'Pam & Tommy,' 'Only Murders in the Building' and 'Russian Doll' Editors Explain How They Cut Together Their Most Challenging Scenes

The editors of 'Only Murders in the Building' also detail how they found the right tonal balance in the series.

‘Pam & Tommy,’ ‘Only Murders in the Building’ and ‘Russian Doll’ Editors Explain How They Cut Together Their Most Challenging Scenes

Sebastian Stan and Lily James on Hulu’s limited series ‘Pam and Tommy.’Erica Parise/Hulu

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Tatiana Riegel’s long collaboration with director Craig Gillespie includes I, Tonya — the dark comedy about the Tonya Harding 1990s figure skating scandal for which the editor earned an Oscar nomination — and their latest, Pam & Tommy, for which she again had to walk a fine line between humor and seriousness.

“For Craig to be attached to it, I knew there was going to be a certain emotional level to it,” she says of the Hulu limited series, which revolves around the marriage of model-actress Pamela Anderson and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and their notorious sex tape. “And it would be intriguing in addition to his comic sense, [showcasing] his ability to sort of walk back and forth between those two places in a lovely way.”

Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

For Hulu’s comedic whodunit Only Murders in the Building, editors weave the story of three tenants in an Upper West Side New York apartment building — struggling theater director Oliver Putnam (Martin Short), young Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) and retired actor Charles-Haden Savage (series co-creator Steve Martin) — who team up as amateur investigators after a tenant turns up dead under suspicious circumstances. “It’s really balancing the three characters, to make sure that everybody had their say … and to just make sure that all the characters that are in the building were part of the story,” editor Julie Monroe says, adding that the edit also was about “always keeping that sort of pressure cooker of the apartment and all of its inhabitants, and still have the comedy of the story.” Throughout the season, the team of editors drop clues and misdirects as the characters (and audience) try to figure out who is the murderer.

Lazy loaded image — Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin on the Hulu series.Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu

“You can follow [a] character and not necessarily dismiss them as a suspect,” Monroe says. Through the season, suspects range from bassoonist and Charles’ love interest Jan (Amy Ryan) to Sting, who plays himself. Monroe notes that Jan (let’s just say she’s a pivotal character) “was the one we took the most care to try to make sure that every time she was a little bit suspect, there was something redeeming in her character, mostly through her relationship with Steve Martin.”

Russian Doll (Netflix)

On season two of the Netflix series, Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) continues her metaphysical journey, which this time involves time travel to the 1960s, ’80s and the World War II era, as well as “body swaps” with her mother, played by Chloë Sevigny. “I looked at [the time travel] as the characters going to a different location and focused on how they would act in these new locations and how the people in these locations would react to her,” says Todd Downing, who earned an American Cinema Editors Eddie Award nomination for season one before adding a co-producer title for season two. The body swapping in these time periods and locations was the main challenge, he adds.

“Trying to find the right rhythm of cutting between two actors playing the same person was not easy. We were tweaking that in all the episodes until the very end,” he says. “The audience needs to follow Nadia on her journey while not forgetting that everyone in those scenes is seeing her as her mother or grandmother. It was double the work that you would normally do in tracking an actor’s performance in the edit.”

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.