A Season 2 Conversation with Jeff Dixon & Jim Cooper, Executive Producers of ‘Curses!’

Season two of Curses! is available to stream on Apple TV+ right now, and to properly celebrate the show’s return, we sat down with the show’s executive producers, Jeff Dixon and Jim Cooper, to discuss this season’s dynamic storytelling!
 
John Betancourt: I'm very curious to start with what it means to each of you be back for a second season.
 
Jeff Dixon: I mean, I will just say, honestly, the easiest answer for that is… is going to sound super cheese ball and kind of stupid, but we, our crew and everybody worked on the show, got really, really close, like, more so than a normal show, I think, like, we would go out for happy hours and stuff like, all the time, and it was just meant more time with the people you really wanted to be with, and not just from a personal point of view, but from a creative point of view. Like, we just thought these were the best artists, these are the best writers, these are the best, and it's like, the fact that you get to do more of that just was special.
 
Jim Cooper: Yeah, you know, and it's, well, the greatest compliment we received in that regard was there was, like, one of the higher ups at the studio that joked they were, like, “We were actually a little bit concerned that this was a cult, because we would see you guys together all the time,” and you're like, “That is so nice. Thank you.” (Laughs) But, like, it was fun to go into a second season too, because the first season, so much of it was trying to figure out this vision, the tone, would it work, you know? And then once you kind of go, “Oh, okay, you've established it, and know what's working, let's go nuts.” So that was, it was sort of like the freedom of not having to prove that we're not insane, literally show we’re insane, and that we’re not a cult.
 
Jeff Dixon: Well, we didn’t say THAT. (Laugher from all)
 
John Betancourt: Well, played. And obviously I have to ask the million-dollar question. I mean, you guys, you guys landed Robert Englund. I mean, how cool is that? And I'd love to know what the process was to get him into Season Two.
 
Jeff Dixon: I mean, he was excited… he's one of my idols. So, for me, it was like, you know, they always say, “Don't, never meet your idols.” I always say, “Never meet your idols unless its Robert Englund,” because he was better and more awesome than we could have ever imagined. And he loves horror movies, by the way, so he'll just chat horror movies for hours. Like, from a really, like, smart point of view, like, not just a, “Hey, I like this. I like that.” Like, he's got an actual solid knowledge about everything, and he's just the nicest person in the world,
 
Jim Cooper: Yeah, and, I mean, he really came to, like, work and had really great ideas thematically, he was very into it. And it was just, it was awesome.
 
John Betancourt: I'm gonna circle back a bit, because you brought up a good point that the show is established. You guys have kind of the groundwork of what you want for this particular show. And that did make me notice that you kind of started integrating some more modern horror elements into it this year. Since, you know, everything's not peachy keen with the family, there's some elevated horror. And I'm curious what went into the decision then to kind of just go for broke and really bring so much into this.
 
Jeff Dixon: I'll just say the one thing that I think honestly really lended itself is a bit of a comfort level, a comfort level from all sides. I think a lot of the first season was not just laying a lot of pipe, as far as the foundation for what we can go with, but also we were all doing something kind of new, not just us, but also the studios and the production companies. And it's like everybody felt like they were doing something new. So, whenever you're starting out, there's a little bit of trepidation of, Is this too much? Is it not enough? Is it whatever? So, then we found, after, I think we get in a season under our belt, we had that sweet spot, and everyone's like, “Oh, people seem to really like the scares and the horror. It's not too much. Let's push.” Definitely, I mean, from Coop and I’s point of view, we're always trying to push. I mean, let's be honest. But like, they were also very, very open to pushing some of the scares a little bit more as well.
 
Jim Cooper: And when we were sitting there, like coming up with the episodes and the season arc, we really were actively kind of going, “Okay, what did we do last season? Let's not do that. What are different directions we can go?” And we would look at something like, “Okay, can we do a monster? Can we do a Kaiju? Can we do something that's more psychological? Can we do something within the house,” you know? So, it was literally like trying to really think about, how could you do different things each time. And then, of course, you kind of go, “Oh, how has it been done? Elsewhere, you know, in a movie or in a story, how can we put a twist on it? How would that fit into the framework of our show?” So that was actually a lot of fun.
 
John Betancourt: Now without any spoilers, I mean, obviously it's a grander season. It's a very established season. What are you most excited for audiences to experience this year?
 
Jim Cooper: I would actually argue it's the variety of the episodes, because people go like, “Oh, what's your favorite episode of the season?” And I can honestly say it kind of depends, you know? I really like this one, but I also really like, but I like what we did with that one.
 
Jeff Dixon:Yeah. And one of the things that I was really partial in this season is we, we leaned into letting each of the side characters kind of get more of a focus in an individual episode. So, it was like, Stanley kind of has a focused episode, Larry has a focused episode. Margie has a focused episode. So, we did, like bringing some of the more kind of side characters more of the forefront of their own kind of episode. And that was kind of exciting. And just like introducing new characters like we got, we're able to introduce a couple new characters, that was exciting. So anytime you can build the universe or build a little bit more flourish to the established universe, is just exciting.
 
John Betancourt: It is. It is definitely a much bigger universe this year, and I appreciate it. And speaking of writing stuff, and once I saw zombies, I'm like, “Oh, I'm a very happy man.”
 
Jeff Dixon: That's why we start the season with them.
 
John Betancourt: Start big. I love it. Obviously, this has been a passion project for both of you. Horror is something you both love, what has been the most gratifying aspect of working on the second season for each of you?
 
Jeff Dixon: I mean, I will say this. I don't know about working on the second season, but one of the most gratifying things from seeing the first season, which leans into the second season, is one of our favorite things, was getting, like, photographs from friends or executives or whatever, that they'd be watching it with, like their kids, and their kids would be watching it behind a blanket, or they'd be nestled in close to them, and they would take pictures and send them to us. And that was unbelievably satisfying, because it wasn't too much. I mean, they weren't like traumatized. It was… we were always trying to get that balance, and that was the balance we were hitting. And so by, I think keeping that in the back of our heads, you know, the second season was like, “Okay, we're not going too hard. They actually enjoy this.” You know, this is gratifying to be able to push the horror and know that they're enjoying it.
 
Jim Cooper: And I think, for me, like, what was so nice about the second season was really allowing, you know, the other writers in the writer's room --- we're going, “What do you want to do? Let's do something that would be very hard to get made in another situation,” you know. So, like having stories that you're like, “Oh, that's on an animated family show. Wow, that's crazy.” And you're like, “Yeah, we did that. Where else are you going to see that?” And so that was always like, a lot of fun to be able to do things like that.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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