Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Montecito. After Sun said, I'm Christy
and I want to welcome you into a world of deception.
You are probably here because you love podcasts, or audio
books or soap operas. We are about to talk about
a brand new audio soap opera called Montecito, and we
are going behind the scenes with executive story editor Andrew
Pemberton Fowler and creator and executive producer of Monacito Grant Rudder. Hey, guys,
Hey Christy, Hello, Well, I want to let everybody know
that we are going to be breaking down episode two
of Monacito, and so if you haven't gone back and
listen to episode one and two, make sure that you
are do that because you are about to get spoilered.
You're about to get all the dish on what went
into making episode two happen. And I mean we're just
thrust right into the action from moment one. This is
a direct pick up from episode one and Helena throws
Nina out. I want to know this. The dynamic between
Helena and Nina is just so well developed. What kind
of conversations did you guys have about what the relationship
would be between these two women and about who they
are and how that would affect their relationships.
Speaker 2: I remember talking to Andrew about this and saying, Mina
has been in Helena's life for over a decade, at
least thirteen years, because don't forget Mina trap ticking with
the baby thirteen years ago. Basically, these are people who
don't have holidays together. They can't really like the family
has basically fallen apart. There are glimpses of that throughout
the season, but no one's close. And they're at this
public event and their masks are slipping. They're putting on
a very public face for everyone. This is a big night.
Nina calls it her big night, but we see that
it's really a big night for the family. Helene is
incredibly proud of her son and what this means of
the family legacy, and not even for one night can
they in aalog.
Speaker 3: Helena knows exactly who Mina is, and that's kind of
what we see right away between them, and I think
that's why the relationship is so interesting, because Helena never
wants mistakes Mina for who she knows her to be
and has known her to be for over a decade.
Speaker 1: And I think that I'm getting to know Mina pretty well.
Can I just tell you, guys, how I picture her
and see if that's how you intended. I just see
Mina as this beautiful, very beautiful Latina women. She's maybe short,
but she has a huge presence. And is that how
you intended for the audience to see her or what
does she look like in your head?
Speaker 3: Andrew, she's had a few iterations from the original breakdown
that I read of Mina versus the actress. We ended
up casting Chelsea Rendaulme, who is fantastic as Mina, and
she completely flipped our own person option of Mina on
our heads, and I think gave her so much more
depth and gravitas that was on the page, but it
just comes out in a completely different way. But I
will say, when you do write character, Grant and I
wrote these scripts many months ago, so sometimes you have
one vision of a character in your head, and when
you go back to write again, that vision stays in
your head because that was the voice that you were writing.
Speaker 4: Towards, so that when an actor gets.
Speaker 3: It, it adds another dimension. But I will throw the
rest of that to Grant.
Speaker 2: And yeah, Mia originally was European princess kind of vibes.
She's definitely and in that version of Mina was coming
from money. My father was a doctor, so she was
She wasn't quite on Monte see the level, so she
was always still trying to maintain. But it was more
about her being this narcissist. But the more we got
into the character, while this is not a Rag's richester
for her at all, it's someone that audibly sounds different
from the rest of the cast. It's more forward personality
than other characters on the show, more forceful. There's definitely
a lot more goal driven mindset and personality to maintain
and to keep it to be taken seriously and they're
going to stand up and notice. Chelsea really put that
power behind Nina and it really just took off that
casting that character was so key to the show because
she has so many different dynamics with so many people,
and she's not supposed to be someone that we root
for or against. It's up for interpretations, So to ride
that line was super important with who was voicing that character.
And again I'll echo what Andrew said, Chelsea really knocked
it out.
Speaker 4: Of the park.
Speaker 1: And somehow I am just as invested in Deacon and
Geo's relationship to each other and their scenes, as well
as Helena and Nina, even though they are completely different. Obviously,
there's a lot going on between Helena and that's it's
very tense and Deacon and Geo. You go back and
forth between the see that it's just a whole different feel.
All of a sudden, I'm in the room with them
alone and it's quiet, and it's an emotional roller coaster.
I don't know how you guys did it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you picked up on that, because Geo is
the opposite of Mina. Deacon and Mina are not a
match for a lot of reasons, but Geo is this
quiet more We learned that he's into holistic medicine and
does online courses and all this stuff within the kind
of help wellnets space. And then we've got Mina, who's
you don't really view her as this kind of like
meditative beach yoga girl. So it was very much the opposite,
and there was a lot of care put into those
scenes that you're mentioning with very delicate music. This is
a very delicate relationship. Deacon's busying himself, does Geo need
a blanker. Should I let fire? It's almost like fidgety,
but we're not seeing it, we're hearing and.
Speaker 1: Feel his nerves.
Speaker 4: Yes, listen.
Speaker 2: Peter did a great job portraying and there's obviously a
desperation and a longing from both of them, but especially
from Deacon to connect to actually be himself for two seconds.
Speaker 1: There are also some other faults mentioned who actually exist
in the series. We hear a may mention of Oprah,
Harry and Meghan get name dropped, and just full disclosure
that everyone listening. I've been with Grant a little bit
on this journey. We are great friends. He's one of
my favorite people in the whole world, and I'm sure
Andrew would be too if I got to know him
a little bit better. But I begged Grant to have
a couple of lines in this because I knew it
was going to be fantastic. And my line, we're the
ones about is Oprah. Wives are Harry and Meghan here?
But Andrew, I hear that you wanted those lines to
end up on the cutting room floor.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to distract, But again, this is a
place where real people live. We are co opting it
of course for dramatic purposes, so it does.
Speaker 4: It does make sense at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: But those lines weren't in the original scripts. So when
I heard I think it was the second or third
cut of the episode and I heard your voice, I
was like, Grant, I love this because it just adds
that richness to audio drama that you sometimes don't get.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's just two people talking.
Speaker 3: You may hear a little atmosphere in the background, but
that's it. So when I heard your voice, I was like,
oh my god, this world is real. Now it's not
Pine Valley, it's Montecito. It's very different, very different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really wanted something pop culture related, and if
you ask the average person, what do they know about Montecito,
it's Harry and Megan and it's Oprah. So that was
a way to connect with the audience on kind of
a wink and a nod. There were some street names
that I remember from being there and checking it out
a couple times and spending the day, and I was like, Okay,
this is the Golden Quadrangle, Picacco. Yeah, that's there there,
and that's where all the big homes are.
Speaker 1: Well, and it just helps, like you say, make it
so real that I feel like, next time we go
to Monasito, I'm going to expect to run into Mina
and then I'll probably run the other way because she
is so intense. We actually hear her get into full
on attack mode in episode two. Here one thing I
was shocked to hear with her call herself suddenly out
of nowhere, missus Deacon Granville. I was like, oh, now
you're missus Deacon Granville. But she get cut off real
quick in her moment of theory. There's a taser situation
that doesn't go well for Mina, and it plays out
so obviously. I can just picture it in my head
as it goes down as I'm listening. But there's a
lot of ways you guys could have gone with that.
How did you end up.
Speaker 4: With the taser? It was always a taser.
Speaker 3: I think we did mention a gun, but the gun
was too much, so we went back to a taser.
But then impost it was like, how do we get
the sound of a taser? How do we make it effective?
So there was a lot of back and forth. Because
you need her, you need Nina, but you also have
to introduce Bethany. Gina you need something dramatic to happen.
The Taser was all grant, but yeah, getting it realized
was the harder, the hardest part of all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, making sure that it translated from mind to a draft,
to an outline, to a breakdown to a script and
then the actors do what they do and then it
goes to post it. It's I hope that all these
little dashes are going to make a line, and thank
god it did. They have. Bethany Gene is looming over
this episode. She's mentioned in the first scene with Helena
and Mina. There's loud noise over Deacon and Geo, and
then if you listen closely, yes, when Mina is outside
being on that glass window and trying to get back
into the Roman mansion, there's the noise of the helicopter
and and then she arrives. And it was important to
give Bethany Gina a big entrance, and that moment kicks
off the whole feud between these two leading characters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't wait to meet her just because everyone
was talking about her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it is the force for sure.
Speaker 4: Right, and that's kind of soap opera one oh one.
Speaker 3: You never you need to withhold some characters and have
people talk about them and then you finally meet them
just because you need the build.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something about too much school soap entrance, like
the figure in the dark and it's JJ is like
Bethany Gina, like he would never expect it, like she
just can imagine. I'm hoping the listener imagine someone maybe
I'm Rylet, maybe who they think Bethany Gina resembles. It
looks like stepping into kind of the light and there
she is.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was an absolute pleasure to meet her and
from us to hear Mina finally getting what was coming
to her on that fateful evening. I do not wait
to hear episode three. Guys, give me a little.
Speaker 2: Tea All three the day after.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was fun to write. I really don't want
to give too much way.
Speaker 2: Well that deathly Gina and Mina cross paths again and
Mina has some choice words and that's you know, I
imagine she's there and she's trying.
Speaker 1: It is so much fun to get to know these
characters a little better from the people who created them.
And if you out there watching have any questions for
Grant and Andrew, please post them right down here below.
If you're watching on YouTube, or make sure that you
are following the Monacito Facebook page as well, you can
throw us your questions there and we will cover them
next time on Montecino after sunset. Thank you all so
much for joining us. Get ready for episode three, cause
it's goin' down and we will see you for all
the behind the sea scoop right here the Assin