Only Murders In The Building's Cherien Dabis On Representation and Taking Risks

Cherien Dabis has directed four episodes of Hulu's wildly successful murder-mystery comedy Only Murders In The Building.

Dabis was at the helm of the critically lauded silent episode "The Boy From 6B," (Only Murders In The Building Season 1 Episode 7) which earned her a historical Emmy nomination for Directing.

We caught up with Dabis to discuss how she got her start, how she approaches challenging material, and her passion for representation in media.

TV Fanatic: Congratulations on your Emmy nomination!

Cherien Dabis: Thank you! It's pretty thrilling!

You're the first woman of Arab descent to be nominated for a Directing Emmy and the first Palestinian-American ever nominated.

How do you feel your cultural and ethnic identity has shaped how you approach this industry?

My identity as a first-generation Arab-American has very much shaped my career. I became a storyteller because I had this visceral need to represent.

I was the first of my family born in the US. My parents were Palestinian-Jordanian immigrants. They landed in Omaha, Nebraska, where I was born. I grew up mostly in small-town Ohio but traveled to Jordan, and even West Bank, almost every summer.

That duality, that culture clash -- I was too American for the Arabs, and I was too Arab for the Americans -- landed me in this in-between where I had the perfect vantage point to watch both cultures and the people in both places and observe.

It lent itself to my becoming an observer and a storyteller because I always tried to bring these two sides of my identity closer together. I actually brought the camera with me and would film in Jordan and bring it back to show the Americans and vice versa.

Growing up in small-town Ohio, my family experienced some pretty radical and insane racism and discrimination during the first Gulf War. That became the turning point for me.

I went from just being interested in the arts to really studying media, film, and television and how we were misrepresented and under-represented. That was when I vowed to put some authentic stories out there about Arabs and Arab-Americans.

What would you say to other Arab-American women trying to enter this business? What advice do you wish you would have gotten at the start of your career?

It feels obvious, but I think when you come from a culture where the arts aren't always valued (which I think is shifting a little within Arab culture), I would say don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do something.

I will never forget something my dad said when I was younger. He said, "You can't be a filmmaker. You're Palestinian-American. No one's going to care what you have to say."

And though it sounds harsh, I think he only said it to protect me. I remember this rebellious voice in me thinking, "No, you're wrong. I'm going to prove you wrong!"

Looking back, I think he was trying to tell me that it would be hard, and there are moments when I've thought, "You know, my dad's kind of right! I'm not sure people care what I have to say!" I'm telling stories that are very specific and hard to cast with no big-name actors.

But I think that's important -- don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do something.

How did you come to be involved in Only Murders In The Building?

They offered me the opportunity to direct on the show through my manager. The moment I heard that Steve Martin and Martin Short were among the cast, it was a no-brainer because they've been making me laugh since I was a kid, and it would be a dream to work with them.

So, I got on a call with the showrunner, the producer, and the directing producer. They pitched that they wanted to give me this particular episode, and the moment I knew, the deal was sealed.

I remember them saying they had liked the work that I had done on some capsule episodes on Ramy, so that was one of the reasons they had thought of me for this particular one.

The directing producer is someone who I've known for years, Jamie Babbit. I met Jamie (a fellow directing nominee for Only Murders In The Building Season 1 Episode 1) in film school when she was mentoring this program called Power Up.

She was the mentor on a project for a script I had written in film school. I've always had a mentor-protege relationship with her, so it was amazing to work with her in this capacity as a Directing Producer.

"The Boy From 6B" was an absolute game-changer in terms of episodic television. Did you realize when you were doing it how groundbreaking it would be?

When they pitched me the idea of doing a silent episode, I just got goosebumps. It was such a better opportunity than I even imagined!

When we were in the midst of it, on some level, we knew that either it was going to be a miserable failure or it was going to really work and could be groundbreaking, just because of the way the story is being told and the eyes through which it's being seen.

The creation of this character and the fact that we're seeing a deaf character whose storyline is not about him being deaf is groundbreaking in and of itself. I get excited about doing capsule episodes that allow me to get creative and roll my sleeves up.

This one, in particular, was thrilling because, again, I come from a community that has been dangerously misrepresented, so I knew I had to take responsibility to create this character and this storyline authentically, and I took that seriously.

People were understandably nervous about whether you could take an episode of a show that relies on its incredibly charming dialogue and witty humor and make it entirely silent -- even with the hearing characters.

The sexy Scrabble sequence was hilarious, so well done!

Yes! [laughs]

What was the process? What did you do to prepare? Did you learn any ASL? Did you have interpreters on set? How did you go about actually filming it?

I wish I'd had time to learn ASL. I learned a few words here and there, picked up some things, and developed a great appreciation for how beautiful, emotional, and evocative it is. We had interpreters throughout the process.

I started the conversation with James Caverly, who played Theo, very early on in prep and kept the line of communication open with him and allowed him to be my guide.

He helped me by steering me towards the good representation of the deaf community, then showing me some representation that was not as good.

I did my homework and research and understood how the community had been depicted, what they were happy about, and what they were unhappy about.

It was a great learning experience for me as a director because there are things that you take for granted when you're directing, and you're not working with ASL.

For example, when characters speak in a scene, they can do so without looking at each other. But you must have that sightline when you're communicating through ASL.

There was one particular scene with Nathan Lane (who had to learn ASL, and he did such an amazing job) where he had to have all this dialogue with his son, but at the same time he had to put the mail down, take off his gloves, take off his coat, pick up an envelope, etc.

What would typically be pretty simple became much more detailed because two people needed to be able to use their hands and look at each other the entire time.

It was like directing on steroids or something! It gave us a heightened sense of when things were happening exactly. Every move had to be choreographed in a way that doesn't usually have to be that kind of detailed.

What did you learn from the experience of directing on OMITB that you can carry forward to future projects?

What was so great about this experience was that the writers had decided they wanted to take a risk and make a silent episode of television. Then, you had the showrunner and network, everyone -- even though they were nervous -- agreed that they should take this risk.

Then I came along, and what I did was commit to a visual style for this character. I committed to shooting his entire storyline through his distinct point of view, and people allowed me to make that commitment.

There might have been a world where a showrunner or producers could have said, "Let's make sure that we also shoot this objectively just in case the subjective thing doesn't work," and I was so relieved that no one said that.

I could commit to a choice. I made a strong argument for it, and people agreed.

I walk away with this sense that that's how groundbreaking television is made. Usually, a risk has been taken, strong decisions and commitments are made, and everyone agrees and supports them.

It starts with the inception at the writing stage and then goes all the way through directing. It was a supportive environment that allowed everyone to do their best work. 

It pays to take risks, and to commit to those risks.

You also directed one of the most ingenious sequences in Only Murders In The Building Season 2 Episode 5 ("The Tell") -- the '70s "Son Of Sam" party sequence.

What was that like to put together? How did you replicate each scene so perfectly between the 1970s and the present?

That was challenging. It was basically a lot of detailed planning of the scenes, all the transitions, and making sure that I knew exactly what would transition us from the '70s into the present day.

We had to figure out the shots so that it felt seamless and that we could go back and forth, but also try to figure out what would pull us back in time emotionally and what would pull us forward.

It was a big, scary set piece! Not as scary as doing a silent television episode, but one of those things we realized would take some meticulous planning to make work.

Who are some of your favorite filmmakers that inspired you in your work?

Jane Campion was one of the people I remember just falling in love with in film school. She's such an incredibly gorgeous visual and poetic storyteller. I learned so much by looking at her work. I would keep rewatching her films to try to understand how she created visual language.

I was lucky enough that at the end of my first year of film school, I got to be the producer's assistant on In The Cut, which was shot in New York.

I spent a summer working on that set, and I got to be in on so many conversations and overhear how she worked, how she loves to create a controlled color palette and all of these things as a budding filmmaker I was just soaking in.

So Campion stands out as someone I admire for her distinct ability to create strong visuals.

I also gravitated towards Wong Kar-Wai, a beautiful filmmaker, who I put in the same category as Jane Campion in terms of having this distinct visual style.

Looking at their work, I learned that you have to make bold choices to create your own visual style.

What have you done that you are most proud of?

What comes to mind, and it relates to this moment, is that I feel really strongly about representation –- it's why I got into this business, into filmmaking.

I wanted to represent not just my own community but all groups on the margins. So many of us have gone through the same thing. It was about how we need to come together and support each other as marginalized communities.

I feel proud that I've gotten to do that -- from The L Word to my feature films [Amreeka, May In The Summer] to Ramy.

Being part of something that is the first of its kind, being a part of an episode of television that features a deaf character and it's not about his deafness, in fact, that's almost his superpower.

You get to see how much he notices and how many things he sees that other people might not see.

I feel proud that I've been able to represent for as long as I've been doing this from 2005 when I first started on The L Word.

I've been able to be part of these seminal moments, whether it's TV or film -- because even my first film was the first of its kind to get major distribution. So that makes me feel proud –- humble and proud at the same time.

Thank you so much. We look forward to seeing what you do next.

This interview has been edited for length/clarity.

Mary Littlejohn Mary Littlejohn was a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic.