‘Good American Family’ Showrunners on Ellen Pompeo’s Darker Side and On-Set Tears (EXCLUSIVE)
The show will be told in three parts which, they say, came after they researched the real-life case
When the case of Natalia Grace first appeared in court alongside her second adoptive family, the Barnetts, people were fascinated by her and whether she was really a child suffering from dwarfism. Now, the entire adoption, trial, and beyond are being documented in a Hulu miniseries entitled Good American Family starring Ellen Pompeo, Mark Duplass, Christina Hendricks, Dulé Hill, Sarayu Blue and Imogen Faith Reid. First for Women met with the showrunners Katie Robbins and Sarah Sutherland to discuss everything to learn more about the show’s production and what really went on behind the scenes. Read on for more, and be sure to check out a clip featuring Pompeo and Duplass below!
‘Good American Family’ season 1 episode 1 sneak peek
How ‘Good American Family’ showrunners shaped the story
Since the show is based on a real-life family experience, it goes without saying that the production crew did copious amounts of research, which sometimes led to more questions than answers.
“Reading articles about this story is a whirlwind, because depending on whose account you’re reading, it affects your understanding of what version to believe or not to believe,” Robbins—who also serves as the show’s creator—told First for Women. “When I was doing this deep dive into the articles, I found the experience of reading these stories so disorienting because, depending on whose account you are reading, it changed your understanding of the story.
“It felt like the way to structure it so that we would come into the landscape of the accused [the Barnetts] and then, at a certain point, switch it so that we would then question all of the things we had understood before. It felt like a way to get at this question of how truth can be such an elusive thing, which felt really timely.”
Before Good American Family, Robbins and Sutherland worked together on a television series called The Affair, which ran from 2018 to 2019. According to Sutherland, that connection was pivotal when it came to setting up this show.
“What I loved so much about her initial vision for it was this structure she’d had from the beginning,” the showrunner said. “In terms of the themes that we were interested in exploring, these themes of bias and the elusive nature of truth, and these structures allow the audience to experience that in real-time.
“Some of my favorite writing has a sneaky, for lack of a better word, way of telling a story that feels like one thing but has this level underneath. I love that this was how Katie decided to tell this story, because it does make it something that it couldn’t have been otherwise.”
Katie Robbins & Sarah Sutherland share details on the cast and set dynamic
Since the show’s topic is so dark and heavy, it would make sense if the dynamic on set mirrored that. But according to Sutherland and Robbins, that was the furthest thing from the truth, with the former even going as far as to say, “It was one of the warmest, most empathetic, kindest sets I’ve had the privilege of being on.”
“Everybody involved in the show was incredibly dedicated to the idea of doing the story justice, and that was really amazing,” she continued. “We definitely had tough, seasoned crew members who have seen it all, who would watch some of these scenes and openly cry on set because the performances and the story so moved them.”
And who exactly is moving that crew to tears? That would be the star-studded cast of Good American Family, which Robbins said she felt “ridiculously lucky” to have.
“When I got the call that Ellen [Pompeo] was interested in doing it, I lost my mind because I’m a huge Grey’s Anatomy fan,” she said. “Ellen is an American sweetheart and you automatically try to empathize with her character, which was such an important part of building the show’s arc. Then, at a certain point, that starts to shift and we see this darker side of Ellen Pompeo that we haven’t seen before.”
Robbins added that “Mark Duplass is so funny and charming, and yet he can access all of the kinds of emotional turmoil of this character in a way that is really compelling,” before sharing details on how they found their own Natalia Grace (Reid).
“She was the first person cast in the show, and we did an international casting search to find her,” the creator said. “From that very first self-tape, we were, like, ‘This is our Natalia.’ She had such extraordinary range, and the part asks the actor to play these dark, potentially nefarious versions of Natalia, and she just didn’t miss a beat. She blew us all away and had this amazing desire to do justice to the story that she brought with her every day to set. She was incredible.”
The first two episodes of Good American Family are available to stream on Hulu on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.
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