Broke Girl Crush: ‘2 Broke Girls’ Writer Patrick Walsh

Everyone keeps asking us if we're involved in the show 2 BROKE GIRLS, and it's awkward because, well, we're not. But even if they are making tons of money off of our idea  the concept while we continue to actually be Broke Girls, we don't hate. To prove there's no hard feelings, we asked Patrick Walsh, a 2 BROKE GIRLS writer, to answer some inane questions about the show, his life as a sexy writer, and, of course, how it feels to have stolen our thunder. 

BGG: How do you sleep at night knowing that the premise for the show you work for was stolen from 2 poor little broke girls living in LA, just trying to make good?  Kidding! We love that the ‘Broke Girl’ is enjoying her moment in the sun. Our readers already know way too much about these two broke girls (us).  Want to tell us a bit about yours?  

PW: What if I just said no and ended the interview? I won’t do that. The beautiful and hilarious Kat Dennings plays Max, a tough, sarcastic broad who lives in a crappy Williamsburg apartment and waitresses in a diner. The beautiful and hilarious Beth Behrs plays Caroline Channing, a spoiled but smart and savvy heiress who is penniless after her Bernie Madoff-esque father got their assets frozen and went to prison. This once ridiculously wealthy girl has to learn how to be poor with Max as her guide, co-worker, and roommate. And lover? Time will tell. But probably not. But maybe!

BGG: We loved the first episode! What kinda trouble should we expect them to get into from here?

PW: This is a sitcom, so expect hijinks and shenanigans a-plenty! There'll be breaking and entering, hoarding, cupcake wars, hipster bashing, karaoke, a really dark and funny trip to a subway dentist office, and, in my episode - a 90's themed party that gets out of control. We always strive to have the comedy come from a very real, emotional, grounded place. We’re trying to be the new ALF is what I’m saying.

BGG: All we really care about are boys. Tell us about the men we might expect to see on ‘2 Broke Girls’. Any 'Mr. Bigs' in their future?

PW: Obvi!!! Well, our showrunner actually created Mr. Big! True story, my boss is Michael Patrick King, who ran SEX AND THE CITY for years and wrote and directed both of those movies. He’s a genius with relationship stories, clearly. It was important to me when I came aboard that the show be 2 BROKE GIRLS, not 2 SINGLE GIRLS, because we’ve seen that before. But we’ve found a perfect balance. We have a full romance arc mapped out with Max and a Banksy-type street artist named Johnny, played by Nick Zano. He’s super funny and charming and looks like a young Brad Pitt. We get mistaken for each other a lot. Seriously, people are gonna flip out for their storyline. We take our time with it, but where it goes is just insanely good and those two have off-the-charts chemistry. Their scenes always make me feel funny in my bathing suit area.

BGG: We’re guessing a lot of your ‘Broke Girl’ inspiration comes from your girlfriend, who is a bona fide Broke Girl and who writes for us. Where else do you get inspiration? Did you have to do a lot of method-acting-esque research involving broke girls (i.e., scoping out the sale rack at Forever21, frequenting happy hours, stealing candy from babies, etc.)?

PW: I was broke pretty much my entire life, like couldn’t finance a trip to the zoo broke. No money. Nothing. I moved from Missouri to New York with seven hundred bucks to my name. A beer in New York costs seven hundred bucks. I used to steal my lunch from Cosi every single day. I’d scalp concert tickets. I used to sneak into the movies and spend the day theater hopping. I’ve worked for and been fired from nearly every temp agency in Manhattan and LA. Early on in LA, I bought a ’97 Saturn that exploded two weeks later, so I rode the bus for a year. A big Friday night for me was walking to the 7-11, buying a Slurpee, filling it with tequila, and walking the streets like a hobo. You never forget those hard times, or you do and then you stop being funny. Things were bad. Sure, now I eat shredded gold for breakfast and take a hot air balloon to work each morning, but it wasn’t always this way.

BGG: How’d you get involved with the show? What’s your background?

PW: We just submitted our material and had a phenomenal meeting with Michael and comedianWhitney Cummings – who co-created the show. As for my background, I was an NBC page in Manhattan, like Kenneth on 30 ROCK. That’s where I met my writing partner. He’s Korean, and the two of us used to give tours of 30 Rock (the building) where I’d introduce him as a Korean exchange page, and then he’d talk in broken English. The people on the tour would get so mad and weirdly racist, it was outrageous. I worked as a page on CONAN and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, both amazing experiences, Eventually Sonny and I wrote a pilot about our life as pages, got some important fans in LA, moved out here together thinking we’d be millionaires in a week…and then our lives completely fell apart. One heartbreak after another. We were so lonely and miserable and poor in Los Angeles at first. But we stuck to our guns, we kept plugging away (at our career, not each other) and got staffed as writing consultants on MTV’s ROB & BIG, a reality show. After that, we wrote for IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA for two years, then OUTSOURCED, and now 2 BROKE GIRLS, which looks like a huge hit. And now I can look back on those terrible times and laugh at them and use them in my work. Suck on that, terrible times!

BGG: Could you describe a typical day in the fast-paced day of a TV writer?  Working on a TV show is exactly how it is in the show 30 ROCK...right?

PW: Exactly. I spend most of my days flirting with Alec Baldwin. Well, every staff I’ve been on has been drastically different. On this show, everyone is assigned an episode. You have a week to write it, you turn it in, the showrunner makes changes if he wants. Then you do a table read with the staff and the network where the cast reads your script aloud. Hopefully there’s lot of laughter, but invariably a few things won’t work. Then we’ll punch it up as a writers’ room, and see a live rehearsal, fix any issues that spring up. We do each episode live for an audience on Tuesday night. If (God forbid) a joke doesn’t get a laugh, we huddle up and come up with a better one on the fly, which is super exciting. Those nights go until about midnight. And the next morning you’re back at work again to table read the next one! It is pretty insane, but it’s also insanely fun.

BGG: Are there mad hookups happening all the time in the writer’s room?

PW: I have literally never been in the writers’ room and not had my penis in someone. Ha, no! Crushes might spring up here and there, but it’s just too risky. If the show is a hit, you could be seeing these people every day for 5 years. You can’t be bringing all that baggage in every day. It’s more like a family, really. You’re crammed in a room with these people 50 hours a week, nobody’s dressing up all foxy trying to get boned. Maybe in the '70s, with all that sweet sweet '70s style cocaine flying around it happened more, but about as wild as we get these days is Red Bull. Sugar-Free Red Bull. 

BGG: What is it about writers that makes them oh-so-sexy?  Were you born with this je-ne-sais-quoi?

PW: I didn’t know you spoke German. Are writers sexy? I guess if Woody Allen can get laid, then they must be. Writers tend to be intelligent, funny people, and those qualities are always going to be appealing to the opposite sex. A lot of writers have major personal issues and darkness and drinking problems and let’s face it, that’s all sexy too. I don’t know why, but it is. Plus, you know, writers have jobs. Girls like jobs. 

Follow Patrick on Twitter @thepatrickwalsh. Watch 2 BROKE GIRLS tonight!