of us were very passionate about. Our producer Josh was adamant that it was going to be female directed. It could have gone very badly for him, throwing three crazy women in a room with each other, but it worked out really well.

Q. There’s still some great male characters in there, but the piece is definitely more distinctly female.

A. oh yeah, women don’t think they’re separate in this world. And dudes, sometimes laughing at dudes is the funniest thing you can do. We were lucky to have all the boys that came in, ‘Jonny and Ronny’ especially was a good day, because those boys were just such beautiful people and really good at playing horrible people. So, it’s really fun to do.

Q. I loved the butcher. I know he wasn’t supposed to be a nice character, but even when he kidnapped those people, he was just, so nice about it.

A. I think that character developed a lot as well, originally, he was a lot more stoic and wasn’t as funny on the page. Then we met Steve, and My God, everything was hilarious. Like, we kind of had it in our head that he was from Northern England, and when we auditioned Steve, he was perfect. My heart skipped a beat. He’s such a phenomenal actor, but also just such a phenomenal person.

Q. My favourite episode is probably ‘Lights Out’, what was the episode that you’re most proud of?

A. Of my two, I really love four, which was ‘Superheroes’. Any chance you get to tell a stylist you want everyone dressed in beige is really fun. Just watching her face when I said that, she just about cried. We made those bunny masks by hand; it was just such a funny thing to do.

Interview by Brooke Heenan