TV Talk: Kathryn Hahn, Carnegie Mellon grad share a role in Hulu’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Based on author Cheryl Strayed’s collection of “Dear Sugar” advice columns, Hulu’s “Tiny Beautiful Things,” now streaming, follows aspiring writer Clare (Kathryn Hahn, “Wanda­Vision”), who lucks into a role as an advice columnist that allows her to work out the mess in her own life.

Sarah Pidgeon, a 2018 Carnegie Mellon University grad, co-stars as the younger version of Clare in flashback scenes that help to establish Clare’s mental state in the present, which includes a barely-there marriage to Danny (Quentin Plair), a teen daughter who doesn’t want to be in Clare’s presence and a stalled writing career until she takes over as the writer behind “Dear Sugar.”

Adapted for Hulu by veteran TV writer Liz Tigelaar (“Little Fires Everywhere,” “Life Unexpected”), the eight-episode series arrives in 30-minute installments, just the right amount of time for a story that’s a mix of comedic and heartbreaking moments.

“I was lucky to be able to go to set and see Kathryn embody Clare,” Pidgeon said in January during Hulu’s portion of the Television Critics Association winter 2023 press tour. “It was sort of like a cheat getting to see this incredible talent be this character. And we had a few workshops where we were able to find that tie, that heart, that beat within both of us and through a lot of memory recall and just thinking about the character and where they are at in these different points in their life and how … these experiences that you see Clare go through really stick with her.”

In a follow-up Zoom interview late last month, Pidgeon said there were certain key movements both she and Hahn used, including a hand over the heart that echoes a motion made by Clare’s mother (Merritt Wever).

“I hope the audience can see some similarities,” Pidgeon said. “That was certainly something that I kept in mind, but it was important for me to understand where Clare was in her journey when you see her and what happens before life starts spinning out for her when you meet her at 18.”

Pidgeon, who now is filming an undisclosed movie in Portland, Ore., got her first professional on-camera role as Party Girl in an episode of the underrated, filmed-in-Pittsburgh drama series “One Dollar.”

“I had a small, little role, but it was cool to step foot on a set for the first time in Pittsburgh while training to do the thing that I do,” she said.

After graduation, Pidgeon guest-starred in an episode of “Gotham” and was then a series regular on Amazon’s Prime Video series “The Wilds,” filmed in New Zealand, for two seasons.

“CMU was a big workload, and I think that goes for computer science majors and School of Drama majors, but it prepares all those students for the industry,” said Pidgeon, who grew up in Birmingham, Mich. “These are intense environments that you find yourself in after you graduate, and undergrad was no different. They really try to prepare you to succeed, and they push you. College is hard … 18 to 22 is hard, no matter how you slice it, or what you do. … I’m so grateful to Carnegie Mellon. I am so glad I spent those four years there. I had incredible teachers and beautiful friendships, and I learned a lot in preparing me for this.”

During Hulu’s January news conference, Strayed explained that what happens in the series — particularly how she took over as the writer of “Dear Sugar” — happened pretty much the same way in real life.

“In (the book) ‘Tiny Beautiful Things,’ the advice I give as Sugar, very often I tell stories from my life,” Strayed said. “So from the beginning (for the series), we knew Clare isn’t going to be Cheryl, but many of her most important experiences — beautiful and ugly, painful and true — had to be mine. She had to have a mother who died young of cancer like I did. She had to have gotten married scandalously young like I did. She had to have grown up poor and working class like I did. Those are the things that made me. Those are the things that made Clare.”

Hahn said she was drawn first to Tigelarr’s script and then to Strayed’s book.

“I am a huge fan of anything that takes into account the complexity that we all are as human beings and finds compassion in that,” Hahn said, noting she found generosity in the give-and-take of questions and answers in Strayed’s original columns. “There was such a heart in there, and I saw that Liz had adapted that into this, and I was incredibly moved to be asked to be a part of it.”