[This story contains mild spoilers from episode nine of Palm Royale.]
Tate Taylor might be the male version of Palm Royale’s Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons.
The executive producer and director behind the Kristen Wiig-starring comedy had his own experience trying to get into an exclusive Palm Beach club during pre-production on the Apple TV+ series. And just like the Tennessee debutante found out in the season premiere, wealthy Florida socialites don’t take too kindly to trespassers.
“I snuck in a side door like Maxine, got a great glimpse of the club, was spotted by security, and was kicked out. So I left Palm Beach feeling like a loser and trash,” Taylor recalls to The Hollywood Reporter in the conversation below. “I said, ‘Okay, this is a very real place.’”
The exclusivity of the Palm Beach community is why filming for Palm Royale had to take place in Los Angeles, where a mix of set locations and sound stages were used to create the world in which Norma Dellacorte (Carol Burnett) reigns; Dinah (Leslie Bigg), Evelyn (Allison Janney) and Rita (Claudia Ferri) are obsessed with remaining a part of; and Maxine is desperate to join. It’s that dynamic that made Taylor immediately sign up for the project when approached by Laura Dern and Jayme Lemons as their production company, Jaywalker Pictures, was developing the series.
“I like to work with a lot of the same people, and I love working with actresses,” says Taylor who worked with Dern and Janney on the 2021 dark comedy Breaking News in Yuba County. “I think female characters are infinitely more interesting than male characters just because of the world ladies live in and the obstacles.”
Below, Taylor and executive producer John Norris talk with THR about the behind-the-scenes hurdles to bringing Palm Royale to life and why next week’s finale was one of the hardest episodes of their careers.
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Showrunner Abe Sylvia was inspired by Slim Aarons as he was writing the script for the show. What were your goals in terms of the look and feel of the series?
TATE TAYLOR Just that. When you’re given a canvas as rich as Palm Beach, Florida, and you look at those photographs, there’s not many stops that you want to put in the way. Working with Jon Carlos and Alix Friedberg was an embarrassment of riches. Every time they would come to me or Abe with an idea, we just kept saying, “yes!” They’d ask, “Is this too much?” “No, it’s not too much. We can do it.” And then we would find a historical photo and it was not too much. In the pilot, we have this woman in white getting out of the car rising up to go into Palm Royale — that was a recreated outfit from a photograph. Alix couldn’t find the clothing in any vintage documentation, so she made it. So, Abe was right. This was Slim Aaron’s world.
The series has a bit of a dramatic soap opera-like feel. But then there’s also this mystery element and fast-paced action. What was the approach in terms of pacing and genre?
TAYLOR Well, going back to Slim, it was very important that a lot of wide angles were used. I was like, “Guys, we’re not shooting this like a television show. This is the technicolor dreamscape of the movies that we all grew up watching.” When you have so much action and comedy and so many things going on with these sets and costumes, I wanted to create a big canvas where you could see them all coming together naturally to create the world. The shooting style is very voyeuristic.
Was there ever a thought to shoot in Palm Beach?
TAYLOR Absolutely. I said, “We have to shoot in Palm Beach, or at least some of it in Palm Beach.” So way early in pre-production, Jon Carlos and I flew to Palm Beach to take a look at it, because neither of us had ever been. We were walking the sidewalks and, sure enough, it was wealth passing in each direction, and I felt like trash. I could just feel how I did not fit in. And there’s a club called the Everglades Club in Palm Beach that’s an exclusive club that’s impossible to get into, much like Palm Royale. And I said, “Jon, we have to see inside this club.” And he goes, “We can’t.” So, I snuck in. I snuck in a side door like Maxine, got a great glimpse of the club, was spotted by security, and was kicked out. So, I left Palm Beach feeling like a loser and trash. I said, “Okay, this is a very real place.” I felt most comfortable in West Palm Beach where Maxine was. That was my jam. But as a director and storyteller, and former actor, it was very important for me to feel that.
JOHN NORRIS He called me that night and told me that story and I thought, “Oh course you did. Of course you got kicked out of the club.”
TAYLOR My production designer was chicken. He wouldn’t do it.
The music is such a big part of the overall feel of the series as well. How did you decide the direction?
TAYLOR It was tricky. The show had to show us what it was going to be. A lot of times, you get some chances at needle drops and they’re always quite expensive. Once we started doing our needle drops to get the feeling of the show from songs that we know, we started from there saying, “If we could have any song in the world right now, it would be this one.” And then from there, that would be the mark to hit for the vibe because there’s such a rhythm to the show.
NORRIS When Abe first started putting the writers room together, we — Kristen [Wiig], Tate, Laura [Dern] and myself — all had a shareable playlist that we would add our crazy songs to, everything from Bossa nova to Taiwanese remakes of famous ‘50s American classics. And then Laura introduced us to her friend George Drakoulias, who’s the music supervisor, and he is a walking playlist. It got so interesting from there. I still listen to that playlist today, because it’s so eclectic. The playlist is very self-referential like the show. It adds a lot of color.
TAYLOR This has only happened to me on one other film, which was The Help, where it’s truly a group of people coming together. Everybody has a place at the table, everybody’s good at what they do, and everybody was left alone to do what they do best and just trusted. Even the playlist, everybody made this together. It was just phenomenal.
NORRIS Credit to Apple TV+ for allowing us to play on such a big canvas.
The whale is the unexpected star of episode eight. How did you wrap your head around execution of those scenes?
TAYLOR Well, luckily, I’m not Jon Carlos. The whale scene is important because, as audacious as this show is, it’s moments like that where Allison Janney gets to get really real and you see a different side of Evelyn. It shows you that, no matter how rich you are or how good you think people have it, everybody is still longing, or they think there’s something still not right with them and that breaks all socioeconomic barriers. Money can certainly feel good and make things easier. But scenes like that with a whale … these private moments with these actors like that are dispersed throughout the show. And Allison was like, “I’m acting with a whale that’s not there?” She just had this eyeball and some blue screen, but she has since said, “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten to do.”
There’s been a buildup to the Beach Ball the entire season. What did it take to pull off the season finale?
TAYLOR The Beach Ball is the hardest thing I’ve ever shot in my career. I’ve done James Brown concerts, Girl on the Train. But this was hard, because there was so much going on and so much wrapping up, and the majority of it took place in a tent. I was keenly aware that I had to keep it interesting to where angles and spots in the tent felt like a completely different place. I worked closely with Jon Carlos and we really storyboarded a lot, which I don’t normally do. But in this case, I had to visually realize, “okay, we’re going to be looking at this angle of the tent, then we’re going to go here.” And that’s why I had the idea of taking the sides off of a couple of the rooms so the ocean would be back there. And then even the use of shadows, a lot of the scenes that were behind the curtain, all of those decisions remained so that it would visually stay interesting. We shot in Esther Williams’ water tank. It was crazy.
NORRIS And this is all against the backdrop of shooting on those glorious and historical Paramount stages. The ghosts, you feel them there. You really feel the history. The scope of the show, how big it was and how colorful it was… these productions, we would bring friends and agents and people who have been in the business a really long time and they would just be aghast saying, “I have not seen a production like this in 50 years.” It is enormous and really fun.
The season finale leaves audiences with a ton of cliffhangers. Are your wheels already turning for what a second season could look like?
TAYLOR They started turning on episode one.
NORRIS As soon as Carol Burnett said, “Yes.”
TAYLOR Poor Abe in the writer’s room. We just can’t help ourselves with pitching funny ideas. And, what’s great with how the season is left is that there are so many questions to answer. There are still questions to answer from the first, second, third, fourth episode — like Maxine’s life in Chattanooga. There’s so much more to know that I think Apple TV+ owes it to the world to spread this joy. Just saying.
Palm Royale releases its finale Wednesday May 8 at midnight PT on Apple TV+
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