Louis (television series)

The series is dedicated to the life of comedian Louis, who performs on the stage of comedy clubs, and his non-public life as a man who divorced and brings up two daughters with his ex-wife. In addition, Louis is trying to arrange his personal life: he gets acquainted with women, goes on dates with them.

The series has a fairly free atypical format. Each episode consists of either two short stories or a large story, the action of which is divided into one or more episodes. The central character of all the stories is Louis. In addition, the series contains excerpts from Louis's speeches, often related to stories. Usually the series are not interconnected, however, some characters appear in several episodes (for example, Pamela, girlfriend of Louis). On the other hand, the same character can be portrayed in different ways and even played by different actors (for example, the mother of Louis). As Louis C. Kay himself explained ^[5] ,

Each episode has its own goal, and if it contradicts the goal of another episode, [...] it does not bother me.

Original text

Every episode has its own goal, and if it messes up the goal of another episode, [...] I just don't care.

Sometimes an episode talks about events that do not take place in modern times. For example, in a series called "God," the action takes place when Louis was still a child, and in the series "Oh, Louis" tells about the past career of Louis as a comedian.

Louis Cay plays a major role. His character is similar to Louis, has a similar to his biography. He is also a comedian, also divorced, and he also has two daughters. However, other facts of his biography have been changed. So, in the series, Louis is not at all successful. Louis is the only character to appear in all episodes of the series.

In Louis, there is a small permanent cast that plays characters that appear in several episodes. So, the permanent characters are: Louis himself ( Louis X Kay ); his daughters Lily ( Hadley Delaney ) and Jane ( Ursula Parker ); his brother Robbie ( Robert Kelly ); Agent Doug, who looks like a teenager ( Edward Gelbinovich ); Pamela ( Pamela Edlon ), his girlfriend (does not appear in the series of the third season). In addition, the series has a lot of invited stars, including comedians, appearing both in the cameo and as characters. Sometimes stars play characters whose biography is similar to their own, but somewhat different, like the character of Xi Kei himself.

In Louis, one actor can play two different characters in different episodes. So, Amy Landecker played in one episode a girl who went on a date with Louis, and in the other, a young mother, Louis. Moreover, the mother of Louis and his daughters played several actresses. However, starting from the middle of the first season of the daughters of Louis, only Delaney and Parker play.

Permanent Roles

• Hadley Delaney - Lily, the eldest daughter of Louis.
• Ursula Parker - Jane, the youngest daughter of Louis. In the first four episodes of the first season, Jane played Ashley Gerasimovich , until she was replaced by Parker.
• Pamela Edlon - Pamela, a friend of Louis. Her son and daughters Louis played together in the playground, where Louis and Pamela first met and became friends. Over time, Louis falls in love with Pamela. Pamela leaves for her child’s father in Paris in the final of the second season and returns in the fourth season. Edlon is also an executive producer, and she also wrote a script for three episodes with CK, for which she was nominated for an Emmy .
• Robert Kelly - Robbie, brother of Louis.
• Susan Kelechi Watson - Janet, Louis' ex-wife.
• Todd Barry - Todd, a friend of Louis, who constantly scoffs and humiliates him, even as a joke.
• Hannibal Buress - Hannibal, a friend of Louis, who regularly plays poker with him.
• Rick Krom - Rick, another friend of Louis who also plays poker with him. Gay, the only one in the company of Louis.
• Nick DiPaolo - Nick, one of Louis's closest friends. He also regularly plays poker with him.
• Jim Norton - Jim, a close friend of Louis, plays poker with him.
• Chris Rock - plays himself. In the series, he is a friend and confidant of Louis. When it turns out that Louis could be the one to become the new host of the David Letterman show , he instantly spreads the news about it.
• Jerry Seinfeld - plays himself. Seinfeld portrays a fictional version of himself, in the series he is a rival to Louis. He first appears in the Evening Show Part 1 series as a possible replacement for David Letterman in his show. He also appears in the episode Model, in which he invites Louis to warm up for his performance at a charity evening.
• Sarah Silverman - plays herself. Another friend of Louis, who, like Louis, began a comedy career in the 1980s years.
• Edward Gelbinovich - Doug, Agent Louis. It looks like a teenager, which creates comical situations.
• Garland, Joel Marsh - Doug ^[6] (Doug).

Guest Celebrities

Season One

• Matthew Broderick - plays himself. He is the director and lead actor in the thriller, in which Louis gets the role of a police officer.
• Bobby Cannavale is Chris, a personal trainer whose children are in the same school as Louis' daughter. Chris is trying to get Louis into shape, but he is failing.
• Ricky Gervais - Dr. Ben Mitchell, a friend of Louis and his doctor. When Louis comes to his appointment, he begins to play a trick on him, with a serious look, telling Louis about his terrible illnesses. In the fourth season, it is mentioned that he died.
• David Patrick Kelly is Louis therapist.
• Megan Hiltie is a woman who sits at Louis's talk and talks with her friend, which interferes with Louis and ultimately makes him angry.
• Tom Nunen is Dr. Havford. A mysterious doctor who spoke very frighteningly about the torment of Christ on the cross.

Season Two

• F. Murray Abraham - Jonathan, the mysterious swinger from New Jersey , whom Louis meets, sitting in the car to the woman who met him after the performance.
• Dane Cook - plays himself. In the story, he is an enemy of Louis, because according to the general opinion, Cook stole jokes from Louis. However, he and Lady Gaga have one agent, and Louis’s daughter wants to go to her concert, so Louis has to talk with Cook to get a ticket.
• Joan Rivers - plays herself. Louis watches one of her shows, after which they talk in Joan's room.
• Bob Saguet - plays himself. Actor in the sitcom , which once starred Louis.
• Doug Stenhope - Eddie, Louis's old friend and comedian. After the show, Louis and Eddie spend time together, after which Eddie announces that he is planning a suicide .

Season Three

• F. Murray Abraham - Mexican uncle Louis, who makes him go to his father. This is the second role of Abraham in the series.
• Maria Bamford - Maria, friend of Louis, comedian. After a night spent together, they quarrel and no longer communicate.
• Jay Leno - plays himself. After Louis appears in the evening show Leno and receives an offer to take the place of David Letterman in his show, Leno calls Louis and gives advice in no way to agree to this proposal.
• Melissa Leo - Lori Brent. The woman Louis introduces to their mutual friends at dinner. At first they do not agree at all, but then after talking in a bar and drinking they find a common language. Leo received Emmy for this role as the best guest female role in a comedy series.
• David Lynch is Jack Doll, a friend of the CBS owner and an influential television producer. He must prepare Louis for the work of the host of the evening show, and he does it, despite the fact that Louis did not get this work. Si Kay said that at first it was planned to invite Ben Gazzzar to this role, but he died on the same day when he was invited. The candidates of Jerry Lewis , Al Pacino , Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese were also considered before Lynch got this role ^[7] .
• Harry Marshall - Lars Tardigan, owner of CBS. Trying to persuade Letterman to reduce his fee during the extension of the contract, he tries to make him believe that he is looking for a replacement, meanly using Louis.
• Paul Rudd - plays himself. He is interviewed by Louis on his pilot evening show.
• Susan Sarandon - plays herself. She is interviewed by Louis at his pilot evening show.
• Marc Maron - plays himself. An old friend of Louis with whom he had not spoken for many years for unknown reasons. Louis recalls that once upon a time, it was not Maron who was wrong, but Louis himself. He comes and tries to apologize to Maron, but he tells him that he already came a few years ago and already apologized, just forgot about it.
• Amy Poehler - Debbie, sister of Louis. She is trying to persuade Louis to spend the New Year with her family in Mexico.
• Parker Posey - Liz, a mysterious woman working in a bookstore. They go on a date, and Louis falls in love with her, but their paths diverge until the finale of the third season, where they accidentally meet on a bus in which Louis travels to the airport. Liz goes to the hospital, where Louis finds out that she had cancer, after which she suddenly dies.
• Chloe Sevigny - Gini, Liz's replacement at the bookstore. She supposedly helps Louis in finding Liz, and eventually inclines him to an obscene scene in a cafe.
• Robin Williams - Robin, a mutual friend of Louis and Barney, the owner of the comedy club in which Louis performs. They meet at Barney’s funeral, where no one except them has come, and then they have dinner together, where it turns out that they both didn’t like Barney. Then they go to the strip club , to which Barney constantly called them. They promise each other that the one who dies later will come to the funeral of the one who dies earlier.

Season Four

• Charles Grodin - Dr. Bigelow. Doctor taking in Louis's house. He turns out to be the new Dr. Louis instead of Dr. Ben, who died. He is not at all interested in dealing with Louis's back problems, and he sends him away, advising him to come with real illnesses, such as "blood poisoning."
• Yvonne Strahovski - Blake. She is a very wealthy supermodel. Blake invites Louis to his home after Louis failed at his performance at a charity evening. She falls in love with Louis. But after a night spent with her, the terrible happens: she tickles Louis, and he accidentally hits her in the eye, damaging him. The Blake family is demanding huge compensation from Louis for this.
• Victor Garber is Louis's lawyer. He is a friend of Jerry Seinfeld, and after Louis asks Seinfeld for help, he represents Louis in conflict with the Blake family.

In addition, many comedians are employed in small roles in Louis . Among them are Vernon Chetman and JB Smuv .

Fifth Season

• Celia Keenan-Bolger - Julianne in "Potluck". She is a pregnant surrogate lesbian.
• Judy Gold - Marina in "Potluck", Julianne's girlfriend.
• Michael Rapaport - Lenny in "Cop Story", a police officer and former sister of Louis, who is persistently trying to make friends with Louis.
• Jim Florentine - Kenny in "The Road Part 2", performing at the opening act of Louis, with whom he has to share housing for a week.

In addition to these invited stars, famous comedians appeared in small roles, including Chris Gezerd, Todd Glass, Ted Alexandro, Amir Blumenfield, Eddie Brill, Joe DeRosa, Vernon Chatman, Artie Lang, Godfrey, Chelsea Peretti , JB Smoove , Dave Attell, Michael Cera , John Lithgow , Todd Barry and Stephen Wright. Opie and Anthony and Amy Schumer appeared in voice acting.

Instead of accepting an offer from a larger television network than FX , CK agreed to the proposed budget for filming a pilot episode of $ 200,000. This was enough to pay the fee of Louis, and for production. Si Kay decided to cooperate with FX precisely because he was promised complete creative freedom there. Speaking of John Landgrave , president of FX Network, Sea Key stated ^[8] :

He had a very sluggish understanding of what he wanted. I said: “Let me shoot a pilot episode, and you will not be involved in this at all. I will not even tell you the idea, or show the script or show the installation version and do not tell about the selection of actors. Just transfer me the money and let me do the show. ” And he was ready to do it.

One of the reasons why it was all done this way was because he gave me only $ 200,000 for everything. Since I could prove that this was the right way, and they liked the result, I had the opportunity to continue to do it the way I want.

Original text

He had a very loose idea of ​​what he wanted. I said, “Let me shoot a pilot and you don't have anything to do with it. I won't even pitch you the idea or show you the script or show you the footage or show you the casting. Just wire me the money and let me do the show. " And he was willing to do that. One of the reasons it was done that way was he only gave me $ 200,000 for the thing all in. Since I was able to prove this was a way to do it and they liked what they got, I was able to keep doing it that way.

Production was launched in November 2009. Pamela Edlon , starring along with Kay in the series Lucky Louis , in Louis , in addition to the role, was also engaged as a producer ^[9] .

The show is filmed on a Red camera ^[10] . Si Kay personally mounts some episodes on his own laptop ^[11] .

On February 27, 2012, Sei Kay announced on his Twitter microblog that Susan E. Morse , the permanent co-author of Woody Allen , will be engaged in the installation starting from the third season ^[12] .

Louis has received wide acclaim from critics. The first season received a rating of 70 out of 100 based on 20 reviews on Metacritic . ^[13] Critics have noted excellent fragments from stand-up performances and a style similar to Woody Allen’s work ^[14] . The reviewers also focused on the deliberately slowed down pace of the narrative, comparing it to the lightning fast jokes in classic sitcoms ^{[15] [16]} .

Judging by the reviews, Louis is getting better from season to season. The first four episodes of the second season received a rating of 90 out of 100 based on 7 reviews on Metacritic ^[17] . The third season received excellent reviews and a rating of 94 out of 100 based on 16 reviews on Metacritic ^[18] . The fourth season series were also highly rated, receiving a rating of 93 out of 100 based on 30 reviews on Metacritic ^[19] . The fifth season received very positive reviews, receiving 91 out of 100 based on 20 reviews on Metacritic ^[20] .

• fxnetworks.com/louie/ — официальный сайт Луи