It wasn't until Shea Serrano was in Los Angeles casting for Primo, the new coming-of-age comedy series he created, that he realized his dream was finally coming to fruition.
"I remember there was a sign that said, 'Primo Casting,'" Serrano, 41, told the Current during a recent interview. "When the first person walked into audition, I thought I was gonna start crying."
Inspired by Serrano's upbringing in San Antonio, Primo follows Rafa (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a teenager maneuvering his way through high school and a home life that he shares with his single mother and five uncles.
While Serrano is the bestselling author of the books The Rap Year Book, Basketball (and Other Things) and Movies (And Other Things), the series marks his jump into an altogether different art form — and one with a potentially massive audience. Primo premieres May 19 on Amazon Freevee.
During our interview, Serrano, a graduate of Southwest High School, talked about the kind of series he wanted to make for the streamer and how much of it is based on his real life. We also went off script to chat about other Latino shows and one of his favorite movie franchises, The Fast and the Furious.
What's going through your mind now that the premiere of Primo is finally here?
I'm super nervous. But also, I feel really good about how the show turned out. That's the thing I worried about the most when we were making it — that it was going to get turned into a thing that I didn't want it to be, which is a story you hear happens in Hollywood sometimes. But we had [producer] Mike [Schur] and [Amazon executive] Lauren Anderson who worked together on Parks and Recreation. They protected [Primo] the whole time. I'm really proud of it.
Why did you decide to create this story with Parks and Rec-style dry humor?
I think those are my favorite shows — the ones that tell a joke without trying to sell a joke. A person might say ... the most innocuous statement ever, and it could be the funniest thing in the world if the context makes it. Those to me are the shows I enjoy watching the most — Parks and Rec, The Office, Abbott Elementary. It's about trusting the writing and trusting the delivery. That was the only kind of show I wanted to make.
No laugh track.
No laugh track. No sassy, Latina mom with a chancla. I didn't want to do that. I wanted it to feel like there was a camera inside somebody's house, and that's all.
What percentage would you say Primo mirrors your life in San Antonio?
It's probably like 30% or 40%. It's not an insignificant amount. All the characters are based on real people. The Drea character is based on my mom. The five uncles are based on my real-life uncles. The Maya character is based on my wife, Larami. We didn't meet in high school like on the series. I met her during my first year of college, but we've been together for 23 years. You take little pieces and put them in [the script] and you do it in service of the story. I didn't want to recreate [my life] moment for moment. It's more fun to imagine stuff and create characters.
Can your real uncles tell which character is supposed to represent them in the series?
Yeah, we did a screening for the family a couple of weeks ago. It's the first time that they got to see it. Immediately, they were like, "OK, that's my character. Cool." They loved it. They were really into it. They were super excited about how handsome all of the actors [portraying them] were.
Did it help that you had your real uncles around as references?
Yeah, it was super helpful. You don't realize that when you start pitching stuff. If you and I were talking, we'd be like, "We have a bunch of uncles and aunts." Birthday parties on Saturdays probably look the same at both of our houses. But then you walk into Hollywood, and you realize that other people didn't grow up like that. Mike will tell you his family was the opposite. They were not involved in each other's lives. Everybody is very reserved. They don't offer their unsolicited opinion. At our house, you have to lock the door and put a chair up against it to keep somebody from telling you what they think you should do.
Do you think we're past the point in Hollywood where a studio would make a series like Primo without Latinos in the writers' room?
I don't know about other writers' rooms, but I know we [had Latinos] in ours. We were like, "We have to have Latino and Black and Asian writers in there." Mike was the only white person in the room, which is always really funny because those are the only writers' rooms that I've ever been in. You talk to people and they're like, "I've never been in a room that looked like this before."
Were you at all disappointed that the show wasn't shot in San Antonio, I'm assuming because of incentives?
Yeah, you get tax breaks [in Albuquerque, where Primo was shot]. At this particular moment, there's no infrastructure in San Antonio. We needed stages to shoot on. We needed to bring all the crew down and put them all up. I was hoping that it would happen, but it just wasn't feasible.
What do you think is going on with so many Latino-centric series getting canceled these days after one or two seasons? In my opinion, shows like Freeridge, On My Block, Gentified and Gordita Chronicles weren't given enough time to build an audience. The list goes on and on.
If I had to guess, I think when we get more [Latinos] in positions of power, then that will become less of a thing. I hope that's a trend that is headed in the opposite direction. I loved Gentified. I thought it was so good. I'm like, "We need six seasons of that!" I thought Keyla [Monterroso Mejia] was great in Freeridge. She's the fucking funniest person. When you watch that show, it's like, "This person is obviously a star."
I know you're a big fan of The Fast and the Furious franchise. How did you feel when it was revealed in the last movie, F9, that Vin Diesel's character, Dominic Toretto, has been Latino for the last 20 years?
(Laughs.) Oh, yeah, that was a fun twist. But at that point, they were bringing people back from the dead already. It was like, "Alright, whatever you say, I'm in! Let's do it!"
As a diehard Spurs fan, where are you going to be on May 16 when the 2023 NBA Lotto happens, and are you lighting a candle for us to land the No. 1 pick, so we can get Victor Wembanyama? (Note: This interview was conducted before the draft.)
Oh, my God. I'm so excited. We've got a 14% chance [to get the No. 1 pick]. Like, please, if we get Victor, I'm gonna lose my goddang mind. I miss the playoffs so much.
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