Tony Shalhoub and Andy Breckman on Monk’s Return

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Monk has returned! That’s right! An original Monk movie, entitled Mr. Monk’s Last Case, has just been released. And to mark this momentous release, our editor Olivia Rutigliano sat down with star Tony Shalhoub and series creator Andy Breckman, who also wrote the new film. Mr. Monk’s Last Case is now streaming on Peacock.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision, and contains spoilers for Mr. Monk’s Last Case and light spoilers for Monk.

Olivia Rutigliano: Had you been planning on bringing back Monk and found that the pandemic offered a good narrative to do so… or was living through the pandemic and perhaps wondering what Monk would do all the inspiration you needed for that pairing?

Andy Breckman: It’s a good question. When the series ended, I did attempt to sell some monk movies. The timing wasn’t right for a number of reasons. And so I sort of gave up on it all. But you’re absolutely right… the pandemic sort of jump-started interest in the character. Again, we did a short four minute PSA film featuring Monk and his entourage during the pandemic. And that, I think, moved the ball down the field even further.

Tony Shalhoub: The reaction to the PSA was very strong.

AB: There was so little negative reaction that we were thrilled.

TS [laughing]: That’s what we always base it on… our bar got so low!

AB [laughing]: That’s our goal! We got almost no hate mail. And that was all the green light we needed.

OR: Well. regarding those other potential Monk projects… now that we’ve got the ball rolling, do you think there might be more Monk movies? It’s forebodingly-titled Mr. Monk’s Last Case. So I wonder if the question’s been answered for me already.

AB: I wish you ran Peacock, frankly! That would make my life easier. We did. We left the door open at the end of this movie, and we did that very intentionally.

TS: And we introduced a dog!

AB:  And we introduced a dog! A sick dog! A sick dog.

TS:  A lonely, depressed, sick dog!

AB: We’re daring Peacock not to continue this.

OR: You’re doing like… season two of Columbo, where he gets the elderly dog.

AB:  Yes! You know, Columbo had a cast of one. There was one character in Columbo, and the network told them you need someone else in your cast. And so Levinson and Link gave him a dog for season two!

TS: Fantastic!

AB: That was the second character. And you know what the name of that dog was in Colombo?

OR: Dog!

AB: Dog, yeah!

TS: Wow.

AB: That was Columbo trivia!

OR: It’s a dream doing Columbo trivia with you guys, a dream.

TS: For us too.

OR: So, Mr. Shalhoub, since Monk has ended, you’ve played so many different characters. What was it like slipping back into Monk’s very familiar shoes after 14 years?

TS: It was a little strange in the beginning, but I got to say, it didn’t take long once we started shooting. We mean we had a couple of table reads and things like that. And but once we started filming it, since I had all my good teammates with me… and everybody was excited about it and bringing their A-game, we folded into it quite, quite easily.

AB: It was like bringing the band back together.

OR: The dynamic is present… when everyone starts hugging in the airport, I was like, oh yeah, we’re back!

TS: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah!

OR: I thought this movie was very was different in a way. I mean, obviously the show Monk blends sadness and humor almost in every episode. And some of the episodes where Trudy is more centrally featured… those are sadder. But I thought it was a very interesting decision to lean a bit more into the sadness of Monk’s situation, especially with Molly, with the situation that befalls her. What made you choose a more tragic circumstance to reacquaint us with Monk again?

AB:  Well, we wanted to raise the stakes. You know, we wanted to justify coming back and making it a movie and making it a big event. And so we had to have Monk in crisis and we found a couple of pretty serious problems for him to try to overcome.

TS: I remember, too, when I first read the script, the first draft, that there was a lot more of Trudy in the story. She was much more kind of present and recurring in the movie than we had ever had in prior episodes.

AB: Well, there’s a reason for that…

TS: Right, it was totally justified! But I was amazed! Because usually Trudy was just sprinkled in, sort of hit and run. She’d trigger a little something with Monk, and then she’d vanished again. And in this one, she kept coming and coming. And I thought, wow, this is totally new ground. Great for Melora and great for me.

AB: But actually from a writer’s point of view, it was necessary, because Monk was in crisis. He had, you know, suicidal thoughts and he couldn’t discuss it with anyone else except Trudy. He couldn’t even discuss it with his shrink… or openly, candidly, with his shrink. So Trudy, played from a dramatic point of view, a very important part.

TS: Yeah. Part of the narrative.

OR:  Do you think that Trudy is a figment of Monk’s imagination? Or is she more of an actual ghost or apparition?

AB: Good question!

TS: That is a good question. And we discussed it quite often. But from my point of view and as an actor (and my preference), she doesn’t exist outside of him. She doesn’t exist without him. Something in his subconscious brings her when he desperately needs her. That’s how we kind of proceeded. We agreed on that.

OR: I have one final, very quick question. Is there a favorite Monk episode of yours? Because filming it was so fun or because it’s some other element that you really enjoyed?

AB: Do you have a favorite?

TS: Oh, I can’t… I have maybe five favorites, but there’s so many that were near and dear to me.

AB: Well, you know, I have five kids and I you can’t—

TS: But you do have a favorite kid.

AB[laughing]: Yeah, my son Josh is my favorite. Obviously!

TS [laughing]: He’s my favorite, too.

AB: My answer to that is always… when you do a series, there’s no margin of error when you make a pilot. The pilot has to be cast perfectly, has to be pitch perfect and has to work on every level. And so I’m always grateful that we got the pilot close to correct, you know, because we wouldn’t have a series without it. So that’s always been my answer.

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