Matthew Weiner Says Being a Romanoff Is "Almost Like Saying You’re a Kennedy"
“I did 23 and Me,” says Matthew Weiner, “and the results were completely boring.” Lucky for the Mad Men creator, there’s no shortage of fascinating family history coming his way. His latest series, premiering October 12 on Amazon Prime Video, is The Romanoffs, which over eight episodes tells the stories of people who believe they’re descendants of that famous Russian clan. “I’m interested in this family because they were not that admirable, but have lasted into the modern era,” he says. Claiming to be a relation, he notes, still holds cachet: “It’s almost like saying you’re a Kennedy.”
The series, with a cast including Isabelle Huppert, Corey Stoll, and John Slattery, should do plenty to keep that fascination alive. But, while the idea of being a modern member of a deposed dynasty has its appeal, that isn’t what’s at the show’s heart. “This,” Weiner says, “is about wondering, who am I?”
Here, Weiner talks to T&C about creating the series.
What about this topic interested you?
It originated with the kind of storytelling I wanted to do and the kind of entertainment I felt I wanted to see. I just started watching TV after Mad Men in a non-competitive atmosphere and was catching up. I had always liked the idea of The Decalogue by Krzysztof Kie?lowski; it’s 10 episodes, each about one of the 10 Commandments. I had one story in particular, which became the pilot, that was about this inheritance. I started thinking about this idea of how we all feel connected, but we’re not; we seek connection and people are trying to uncover their ancestry. I also loved the idea of people who used to be great. That became about 25 stories or so, and by the time we opened up the writer’s room, we whittled it down to the eight we shot.
The idea for me was to have a show that you could watch in any order and never need to catch up. I don’t know if the binge watching thing has worn off, but there’s this idea that you do need to catch up and nobody’s watching anything at the same time. This is really different every week, the way that Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone would be.
The idea of families who were once great is interesting, and the Romanovs in particular are one family people can’t shake. Why have they inspired such a following?
If you look on the Wikipedia page, there are almost 100 people just there who claim to be relations. Some of it’s a survival story, but some of it… In a weird way, it used to be completely untraceable and you could brag your way into a kind of status, especially in the United States, where there is no royalty.
There was a guy who ran a restaurant here in Los Angeles called Romanoffs, which was a big Hollywood hangout, and he claimed to be related to the family but was not. There are 200,000 people in Russia alone who have this last name. It’s not like everyone in the family was killed that day, but the number of people who claim to be from this family and the number of people who actually are is a bit disparate. But we all have that when we go looking for our roots, right? The things these stories have in common is that they’re about inheritance and adoption-am I special, am I adopted. For ancestry in general, it’s about being part of something that could make you better than other people or give you something to live up to, but what does it matter? Whether they are or not doesn’t really matter; it’s about the things you carry around with you.
Why does that resonate with you?
My parents are both first-generation Americans and my ancestors are from very different parts of Europe but are genetically close. It’s an obsession for some people to go back and find out who are you. I was interested in looking at a group that had this tragedy, that had ancestors who behaved in a less-than-admirable way but at the same time had a lot of status in our culture.
How did you whittle down ideas to eight episodes?
That’s why I have an amazing writing staff. There’s a story that takes place in Mexico City that we came up with while we were writing, but the others we came in with. The episodes take place in different places, and there are also different genres: there’s a fairy tale, a black comedy, a horror movie, a film noir, and so on. There could be 100 episodes of this and I want it to feel that way. It’s about a very big family that’s all over the world, and they don’t even really have to be related, they just have to think they are.
In researching the family, have any of the claims from people saying they’re somehow related struck you as true?
I think some of the people seem to be directly related, but that’s not the tension in this show. This is about wondering, who am I?
A version of this interview appears in the November 2018 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
('You Might Also Like',)
Solve the daily Crossword
