Steven Spielberg Created A Forgotten Comedy Series Featuring Brie Larson
We are well past the point of Peak TV — the era named by FX President John Landgraf about just how many television shows and channels seem to exist now — where we used to only have a handful of network options and a smattering of cable choices. Now, we have hundreds upon hundreds of shows each year, yet so few shows break through the noise unless you happen to notice that one of them has been canceled despite never having had the name recognition of something like "The Big Bang Theory" or "Game of Thrones." What's more, some shows can have a noticeable impact at the moment, but they don't seem to resonate once they're off the air. Those two aforementioned titles are among the most familiar to the American masses despite not having aired new episodes for years. It helps that they've each had spin-offs, and live on via reruns in some cases, but they're an exception to the rule.
Consider the alternative. Think about how big of a deal it could have been back in the late 2000s when Showtime aired a new comedy-drama series starring Toni Collette, Patton Oswalt, and Brie Larson among others. That may seem impressive enough, but what if that show was created by Diablo Cody fresh off her Oscar-winning screenplay for "Juno"? And what if that show was produced by the man who came up with the basic concept, none other than Steven Spielberg? That show exists, and even netted a couple of Emmy Awards for its trouble; it's the three-season dramedy "United States of Tara."
United States of Tara nearly cast someone aside from Larson in a key role
"United States of Tara" had a very high-concept premise at its core, enough to easily explain why it was green-lit for Showtime. The show was ostensibly a family comedy-drama about the Gregson family, living in a Kansas suburb. There's mom Tara (Collette), her husband Max (John Corbett), her kids Kate and Marshall (Larson and Keir Gilchrist, respectively), and her sister Charmaine (Rosemarie DeWitt). But aside from just tracking the foibles of this Midwestern family, there's one little thing: Tara has dissociative identity disorder, and has a handful of multiple personalities, otherwise known as "alters." There's a wild-child teenager, a prim and proper '50s-style housewife, and a male Vietnam vet, and eventually, Tara would reveal other alters to her personality.
"United States of Tara" also had the Spielberg imprimatur involved; he and his wife Kate Capshaw had essentially conceptualized the show when thinking about how the human psyche can be so broken down. (Amblin Entertainment, naturally, produced the show throughout its three seasons.) But it was Cody who served as the official creator of the series, bringing her more youthful style to Spielberg's idea. That the show also co-starred Larson in her pre-Marvel days is also a reminder of how quickly a career can shift and expand over time. When Larson co-starred in "United States of Tara," she was still a year-plus away from appearing in Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" as the alluring Envy Adams (including performing on the film's expanded soundtrack), and even further away from roles in films like "Short Term 12," "21 Jump Street," and her Oscar-winning turn in the film "Room".
Perhaps that's one reason why Larson wasn't even originally cast on "United States of Tara." At the time, though she'd appeared as a youth in shows such as "Popular," "Hope and Faith," and "Ghost Whisperer," Larson's star was still not quite on the rise. (Larson has already spoken about the tension of being a child actor and how that tension led her to hesitate in taking her biggest role, Captain Marvel.) The role of Kate, thus, had been cast with the actress Portia Doubleday, of films like "Carrie" and "Her." But when the role went in a different direction, she was recast with Larson, who would essentially ride a tidal wave starting with that show into her worldwide renown, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
United States of Tara had an initially powerful run, but while its memory has dimmed, it's a key part of Larson's career
A fun game, if you're interested, is to look back at the list of winners in major Emmys categories, like Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and remind yourself how drastically the TV landscape has changed. You may be unsurprised to see people like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Melissa McCarthy pop up (though the latter was for the first season of the CBS sitcom "Mike & Molly," a show that hasn't effectively been able to stand the test of time the way a boisterous comedy like "Bridesmaids" has), but then there's Collette, for the first season of "United States of Tara." She was the only major player of the show to walk away with any statuettes, though. Even though the series got two Emmys in 2009 (as well as two additional nominations), none of the show's writers, directors, or other actors were nominated. Collette herself only got nominated in the first two years of the show, as well.
But while it may not serve as the focal point for any of the players' careers, it's an underrated aspect. For Larson, the show offered her a bigger platform, alongside awards-worthy actors like Collette, as well as fellow ensemble performers like comedian Patton Oswalt and character actor John Corbett. For Collette, it got her an Emmy Award just to remind anyone who didn't already know how excellent of an actor she is. And for producer Steven Spielberg, it served as yet another reminder that his vast wealth of creative ideas could just as easily work on the small screen as they do on the silver screen.