An Interview with JJ Bailey, Creator of ‘The Hunting Party’

THE HUNTING PARTY -- Season: 1 -- Pictured: (l-r) Sara Garcia as Jennifer Morales, Patrick Sabongui as Jacob Hassani, Melissa Roxburgh as Rebecca Henderson, Nick Wechsler as Oliver Odell, Josh McKenzie as Shane Florence -- (Photo by: Lindsay Siu/NBC)

JJ Bailey is an accomplished writer and producer, who just so happened to find the inspiration to create the new NBC crime procedural, The Hunting Party, and we had the honor of sitting down with JJ to discuss this fascinating new show.

John Betancourt: I would love to start by getting to know what it was that inspired you to create just such a unique and refreshing story.
 
JJ Bailey: Oh, first of all, thank you for calling it that, you know, I typically tell the story, you know, Jake Coburn, who, of course, couldn't be here today. He and I were set up sort of on this blind date by our studio, you know, we both created something for NBCUniversal before, and they thought we'd get along, and we sat down for like this half hour, Zoom, that turned into two hours. Oh, by the end of it, we were just like, “We've got to do something together. Man, we just like, we like all the same things. We speak the same language.” And over the course that meeting, it was very clear we both really wanted to do a procedural that felt a little bit different, and we wanted to do something that sort of broke out of the procedural genre a little bit. We loved serial killer stories, so we knew we were going to do something in that vein, and we wanted to do something that had elements of a conspiracy thriller. And, you know, from there, it just really snowballed into sort of what it was, or what it is. And I will say, Jake is a really brilliant creative partner and bouncing ideas off each other was such a fun experience. And this came together in a really sort of natural way for us, which was refreshing and fantastic.
 
John Betancourt: It shows on the screen too, because everything just flows so well, and it's also wonderfully complex. And I also am very curious about, speaking of that complexity, what went into the decision to create stories that just have so much for the audience to enjoy.
 
JJ Bailey: Yeah, well, you know, we really, like I said, we really wanted to do something that serves a lot of different things, right? We wanted to do the procedural. We wanted to do a serial killer storyline. We wanted to do, you know, a larger conspiracy thriller. And we really wanted to get under the hood of our characters. And when you try to do all that, it's going to involve several storylines. And the thing for me, that I was so excited about, is, in the creation process of the story, we fell in love with every character, and we found ourselves with these really exciting storylines for every single character, and the sort of embarrassment of riches of, well, you know, we can't do all of them, because there's only, you know, 41 minutes or something, we have, and then also getting the cast that we got, which I'm just, I absolutely adore everybody in the cast and how fantastic they are on screen. You just want to give them more. You keep wanting to do more as a creative behind it. So, yeah, it really, really was an embarrassment of riches in that way.
 
John Betancourt: Now, in creating something this wonderfully well woven together, what kind of challenge did you guys’ encounter? Because you go into so much detail of just having to find out the serial killer origins and their motives and then keep that conspiracy fresh. So yeah, how tough was it to assemble all that?
 
JJ Bailey: You know, it's definitely tough. We approach it from the perspective of, you know, we're, it's not a who-done-it. It's more like, why-done-it and why-doing-it again type thing. Because, you know, a typical procedural, there's a crime and you're trying to figure out who is behind this. You’re piecing it together without knowing the killer. With our show, the challenge, and hopefully part of the enjoyable thing is, you know who the killer is right out of the gate. Which means we have to break free from certain structural dynamics that you typically have in a procedural, you know, because we already know who the killer is right out of the gate. And so, we have to provide additional wrinkles in the storyline, and we always want to be able to find a surprising turn where you know, even though we know who the killer is and we know why they did what they did in the past, why are they doing what they're doing now? And sort of piece it together that way. And it's been a challenge. You sort of have to break two motives for the same killer in order to have something feel sort of fresh in its in its telling.
 
John Betancourt: That brings me to my next question. Obviously, every episode is getting bigger and bolder, which I love. I watched episode four before this interview, which is just insanely good, and it gets into so many cool ideas. But, without spoiling, what you are most excited from a standpoint of getting bigger and bolder for audiences to experience down the road here,
 
JJ Bailey: Yeah, what a great question. I will say what you just saw, Episode Four is one of my favorites. Make a side note. Kevin Corrigan. Unbelievable.
 
John Betancourt: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
 
JJ Bailey: But you know, I think we found ourselves with the freedom to sort of break out of a structure that we were in, later in the season, which allowed for sort of bigger storytelling and the ability to do some more dynamic things. And you know, I know everybody probably talks about doing a big finale, but we were able to do a really big thing in our finale that I'm really excited for people to see that was super fun. And episode eight is another one that I'm really excited about. It's got a very dynamic killer that breaks out of that structure again, but also has some really -- elements of like Seven and things like that that we wove into that, that are really fun. So, I hopefully people really do feel like things are growing every episode until the ‘till the end.
 
John Betancourt: Oh, then I cannot wait to see eight and the finale. That’ll be worth the wait. Now, this is obviously a passion project. I hear it in your voice. I hear the joy and see the smile on your face. What does it mean to you now to have this, this labor of love out to the masses on a regular basis?
 
JJ Bailey: It's surreal. I will say, you know, just for me personally, I've worked for quite a while to try to get something on the air. Having something on the air is, it's incredibly special. But probably the most special part of that is, you know, is my, I've shot a couple pilots before. I've done that, but seeing what goes into getting a series, 10 episodes on the air. How many people contribute in meaningful ways, and how many people pour -- they don't just contribute like I mean; we had an incredible team behind us that wasn't just showing up to work and doing their job. I mean, we have people just pouring their passion into this. And seeing that is an incredibly humbling experience, and makes you just, I'll speak for myself, it makes me just want the show to be successful so much more, because I see what other people put into this thing, and that's been a huge joy for me, to see the level of passion other people came to the table with and really put into this. It was, it was incredibly special.
 
John Betancourt: The last question that I have for you today, what are you most proud of when it comes to what you've assembled here in season one?
 
JJ Bailey: I gotta say the cast, man. I mean, the show, the show is super fun, but it wouldn't be the show without the cast, you know, and casting is really tricky. You know, you need chemistry between everybody, you know, one, one sort of misstep that doesn't quite feel natural, doesn't feel right, and it can kind of break the vibe. And I will say, from top to bottom, we got such a special cast. And if I step away from the TV of it all, just watching these people has been so fun. You know, in between takes and offset, they're just really great people who enjoy being in each other's company. Melissa (Roxburgh) being the number one on the call sheet, she sets an incredible tone. She's so welcoming and warm and fun to be around that I think you know, the set, for as dark as the show can be, the set was an incredibly fun and lighthearted place where just you could tell everybody was having fun being there. And so I would say the cast, and honestly, the crew too, which, you know, we have, Jeff Rafner helped put together a lot of the people that we worked with behind the scenes, and he worked magic, putting together just the right, right people, so that that's probably the biggest thing I'm most proud of, is the team behind the show.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.