We talk them out between us and with our friends. We have all kinds of emotions that we don't know what to do with. īS: We're both pretty anxious people in reality. Where do you get your inspiration for these stories? Is this stuff you've experienced?īS: It's become a therapeutic event for us. Y our show does the most realistic portrayal of this milieu of New York-in part because you're really going into people's homes. Just to be clear, I didn't want to knock your professionalism at all.īS: Honestly, there has been an episode or two where I'm like, “There's a lot of shit going on right now, and I'm just going to go toot in the back and keep it on the DL.” KB: She didn't seem super enthused about it. The woman was like, “Oh, it's you guys!” She had heard, she had seen herself name-checked. It was funny-we went to shoot a random New York Daily News piece and we went into the store, the Sacred Vibes place, and asked if we could film there. KB: They sell it at our local apothecary in Ditmas Park. I think the mullein and the catnip is what causes a calming effect but not a narcotic effect. The stuff we smoke is this "chillax" blend. KB: I feel like you told your dad at our wedding brunch, when you walked them to their cars and were like, “By the way, we smoke a lot of pot!”īS: I was like, “That's just how we deal with our issues” and my dad was like, “some people do that with waffles, so.”Īre you guys smoking actual pot on the show?īS: No, not on the show. KB: I was already out to my parents as a stoner since, like, my late twenties. But we also saw this opportunity to normalize weed that felt like a relief.īS: With my family, especially. It feels like an indirect way of saying, “Hi, I smoke weed, arrest me!” So there was an element of hesitation for a second. I'm not saying we were promoting it, but trying to normalize it definitely is a stance. KB: In fact, I even felt a slight amount of hesitation about putting myself out there in a public way as somebody who was a pot smoker. After we came up with the idea we were like, “Oh! And our approach to weed is that we'll normalize it and be non-judgmental about it.” But when coming up with the idea, it's not like we had any agenda to make a show about weed. But more so, it was the actual act of just taking five minutes to tell a story from beginning to end, and having this action happen with the confrontation. What's it like doing a show about something illegal?īS: We recognized that the illegal aspect of “High Maintenance” was, like, the sexy part of it. In addition to drugs, politics and the creative process, I asked them about the unexpected appearance of a storyline very similar to one of their episodes- played by the exact same actress -showing up on Fox's "New Girl." I sat down with them to talk about latest batch of six episodes they recently released-including "Sabrina," a foray into mushrooms, and "Esme," an episode about a rival dealer. Despite being a somewhat fringe show from breakout showrunners, "High Maintenance" has the assurance of long experience-due, I think, to the creative relationship between Sinclair and Blichfeld, who can both anticipate what the other is going to say and yet be sometimes still surprised by it, too. Though he plays the main character, "High Maintenance" isn't about him he's the empty space around which the rest of the fragmented, flawed community revolves. Our dealer works by referral, and comes into his customers' apartments to do business, and the characters are buying pot to feel better, meaning that the audience gets to see how these disparate people choose to relax, alleviate their anxiety, or just dick around with their friends.Ĭreators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld usher each episode to life the two are married to each other, and Sinclair stars as the nameless, helmet-clad dealer. As I wrote a few months ago, portraying an underground (if decriminalized) economy allows "High Maintenance" to touch on many aspects of urban living in one small, compact transaction. In an era of well-funded prestige television, it's surprising and refreshing to discover that one of the best portrayals of New York City living is the web series Vimeo's "High Maintenance." The show comes at New York from a fruitful and largely unexplored angle-how urbanites get their weed.
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