The initial COVID outbreak plays a role in “Sprung” — as both a narrative element and the raison d’etre for the Amazon Freevee comedy premiering Aug. 19.
“This one was a pandemic creation,” said series star Garret Dillahunt, who’s also an executive producer on “Sprung,” which reunites him with his “Raising Hope” co-star Martha Plimpton and that show’s creator, Greg Garcia (“My Name Is Earl,” “Yes, Dear,” “The Guest Book”).
“It was in 2020 and I thought, ‘When was the last time I had a ball on a series?’ And it was on ‘Raising Hope.’ So I called Greg and said, ‘Let’s do something.’ I didn’t know what, but I knew the kind of guy I wanted to be [in the show] so he had very little to go on,” he said. “He probably had this idea for a while and kind of tinkered with it to make it fit into what I was looking for and [to fit] the times.
“So that’s the best move a producer can make — have a friend who’s a better producer.”
Shakira Barrera, Martha Plimpton, Garret Dillahunt and James Earl in a scene from “Sprung.”Dennis Mong/Amazon FreeveeDillahunt (“Fear the Walking Dead,” “Where the Crawdads Sing,” “The Mindy Project”) plays Jack, who’s serving a 24-year sentence in the slammer for a drug offense. He and his cellmate, Rooster (Phillip Garcia), are among the non-violent prisoners freed when the pandemic first hits — and, along with fellow inmate Gloria (Shakira Barrera), they move in with Rooster’s wild-child mom, Barb (Plimpton) and, eventually, decide to use their criminal backgrounds for the greater good. Co-stars include Clare Gillies as Wiggles, Rooster’s ex-girlfriend, and James Earl as Melvin, her new beau.
Kate Walsh, Susan Ruttan, Fred Grandy, Steven Ogg and Chris Bauer are among the guest stars in the 10-episode series, which was shot last year in and around Pittsburgh.
“Greg really wanted to shoot in Frostburg, Md., which is where he went to college,” Dillahunt said. “The series is set in a fictitious town, Kimberton, which is named after Greg’s wife, Kim. But there was no crew that was close and we would have had to ship and house the entire crew for the entire shoot and that just wasn’t fiscally responsible, so we moved to Pittsburgh.
Jack and his cellmate, Rooster (Phillip Garcia) just got “Sprung” from prison.Dennis Mong/Amazon Freevee“There are great tax incentives in Pennsylvania but also an amazing atmosphere in Pittsburgh — every direction you point the camera in there’s something really cool to look at,” he said. “It was a steel town and there’s a lot of blue-collar and those ghosts and remnants … it was a marvelous place to shoot.”
His role behind the camera — as an executive producer along with Garcia, Michael Rotenberg and Jonathan Berry — gave him a new appreciation for the work that goes into that job, Dillahunt said.
“Oftentimes actors are producers but it’s like, ‘Yeah, but he really didn’t [do much].’ I’m not a writing producer but I was involved in the day to day [stuff] and Greg gave me a lot of responsibility — we chose the cast together and I had a lot of input on notes and took a lot off his plate,” he said. “Greg directed every episode and we did all 10 at once — like a giant movie … I felt like I was a pretty good liaison between the cast, Greg and Amazon.
“I confess, when I started I thought, ‘I’ll show you guys how to make a TV show, it doesn’t need to be this hard.’ And I had to call a few producers after it was done and apologize for some behavior in the past. I was like, ‘You know what? I see. I get it now.'”
Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt in their Fox sitcom “Raising Hope,” which aired from 2010-2014 and was created by Greg Garcia.Most of all, though, Dillahunt said that working with Plimpton was the icing on the cake.
“She’s a really unique presence in my my life,” he said. “I’ve worked with her more than any other actor in my career. I figured it out: we’ve made the equivalent of about 33 movies together over the course of ‘Raising Hope’ [2010-2014 on Fox] and she was in one [episode of] ‘The Guest Book’ [which aired on TBS] and now 10 episodes of ‘Sprung.’ She’s incapable of not being human even in the most exploded kinds of circumstances. It didn’t feel like we had to get anything back — it felt like home, like a natural continuation … hearing her voice say the words — 50 percent of the comedy is Barb — to hear her just nailing it time and again, differently on each take, was such a relief.”
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