After Louis C.K. was removed from FX’s Better Things, the show’s co-creator, writer, and lead actress Pamela Adlon speaks on the responsibilities she has always carried with her fellow co-workers. Yesterday, Adlon attended FX’s Television Critics Association’s press tour for her show. One reporter had brought up Louis C.K.’s name regarding how his absence has made the show seem different now.
“It’s different in the fact that I didn’t have him as the only person to write with,” Adlon said onstage. “It was a head-cracking, amazing experience for me. I’d never been in a writers room, let alone run a writers room. But I loved it,” said Adlon, adding, “This show is therapy.”
The Me Too movement has become a powerful wave of injustice coming out into the light. Women around the world have shared their stories and are fighting the fight against sexual harassment and sexual assault. Through her own experiences, Adlon wanted to make sure everybody was comfortable and relaxed on her show.
“When I was 19, I’d already seen some shit,” Adlon said. “I like now that I’m in a place where I hire people and I create a safe space … I’m trying to make a model for a kinder, gentler workplace,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this scary thing.”
Adlon has been working ever since she was nine. She shared one particular story where she was the victim of sexual harassment. “I think I was 15-years-old and I did an independent movie and a director asked me to drop my towel, and that it would be so funny to see my butt — and I was like a little girl,” she told TV critics at the press tour.
Adlon will surely address these issues on the upcoming season of her show. Season three of Better Things will return on February 28 at 10/9c on FX.