In ‘Youth,’ Sharon Horgan takes on the sandwich generation and feeling sexy in your 50s
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The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards have come and gone, and Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay” and HBO Max’s “The Pitt” took home the top prizes. This year’s host, Mariska Hargitay, the first woman to host in 15 years, kept the show running at a fast pace, and The Times’ television critic Robert Lloyd said she “was above all a woman having a good time.”
The ceremony also featured poignant memorials to some of the major figures we’ve lost in the last year, including Dolly Parton, Catherine O’Hara and Rob Reiner. If you missed the show, we highlighted our favorite moments and the best red carpet looks.
But now that the Emmys are behind us, it’s time to look forward to the fall television season, and that includes the latest series from Sharon Horgan, the creator of hit shows like “Catastrophe” and “Bad Sisters.” In HBO’s “Youth,” Horgan explores topics like dating in middle age, what it’s like to be a part of the sandwich generation — when you’re parenting kids while also caring for ailing parents — and managing all those things while trying to have a successful career. The multihyphenate stopped by Guest Spot to talk about the show, premiering Sunday, what inspired it and what she loves to watch on Instagram.
Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our writers recommend the latest season of an animated series that takes jabs at, well, everyone, and a superhero movie newly arrived to streaming. — Maira Garcia
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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
“South Park” (Paramount+)
At the beginning of its 29th season, “South Park,” with the massive authority of nearly three decades of satire, and the willingness of Trey Parker and Matt Stone to bite the hand that feeds them — and any other hand that seems worth biting — remains one of the best tonics for the lunacy that is America. This year, alluding to the president’s petty penchant for renaming things, the town has changed its name from South Park to South America, altering the theme song, local signage and local speech, without protest. Trump, who got Satan pregnant last season, appears in the opening titles toweling his genitals with an American flag, but he is otherwise absent from the the season premiere, which is all about e-bikes and, as often happens in South Park — that is, South America — occasions a war. Politics get a brief nod with a repeated joke: “This country’s gone to hell. But hopefully things will get better in November … That’s when ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ comes out.” Brad Paisley wrote an ironic anthem to close the episode: “We are South America / In that northern mountain sun / Always be South America / We won’t change for anyone.” — Robert Lloyd
“Supergirl” (HBO Max)
I like my superheroes — and by extension, superhero movies — a little bit messy. So Milly Alcock’s take on the last daughter of Krypton was right up my ally. Introduced as Superman’s younger, wilder cousin, Kara prefers going on interplanetary benders to fighting for truth, justice and a better tomorrow. In “Supergirl,” Kara is in the midst of a cosmic bar crawl to celebrate her 23rd birthday before she gets tangled up in a young girl’s (Ruthye, played by Eve Ridley) revenge mission against a cruel group of space bandits who end up poisoning her dog and stealing her ship. That leads Kara off on her own rescue mission, and along the way, we learn a bit more about her backstory and the grief and trauma she carries. It’s no secret that “Supergirl” failed to soar at the box office, but “Supergirl” is a fun watch and perfect for a backyard movie night in these waning days of summer. — Tracy Brown
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Horgan is no stranger to mixing drama and comedy in her work, which often pulls from her own experience as a divorced, working mother of two. Her latest series for HBO, “Youth,” is a relatable chronicle of a career-driven woman in her 50s who is trying to get her son out of the nest while co-parenting with her less than present ex-husband, an actor who is leaving the country for a job in Canada, and caring for elderly parents with a myriad of health problems. For anyone currently in the sandwich generation, it’s a familiar scenario and something that Horgan wanted to riff on.
She stars in the series as Alex, a London literary agent who is juggling her clients, her family and her personal life. Her son Ruari, played by Aran Murphy, is off to college, and Alex is settling into the idea of dating more and making space for the things she wants — like an exercise bike in Ruari’s old room. But things don’t go as planned.
At work, she’s trying to champion profound writers, but when book sales are a priority, she has to contend with having dropped a now-successful romantasy author whose self-published book, “Goblin Seed,” is about to be the next “Fourth Wing.” Horgan said as she and the creative team were doing research about the literary industry, they discovered the popularity of romantasy, adding it to the show and spending lots of time wrangling details about the fictional book and its lead character.
“We spent more time on ‘Goblin Seed’ than was healthy. You know, exactly how attractive should he be?” she said.
The creator spoke about middle age, why she made her character a literary agent and why a scene in the show’s opening features a bird. — M.G.
A lot of your work has centered on women, their relationships and struggles. When you were writing “Youth,” what was it that you wanted to explore and how much of it related to your own experience?
I wanted to explore that very specific period of time when your children are grown up and really should be leaving home, and when your parents are getting older and need more help. At the same time, you suddenly realize that you are at a point in life where time really matters, but you seem to have a lot less of it. There’s pressure coming from all sides … the sandwich generation really, which feels specific to my particular age group. So I guess I wanted to write about what it means to be a woman of this particular age, who is single, divorced, and hearing the clock ticking — different from the biological clock — but it’s still a clock.
The sandwich generation aspect is a big part of the show, and it’s a heavy subject too. How did you want to balance a serious matter with comedy?
I think I always try and do that in my shows. I love proper laugh-out-loud comedy. [But] I always try and have a flip side where I can make you cry or make you feel something at least. It was the same with this. You just have to keep a check on it all along the way, you know? You have to make sure that ... the balance is right in the tone when you’re writing it, and then equally, when you’re … performing it.… Really, though, if you’re making it with people who have got the same ideals and ideas as you — that helps. They tread that line with you.
Your character, Alex, is a literary agent, working in a demanding artistic field. There are parallels in some ways to you as a TV creator. Had you envisioned the role for yourself while writing it?
Yeah, I definitely did. I have shows that I’ve created where I know they’re not for me. But with this one, I knew it was going to be me because … in some ways, there’s a load of fiction in it, but I knew I was going to be drawing for my own life and experiences. The only thing I wasn’t really drawing from was I don’t have a son, but I know what it’s like to have kids of that age … I wanted to explore what it is to be the mother of a son in this world, this climate.
But the literary agent bit of it, that was all new to me. You’re right in that I’m adjacent to it. I mean, I’ve had agents for two decades. I wanted to put the character in one of those jobs that women especially give everything to. So even though everything is going on in their life and they’re juggling looking after your parents and teenagers and money at home, they’re still like giving 150% at work. I wanted it to be one of those jobs where she had to be sort of mother to lots of people, not just her own child, and having worked with agents for years, I could see that job would be one of those that fit that criteria.
But also with the literary world, I thought I haven’t seen it onscreen before. And I got excited about that and I got excited about how you could share the slog of it. There’s so much slog, but there is that aspirational, glamorous sort of side as well that you could dig into the more I started researching it. I went to a women’s literary awards and I’m just seeing how everyone operates in that world. I was really riveted to it. I liked playing a woman in that role and being a woman who’s trying to be everything, and failing a lot of the time.
Alex is walking this tightrope of someone who wants to be successful in her career and then also has to do all these other things.
I should take that back, actually — failing — because she’s not. I just mean it’s like anything when you try and focus on one thing, other things kind of drop away, don’t they? And it’s just this ridiculous, ridiculous juggle that you’re always having to do.
She also has frank feelings about her age and there’s this great line where she says she has “10 years left as a sexual person.” There’s so much discussion about women’s appearances as they get older, especially in Hollywood and on social media. What did you want to say about it here?
Well, I guess I wanted to be extremely honest about it. I want Alex to evolve over the series. She gets a fright kind of thing. She gets this diagnosis about arthritis. It’s just this thing where, “I’m only going to be sexy for 10 years,” it’s born out of an emotional response to that. I remember having it — this is something I started writing more than five years ago. So when I was hitting 50 and and I went back to it and I found that [it] was one of the first sentences I had written down was this sense of like, how long have I got left to be a sexual person? And I’m needing to find someone now because of that. I found it so dark, but I found it so funny. I feel like my attitude to aging has changed because, f— it, you know, what’s the alternative? You lay down and die.
I feel like you reach a point where you do become more comfortable with yourself and the process. It doesn’t stop being terrifying … but when I hit 40, I was like, this is the worst thing that could happen. You know, five years down the line, I was like, “What? I’m young!” You have all these weird relationships with age along the way. You have your quarter life crisis, your midlife crisis — there will be another one when I hit 60, I’m sure — but I wanted to represent that fear and not be scared to say it. At the same time, I’m aware that it’s sort of a ridiculous notion. Of course, you can be f—ing sexy when you’re 60. I see evidence of it everywhere, but I feel like this ridiculous pressure is placed on women to stay trapped in time. I liked having a character who was open about her insecurity.
It was refreshing to see.
Oh, good. I’m glad.
I’m about to turn 41 and I have two small children. And every decade that passes, I’m like, remember me when I was 30 and now that I’m 40 —
Yeah, it’s so interesting, isn’t it?
The title is from [the saying] 50 is the youth of old age, but … 40 is the old age of youth. Because when I think back on how I was when I was 40, I mean I was a moron. I mean, I had a very underdeveloped sense of who I was or where I was in life. I can’t believe it now. I felt old, ridiculously, but when I look back now, I was just like a spring chicken. I look at 40-year-olds now and I’m like, Jesus, you’re a baby. You should enjoy that and feel it, you know, because you’re the youngest you’ll ever be, which is how I’m having to think about it as well.
What’s been interesting about writing it because obviously I’m delving into all sorts [of things] that’s happened over the last few years, but I’m also feeling like I’m in the present with it because it is part of my life that’s going on at the moment and I’m kind of living it through the show a bit.
Another part of the show that felt very real is how everyone uses technology and social media like Instagram and TikTok. Did you do research for that?
So much. I don’t know if you do this, but I ban myself from social media for a while, and I’ll have these periods where I feel incredibly holier than thou, and then I’ll go back into it. I’d been very heavily deep into reels, and, and I had this document where I was like putting every nonsense thing I was looking at. By the time I started writing it properly, I was on one of my abstaining periods, but what I had was like a ton of stuff that I’d previously researched. Also we had this WhatsApp group where we would get, Aran, who plays Ruari, to post what an 18-year-old is looking at. Really, it’s insane what 18-year-olds watch. Some of the stuff he’s watching — it doesn’t make sense. If you can’t understand what your kid is laughing at and they show you it because they want to have a moment of connection with you and they can see you looking at it quizzically and then they’re like, “Oh, forget it.”
But what I look at is recipes, facial rejuvenation, exercises and then in between all that, culture — a completely ridiculous range of things. That’s why I wanted to start [the show] with that very beautiful [video of] these incredible women of history, and then immediately, I’m looking at a bird. The amount of time I spend looking at birds, my feed is 90% bird.
I was going to ask you if you have a favorite corner of Instagram or TikTok.
Yes, birds and talking birds. Mainly talking birds, but birds in general, really. I don’t know why it happened, but it’s happened.
It’s what the algorithm’s feeding you now, and then you’re just stuck there.
Yes, like, give her more birds. She seems to like these birds.
Is there anything you are watching right now that you’re recommending to everyone?
I kind of go off TV when I’m making something, so I’m not really watching much at the moment. The only thing I ashamedly will admit to watching over the last few months has been “Love Island” [Hulu for the U.K. version; Peacock for U.S.] with my youngest daughter because, because it’s our us time, you know? It’s the greatest thing you could do with an 18-year-old girl. You’re anthropologically advancing your understanding of what they have to deal with right now.
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