What do these two mismatched characters bring out in each other?
JENNIFER: Julie, is, for lack of a better word, a bit “tight-a**ed.” I think that she needs to embrace some of Kris’ freedom. Literally — my character doesn’t like hugging! She needs to “embrace” all of that. Kris brings a sense of play to Julie, which she needs.
MEREDITH: And Kris is very inspired by Julie’s self-assurance, the way that Julie goes after what she wants. Kris needs a little bit of that. We wanted to create two characters that, as Tom Cruise would say, “complete each other” — and also make sure, at the same time, they’re this perfect odd couple that we can have fun with over the whole season.
As creators, did you have a single guiding principle for this show?
JENNIFER: We wanted to make a joyful comedy about menopause; a lot of the messaging around it is really kind of negative. We wanted to make a place where you could laugh and have a good time — and talk about something. Anytime somebody says to us, “Don’t talk about that,” both of us want to. We wanted to lean into breaking some taboos — and have a good time while doing it.
Can comedy tackle real, relatable issues in a way that drama just can’t?
JENNIFER: Once you laugh about something, you take the power away from it — and you make it OK to talk about. I think that’s why people get scared about comedy sometimes, but it’s a great way to talk about things without it being lecturey or finger-pointy. Comedy also has this ability that you can just say things that are true that nobody’s ever said before — and you’ll get a huge laugh. I love that.
You start the show off with a portrayal of Kris experiencing a heavy period Ñ in a way we haven’t quite seen on TV before, not sanitizing the reality of it at all for audiences . . .
MEREDITH: Yeah, we definitely wouldn’t pull back in that area, because 50 per cent of the world gets a period. And the fact that it’s seen as “wild” or “not palatable” if 50 per cent of the world is going through it, speaks a lot to how the world perceives women. So, in a way, it felt completely natural to be able to show those things on television. But at the same time, we are respectful of the fact that it’s not something you normally see. What we find intriguing from the comments that we’re getting is that it is shocking to see period blood — but ultimately, it’s shocking that we haven’t seen more of it [on screen over the years].
JENNIFER: There is such a taboo. Every menstrual product you’ve ever seen advertised is blue water. And it’s interesting: how many violent murders have you seen on TV, how much blood have you seen spilled that way? No problem! But period blood has this visceral reaction. Without a period, none of us would exist. It’s part of the fertility cycle. So it is, out of all the blood, the special-est. If people have a visceral reaction to it, I would ask them to question: Why do you feel that way? You’ve seen murder up and down the dial forever on TV. Why does this make you feel this way?
How does your pre-existing creative relationship from Baroness von Sketch Show feed into something like this?
MEREDITH: We really lean on one another. We push each other. I would say the only issue is we never rein the other one in. We’re always like, “Go further, do more!” Then you go to film it . . .
JENNIFER: Yeah, we come up with these things and we think, “That’ll be funny!” And it’s one thing to write it, it’s another thing to actually stand up in front of a crew and be like, “OK, now this is about to happen.”
The season finale of Small Achievable Goals airs Tuesday, April 15, on CBC
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Two mainstays of the Canadian entertainment scene, Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill have both been contributors to This Hour Has 22 Minutes, while MacNeill served as co-lead on CBC cop dramedy Pretty Hard Cases. That said, both women are best known as founding members of all-female troupe Baroness von Sketch and its eponymous, award-winning CBC series.
CURRENT GIG:
The longtime pals are now co-creators and co-stars of this freshman comedy about a podcast producer (Whalen) who is snubbed for a promotion and assigned to mentor a newly hired beauty influencer (MacNeill) — just as both women are entering menopause. Season one’s last laughs arrive via back-to-back new episodes on Tuesday.