It doesn’t get more “real” than twerking upside down on TikTok while talking about how your dad cheated on your mom.

But when a video like that lands in the hands of a writer and producer who can relate on multiple levels, that bite-sized quirkiness can turn into a network television sitcom.

Mayan Lopez, daughter of comedian and actor George Lopez, posted the aforementioned video to TikTok and Debby Wolfe (One Day at a Time, Love, Victor) was immediately hooked. The younger Lopez was open and honest and able to add a comedic element to very real issues she had been dealing with. 

Debby immediately saw an opportunity and now two years later, NBC has just ordered a full season of Lopez vs. Lopez, a scripted and on-air playing out of George and Mayan’s recently reconciled relationship. The show is also the only Latinx comedy on the network schedule and Debby is the second Latina in television history to both create and showrun a network sitcom. We spoke about how she got her start in television writing and her passion to push forward Latinx voices both onscreen and off.

Tell me about your experience with the NBC Writers on the Verge program and what you took away from it.

I definitely owe my career to the Writers on the Verge program! I’m a walking billboard for them, it was such an incredible experience.

I grew up in Hollywood, Florida. And when I came out to LA, I didn’t know anything about the television industry. I went to film school in Orlando and thought I was going to be an indie feminist filmmaker. But I was always too funny to get into the Sundance Lab or AFI or anything like that. I was told I wasn’t edgy enough.

Debby Wolfe

And so my calling was TV comedy – I just didn’t know it at that time. I made a short film called Gordita which played the festival circuit and was accepted into the DGA’s annual NBC Diversity Film Festival. That experience was incredible; we won the Audience Award and I met so many people there. They encouraged me to apply to the writers’ program as a television writer. My reaction was “I don’t know what that is.” So I took a sitcom spec class. I knew I had to bring the goods because they review about 800 scripts for 8 spaces. I studied every episode of Modern Family (at the time there were only 2 seasons) and broke them down, figuring out how they worked. 

I then wrote my own which was good enough for NBC to accept me into their program. It was 8 weeks and it was a grind! We had to write a spec program and an original and also had this type of “speed dating” with executives where writers would come in and talk to us. It was really great training for someone who came in knowing very little. I felt like I came out of there prepared to staff a writer’s room! They helped me get my agent at ICM and also with my first staff writing gig which was on the sitcom Whitney. It was just an incredible program. Eight of us were in it – we’re all still great friends to this day and most of us are showrunners, which is really cool.

Let’s talk about Lopez vs. Lopez – the TikTok video that inspired it and how you developed that snippet into a network television show.

Like so many people during the pandemic, I turned to my phone for comfort… and TikTok caters to what you like. I’m a first-generation Latina and my feed was full of anything Latino. Mayan Lopez’s video popped up – it was the one where she was correcting some rumors that were circulating about her parents’ divorce. She was just putting it all out there. She’s a Gen Z Latina calling out her boomer father for all of his infidelity… and the entire time she was doing it twerking upside down. I thought it was hilarious and must have watched it 50 times that night. I just thought “this is the show”. It was a real story and she was someone I could relate to and connect with as a person with her own daddy issues.

I emailed Bruce Helford, who was my boss on The Conners and a co-creator of the original George Lopez show. I said, “This is the show and how we bring George back to network television.” They had been trying to reboot the original, but after seeing Mayan’s video I thought it should be a new story between him and his daughter and what they were going through. Bruce agreed and we just went from there.

Mayan and George are literally in the process of reconnecting while on the show and it’s all happening in real time. It’s remarkable that they would be open to having what would normally be a very private family issue played out in such a public way.

Yes, it’s taken a lot of courage. And the fact that George didn’t stop her! He talks about how he was on the golf course and was asked “did you see that video your daughter did and you let her put you out there like that?” He wasn’t going to stop her – it’s like how his own comedy also comes from himself. That’s what she grew up knowing – speaking your truth.

How do you translate your main characters’ real life, heavy subject matter into comedy in the writers’ room?

First of all, I have George. He is the master of sharing his pain, but making it funny. That’s something that I grew up doing in my family as well; we would get into these big fights but then at the end of it, we were always laughing. Laughter is medicine. It’s healing.

And tragedy plus time equals comedy.

George Lopez. Photo by Casey Durkin/ NBC

Mayan and George had reconnected over the pandemic and started talking again. Mayan had also done a lot of therapy at that point too – she was ready for it and ready to talk about these things with openness and honesty. George and I also know what’s funny about their life. So it’s like I have these two muses on the show and they are incredible.

And the rest of the cast as well. This cast is stellar and I am really blessed to have all these great actors. I brought them all into the writers’ room actually to share their stories with each other.

When you can give the characters traits of the actors, they can actually perform those things and it just adds to the authenticity of the character. So I brought every actor in and asked them “What do you like?”, “What’s your family story like?”, “What have you been through?”, “What do you connect with?” And they all felt very close to these characters that they’re playing, which is really fortunate. Nothing’s off the table with the Lopezes. I think that’s just part of Latinos too! We just put it all out there and don’t hold back. 

Is most of the show biographical or is there a lot of fiction incorporated?

A lot of the stories are things that have happened. The core of it, the emotions behind every episode, the themes are real. And then the stories are built around those. Real life instances that either George and Mayan have had, or things that I’ve gone through. Or things that the other writers in the room have gone through. I’m very fortunate in that I have an amazing writers’ room and they are all willing to share their issues with me. That was day one of the writers’ room: I asked “What’s your daddy issue?” Everything you see is something that’s happened to somebody, either our cast or one of our writers.

As only the second Latina to create and run a network sitcom, what has it been like to work with and learn from George?

Let me tell you, I was so nervous when I met him for the first time. He’s my comedy hero, you know? I grew up watching him and I felt so close to him. Latinos and Latinas are still vastly underrepresented in media. And he is the most well-known comedian. So meeting him for the first time all I could think was “Oh God, I hope he likes me”. I met with him and instantly it was like “familia”. He made fun of me and I felt like I got him and he got me. I even told him a story about my mom’s reaction when I told her I made it to Hollywood and was going to be a sitcom writer. She said, “But you’re not funny”. You never get too high with family! But I pinch myself every day for having the chance to work with him.

What have you learned from previous projects and collaborations that you’ve brought with you to running this show now?

I think the biggest lesson that I got from those previous writers’ rooms was to keep things grounded. Keep things real and tell real stories. “Wouldn’t it be funny if…” is not a good place to start.

Let’s start from “This happened to me” instead. That was the school that Mike Royce and Gloria Calderon Kellett came from; Gloria came from How I Met Your Mother and Mike from Everybody Loves Raymond and we also had Norman Lear on One Day at a Time. The condition was always “let’s tell the truth”.

And that was the same thing with Bruce Helford on The Conners. I really held onto that and it was something that I had already been doing in my own work, just naturally. It might sound crazy to say, but I don’t know how to make things up! Something has to have happened to me, or I have to have seen it happen to somebody else for me to be able to tell the story. So truth telling was something that I took from those rooms and continue to do now.

Even more so with this show, it seems!

Yes… it’s interesting because it’s like we’re voyeurs watching Mayan and George because they’re still in process. It’s a journey and sometimes when we’re watching them perform on stage, they’re saying things to each other that they haven’t yet said to each other in real life. They have these moments and it’s really beautiful. You’re watching them heal live.

Mayan grew up on the set of George Lopez and a lot of her pain happened throughout that time. So it feels full circle, like the only way they could heal their relationship was on the set of their own network sitcom.

How does that affect the script? Is there a lot of improv just by nature of the conversation they’re having?

They are incredible professionals and anything they improv is always additive and brilliant and funny. It’s always great.

Tell me about Mi Vida Loba, the production company you started.

Yes, it translates to “my wolf life” for my last name. What really drives me is representation and I feel like growing up, I felt so starved to see myself represented on screen. I couldn’t fully connect to these characters that I was seeing.

I’ve always been committed to representation, pushing that forward and hopefully opening the doors for more. It’s very strange to be 60% of the population, but only 10% on TV. So I want to keep pushing to increase that with the projects I’m pitching.