Never has there been a television series quite like Transparent. It's one of the newest shows to come to Amazon and will be released in full before the end of the week.

The trailer below should leave you captivated enough to tune in, but on top of this, we've got a new and exclusive interview to share with show creator and director Jill Soloway, as well as the lead actor Jeffrey Tambor who takes on trans character Maura. Keep reading to find out what they had to say about representing the trans community.

First of all Jill, how long has this show and idea been with you?

I think for a long time. Ever since I worked on Six Feet Under I've been wanting to do my own version of a show about a Los Angeles family.

And Jeffrey - what was it that drew you to the show and your role?

Well I guess I just found it so authentic. I knew about Jill - I'd heard about Afternoon Delight and I knew that she won the Director award for Sundance - and I read the script and I just kept saying: 'I'm in, I'm in!' It's the part of a lifetime. I love the Pfefferman family and it just seems so singular and authentic and right, I would be a fool to turn this role down.

How does the show compare to your previous work?

Jeffrey: I've gone on record saying this is the most transformative role and experience I've ever had. I just wanna keep going on and on and on. I love it, I love the work. I feel as if they really are my family. Jill and I - she just protects me artistically and personally and I'm very proud.

It's a very, very easy show to talk about because it seems to go in. People seem to really respond to it, not only because of the subject matter but because it's a family, it's about secrets and it's about life. It's a funny - it zigs when it should've zagged, it zags when it should've zigged - it's perfect.

Jill: I take very seriously the fact that Amazon is reinventing every aspect of our culture, including the rules around what it means to make television. They've given me so much artistic freedom - an unprecedented amount of artistic freedom and what they expect from you is to really reinvent an audience's relationship to television. I understand that people have a lot of things they could be doing - they could be Facebooking, or on Twitter, or shopping on Amazon - and so they pushed me to make the kind of show that really holds people's attention, and that pushes me to be in my 'risk state' and create work that feels undeniable.

So working with Amazon has been a good experience for you?

Jill: Yeah, it's been amazing. Revelatory.

Credit: Amazon
Credit: Amazon
Credit: Amazon
Credit: Amazon

Did you both feel a pressure to represent the trans community and really make this a subject that's more talked about, even more so than it is now?

Jill: Yeah, I mean I think when we first started we were just trying to make a show that was funny and deep, and kind of sexy, but then as we realised we have a responsibility of where the trans community is at this moment in terms of the civil rights movement, and recognising that there really hasn't been a show - there's been Orange Is The New Black with the trans character - but a show that has trans in the title and really seeks to be that first out of the gate show about what it feels like to be trans is a huge opportunity and we feel very privileged to take it on.

Jeffrey: I feel that Maura is the most, I mean, she's very, very real to me. I'm very honoured to be associated with her. I like to say that my politics are in my performance - I strive to make her very real, very human, very vulnerable and I was throw-up nervous during the making of this, because I knew, it's a big responsibility. Way over and above just taking on a regular character. What I want is that, I want light to be shed on this subject. I don't think we're the answer but we're certainly one of the answers so that this conversation can move forward, for there to be a world rid of prejudice, and phobias, and the ignorance that there is around this subject. So I'm very honoured to be part of that, and I don't take it lightly. The scene that I had to do with Sarah (Amy Landecker) - when I come out to my daughter - I was shaking so much as the actor, but then I just said: 'Maura would be shaking too', so it actually works for the character.

What sort of research did you have to do in preparation for the series?

Jeffrey: Well I was very helped by members in the transgender community. I had consultation with Jennifer Boylan - I read all her books - we had a wonderful meeting in New York. And Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst - they really helped me.

But also the role is so beautifully written, the map is right before me. The big surprise for me was that the journey that was most formidable was not indeed the exterior, the ensemble if you will, of Maura, but the interior and going into a place within me that I found, and I was expertly led by Jill and her wonderful directing, and I thought that was the most astounding and beneficial and really a beautiful experience that I had.

Jill, what approach did you have to directing the show?

Well honestly it feels a lot like the show I was waiting my entire life to do. When I was working on Six Feet Under I think I dreamed of having my own family that felt like the Fisher family, and it's really just an artistic dream come true to be given this kind of space and trust and push to just go further, further, further into my deepest and riskiest artistic spaces. I feel like I've been given a patron, or a museum, or a curator who really sees the art of it as opposed to the commerce of it. I understand that it is a commercial enterprise for Amazon, but I loved how they understand that they can get the best product by giving the most artistic freedom, so it's like a dream come true.

Without giving away too much, what should viewers expect from the pilot episode?

Jill: Just a great, great family soap opera. We find ourselves very quickly talking about the trans movement - almost immediately as we start getting deep into this - but honestly I think it doesn't matter if you're trans, or gay, or Jewish, or American, or any of those things. I think all you need to do is have been in a family, because it feels so familiar and so funny and so soapy, and asks the questions about who's dating who, and who's lying to who, and who invited who over for dinner without telling the other person.

You know that moment when you're on the phone with your mom and she says: 'OK well anyway, whatever you do, don't tell your sister!', and then you call up your sister and say: 'Mom told me not to tell, so don't tell anybody that I'm telling you that she told me this, and also don't tell that she told me not to tell!' - it's that kind of thing that everybody can relate to that I think will allow a huge number of people to tune in and love it.

Jeffrey, how was the first time getting into hair and makeup and becoming Maura?

You know, it was - I had experts around me. I had great stylists, Marie Schley and Emma Johnston Burton did my wonderful makeup, and Marie Larkin did my hair - and by the way I haven't been in a hair department in 50 years!

But you know, I don't know how to say this... I've been looking at my face for about 70 years, so to see Maura come to life every day was a pleasure. I would almost metabolically change when I underwent that change. Again, it was the exterior of it and it led me to a certain realisation of Maura but, most of all, it was interior.

But to answer your question, I loved it. I had great experts and Maura came alive. I actually - it was very interesting, I had a picture of Maura in my head and as they put costumes on me and wigs on me and makeup on me, there she was. She's a good friend of mine. I really like Maura.

Jill: And Maura transformed, somewhere around episode four she becomes more comfortable with herself and she sort of transforms into her most glorious self. And that doesn't mean a huge amount of hair and makeup and wigs and lashes and high heels - she really settles into a really powerful, feminist, I like to call it a California therapist on vacation. She just really is fabulous. She's not afraid of a caftan either!

How satisfied are you both with the product?

Jill: Oh we're just thrilled! I can't wait for Friday!

Jeffrey: We're just jumping up and down. It's sort of awe-inspiring that in one moment it's going to go all over the United States and into England and Germany - the revolution is here and we couldn't be more happy with how Amazon is treating us - we're being handled just beautifully. And ten episodes are going on and people are just queuing up!

Finally, what's next for you both?

Jill: A little bit of a break and then hopefully we'll get an order for season two and the Pfeffermans will be reunited and we'll get to do this all over again!

Jeffrey: Yeah!

Season one of Transparent will be available to watch exclusively on Amazon Prime Instant Video on Friday September 26.


by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
find me on and follow me on