Interview with “Government Cheese” Filmmaker Paul Hunter

It was a pleasure to speak with showrunner, executive producer, writer and director Paul Hunter about his new series Government Cheese, which is now streaming on Apple TV+.  In our wide-ranging interview we discussed his inspiration for the series, breaking the traditional rules of television and creating out of the box. 

Government Cheese is a surrealist family comedy set in 1969 San Fernando Valley that tells the story of the Chambers, a quirky family pursuing lofty and seemingly impossible dreams, beautifully unfettered by the realities of the world. When Hampton Chambers (Oyelowo) is released from prison, his long-awaited family reunion doesn’t go quite as he’d planned. During his absence, Hampton’s wife Astoria (Missick) and sons Einstein (Ellison) and Harrison (Di’Allo Winston) have formed an unconventional family unit, and Hampton’s return spins their world into chaos. 

KOUGUELL: The series is loosely based on your family.  

HUNTER:  It was from a time growing up in the San Fernando Valley. I was thinking about my childhood. The Harrison character, who’s into the Native American stuff, was inspired by my neighbor, a Native American Apache, who was like a mentor. I was excited learning about his culture. My brother, who’s more like the Einstein character, was kind of odd, he loves language and yo-yos and all sorts of funny things like that.  

My dad was incarcerated for a little while when we were young, and we used to go visit him. My mom was always kind of creative. She just always encouraged us to be open about things no matter what was going on. And my dad as well. All that wrapped up into my thoughts. After I shot a movie in 2003, I wanted to do something that was personal, something that I could speak to, and something that’s unique. My family is a little odd and funny and quirky, and I thought, there’s no Black characters out there like that. I want to show the other side. So that’s where it comes from.  

KOUGUELL: How did your family feel about writing about them?  

HUNTER:  They’re tickled. At one point, we rented out a stage, had actors come in and we did performances there. We all read the script together. My family’s been involved in it for so long. It’s just a dream come true. 

KOUGUELL: Your characters have such distinct voices. Let’s talk about your writing process.  

HUNTER: What helped me figure out how to express myself better in scripts is that I took some acting classes. It was really helpful having that so that you can build from an emotional place; like finding the nugget in scenes and working on making sure that the emotion and that nugget is pulled through in a scene and in a story. It was learning to be available and being open really helped my confidence in writing and directing.  

I love to build things from a place of truth. With the Hampton character, his whole thing is about, are you going to go back to what you're comfortable doing or are you going to trust and have faith in something that you have no control over. The obstacles that are in his scenes and his overall arc are all about testing his faith. 

KOUGUELL: My interpretation was that it’s not necessarily only his religious faith, but also faith in himself as well as his faith in his family. 

HUNTER: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He’s like a modern-day Jonah. At its core, that’s been the journey of this project; it’s been about perseverance. Even as a filmmaker and as a writer, it’s not an easy journey. A lot of times you’re getting reset and you become unsure about what you want and how to get there. Figuring out what you want to say is a big process. It’s not always a straight line. 

KOUGUELL: In the series you allow the viewer to find their own meanings and interpretations.  

HUNTER: That’s how I really wanted to express this story; to show it as much as you can, visually and poetically, so that the audience can interpret things the way they want. And, like you said, not force feeding it. And so, there’s more nuance. I think that also makes it interesting for the actors to perform because there are layers in there.  

KOUGUELL: Tell me about your collaboration with Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner Aeysha Carr. 

HUNTER: It’s always great to have creative partners, especially when you’re trying to expand stories and look for different points of view. Aisha has more of a traditional television background, and it was helpful to have that type of creative person to bring a structure to it like with this 10-episode structure.  

I wanted to challenge any kind of traditional structure so that it pushed the project into a new space. I was really resisting the television format, and I wanted to try to chip that up as much as possible and make each episode feel like little indie movies but still have their arc.  

Aisha came in to help pull the thread, pull the arcs through the episodic world and then I tried to kind of chip it back. When you have that creative dance, it’s a nice thing.  

Working with Aisha, but also, working with the actors and the crew, it all goes back to the acting classes that I took. It’s all about how you communicate the story you want to tell. The acting classes were for my writing and then you thread that all the way through all of your departments: casting, costuming, cinematography, production design, writing—all of that pulls through. 

KOUGUELL: We were talking about creating out of the box and breaking the traditional rules of television. What was your inspiration? 

HUNTER: My mom and my dad; they always encouraged us not to be a follower and not do whatever anybody else is doing. You don’t have to be that. You can do your own thing. It’s like we’re our little Addams family here and don’t be afraid to be different.  

I really wanted to show Black characters that you hadn’t seen before. It was important to be, as you said, out of the box or just different. And that’s hard when you’re in this industry. When you come out with something different, it takes a minute for people to wrap their head around it, which was the journey of the feature script that I started with, which is now this television show. Then, you can relate that back to, OK, well, it’s a story about perseverance.  

If you look at the Hampton character, he has all of these challenges, and so it’s about his perseverance. How is he going to get this drill sold? How is he going to get his family back? How is he going to be able to stay on the right path? So, the emotions behind it are continuing to thread through. 

Watch the trailer here.