The cast and creators of Only Murders in the Building reunited for a For Your Consideration event in Los Angeles on Thursday, where they opened up about season three’s hottest topic: Meryl Streep.
Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Michael Cyril Creighton, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and showrunner John Hoffman joined moderator Judd Apatow for a screening and conversation at the Academy Museum; Streep was also scheduled to take part in the event but came down with the flu.
In season three, Streep’s newcomer character, Loretta, begins a romantic relationship with Short’s Oliver Putnam, in what Apatow joked was the sexiest performance of Short’s career.
“I will tell you honestly, I’ve known Meryl a little bit through the years but on the first day of shooting, I was a little unusually nervous for me, because I was thinking, ‘I’m doing a two-person scene with Meryl Streep,’” Short told the crowd. After shooting a scene at the piano, the two went into a side holding area, “and Meryl said to me, ‘OK, so my nerves are now down to half.’ So I guess she was nervous working with me,” he teased.
The season revolves around a musical being directed by Oliver, with Streep having several performances; Gomez remembered, “I literally cried at Meryl just rehearsing. I thought it was so beautiful” and Short added that “everyone was sobbing” off camera as she sang.
When shooting her main onstage performance, “we were up against it for time and we needed to let her go. We got everything on her and then we reverse the cameras to get the reactions of everyone. We said, ‘Meryl, thank you so much, this was amazing,’” Hoffman remembered. “And she said, ‘Well, wait a minute, are you getting the reactions?’ And I said, ‘Yes, but it’s OK, that was 12 or 14 times you did it.’ And she said, ‘No, no, let me stay.’ And she performed it full out over and over again after that, only for the reactions from the crowd.”
“I remember sitting there thinking it is true, I guess, Meryl Streep can be really effective,” Short deadpanned, as Martin added, “Given the chance.”
Apatow also asked Gomez during the conversation if she ever gets as annoyed with the comedy duo as her character does, as she teased, “I can’t ever really get much out. They’re always talking and doing bits. I don’t mind it,” then admitted, “I’ve checked out a few times.”
The star also spoke about not having the extensive songs in the show that her co-stars had, explaining that “I feel like it wouldn’t have made sense for my character to be a part of anything that was musical, so I was actually happy to sit back and watch.” She does perform in one fantasy sequence, after Hoffman said he was like, “‘Just give us this one thing,’ and it was heaven to shoot that.”
Randolph took a minute during the chat to commend Martin and Short on how they “come to work with so much excitement and zeal, literally it’s the same thing as if it is their first job they’ve ever done.” Martin responded, “Well, I can explain a little bit further — with Marty and me, it’s not like we think it’s like the first job we’ve ever done. We think it’s like the last job.”
Along those same lines, Apatow asked how many seasons this should show could go, and as Martin noted, “You know, there’s an upper limit,” Gomez pointed at her two co-stars and joked, “I mean, as long as they’re around.”
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