This story contains details from the third and final season ofSweet ToothonNetflix.
That was one of our mantras.
DEADLINE You dealt with the same problems thatStranger Thingsdid, right?
Netflix
That it was a race against time before the kids grew up?
MICKLEIt was always hovering, yes.
It was hovering back at the beginning when we cast Christian.
Christian was about as young as we could really cast at that point.
It made making it incredibly hard, but it was really worth it and we just lucked out.
Christian is a full-on teenager now, as is Naledi Murray who plays Wendy.
DEADLINE So that answers the ending question.
Both you and Netflix decided early on when it would end.
MICKLEYeah, I mean it was always part of the pitch.
DEADLINE So the comic books do, for the most part, offer a beginning, middle and end?
I think it was maybe 40 issues and they had probably four big arcs.
It wraps up really beautifully.
MICKLENo, I think the comics were much more melancholy and kind of weird.
Jeff has this really beautiful kind of sadness to the way that he writes and tells stories.
And I think when I started adapting it in 2016, it was a dark period in the world.
It was a dark period for me, personally.
I dont know that Id want to live in this world that is so melancholy.
Its so brutal in the comics.
What if hes the one whos seeing all this stuff?
That was the impetus and that just kept growing.
But it really wasnt that strategic.
It was really more of having come from so many post-apocalyptic stories, especially in the early 2010s.
I feel like Ive seen post-apocalyptic stories before.
Whats a new version of this that could feel fresh through Guss eyes?
Theres weird characters, its weird concept steps combined together.
I feel like this might just be weird for people.
It taught me a lot about how far you’re able to go in stories these days.
DEADLINE If you could magically turn back time, would you have launched this show during the pandemic?
MICKLEI think it did help us in season one, and I remember that being another thing too.
We started shooting the pilot before the pandemic in 2019.
There were all these decisions we were making, like should background actors be wearing masks in the hospital.
And then we were up to our third episode when the pandemic really hit in 2020.
I was like, man, this couldnt be the worst timing for us.
The world finally was ready to turn the corner.
That was almost like the catalytic event when the show opened.
DEADLINE Is there anything about seasons one and two that you wouldve done differently?
Are we going to have a go at chase science?
I think we were smart to say, lets stay the course and tell our story.
Were never going to be able to get ahead of it, so lets tell our story.
Were telling a dystopian storybook fairytale here.
So Im glad we made that decision and I think that has worked well.
But for the most part, Im glad that we told the story that we did.
DEADLINE Alright, so onto the finale.
How much did you ruminate over the look of the antler tree?
Was it an antler tree in the comic books?
That was our mythology.
Whats going to be a symbol for how it comes together?
It was really our production designer, Nick Bassett, and the production team.
They were working on that while we were in season two.
They were already and sculpting it.
And we didnt want it to be CG.
We wanted that to be a real build.
DEADLINE You had this really profound line,human is the disease, the sick is the cure.
Where did that come from?
MICKLEYeah, it is.
Thats our writers Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt.
And it was one of those moments of, how did you guys nail that?
I even asked them who had that, and I dont think even they remembered who had that.
DEADLINE Did they also do Gus speech about humans in the last episode?
MICKLENo, that was me.
So theres a jeopardy that you sort of missed out on.
And thats something that we write to from a storytelling point of view.
So that was something that we really made season three about.
His superpower is really hope and finding the best in humanity.
DEADLINE Those people who play Rosies wolf boys.
They must have been so happy to stand up at the end of each day.
MICKLEOne of them was Amie Donald, who plays the doll in Megan.
She lives in New Zealand.
She played hybrids for us in season one.
She was just so good with movement.
And every time we had a hybrid who was not Gus, we would call Amie.
In season two, we ended up casting her as the monkey girl because shes also a gymnast.
The core strength that it requires is insane.
So they wore these [special shoes] that pushed their ankles to resemble a dogs hind legs.
DEADLINE We have to talk about the car chase in the snow.
Where and how was that done?
MICKLEYeah, that was kind of new.
The biggest challenge to season three was how we shot in the summertime in New Zealand.
Theres no snow, no arctic canyon.
We ended up using miniature photography.
I have a model of the beast sitting here next to me thats remote controlled.
That was incredibly detailed.
Then we actually used little miniature sets with the snow.
It was really a mashup of on stage with smoke and mirrors and handcrafted sort of trickery.
MICKLEWe did the pilot with him in person.
And Im sure he was thinking, thats never going to happen.
And then he did all of his recordings remotely through Covid.
It was a really special day on set.
DEADLINE Now that its over, can you name your favorite hybrid from the show?
That baby puppy in the pilot still has my heart.
And when you touched it, it felt like a baby.
It was this Jim Henson kind of magic coming into life.
But then, of course, Gus will always be the favorite.
