It’s been more than two years since Stephen Colletti and James Lafferty came up with an idea for a TV show — and now, it’s about to hit the small screen. Hulu has picked up Everyone Is Doing a Great, a comedy created and starring the duo.
Everyone Is Doing Great follows two actors, Seth (Colletti) and Jeremy (Lafferty), five years after a mega-successful vampire TV show called Eternal. As the fame dies down, the BFFs lean on each other as they very awkwardly attempt to navigate love, life and Hollywood. Lafferty’s real-life fiancée Alexandra Park, Cariba Heine and Karissa Lee Staples also star.
“We came up with the idea around five years after One Tree Hill had ended, so we found ourselves in this road where, really, what’s coming next? It’s fun but there are tricks your mind plays on you, and we found a lot of comfort in being able to laugh at that situation,” The Right Stuff actor, 35, told Us Weekly exclusively about the project in 2018. “We were like, ‘What kind of characters can we create? How can we use humor to help them work through this situation?’ There was a moment where we’re experiencing these circumstances where we can find humor in. Let’s just try this out.”
For years, the former One Tree Hill costars spoke to others in the industry about different experiences they went through, many of which are sprinkled through the show. After the pair wrote the premiere, they debuted the episode at the ATX TV Festival in 2018. They then launched an Indiegogo campaign and raised over $250,000 to help them finance the season. Then, they started pitching it out.
The 30-minute comedy provides a different look at Hollywood — one that both Lafferty and Colletti, 34, have had a front-row seat to.
“The year after One Tree Hill, I came back to L.A. like, ‘Alright let’s go, let’s get in some auditions, it’ll be easy, and I want to get in a show from the beginning,'” the Hometown Christmas star told Us in 2018. “It was tough. It was actually really, really hard, adjusting back into the [audition] rooms. I thought I was gonna be confident, but auditioning is brutal.”
Lafferty had a similar experience, adding, “I’d hear through my reps that a casting director said, ‘We’re not seeing CW actors.’ That’s just something that some people say. They’ll just stop you at the gate. On top of that, I 100 percent had a hard time getting back into competing for roles again and auditioning. I had gotten so comfortable in this bubble of One Tree Hill.”
The eight-episode first season of Everyone Is Doing Great will be available on Hulu Wednesday, January 13.
