Pittsburgh creator Vijal Patel’s Pradeeps on his quasi-autobiographical sitcom

The ‘family sitcom’ gets a kick in the pants with The Pradeeps of PittsburghThe new Freevee series from creator Vijal Patel, a veteran of acclaimed series like Black-ish, the mediumAnd The mayor. The series follows the Pradeep family, Indian immigrants seeking a new life in the United States. However, something is clearly wrong, since the show is told through flashbacks when the family and their neighbors are interviewed by a pair of federal agents investigating a community-shattering arson case.

The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh is loosely based on the life and upbringing of creator Vijal Patel, but with the serialized mystery element adding an extra layer of intrigue and excitement. In addition, you can be on Prime Video and Freevee instead of traditional broadcast TV The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh To get away with salter language and more risky situations, while still remaining more-or-less family-friendly.

Screen Rant interviewed Vijal Patel about his work on The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, He talks about how his work on other TV sitcoms helped prepare him to host his own show, casting the family, and how he and his fellow writers imbibed their real-life experiences into the characters, making them feel more. Real. Finally, he hones in on one particular joke in which the young son, Vinod, is compared to the legendary actor Linda Hunt.

Vijal Patel on the autobiographical nature of the Pittsburgh Pradeps

“Audiences have opened up to the broader stories that are relatable, universal and hilarious.”

Screen Rant: First off, I love the show, I just watched all eight episodes in a row. I’m hooked. Anyway, you’ve worked on a lot of television over the years. This is the first show where you tell an Indian-American story. Are you like, oh, finally! Or are you like, oh, crap, I’d rather deliver!

Vijal Patel: A little bit of both, right? Column A, Column B. “Finally”, more than anything. It really was a long time in the making, a long time coming, and what I love is that audiences have opened themselves up to the broader stories that are relatable, universal and hilarious. The first thing I ever said was, “I want to make a funny show, and I want to make a funny show about Indians.

Now, I want to do a funny show about Indians that is loosely based on my family,” and that’s because I love connecting. The reason I said funny first is because I love connecting through humor, through comedy. I feel really blessed to To do this show and to tell the Indian immigrant story, the Indian-American immigrant story I have such a deep reservoir of stories and comedy to share with the world.

For you, all the ways led to this show, like when you were like, “I’m going to be a TV writer,” did you always feel like, “At some point, I’m going to do this show?”

Vijal Patel: I think it’s all roads led to the show. My experience as a child, we moved from India to Pittsburgh, that was the basis of stories I would tell, right? Because I am a storyteller by nature, I usually tell autobiographical stories. So when I became a TV writer, I would write on other people’s shows, and I would write on amazing shows, Black was one of them, and I’m like, oh, it’s so much more fun to tell your own story , because Kenya Barris created Black-ish, and so much of his DNA is in it, it’s his experience. So now, I will tell the story of when my family moved to Pittsburgh from India, and this is Pradeeps from Pittsburgh.

The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh benefits from the Freevee Network

“Hopefully this will create a style of storytelling in the family comedy that will spread and perpetuate.”

And it must be nice to do that on a network like Freevee, where you have a little more leeway to be a little raunchier than they could ever get on ABC.

Vijal Patel: It was such a gift to be able to tell stories and use language and honest emotional responses that reflect reality, to get to push the envelope a little bit in our storytelling. When you said you just watched all eight episodes in a row, Freevee lets us break a story in a way that has cliffhangers and has you hooked. To do that with a family comedy, and to be able to tell this ensemble story with a lot of heart and humor, but a lot of twists and surprises, was the next level for my writing. I wasn’t able to do that on other, more traditional shows. I loved writing on those, but it just didn’t lend itself to this type of story. So, yes, my Amazon partners have been amazing to encourage this and want that. Hopefully this will create a style of storytelling in the family comedy that will spread and perpetuate.

You’ve got an incredible cast, I really fell in love with the whole family by the end of the first episode. I forget exactly what the line is, but Ashwin calls him “Linda Hunt in disguise”, and I thought that was the funnest thing I’d ever heard.

Vijal Patel: It’s like, “Linda Hunt posing as a little boy,” or something like that. Ah, Zach, I thank you for that. Thank you for saying that. I remember sitting in my office and we’re watching auditions or something, and I’m like, Ashwin is the greatest, and I’m like, “You know who he reminds me of? He reminds me of Linda Hunt for some reason.” I think I’d just seen, like, Dune, the original Dune that Linda Hunt is in, and I just said this random thing, and then another writer’s like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if he was just Linda Hunt?” in disguise?”

That was literally what we said, and we were like, “Oh, we have to put this in the show!” And they were like, what are you doing? Why would you put that line in the show? I’m like, because Pad Thai noodles are coming out of our nose because we’re eating lunch, and we’re like, let’s just put it in. So, Zach, you’re my favorite person in the whole world right now because you like that line, because you quote that line.

Pittsburgh creator Vijal Patel’s Pradeeps on casting The Family

“It wasn’t about huge names, it was just about the characters.”

Tell me about casting. Do you, like, do you throw to the adults? Do you cast to Naveen and Sindhu? Do you do the whole group together, or do you just roll the dice and you happen to get extremely lucky?

Vijal Patel: That’s a great question. So, the casting of the show, it started with a vision of my family, but then I moved to, “No, it’s the Pradeeps,” Naveen was the central piece of that, I love Naveen. Naveen has always been one of my favorite actors, but he was a drama actor. He got his hands on the script, he connected with the script, and he called, and he says, “Hey, I want to play Mahesh Pradeep,” and I’m like, “You’re one of the best actors I know.” You from Lost and The English Patient are you sure you want to do this? He goes, I love this character so much, and I’m like, “Dan! This is happening.”

From this point forward, we are only looking out for Vinod. We were looking for Sudha. These are the names of the letters. So we would just wait until we see the character in the audition. And it wasn’t about huge names. It was just about the characters. It was about this family, and they all started clicking in. I would just watch the audition. I’m like, it’s perfect. It is Banu. It is Vinod. And then Megan Hilty joined the cast, the great, amazing Megan Hilty, and Ethan Suplee, and we were over the moon. So, the casting was almost like we were just waiting for the characters to show up in the auditions, and that’s how we found them.

You said the show is based on your life moving from India to Pittsburgh. Is there any particular character that you impersonate as, “That’s me!” Or is it spread throughout the family?

Vijal Patel: It’s a bit between Vinod, the little boy, because that was my POV when I moved to America. I loved it. I love Pittsburgh. I had hero worship to my neighbors, all that, and I was optimistic. And then there’s a little bit of Mahesh Pradeep, because I’m a dad now. It’s funny, he started as my dad, but now I’m a dad, and so I can bring my experience, my optimism, my attempts to help guide my kids through their problems, by staying on the sunny side of life. I can now put that in the character. My father did that too. Both of my parents had that.

It is interesting to be a father who writes a story about me as a child, but also as a father, so that I can get something from both ends. As I said, this cast is just so good, and all the writers put a little piece of themselves into the characters, and that’s why everything is funny, the whole ensemble. In any given episode, you can follow anyone’s journey and be with them, even if they’re wrong, because the cast is so amazing. The cast is so funny, and they elevate the stories to new heights I couldn’t have even dreamed of.

More on The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh Season 1

The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh follows the Pradeep family and the events of their lives in America after moving from India. Told through hilarious (and often conflicting) flashbacks of an interrogation room, the Pradeeps quickly find themselves embroiled — romantically, personally and professionally — with a polar-opposite neighborhood family, leading to a predicament with many surprising twists.

Check out our others The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh Interview here: