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Charles knew best.
Before signing on to “Only Murders in the Building,” Steve Martin had one stipulation that he presented to co-creator John Hoffman.
“Steve Martin said, at the very beginning of this whole show, to me, ‘There’s one thing I would ask, which is that at the end of every season, the end of that 10th episode, you give the people the answer, you tell them who did it, and then you move on,’” Hoffman exclusively revealed to The Post.
“‘I don’t want ambiguity in that thing. It feels much more satisfying to have the answer.’ So I was like, okay, that’s a great framework.”
Hoffman now calls that formula “the trick of the show.”
“Ten hours of a one mystery story that has to twist its way and keep people a bit on their toes and surprise you, it’s always a dance around that,” he shared. “And looking at that anew each season and saying like, ‘How can we do something unexpected and different?’”
Hoffman added, “That is what we ask all the time, and yet there is a certain amount of task that you know you want to land in a satisfying place.”
The hit Hulu series follows Martin as Charles-Haden Savage, Martin Short as Oliver Putnam and Selena Gomez as Mabel Mora. The trio hosts a murder podcast and continue to solve the mysterious deaths of people they know throughout the seasons.
Hoffman and the writers come up with who the new killer is “pretty quickly.”
“It’s usually the first stop and sort of looking at that. Now, I say that, and then it can change,” he explained. “Once we get further into the season and we sort of feel out what [we’re doing]. Are we aiming in the right direction? We may question it. We always poke at things as we go along and think like, is there an alternative or added thing or something like that.”
“But ultimately we really aim to land the killer early,” he went on. “What exactly happened on that moment and what led up to it? The who, the how, the why and the why now. And all of that has to get sorted before we even go back to look at the first episode and start.”
“Only Murders” has risen in popularity since its Season 1 debut, even adding Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd into the mix. Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, Téa Leoni, Keegan-Michael Key, Logan Lerman, and Beanie Feldstein joined for Season 5.
Streep, 76, stars as Loretta Durkin, while Rudd, 56, played Ben Glenroy. He died in the third season before coming back as Ben’s stunt double, Glen Stubbins, in Season 4.
“I think you’ve got characters that work in a way that work in a specific pattern, and it’s always good to shake that up. It’s always good to sort of put them in new settings and sort of relate their own personal arcs to the theme you’re working on that season,” Hoffman told The Post. “That’s always a really important thing to us.”
Along the way, Martin, Short, 75, and Gomez, 33, have advocated for their beloved characters.
“Marty and Selena have very specific things about their own characters. Mainly, Steve is a little more global thinking. He’s the co-creator of the show. We wrote the pilot together. He’s in the room with us throughout the seasons here and there helping to shape, guide, suggest and all of that,” explained Hoffman. “But Marty and Selena, now five seasons in, they just know themselves and their characters better than all of us.”
Which leaves the former Disney Channel writer open to hearing their feedback.
“I love when either they come and suggest something or more often than not, it’s us suggesting to them and getting their very much gut reaction of like, ‘Yes, because I’m having this moment in my own life that like that connects and I really relate to that. I love that I’m cracking up. I would never do that. But I love it.’ Stuff like that.”
Sometimes, Martin, Short and Gomez have the opposite reaction.
“Or, more importantly, I love it when they really say, ‘Wait a minute now. If my character does that, I feel like, how do I justify? That kind of says who that character is if they’re doing this thing. And that’s a hard one for me,’” he continued. “And I’m like, ‘Great, let’s reexamine. Let’s step back and look at it.’”
“They’re so lovely about the development of the scripts and the stories and everything else, really.”
When the stars do have an issue they voice it in a gentle way.
“Every now and then, it’s just something quiet,” expressed Hoffman. “And it’s adorable in a way. I always think of it like a thermometer inside of Selena. And so if something is not sitting well, she’ll just quietly come over, ‘Can I talk to you about this one moment?’ It’s usually something very refined and specific and she’s actually thought of a thing. ‘Could I do this as an alternative?’”
Short also has the delicate touch when it comes to changing a storyline of Oliver’s.
“Same thing with Marty,” Hoffman shared. “Marty is surprising. Marty will always be more sensitive to things that are too broad in his mind. He doesn’t want to do it if it’s too broadly comedic and he doesn’t feel like he can sell it. That’s not what I expected from Marty Short at the beginning of working with him!”
The first three episodes of Season 5 debuted on Hulu on Sept. 9.