Interview: Sutton Foster and Peter Hermann Talk ‘Younger’ Season 5 and That Big Reveal

Younger Season 5 hit the ground running with a reveal that has turned everything upside down.

At the ATX Television Festival this weekend, Younger’s Sutton Foster and Peter Hermann sat down with reporters to discuss the shocking season opener and what’s next for Charles and Liza. (By the way, if you aren’t caught up, stop reading now — spoilers ahead.)

First, both Foster and Hermann shared their reactions to the recent news that Younger has been renewed for a sixth season.

“Excitement and relief, I think, because we all really love the show. I think we all really love our jobs,” Foster said of her reaction when she first heard the news.

“The last two seasons we found out we were picked up really early, and so I think when we didn’t get a pick up early on we were kind of like, ‘Oh no, is this it?'” she continued. “I kind of held on a little tighter this season and just valued everything. You don’t want to ever take anything for granted, and so it was nice to get the pickup.”

“I feel like we still have more story to tell,” she added.

“It was great to hear. And everybody had been very generous in letting us know, sort of side-eye, that they’ve already rented the stages, and they’ve rented the studio, and we’re already writing for Season 6. But it’s nice when you actually hear it,” Hermann said.

Younger Season 5 Episode 1, “#LizaToo,” ends with one more person finding out Liza’s Secret — Charles. Foster and Hermann were excited to talk about that moment.

“Initially, they wanted it to be the end of Season 4. I don’t know why Darren [Star] changed his mind, because I remember seeing early storyboards and it was always, ‘Charles finds out’ at the end of Season 4, and then they decided to push it to Season 5. But I love that the season starts this way,” Foster said. “Because Younger’s crazy right? Anything happens on the show. And so, in true Younger fashion they’re like, ‘Boing!’ and they just completely blow up the world and now it’s where they’ve dumped the purse out on the sidewalk. So, what now?”

Younger is a show that manages to stay topical in some really important ways, and this season is no different. The season premiere episode lines up Charles finding out about Liza’s secret with the show’s on #MeToo storyline.

“The way of having Charles find out would not have been as elegant, as topical, as relevant, and yeah, as elegantly done as Darren and everybody ended up doing it,” Hermann said of the timing with the #MeToo movement.

“I think that the show, all the viewers exist in culture; they exist in the world. The show is deeply about female friendship, and I think that it would have been really a missed opportunity not to bring that seismic cultural change into the show,” he explained.

“Right. It already existed in the world of Younger,” Foster added.

“It was a show taking itself to task about this man’s behavior, whose behavior we’d excused with all the bullshit excuses that we used throughout the years. He’s a dirty old man, or he didn’t mean it, or a different generation. Any of that crap,” Hermann said.

As for where Charles and Liza will stand now that Charles knows Liza’s secret, things are certainly going to be complicated.

“There’s nothing that is not in pieces on the ground at the start of the season,” Hermann stated.

“And I didn’t tell him,” added Foster. “That’s what I hate.”

“If there’s anything necessary cornerstone to a relationship working, is that somebody is who they say they are. That goes without saying. And if that’s not in place, or if you pull that out, the entire thing falls. And whether we’re actually able to build something out of those ruins remains to be seen. And that’s why I think it’s a really, really interesting season to watch,” Hermann said.

The story, of course, also makes a major impact on the publishing company, since Empirical is now losing their biggest client.

“So, I just wrote a children’s book, If the S in Moose Comes Loose,” Hermann said. “I was at the HarperCollins book party for a book expo, and I talked to the real, his name is Brian Murray, the real Charles Brooks. I said, ‘What’s something about book publishing that people don’t know?’ And he said, ‘It’s like cultural venture capital. You never know. You just never know what’s going to hit. And you put money into a book, and it falls completely apart, and it’s such a gamble.'”

The most recent episode continues to deal with the aftermath of Charles finding out Liza’s secret and the loss of Edward L.L. Moore as a client while addressing the place that Charles’ relationship is with his wife. Charles ends that relationship because he knows he isn’t in love with her anymore.

Hermann spoke to why he believes Charles made that decision.

“I think that the role of truth, the volume on truth, just gets turned up in his life,” Hermann explained. “I think that to whatever degree he is able to be self-aware, he is. And I think that this shift happens under his feet and he checks in with himself about where he is not being entirely honest, and where he is not being true to how he actually feels. And he finally just comes to the point where he says, ‘The kindest thing at this point is simply to be honest with my wife and say those very, very hard words. This isn’t working.’ And again, there are no plates that aren’t shifting under his feet at the moment, which is a really fun thing to play, and a place to be as an actor, because you get to teeter a bit, which is fun.”

It’s going to be an interesting season, to say the least!

Younger airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on TV Land.

Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. There is a lot more to come!

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