Miley Cyrus and Woody Allen seem like an odd pair to team up for a project, but could they be a match made in TV heaven? We’ll find out on Friday, Sept. 30, when Amazon releases their original series, Crisis in Six Scenes, which was created, written and directed by Allen.
Here’s what we know about the show so far.
It’s Woody Allen’s first foray into TV
Allen has written and directed over 76 films, but Crisis in Six Scenes marks the first time he has ever ventured into TV.
And probably his last
Turns out creating quality TV projects nowadays isn’t as easy as Allen expected.
“It was much harder to do than I thought,” he told Indie Wire. “I thought, ‘I’ll sandwich this in between two films and knock it off. What’s the big deal? It’s television.’ But over the years, television has made enormous strides, and wonderful things are being done on television. And I found as soon as I started to get into the project, I couldn’t bring myself to slough it off because this is not television of 50 years ago, where every silly thing was acceptable. You’re working in a medium that has grown up and has got wonderful things being done in it, and, yes, you may prove to be an embarrassment, but you don’t want to be a total embarrassment.”
He also said he didn’t think he would attempt a TV series again.
It’s a period show
If you are looking to scratch your Mad Men itch, Crisis in Six Scenes might just be your show.
The series is a comedy that takes place during the turbulent 1960s, and it revolves around a middle-class suburban family that is visited by a guest who turns their household completely upside-down, according to Amazon.
Cyrus’ character might be the wild one
While it hasn’t been totally confirmed, our guess is that Cyrus’ character Lenny is the one busting in on the household to shake things up.
In promo pictures that have already been released, Lenny sure looks like she’s a flower child-type, which was definitely unsettling to people in the ’60s, who hadn’t fully transitioned out of the ’50s quite yet. She also talks about marijuana at one point in the trailer.
It’s a pretty darn short series
“It’s six half-hour episodes. And it ends,” Allen told Indie Wire. “It’s not the kind of thing that could go on in perpetuity. It’s one story… Hopefully people will find it amusing. It’s not going to start any new religions, I can tell you that.”
In this day and age, six half-hour episodes is super-short, considering most shows run up to 20 episodes per season and are nearly an hour long.
Allen plays a writer
In a sneak peek for the show, Allen’s character, Sidney J. Munsinger, is getting his hair cut when his barber tells him his latest novella was so boring it took him all winter to read it.
“I kept dozing off,” says the barber. “I thought I had narcolepsy, but my doctor said it was the book.” Ouch.
Cyrus goes toe-to-toe with Allen
We all know that Cyrus is an immense talent. Still, it had to be a bit nerve-wracking to go head-to-head in intense scenes with a legend like Allen.
“I was playing so much of myself that I wasn’t really feeling any pressure as an actress,” Cyrus told Vanity Fair. “I had so much fun, and it was the best experience. I learned a lot by watching the way he worked. I love that I didn’t have to do things a million times. There is like magic in the way he does things and gets the right angles. He sets everything up in the right way, where you do two takes. You don’t do multiple takes. You don’t do multiple angles. He’s done this for such a long time that he’s perfected what he wants, so the actors aren’t like, in a vegan saying, beating a dead horse. He’s really awesome.”
‘Hannah Montana’ got Cyrus the job
Cyrus is certainly an Allen fan now, and it turns out she’s part of a mutual admiration society.
“Miley’s a pleasure to work with. She couldn’t have been better,” Allen told Vanity Fair. “My kids used to watch that silly little television show that she did. I would walk past the screen and I used to think, ‘Who is that girl? She has a great comic delivery. She’s really wonderful.’ Years later, she then emerged as a singer and as an actress, and I thought she would be great for this character. I took a chance and hired her. She exceeded my finest expectations. She’s 100 percent professional. She knows her work and comes in and hits her mark. She’s also sweet to everybody. She poses for pictures and signs all the autographs without complaining. I absolutely enjoyed working with her.”
The show has got an all-star cast
As with most of Allen’s productions, the cast list reads like a who’s who in Hollywood.
In addition to Allen and Cyrus, Crisis in Six Scenes also stars Joy Behar, Elaine May, Michael Rapaport and Lewis Black.
There’s a ‘Stranger Things’ connection
If you couldn’t get enough of Stranger Things and Hawkins Police Chief Hopper, you’re in luck.
David Harbour, who portrayed Hopper in the Netflix series, shows up in the first two episodes of Crisis in Six Scenes.
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