Netflix is bringing back the fun and the laugh tracks with Pretty Smart, a multi-cam sitcom with 10 episodes in its first season. The series, which premieres October 8, centers on two sisters with very different personalities and experiences who move in together after years apart. But they're not alone in their joyful reunion, because a whole kooky friend circle lives with them.
After getting unceremoniously dumped, the intellectual Chelsea (Emily Osment, The Kominsky Method) leaves the East Coast to move in with her much more intellectually lax West Coast sister, Claire (Olivia Macklin, The Young Pope). The sisters share their home with three hilarious roommates: personal trainer Grant (Gregg Sulkin, Runaways), healer Solana (Cinthya Carmona, The Tax Collector), and IG influencer Jayden (Michael Hsu Rosen, Tiny Pretty Things). Through their growing bond, Chelsea learns how to value more than just traditional smarts.
Osment and Macklin spoke to Screen Rant about tackling their sisterly bond, reacting to multiple cameras, and Claire expanding her chosen family to include her biological one.
Screen Rant: I was taken back to the olden days of multi-cam set-ups and laugh tracks. How different is it for you to approach your character when there are several cameras at once?
Olivia Macklin: Well, Emily is a pro, and she's been doing this since she was a little bitty baby. And thank God I had heard her because this was my first time doing multi-cam. I'm a theater girl and, in my mind, I was like, "It'll be the exact same thing." And it's really not.
In many ways, there's similarities, and that's great. But there's a certain awareness of the camera that I was just getting used to, so having someone there who knows her s**t - no better way to say it - was so incredibly helpful.
I can only imagine. It's like, "Don't look at the camera," but there are so many cameras!
Emily Osment: There is one moment in season 1, the spa episode where you're like, "Running day with my sister! But where?" And you looked right out and spot the camera. I'm like, "Please keep that in. That's incredible." I think we did keep it and, oh my God, it made me laugh so hard.
Olivia Macklin: I said to them, “I looked into the camera, so don't use that one!”
Emily Osment: Yeah, but it was the perfect moment to do it. It made me laugh. I watched it and was like, "YES!"
There's also no rules with multi-cam. The mechanics of multi-cam, once you have that down, it feels much easier. But I have been doing this a while, and I will tell you that having to turn off that is tough. I'm working on a movie right now, and I constantly find myself turning out to camera. They're like, "You can turn your back to camera," and I'm like, "I can? Oh, that's so nice."
And Olivia is not giving [herself] enough credit. Everybody was marvelous on this; so easy to work with. And Gregg, who I'm sure you will speak to at some point today, is a multi-cam boy as well. We won't gender specify, but he's been doing this a long time as well and he's just marvelous. Everybody really honed in on their thing, and it was so wonderful to see over the course of a few months.
Everyone had such fabulous chemistry too. I really believed Claire and her friends' dynamic, then with Chelsea coming in and clashing but at the same time getting closer and closer. Over the course of this season, Chelsea comes in with a very different interpretation of who she believes Claire is. Can you talk about bridging that gap between the sisters?
Emily Osment: I didn't grow up with a sister. Olivia has, I think, 25 sisters.
Olivia Macklin: That's right. That's correct. [laughs] I have four.
Emily Osment: So, it's a little different for her. That's a lot; I wish I had one. I'm always grateful when I get to play a character that has a sister, because that's energy I didn't have growing up, and it's such a lovely refresher. You're taking one character that grew up a certain way and another character that grew up a different way - ironically, both in the same household but divided - and bringing them back together at a really interesting time in their life.
They're trying to manage themselves and also their relationship, and figuring out what's important and what's necessary. Chelsea just gets dropped into this world she doesn't understand, and she judges it off the bat. It's a really good lesson for all of us that you can't judge a book by its cover immediately; you have to get to know someone and experience them.
And it changes her! She unbuttons a little bit, and she needs that desperately. I mean, my God, that blazer in the first scene. It's too tight.
Olivia Macklin: It's a lot of layers.
Claire and Grant had a relationship in the past, but still, obviously have a lot of love for each other in the present. Can you talk about that relationship?
Olivia Macklin: I think the thing about Grant and Claire is that they found each other very early in life. You're just not gonna necessarily end up with that person you're dating in your 20s, when you're just getting to know yourself. Even though they have so many similarities, I think they both just realized, "Look, we have a lot of love for each other. We don't need to be together to love each other."
They're really good friends, and I think that they're both very grateful to have that. Obviously, they've turned that into a little mini family, because relationships can obviously complicate things. And I think the inherent purity of those characters is, "I would rather not risk it. I'd rather have you in my life right now."
All 10 episodes of Pretty Smart's first season drop October 8 on Netflix.