Writer Jen D’Angelo reflects on her incredible career, including working on Quiz Lady, Workaholics, and Hocus Pocus 2, in this exclusive interview.
Writer Jen D’Angelo might not sound familiar, but you certainly know many of the projects she has worked on. From Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2, Comedy Central’s Workaholics, to Hulu’s Solar Opposites, D’Angelo has had a robust career as a writer and producer.
Her most recent film, Hulu’s Quiz Lady, earned a Critics Choice Awards nomination in the Best Movie Made For Television category. Quiz Lady stars Awkwafina and Sandra Oh, establishing Jen as the writer leading women are seeking to work with for her scripts that are funny, smart, and real to women’s voices.
Jen D’Angelo Talks Hulu’s Quiz Lady
Mama’s Geeky: Can you talk about the inspiration behind Quiz Lady?
Jen D’Angelo: That’s my favorite type of movie, so I’ve just always wanted to write one. My favorite kind of movie is one where you’re laughing and then you unexpectedly cry, and then you laugh again and you leave feeling happy.
Mama’s Geeky: Paul Reubens has a great part in this movie. What was it like working with him?
Jen D’Angelo: I feel so fortunate that we got him. I mean, that was such a big swing for us to just be like, Hey, Paul Reubens, do you want to do this one day joke. But he was so down and he was so so lovely. I just feel so lucky that I got to work with him, even so briefly. We had no idea that he was sick, and it was so sad to lose him. I’m just so grateful for the chance to work with him. He was so lovely.
Mama’s Geeky: Was it like, can you come in and someone doesn’t know who you are?
Jen D’Angelo: He and Alan Cumming, I think, have both spoken publicly about how they’re always confused for each other. And so I was like, he’ll either like this joke, or he’ll be so tired of it that he’ll be offended that we asked him. But of course, he’s a comedy God. So he totally got it. That was also our first day shooting. We just had to get like wild lines from him. We were like, Paul, can you just like riff in Scottish. And he just went on and on. And it was so funny. His accent was great.
Mama’s Geeky: I love seeing Awkwafina and Sandra Oh play these characters that are so opposite of who we usually see them play.
Jen D’Angelo: We were all so excited to see Awkwafina and Sandra Oh play completely opposite roles from what we’re used to seeing them play. And I think it was also so exciting and freeing for them. It was so funny because like, yes, it’s sort of not how we’re used to seeing either of them, but I feel like it’s also… it just made so much more sense because I was like, Aquafina is this really smart and really kind of introverted person and just very lovely and sweet. And then Sandra is this force where as soon as you walk into a room, you’re just like, Sandra Oh is here. I feel like they both had little bits of an agenda in them that they were bringing to the surface. So it was so cool to watch that happen.
Mama’s Geeky: I would have expected them in reverse roles.
Jen D’Angelo: We briefly discussed that because Awkwafina was the first person that we sent the script to at all. So when she said she wanted to do it, I was just like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. We were sort of talking about which role she would want to play, and then when we put it together that Sandra would be an incredible next person to send it to. Then we were like, okay, because we really liked the dynamic of the older sister being the mess. That’s sort of my favorite part of it. I’m a youngest child, and I feel like it’s so funny when youngest children have so much resentment towards their older siblings for being, like, why weren’t you a better older sibling? They’re just people doing their best. So it was so fun to discover throughout the process, which role they would play, and then crafting those roles to be more towards them. They both had so much input on those characters. We worked on the script so much together, and it was just so cool to build those characters with them.
Mama’s Geeky: I want to talk to you about the bowtie moment backstage, because that was really impactful. Was that in the script from the beginning?
Jen D’Angelo: It was there from the beginning of Can’t Stop The Quiz. There was a whole journey with the script of what the show was. When we were building Terry McTeer and Can’t Stop The Quiz, we were thinking of the big emotional payoff at the end. So it just sort of happened naturally. I threw in a joke about how he wears a different bowtie every day. And then, when we got there, we were just thinking of what’s The OZ moment of her walking into this really cool place? Is it going to be her walking onto the set? No. She knows the set. She’s seen the set every day. It has to be something backstage. It was just really inspired by when you go to SNL, the backstage of SNL feels so lived in and you can feel that it’s from the 70s. So our bowtie hallway was a nod to that.
Mama’s Geeky: Can we talk about Jason Schwartzman? Because he is so funny in this role.
Jen D’Angelo: I love him. He was a dream Ron Heacock. He was also so down to just come and play. One of my favorite moments of making the entire movie was, this script started as something that I wrote just for myself. I wrote it as a spec script. I was just like, I have this idea. It’s making me laugh. I’m just gonna write it and see what happens. So when I was writing about Ron, I put in this detail, when I first introduce him, I was like, Ron, so smarmy, gleaming white teeth. That was his character description. I didn’t think twice about it. Then the first day that Jason was on set, he had this makeup on his teeth. The makeup artist is like, Yeah, well, it said, gleaming white teeth, and he was like, Yeah, I figured they gotta be really white. So he’s got makeup on his hands, makeup on his teeth, he was so down to go for this like smarmy weatherman.
Mama’s Geeky: I have got to ask about the pug and how we never know how old this dog is.
Jen D’Angelo: It was so funny, because originally it was that he was just Anne’s pug, but then we added in this detail that Jenny had gotten him as a puppy impulsively, and then just sort of ditched him and Anne grew to love him. We love that as a story point, but that means that he’s like twenty-five years old. I looked up who’s the oldest dog that has ever lived, and I think it was twenty-six and so I was like, okay, it is possible.
Mama’s Geeky: Was it just one dog?
Jen D’Angelo: There were two dogs. There was Crosby, who was the main Mr. Linguini, and then Cookie was the Linguini stunt double. She was a little more spry. Mr. Linguini is based on, my very good friends have a pug. Her name is Aggie, and she’s eleven now, but for the past six years she’s been a grand old dame that just sleeps all day and has a salt and pepper beard. I just love her so much. A pug just felt like the perfect companion for Anne. They’re just so comfortable and stationary.
Mama’s Geeky: I love when the pug was all dressed up.
Jen D’Angelo: That was all the costume department. When they when they brought Crosby out for when Mr. Linguini shows up at the end of the show, I was not expecting him to be wearing a chain. Like, you put a chain on this pug? It is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
Mama’s Geeky: I live in Burbank, so I have to ask you about including Burbank so heavily in the script.
Jen D’Angelo: We just fell in love with this idea that Jenny fell in love with L.A., but not even L.A. She fell in love with Burbank. Burbank is her dream because it’s just a lovely little city. It’s a suburban city just like any other. But I loved that it was just so iconic to her and so formational. It was really funny because we did our test screenings at the AMC Burbank. I was a little bit like, why weren’t there more cheers? I guess they don’t all necessarily live in Burbank, but it was fun to test it there.
Jen D’Angelo Talks Comedy Central’s Workaholics
Mama’s Geeky: I have got to ask you about Workaholics, because I love that show. What was it like working with Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson, and Anders Holm?
Jen D’Angelo: It was so fun. I worked the last two seasons, so it was really fun to come into a show that was already super established. To just come in and they knew that it was and that they were going to finish up with two more seasons. So they wanted to really go big. It was really fun to just come in and be like, okay, the restraints are off. We can just go for whatever. I loved it so much. Then I worked with those guys on their movie Game Over, Man! on Netflix. I loved that movie.
Mama’s Geeky: It was very them.
Jen D’Angelo: Yeah, it was so fun. They hired me to be the onset writer, which was amazing. That was my first time being on a movie set. I’ve worked in TV before, but this was my first time working on a film. I ultimately want to direct, and Kyle Newacheck was directing it, and he’s so lovely and collaborative and open and nice. He was just like, here sit with me at the monitors every day and you can also shadow me. So I was right there with them. I felt like the fourth guy. Or Kyle’s the fourth guy. I felt like the fifth guy. But it was so awesome to do that with them. I love those guys. They’re so funny.
Mama’s Geeky: They feel like they are down for anything.
Jen D’Angelo: I will routinely think of the of Shaggy in that movie and just laugh. He was so great. He spent one day on set and he was just so charming and lovely. He literally performed for all of the extras gathered. It was amazing. That movie so silly. And also Jamie Demetriou is in that. I wasn’t super familiar with him before that movie, but I have since completely fallen in love with him. He’s in Barbie and he’s just so funny. It’s funny to go back and watch this performance from him because he’s so funny in it.
Jen D’Angelo Talks Hocus Pocus 2
Mama’s Geeky: I’ve also got to talk to you about Hocus Pocus 2. It was nostalgic but updated. Can you talk about working on that?
Jen D’Angelo: Nostalgic but updated was exactly what I wanted. Because I love Hocus Pocus. I watch it every year. I got an email one day from my agent just being like, hey, they’re meeting with writers about Hocus Pocus 2, would you ever be interested in talking to them? And I could not respond fast enough to be like, 100%, absolutely, I would love to talk to them. So I came up with this whole pitch and I think it was ultimately three years of working on it.
It evolved so much. There were so many different avenues that we considered and started to go down and then we would come back. It was so amazing. The whole time it was like, as long as it feels like Hocus Pocus, but also, I really felt like there was so much more to do with that story and that there was actually a reason to revisit it, rather than just we’re cannibalizing our library for content. I was like, Hocus Pocus deserves a sequel. I think it’s also really cool to look at it now because so much has changed. To play with this idea of the Sanderson Sisters being so beloved. Because that is the enduring power of Hocus Pocus – the Sanderson sisters. We just love them so much.
It was fun to imagine them getting girl-bossified and being so delighted to be famous and powerful again. I was pinching myself that entire process because I was just so excited. The first time that I had to zoom with Bette Midler. I was like, this is the best day of my entire life. And it was so fun because we went through the whole script and she just had tiny little Winifred-isms that she wanted to pepper in because Winifred Sanderson is so important to her. That character is iconic and she is iconic. It’s all her and I love that she cares about it as much as the fans do. It felt so special.
Mama’s Geeky: What was it like seeing them all together in costume for the first time?
Jen D’Angelo: I cried seeing them. I already met all three of them. When they all came on set, their first scene that they shot together, the first time we saw all three of them in costume wardrobe together, was them walking through the Halloween festival. So it’s just the three of them, and they’re doing the walk, they’re looking around, and they’re riffing. It immediately felt like, oh my god, there are the Sanderson Sisters. Like no time has passed. It was so special.
I had to walk away because I was like, [mimics tearing up]. I was on set for that whole movie and I was constantly being like, I don’t want to look too much like a fan that won a contest. I need to be professional as the writer of this movie, but I am so excited. I also was laughing and truly welled up with like tears of joy the first time Billy walked on set, too. I had not met Doug Jones and so that was the first time, when he walked on in full Billy regalia, and was immediately being so funny. It was a delight. I couldn’t believe it.
Mama’s Geeky: I have two daughters so the sister thing really got to me. And seeing them when they were younger. It added such a new layer to it all.
Jen D’Angelo: Those girls, like Taylor Paige Henderson who plays young Winifred, she is astounding. But that was such a scary thing because I was like, this prologue, I love it. I think it tells us so much more about them. And also, it’s just so fun to be in that world again in the 1600s, the Hocus Pocus version of it, which is a little heightened and silly. But it all hinged on are we going to be able to find kids that can do these roles and also feel like sisters. And those three, Nina Kitchen and Juju Journey Brener are the other two, they were just so great. The second I saw the three of them in a rehearsal together, and Taylor had so clearly studied that for so long, she had all of her mannerisms down and all the Winifred-isms, and it was just so I was like, Okay, we’re in good hands.
Jen D’Angelo is just getting started! So be sure to keep an on her to see what she is up to next.