Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman Interview | Why Downward Dog Is A Doggone New Show

This isn’t your usual TV dog. Find out why Downward Dog will be your doggone favorite new show in this exclusive Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman Interview. Disney & ABC invited me out to LA for this exclusive Downward Dog interview as a part of #GotGVol2Event. All opinions are my own. Travel and accommodations were covered.

Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman Interview | Why Downward Dog Will Be Your Doggone Fave New Show

Photo credit: ABC/Kelsey McNeal

So I know what you’re asking yourself. What the heck is Downward Dog? Isn’t it just a yoga pose? Why should this new show be one that I care about? What makes this one different than ever other animal show out there?

I was asking myself all of these questions when I sat down to preview the first 2 episodes of the new ABC comedy, Downward Dog. But after watching the episodes, and sitting down to this Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman interview, I was hooked. See why Downward Dog will be your doggone favorite new show, what makes Martin unlike any other dog on TV, and why Allison Tolman was finally convinced to trade in Fargo for Fido.

Photo credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Martin IS the show

This dog is fantastical. Ned, aka Martin of Downward Dog is unlike any dog you’ve seen on TV. And that’s 100% on purpose. The show writers didn’t want a highly trained, professional actor dog…but something radically different.

Samm Hodges: Ned’s from a shelter in Chicago called Paws Chicago. They say he’s a hound mix. He was like five years old and he hadn’t been being trained for more than six weeks or so. In the pilot he had just been rescued and had just started being trained. But that was always important for us in the dog is to have him not be this like kind of showy pure bred. Also for his character he thinks he’s the most important being in the world, but it’s important for us that he’s just a regular old dog.

Allison Tolman: One of the most awesome side effects, I think, of having this dog who was not a well-trained dog when we started shooting is that it’s like being with like a natural talent. There’s a lot of Ned in Martin. And he improvises in a way. Even when I don’t have a human partner to work with, I have something to work with ’cause he doesn’t do the same thing every time. He doesn’t do exactly what you want him to do every time. He jumps down off the chair that you put him in and you keep rolling and you see what happens. But we had some really fun stuff happen, because he’s his own dog. He really is his own man.

Photo credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

It all started with Yo Quiero Taco Bell?

In this Allison Tolman interview, she wasn’t sold on the idea of a show about a talking dog. And to be honest, I wasn’t either, until I watched it. I about peed my pants with laughter. Same Hodges talked about what they had to do to convince Allison that Downward Dog was so much more than just a dog licking peanut butter off of his face. And who knew it would all start with a talking Chihuahua.

Samm Hodges: Michael Killen and I, we’re co-creators of the show. We were both commercial directors working in Pittsburg. We created this web series like four years ago just for fun. And Michael had done a lot of stuff with talking animals, with the Taco Bell Chihuahua. I was a very unlikely collaborator with him. I kinda looked down on the talking dog things. I had a little darker tone. But one day he was like, just try to write these monologues. And then I wrote the monologues and then we were trying to cast for the voice and I just did a read, not for myself to do it but just to be like “something like this. And then Michael ended up using that read as the dog, and so that’s how I kinda got shoehorned into that role.

Allison Tolman: And then it kinda snowballed from there. The shorts, I don’t know if you guys have seen the shorts. They’re online. You can watch them. And they’re beautiful. They’re what sold me on the project.

Photo credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Because it’s not about being a polished TV show

Martin is trained, sort of. Martin’s voice is professional, sort of. The show was born from a web series. It’s rough, unedited and has this cool indie vibe. There are only 8 episodes, on purpose, so that the show doesn’t drag out but gets right to the point of the story.

Samm Hodges: I’m not a voiceover artist. I actually have a stutter and then as a kid I couldn’t speak very well. So, I’m just very far outside of my comfort zone doing the voiceover, but I think that kind of vulnerability for me doing voiceover as you add it to the character’s very everyday quality in kind of not being too polished and not being too goofy.

Allison Tolman: It was actually a big point for me before I took the job. And I think before I even knew it was like in our first meeting — I was like I don’t know who voices the dog, but you need to get the same person to voice the dog. Proper voice actors are so polished. And I think the opposite of that was really necessary in order to have a talking dog that was palatable.

When I read the script I was like there sure is a talking dog in this. Sure is the star of the show. But then I saw the shorts and I was like, “oh, I get it.” It’s like sweet and down-to-earth and kind of indie. Then I was really into it. Then they wrote this great script and they had these awesome shorts to back it. So, when they decided that they were gonna try to make it into a television show…

Samm Hodges: We had a lot of interest. It was definitely a big project bringing it from the web series to the show and trying to figure that out. I think in the shorts it was about a dog’s view of his own life. And then we realized a dog has such a intimate view of the life of the owner. So it became much more about the character of Nan and him as an angle on her life, ’cause he sees all these moments that no one else was there and he’s there for her in these moments.

Dogs experience a lot of emotion, and a lot of really profound things they can experience, we just found out recently. But it’s less asking what is your dog thinking and more saying like what if your dog had human anxiety and existential angst. We had this rule that whatever joke we do it’s about what’s a dog’s experience and what’s a human experience. It’s always about drawing from our own lives as writers and kinda saying that I’m a dog in a human experience. And dogs want the same things that we want in this very primal way. In doing this show I’ve started to think of humans as animals a lot. We just react to things and then later justify our actions. We’re not so logical. I started to really relate to that aspect. Martin is big at self-justifying.

Photo credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

It’s a profound love story…of sorts

Let’s not get too sappy, but deep down we all are looking for shows that pull at our heartstrings. And while there are many TV love stories for you to get sucked into, this love story relates to so many people in a completely different way. At least Allison Tolman thinks so.

This is a really special show. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of, if any, TV shows that really focus on this relationship. [For] a lot of people, their relationship with their pet is significant. For me it’s like the most significant relationship in my life. I don’t have kids. I’ve had my cat for 17 years. She’s the longest standing relationship of my entire life. I grew up with her. So, the transformative power of loving an animal and being in charge of this little life truly has affected the person that I am. I was a baby when I got this cat. It’s a love story that I think is universal for a lot of people. A lot of people are pet owners and love their animals but it’s not something that we really focus on. We focus on romantic love or familial love, but nobody really talks about what a profound thing it is to love an animal.

Photo credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Because Martin reminds us all of the bigger picture

Why do we need a show like Downward Dog? Because at the heart of this story is us. Martin represents us in a way that we have never thought about before. Well put, Samm Hodges describes what the bigger picture is for Downward Dog.

Here’s a girl who lives alone [with] her dog in Pittsburg. And she’s not a movie star. Martin’s always asking if he matters. Like do I matter? For us I think it’s about how these little characters outside of where we usually put the spotlight on and how much our lives do matter. There’s so much comedy and reality to that. Martin is a mutt in the backyard of Pittsburg asking do I matter. And if he matters, then we all kind of matter.

Watch the Sneak Peek of Downward Dog TONIGHT 5/17

Ready to laugh hard, cry hard and fall in love with a dog named Martin? Then grab the remote and pull up a couch for a sneak peek of the series premiere of Downward Dog. In the series premiere airing tonight May 17th, “Pilot,” Martin battles loneliness and the need for Nan’s unconditional attention, while she struggles with a breakup and Martin’s recent bad behavior as he reacts to her newly busy work schedule. How cute was this Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman Interview?

Based on a web series, “Downward Dog” follows the day-to-day life of Nan (Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Allison Tolman, “Fargo”), as told by her increasingly lonely and philosophical dog, Martin (voiced by Samm Hodges). Nan attempts to juggle her tumultuous personal life with a stressful career, unjustly supervised by her self-obsessed boss. Having her story told from the canine perspective provides a uniquely unfiltered point of view that helps us laugh and cry about what it means to be a human being in the twenty-first century. It’s a show about a dog and the girl he adores, and even at their worst, Nan and Martin just might be best for one another.

All-new comedy “Downward Dog” will premiere in a special sneak peek tonight, WEDNESDAY, MAY 17 (9:31–10:00 p.m. EDT), following the season finale of “Modern Family.” The series, the first network comedy to have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, will move to its regular time period, Tuesday nights at 8:00–8:30 p.m. EDT, with its second episode, beginning May 23, only on ABC.

Be sure to follow Downward Dog on social media for the latest episode updates, behind-the-scene info and more! Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website #DownwardDog

Will you be watching Downward Dog with me tonight on ABC?

I was invited to attend an all-inclusive Disney press trip in exchange for this Samm Hodges & Allison Tolman Interview post. All opinions are my own. Be sure to follow Raising Whasians for more exclusive Disney/ABC interviews, entertainment news and more.

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