David Greenwalt & Jim Kouf (Grimm)

Jim Kouf was a producer and a writer for the TV show "Angel" and he co-wrote the movies "Rush Hour" and "Snow Dogs."  David Greenwalt was the executive producer and writer for the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." They have collaborated on numerous projects, but are currently working on their new show called "Grimm," which is going to be shown every Friday at 9pm on NBC and is set to debut on October 28, 2011. The show revolves around a homicide detective, named Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), that learns he is a descendant of an elite blood line of criminal profilers known as the “Grimms.” All the characters in the show are based on and inspired by the Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Nick is able to see people for who they really are. Shakefire had an opportunity to talk with Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt about the show.

 

Shakefire: Good afternoon guys! I saw the trailer for the show and it looks fantastic.

Jim Kouf: Thank you! That is what we are hoping for.  

David Greenwalt: Thanks!

 

SF: David, can you talk about where the idea of an extended world of the Grimm’s Fairytales came from?

DG: Yes! Originally, Jim Kouf and I were approached by Hazy Mills, which is Todd Milliner and Sean Haye’s company. Todd had this great idea about doing something in the modern world with the Brothers Grimm and we flipped for the idea. We came up with the notion to marry that mythology into the modern world by making it so that the original Brothers Grimm were in fact criminal profilers.

The stories they were telling were in fact true on some basic deep level. We came up with the notion that in our world of the Grimm, there would only be one world. There wouldn’t be a fairytale world and a real world. There would just be our world. Also, in our world lived these creatures, which can be seen by our hero. For example, he can see the big bad wolf and the child molester as one. It’s sort of a marriage of a police procedural and a mythological fracturing fairytales every week.

 

SF: Wow! That was a great answer. Why do you feel this is this the right time to have this kind of show out on TV?

DG: Now is a good time because it’s always a good time for fairytales. It’s a good time to be scared on a Friday night and have a bedtime story that kind of, you know, gets under your skin a little bit.

JK: These tales get told every year all the time. So it’s not that it just happened to be the time that they would put one on the air, but they’ve never gone away.

 

SF: Why do you guys think that the world of fairytales have been around for so long and drives peoples’ imaginations even to this day?

DG: Fairytales appeals to people of all ages and it appeals to people in different ways at different times. For instance, the big ball wolf is a cautionary tale for not talking to strangers and going straight to grandma’s house.

JK: Yes! Take Hansel and Gretel for instance. It’s a cautionary tale for parents who are raising children and don’t have enough money to feed them. Don’t bring them in the woods!  It spoke of the times that people were living in.

DG: There’s a delight in the fairytales for all ages. Bruno Betelmein in “Uses of Enchantment” talks about how important it is for children not to be protected from this information about the world and what the world is really like. The fairytales really provide a great way to talk about that kind of stuff and usually the good triumphs, but not always. I mean, even though it usually sounds better when the good triumphs and the evil is vanquished.

 

SF: What obstacles have you had to deal with in producing the show?

JK: The biggest challenge is creating the creatures and getting everything done on time because that’s a huge challenge for the production team. I mean, we can easily write them but it’s hard to design them. Get the masks made while the casting is going on. And then get all that done in the time frame of the television production.

DG: This is a big show with action and adventure in them and they’re challenges to get them done, as Jim just said, under a normal television production time.

 

SF: Will we ever to get to see flashbacks of the original Grimm Brothers or get to know them better in any way during the show?

DG: That’s a great question. I wish! The answer is maybe. We haven’t gone that far in the mythology just yet.

 

SF: Ok. What can we expect for episodes 2 and 3 of the season? Are you able to talk about it at all?

DG: Yes we could give you an indication of episodes 2 and 3. One will involve a retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” The other episode will involve bees. Like thousands of bees! Lots of bees!

JK: We’re taking little bits and pieces from a lot of fairytales. So you may not actually recognize the fairytale we’re drawing from because some are not that well known. There’s a fairytale called “the Queen Bee” and it’s not one that everybody can recall immediately, but that is what we are basing one of the episodes on.

 

SF: Cool! That sounds like an interesting episode. Is your plan to have every episode have some basis in an existing fairytale or are you also going to be inventing your own brand new fairytales?

JK: All of the above!

DG: All of the above indeed! Some will be really clear like, oh, that’s Little Red Riding Hood or oh, that’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears or Sleeping Beauty or whatever. Then some will be less clear of what the specific fairytale will be. But they’ll always be an element of fairytale in the shows.

 

SF: My last question is, if you can get anyone on the show to guest star, who would you have? And what parts would you give them?

DG: That’s a good question. Well Ernest Borgnine.

JK: And Marlin Brando!

DG: For sure! For the most part, anybody who wants to play with us would be great. Certainly some people from my own past of Buffy and Angel I’d love to see some people from there and just about anybody. You know, I start naming names then it’s like I picking favorites.

JK: We’re just trying to create great roles that will attract, you know, strong actors.

 

SF: WOW! Thanks a lot guys! I can’t wait to check out the rest of the season.

Both: Thank you!