‘Quiz Lady’ Writer/Producer Jen D’Angelo On the Origins Of Her Emmy-Nominated Film

Writer/producer Jen D’Angelo fashioned the Hulu original movie Quiz Lady from her personal experiences. Starring Awkwafina and Sandra Oh, the film focuses on two estranged sisters (Awkwafina, Oh) who travel cross-country to win enough money on their favorite quiz show — Can’t Stop the Quiz — to cover their mother’s enormous gambling debts. Granted, D’Angelo’s personal story doesn’t include maternal gambling debts. Instead, she wanted to make something that makes you smile, a big part of what made Quiz Lady the movie it is. Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, she detailing some of the personal aspects of her life that she put into this movie, how great contradictions make for great comedy for her, and that she has a secret script combining two very different movies that we will probably never see.

Awards Daily: What was the inspiration for this story?

Jen D’Angelo: Initially it started with an idea about my brother who is a Jeopardy genius, and he’s a very frustrating person to play Trivial Pursuit with, which I learned very well growing up because I always lost. He loves Jeopardy, he’s auditioned to be on the show like a million times. When I first moved to LA I was working on a Sony show. I would drive on the Sony lot every day, and I would drive past the Jeopardy stage. I thought, “It’s right there. If I could only get my brother on the show it would make his dream come true!” So I fell in love with this idea of this seemingly simple goal that has so much emotional weight on it and means so much to these two characters. I love the idea of building a comedy road movie that builds to that.

Awards Daily: A lot of that emotional bond is between the two sisters, and it sounds like you might have that with your brother. Is that where the idea came from?

Jen D’Angelo: Yes, but I also have a sister, and I’ve always loved the sister dynamic. We have explored it a little bit in film and comedy, but it still feels like it’s very ripe territory. The other initial inspiration for it was doing a rom-com but the central relationship is two sisters instead of a romantic one. In a sister relationship, the emotional highs are so high and the lows are so low. I just wanted to explore that.

Awards Daily: As a writer, what is your process?

Jen D’Angelo: It varies. I am sort of all over the place. With Quiz Lady I got this idea and I just really wanted to write it. At the time I was still kind of breaking into the feature world and my main feature sample was this script I had written that is completely unproducible. It’s basically a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead but for the movie Titanic. I wrote that because it made me laugh and I enjoyed writing it and I felt it would show my voice to the world. But then I thought I should write a feature sample that is actually makeable even if no one is likely to make it. So for Quiz Lady I just sat down and wrote it, and similar to how I approached the Titanic script I tried to not think about where it would exist in the world. Not going to think about studio notes too soon and just write the version that makes me laugh. So that’s where I typically start from. Then, as the project grows, you get more and more voices and collaborators. That can be really great and also really frustrating. It is the magic of creation. A fun process, but also crazy.

Awards Daily: Speaking of comedy, one of my favorite parts was literally at the end doing the little scenes about what happened to the characters. I was curious, when did those ideas come about for the story?

Jen D’Angelo: Those are in the very first draft and it was just a silly idea I had. I love with Quiz Lady that the characters are very normal people, and it just really makes me laugh that we would care at all about what would happen to them. Like, oh, they went on to be in the Hall of Fame, when you usually see those kinds of freeze frames at the end of sports movies. We want to know what happened to Anne and how many games she won, so it felt like a natural launch into this device where now we check in with literally everybody. There was a time I wanted to do it with everyone and started to go into the crew, so we had to pull it back a little.

Awards Daily: You mentioned how these are normal characters in this story, but we also get these nice extreme moments like Anne going off and on certain drugs to keep her going through the audition. Then, my personal favorite, the mobster Ken, is really into his dogs and has this decency to him. When did you decide you want to throw in some of these big contrasts?

Jen D’Angelo: I just love contradictions and I love when you think someone is one thing and they turn out to be something completely different. Like with Ken turning out to have this really soft spot for dogs and it’s sort of ruining him in a way. (laughing) Which I relate to as someone who has spent an ungodly amount of money on my own dog. Just pampering him and making certain he has the best life. With the drug sequence I really loved showing these two sides of Anne, and seeing her go to one extreme where she relaxes for the first time in her life, and letting all of her anxiety wash away for a second because she is taking these intense drugs and all of a sudden everything is bliss.

So it was funny to see her in that way, then to introduce a stimulant drug trip that snaps her out of it and forces her into this hyper-focused hellhole. I thought that was just a fun way to see both sides of her. Then as a way to really visualize her anxiety too, because all of a sudden she has to list all these things or she thinks she’s going to die. That’s what her internal life feels like all the time with her anxiety. I love being able to explore those inconsistencies and nuances in characters through comedy. Because we all have our own weird idiosyncrasies.

Awards Daily: You have worked in television for a while, be it in TV shows or TV movies. What gets you interested in a project?

Jen D’Angelo: It really all comes from character. I love TV and movies. I’m the youngest of four children, so I always say I was basically raised by TV because my parents were so tired! I really fell in love with characters and I love the idea of just introducing characters to people and having them fall in love with these characters and get really invested in what they’re doing. When you really love characters, that’s what keeps you coming back to movies over and over. I just love a comfort watch and that’s the kind of thing I want to make for people: something when they are feeling sad they put on to make them feel better. I think all of that comes from character. If you connect with these people or care about them, that allows you to open up to them.

Awards Daily: In terms of your involvement with television you have acted, written, and produced for television. What made you want to take on all three of these roles?

Jen D’Angelo: That’s a great question! I am now getting into directing, to add another. I’ve always wanted to be a writer since I was 7 when I wrote a book about my dog and it was like, this is my opus. Then when I got into high school I started doing comedy so the two always went hand in hand. Then producing came out of writing as a natural evolution. I love all three, and with producing it’s so fun to be on a project for the entire duration. Otherwise it is just a segment where you’re coming in pre-production, or if you’re the writer sometimes you don’t go on through production or through post. To be a producer and to get to see every single stage of the process and be with the project the whole way is so satisfying. Then acting is just so fun! When you are only acting it’s kind of the best. You are like, this is great, I just come in for a few days and then leave and you guys have to deal with all the problems. This is amazing!

Awards Daily: So acting is your stress reliever basically.

Jen D’Angelo: Exactly, yeah!

Awards Daily: Speaking of producing, besides writing Quiz Lady you are also the producer so you got to be there through the whole project. Did taking on both roles change your perspective?

Jen D’Angelo: It was so fun. I love creative problem solving, and that is what producing is. So it was fun to have a producer hat and a writer hat on at the same time. We have this budget issue. What is a creative solution to turn this into something good for the project without taking something away? That was a fun way to do both jobs at once. You are making the movie the whole time. There is the movie you write, the movie you shoot, the movie you cut, and the movie that you release. It is just constantly evolving, and being a producer and being able to be there for that whole evolution, and also be able to guide it and then to also be in the room as a writer the whole time too. I have this idea for a tiny joke and I can just toss it in. It was so great! Plus our director Jessica Yu was so collaborative and our cast was wonderful. so it was just great to be able to work with everyone the whole time.

Awards Daily: Congratulations are in order. You got your first Emmy nomination! What has that been like for you?

Jen D’Angelo: It is so exciting! In this world of streaming you never have any idea who is watching anything. So it is so nice and lovely to get recognition for it. I’m so proud of Quiz Lady. The whole time we were making it we just kept saying we couldn’t believe we were making this movie, because it feels like the kind of movie people don’t make anymore. Everyone felt so lucky to be working on it because it was such a fun crew and a really great environment. So we felt like the little original comedy that could. Getting recognition for it is really amazing, and I’m just so proud of everyone who worked on it.

Quiz Lady streams exclusively on Hulu.