Jason Bateman; Pedro Pascal
Credit: Tina Rowden/HBO; Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of DTF St. Louis.
NEED TO KNOW
Steven Conrad, the creator of DTF St. Louis, tells PEOPLE why Jason Bateman took over the role that Pedro Pascal was initially supposed to play
Bateman stars alongside David Harbour and Linda Cardellini in the HBO dark comedy
Conrad highlights Bateman’s natural chemistry with Harbour as part of the reason he fit the part so well
Jason Bateman’s casting in DTF St. Louis was meant to be.
In the HBO limited series, Bateman, 57, portrays a local weatherman named Clark, who is wrapped up in a secret affair with his best friend Floyd (David Harbour)’s wife, Carol (Linda Cardellini).
The show’s creator Steven Conrad spoke to PEOPLE about bringing the dark comedy to life after Harbour, 50, first came to him with the idea.
“He had some different stories to assess and suggested maybe we could set it here with these terms, with these characters,” Conrad recalls. “We started to go down a few roads trying to discover which one lent itself to the most exciting long-term storyline, and then we decided that rather than to go down a road of true crime or go down a road of a real scenario, we were just going to make up one that existed.”
David Harbour in DTF St. Louis
Credit: Tina Rowden/HBO
Initially, Pedro Pascal was set to star alongside Harbour, but Conrad reveals that that changed when the story started to go in a different direction.
“Pedro was around in that very early period where David and I were scratching our heads over things,” he says. “When that role became brand new and wide open and something for me to create again, it was Jason I thought of because I knew he was free, and he rarely is. So we tried to entice Jason with the role, and it all made sense for Jason.”
Conrad adds that Bateman playing Harbour’s “partner in crime” came across naturally on camera, comparing them to “two little kids who sit in a fort and play with matches.”
“Creating a partnership between two actors who have very different dynamics and delivery systems, it’s a little bit of an art form,” Conrad explains. “You want to find actors who have different energy, different intelligences, different emotional intelligences, and those two just seem ready-made to share the screen together.”
“Jason and I have been friendly for years, trying to find something, coming close a couple times,” he continues. “And then it occurred to me that I could build this for Jason.”
Shortly after, Conrad cast Cardellini, who he says “just can do everything,” making her perfect for the role.
“We had an idea that Carol had to be many, many things in the show,” he says. “She had to be a struggling mom. She had to be an overworked person in an office who is unrewarded. She had to be a spouse whose husband doesn’t really notice her anymore in intimate ways. And then she had to be the woman down the street who’s dynamically, sexually attracted to the guy down the street. Linda just can do everything. You believe it all.”
Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour in DTF St. Louis.
Credit: HBO
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At the end of the premiere, Floyd turns up dead, leaving a duo of detectives to piece together what happened. Viewers have since seen the relationship between Floyd and Carol grow more tense, as he explores connections with strangers on the DTF St. Louis dating app — which Clark introduced him to — even being lured by a mystery culprit into a date with a man.
Episode 3 concludes with hints that Carol might be setting Floyd up, as she opens up to Clark about Floyd’s Peyronie’s disease, a condition where the penis develops a curvature that causes erectile dysfunction. After complaining about her failing marital sex life, she also brings up life insurance, implying she wants Clark to take a policy out on Floyd.
Calling Cardinelli “the strongest character in our set of characters,” Conrad says she was one of few people who was able to embody someone “who doesn’t have a normal set of accomplishments” but somehow “has found a way to dominate her environments out of sheer intelligence and need.”
“You have a big cat who’s afraid of the little cat, a big dog who’s afraid of the little dog, and you go, ‘What does this little dog have? It makes no sense,’” he says, referring to Carol and Floyd. “But the little dog has fight. So Linda having to do all those things and then to reduce her to say, ‘This person has more fight than anybody else.’ Linda exquisitely could inhabit that.”
New episodes of DTF St. Louis air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
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