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When DJ Nash set out to write
the ABC drama “A Million Little
Things,” which follows a group of
friends coping with the death by
suicide of one of their own, his hope
was that it would generate discus-
sion about mental health.
“You don’t want to be a PSA —
you’re not telling the stories for that
reason but to realize, ‘Oh, we could
make a change, we could bring
attention to these issues,’ ” Nash
said. “There’s two groups you want
to talk to: the survivors, and the
people who you want to prevent
from doing this. And how do you
reach both of them?”
The first season examines the
effect on his friends and family after
Jon (Ron Livingston), a successful
businessman who seems to have it
all, takes his own life. All are battling
existing personal issues: There’s
Rome (Romany Malco), whose own
suicide attempt is prevented by the
call informing him of Jon’s death,
and his wife, Regina (Christina Mo-
ses), who experienced sexual abuse
as a child; Gary (James Roday),
who worries about a recurrence of
male breast cancer; and Eddie
(David Giuntoli), who struggles
with sobriety and has been cheating
on his wife, Katherine (Grace Park),
with Jon’s wife, Delilah (Stephanie
Szostak).
For all the tragedy built into the
series’ premise, Nash started out as
a stand-up comedian in New York
and spent his early years as a TV
writer working in comedies. His
first staff writing job was on NBC’s
Whoopi Goldberg sitcom, “Whoo-
pi,” in 2003. He’d go on to work on
shows such as “‘Til Death,” “Traffic
Light” and “Bent” before creating
the NBC sitcom “Growing Up
Fisher,” a tribute to Nash’s blind fa-
ther, which starred J.K. Simmons
and aired in 2014; and NBC’s “Truth
Be Told,” which aired in 2015. Both
series lasted one season.
“A Million Little Things” returns
for its second season Sept. 26, sand-
wiched between “Grey’s Anatomy”
and the final season of “How to Get
Away with Murder.”
Inside his sparsely decorated
office in Studio City a few days into
moving in in early April, Nash talked
about the show’s responsibility
in its portrayal of mental health,
moving the show’s characters for-
ward in ways that may upset view-
ers, notbecoming the next Ray Ro-
mano, and his rules to live by as a
showrunner.
Upsetting the fans isn’t always a
wrong move
Last season, the tweet I got the
most was, “Please don’t have Mag-
gie die.” And from the moment I
first got that tweet from my mother
and from everybody else, I knew
the character [played by Allison
Miller] wasn’t going to. But I knew
before we got there, I was going to
move you, hopefully entertain you,
hopefully make you laugh and
make you cry, make you identify.
Will you love everything that
happens to these characters this
season? I promise you, you will not.
But if you continue to watch, you
will see how they push through it
and you will see how they are differ-
ent because of it. The one to look at
is, what is Katherine going to do? Is
she going to take this guy back or is
she going to kick this guy to the
curb? If those are the two choices,
then I’m going to have half of the
audience angry regardless of which
way I go.
With regard to Regina [and
having a baby], I think on television
we do not allow a woman to not
have a baby unless there is a medi-
cal reason. And I don’t think that’s
right. I love the idea that Regina
doesn’t want to have a baby and
that’s where she stands. That’s
what it is. It’s not because of this
or because of that. Every single
person has the right to choose
whether or not they want to be a
parent. And so I think for Regina to
have that opinion is very valid. Now,
like I did with my wife, the story is
from a very personal place. We both
got married saying, “No kids.” And
we both changed our mind for
different reasons. It could be that
Regina changes her mind. It could
be that she doesn’t. The question is
why and how, and what’s that
journey like? I know for sure it’ll
piss people off, but people will lean
in and hopefully they’ll identify and
hopefully they’ll feel that whatever
story we’re telling is authentic.I’m not really thinking, “Oh,
what do the fans want?” I’m think-
ing, “What would a person really
do?” And so the three or four moves
that happen in our first nine epi-
sodes that I know will upset fans,
it’ll upset them because they go,
“Yeah, I know, but it hurts.”Grief doesn’t cease — but it does
change
I was reading a book over the
summer written by Dr. Jennifer
Ashton, who is the medical consult-
ant on “Good Morning America,”
and she actually is going to be in
Episode 6 of our show, playing
herself. She wrote this book called
“Life After Suicide: Finding
Courage, Comfort & Community
After Unthinkable Loss.” In the
book, she talked about how the
second year in some ways is harder
than the first year, because the first
year everyone’s aware it’s your first
Thanksgiving, it’s your first Fa-
ther’s Day, it’s your first whatever.
In the second year, that safety net
that you have kind of goes away a
little bit and people think, “Oh,
you’re better now,” but you’re not.
And there’s still another daddy-
daughter dance.
It doesn’t require us having Jon
in the episodes as much, because
he is fading a little bit from their
lives. And I think that’s also what
they’re struggling with. There’s an
episode we do early on where Deli-
lah can’t remember this tradition
— the song that she and Jon used
to sing to the babies — and it kills
her because she was like, “I
shouldn’t forget these things. I
don’t want to forget these things.”There’s a difference between
‘politically conscious’ and ‘politi-cally correct’
I think I’m very aware of fans
who watch the show, specifically
fans who are struggling with de-
pression or suicidal thoughts, fans
who were hoping to be or are in
remission with cancer, fans who
have chemical dependency. I never
forget them at all. In fact, a lot of
the stuff that I do with the consult-
ants is to make sure we’re being
true to their story. The barometer I
use for all the stories we tell is, if a
person who had been through it is
sitting next to me in the editing bay,
would they be OK with the story
we’re telling? They don’t have to
love it. They can be upset by it, but
would they say, “No, you got that
right”? That’s really how I think
about it, but I can’t let it dictate
what I’m writing, because as soon
as I try to teachwith this show,
[it’s] going to feel like an after-
school special. I don’t simply want
to come in and be politically
correct. I do want to be politically
conscious, but I’m telling stories.
I’m just trying to tell a story that I
believe. I just wanted to tell the
story, and I keep coming back to
this, authentically.On not being the ‘next Ray
Romano’ or ‘next Jerry Seinfeld’
I was just doing stand-up in New
York for a while. I’m doing as many
shows as possible, and my class-
mates in New York are incredibly
big. Like Bill Burr and Jim Gaffigan
and Ed Helms did my open mike
night. Every night, I was seeing
these folks, and, then, I did the
Montreal Comedy Festival, and I
won the new faces competition. So
the CBS gang gave me this devel-
opment deal to develop a sitcom
based on my stand-up. I was goingto be, like, the next Ray Romano. I
paired with a showrunner, Jeff
Strauss, and he said, “Do you want
to write it with me?” It was in 2000,
so I was 28. I came out [to L.A.],
co-wrote it with Jeff, loved writing
it. It was just everything you think
writing’s going to be. It was funny.
We were distracted by video games.
We’d go eat two-hour lunches; we’d
come back and write. And then we
got to shoot the pilot. The pilot gets
picked up. It was for CBS. Elliot
Gould played my dad. Peter
Jacobson from “House” played my
brother. Liz Vassey played my wife
and this guy Bert Kreischer [who]
was another stand-up played my
best friend. They were all great in it.
But I was so bad. It was called “Life
with David J.”
I mean, I am proud of the script,
and I’m proud of their perform-
ances in the pilot. Pam Fryman
directed it. It’s like the only show
Pam Fryman ever directed that
didn’t get on the air. It was kind of
crushing, because I didn’t enjoy
acting in it and I think you could
feel it. So I was a little heartbroken,
because I thought, “Well, I came
out here to be Jerry Seinfeld.”Everyone just wants to be heard
I think it’s so important to make
sure people are heard. My first
showrunner ever was Larry
Wilmore, and he said to me, “You
don’t have to take every note. You
just have to let them know you
heard every note.” And I think
whether that’s a fellow writer,
whether that’s a network exec,
whether that’s an actor on set,
whether it’s a director — I think
about what I want. I don’t need
everyone to agree with me. I just
need to know, “OK, you heard me.”
So I think every day I try to get
better and better at that. That’s
one. And then I think another thing
for me, just in terms of creatively, is
to always make sure every charac-
ter has a confidante. You just need
someone. It can be Colin the dog,
but you just need to put somebody
in there that they can talk to be-
cause. Or else it can be too internal.
That’s a creative thing.DJ NASHsurrounded by notes for his show “A Million Little Things.” In the pilot, Rome is about to attempt suicide when he learns a close friend has killed himself.
Myung J. ChunLos Angeles TimesRUNNING THE SHOW
The pain of the second year
DJ Nash knows he’ll upset
fans on ‘A Million Little
Things.’ The sophomore
show is his first drama.
By Yvonne Villarreal
NASHcreated the short-lived sitcom “Growing Up Fisher” as a tribute to his blind father, Mel.
(That’s them in the frame.) The toy is part of a hockey game on ABC’s “A Million Little Things.”Myung J. ChunLos Angeles Times