A&E

[The Weekly Q&A]

UNLV alum Alissa Nutting talks about how Las Vegas found its way into her novel and HBO Max show ‘Made for Love’

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Alissa Nutting
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The camera pans over a desert landscape dotted with Joshua trees and a blocky, futuristic set of blue-silver structures shimmering faintly in the distance. Suddenly, a hatch opens in the desert floor, and out pops Hazel Green (Cristin Milioti), soaking wet and gasping. She laughs in disbelief, composes herself, raises a determined middle finger to the distant structure and stumbles off into the Mojave, unaware that her obtuse tech mogul husband, Byron Gogol (Billy Magnussen), whom she just left, has implanted her with a chip that allows him to know every single thing she sees, hears and feels. In desperation, she seeks refuge with her estranged father, Herbert (Ray Romano), a cranky widower who has formed an intense, shameless relationship with a realistic sex doll.

So begins HBO Max’s Made for Love, a sci-fi dark comedy series based on Alissa Nutting’s 2017 novel of the same name. Nutting, who earned her doctorate through UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute Ph.D. program and lived in Las Vegas “on and off” for four years plus, helped to adapt her book for HBO, and—real talk—deserves some kind of meritorious public service award for such timely, biting satire of our opt-in surveillance culture. (It’s no coincidence that “Gogol” is basically “Google.”) Nutting’s Hazel Green is the hero we need now; faced with an unblinking, invasive digital eye watching her every move, she rebels by slinging mud on it, metaphorically speaking. We should all find the strength to face our own personal Alexas and do likewise.

Nutting is crazy-busy right now—she’s writing a book of essays and developing several TV projects, including Teenage Euthanasia, an animated comedy debuting on Adult Swim later this year—but the erstwhile Las Vegan graciously took a moment to talk about Made’s knockout first season, and how Vegas subtly influenced the creation of a backward, tech-crazy world that looks almost identical to our own.

Cristin Milioti in HBO Max’s <em>Made for Love</em>

Cristin Milioti in HBO Max’s Made for Love

Did you write Made for Love while at UNLV? No, but I got really interested in motivational psychology because of gambling and slot machines. I was just kind of fascinated by brains being hacked—ways that technology could hack our behavioral patterns, or influence addictions or decisions. That very much got established while I was at UNLV.

A character in the book appreciates his resort town home because it’s “designed for transient living and those who preferred to stay anonymous.” That’s a widely held perception of Vegas. I love that about Vegas. I love so many things about Vegas, but I just love that you can walk into almost any building, any casino and see a huge mix [of people], you know what I mean? However you came, whatever you’re wearing, there’s a place for you. And no one thinks twice about people wearing sunglasses at all hours of the day or night … and indoors, at the tables! I really enjoy that. You can be whoever you want to be, in a sense, and remake yourself on any given night.

Did Vegas’ baked-in objectification of women find its way in there? I mean, the guy pretty much marries a sex doll. You know, another huge thing that I—um, I guess the word “admire” is the one I’d select—is that Vegas is honest in a way that I don’t feel many cities and places are. When you go there, you get America; it’s all on display for you. It’s no different from anywhere else in the country; you’ll find that misogyny anywhere else. It’s just often hidden or concealed or, on the surface, sort of discouraged. Maybe it’s because of the gambling: You have this industry that’s all about concealment, and I think like in an odd way, it makes everything surrounding the industry hyper-

honest [laughs]. … Vegas is very up-front. At the end of the day, that was actually stabilizing to me.

How leery of technology are you? I’m both leery and lazy. I don’t know how much any of us truly understand exactly how much we allow our privacy to be invaded and our data to be mined; we don’t read the fine print. I certainly don’t. I mean, I’ll install just about anything to get a $5 coupon for pizza. So, I can’t say that I translate that caution into my behavior when I’m pressed for time or energy and it’s offering some convenience. So, I both fear it and, in a lot of ways, I’d say I deserve it.

Are you happy with the TV adaptation of MadeYeah. I mean, I had this idea that the show could be more of a companion piece or companion space, because the book is so internal. And I also felt like after Trump—and this was before the pandemic—the book felt a little pessimistic, even for me. I really wanted characters that felt more fully human. … We really wanted to complicate the characters, add layers to them and expand their emotional territory.

The actors, also, showed us a lot of new layers [of their characters] as well. We just lucked out so hard with the cast and the crew. It was really like a giant family and everyone, I think, felt really safe on set and in the group. It led to this vulnerability on their parts that was inspirational and breathtaking, and really let the characters go to new places. … There were times where we would see some takes and [we] would make adjustments based on the actors’ incredible range.

I couldn’t imagine a better Hazel than Cristin Milioti. From the moment we started talking about casting, I had this “Made for Milioti” joke that wasn’t a joke at all. She was really the only choice. I knew that she could do comedy, I knew that she could do drama, and from her theater background, that she has an ability to convey … like, every feature of her face is a different actor! Her eyes can act independently from her mouth; they can tell you different things. She’s incredible.

If you get a Season 2 order—fingers crossed here—where does Made for Love go next? You know, I’m such a huge sci-fi fan, and so is my collaborator Christina [Lee]. But most of the sci fi I read and watched growing up came from a male perspective and really focused on action. What we were so excited to do was sci fi that keeps one hand on the banister of being emotionally grounded—not sacrificing the sense of wanting viewers to feel things, and to know what matters to the characters on a personal level. You know, being as invested in their emotional story as in what’s happening in the plot and with the technology around them. The two main themes that the show is playing with are love and technology, and the conversation surrounding how one informs the other in our society. We want to keep that balance of the tech forces and the emotional forces being in equal dialogue with each other. 

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