How the Coen Brothers influenced Chris Estrada Hulu comedy ‘This Fool’

nypost.com:

Hulu — but its sensibilities can be attributed, in part, to the cinema.“It’s a really funny, human show,” Estrada, 38, told The Post. “Me and my co-creators [Jake Weisman, Matt Ingebretson and Pat Bishop] wanted to make a comedy that looks like a film.

We’re film buffs and we were inspired by the Coen Brothers to capture that offbeat tone.”That it does. “This Fool,” premiering Aug.

12, is based on Estrada’s background growing up in South Central LA, where gang life was prevalent. Here, that takes a humorous turn when series protagonist Julio Lopez (Estrada) — a milquetoast-y do-gooder who lives at home with his mother and works for a nonprofit gang support center called Hugs Not Thugs — tries to rehabilitate his tough older cousin, Luis (Frankie Quiñones), a gang member who’s released from prison after serving eight years — and who thinks Julio is much too soft (despite his having good dental insurance).“Luis is an amalgamation of three of my cousins, and one of them is named Luis,” Estrada said. “At one point, two of them were gang members who went to prison [they’re free men now].

Most of the time when you see gang members on TV they’re robbing people and committing crimes; it’s interesting to subvert that and to see these guys earnestly trying to change their lives.