Why Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rachel Bloom Has "Never Given a S--t About People Liking" Her Character

Exclusive! Hear Bloom's "Santa Ana Winds" demo and get scoop on season 3 and the season 2 soundtrack

By Chris Harnick Mar 03, 2017 5:26 PMTags

Rachel Bloom has a lot to be proud of. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, her CW creation that netted her a Golden Globe, was renewed, is now airing overseas and just dropped a new soundtrack on Apple Music and iTunes (Spotify, Amazon, Google Play coming) that has 39 (!) songs, including demos and cut songs.

"I'm really proud of it. As [co-ceator Aline Brosh McKenna] has been saying, we've done now in seasons one and two, 82 songs. We are the only consistently original musical show that's airing right now," Bloom told E! News. "I'm just really proud of my coworkers, and myself, and everyone on the show works so hard. Every single one of these songs, in the making of the songs, the making of the music video, the writing, was a labor of love and took many, many drafts. Every one of these songs is precious to us."

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend stars Bloom as Rebecca Bunch, a lawyer who moves across country in an attempt to rekindle a romance with Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III), an ex-boyfriend from her teenage years at a summer camp. Over the course of the two seasons, Rebecca's motivations were exposed, she got Josh, lost Josh, ended up in a love triangle, lost another guy, Greg (Santino Fontana), got the original guy again and then was left at the altar by Josh.

It's been a wild ride and now with season three, Rebecca is going to live up to the show's title. Or is she?

Read on below for more.

You have 35 songs coming out on this season two album. Do you have a favorite? Is that like Sophie's Choice?
It's really hard because I can find what's good about every song. I'd say my top one— I'm just really proud of "The Math of Love Triangles," I really love that one.

I love "Remember That We Suffered." "You Go First" is fantastic, that's like all [Adam Schlesinger] and then similarly, "Thought Bubbles," which was spearheaded by [Jack Dolgen], is just really good. There are so many and then I'll say, "S—tshow," Greg's song, was the hardest, so far, on the show to write. That was striking a really specific tone and I'm really proud of the way it came out.

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"Period Sex" is on the CD and the video finally came out. Did The CW not let that air in full or was it always supposed to be an online thing?
We assumed they wouldn't let it air. I sent it to Patricia who's the head of the [standards and practices] and said, "Here's a song, there's no way we could put this on the air." There was a version in which maybe as a tag for an episode and it's just a really, really long tag. And she was like, "…No."

It's always hard with the FCC stuff because the FCC prohibits vulgar or graphic language and basically it's up to standards and practices to interpret what that means. I mean, I think the "cherry lube" line is probably what took it over the edge. Technically we don't say the words, vagina, clitoris, pussy—there's actually no technically bad words in it, but it's, um, yeah. [Laughs.] I just did press for the show in Paris and the journalists' questions were about the song "Sexy French Depression" and "Period Sex."

How did you decide on the bonus tracks?
That was a real Sophie's Choice actually. We had some really fun demo tracks this year…On Jack's they're from him doing them in the writers room, which is so, so fun to have on the CD, so you could really hear the live feedback and also what our process is like…you can really hear the live feedback and what the process is like. There were some more cut songs than the two we have, the "Sex Toys" and "Miss Douche" ones, we had a lot of different ones to choose from. I chose the 6 a.m. demo for myself to really…as a TV nerd, I'm interested in the artistic process…The demo of me doing the "Santa Ana Winds" was me at 6 a.m., exhausted, I mean my voice was just shredded, in the car. It shows you what our process is, which is we are working 24/7 and we are exhausted.

Listen to Bloom's "Santa Ana Winds" demo up top.

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I've turned a lot of friends onto the show, but some come back to me and say they have trouble liking Rebecca at times—
Sure.

Do you ever have trouble liking her?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I have never given a s--t about people liking her because she's meant to be somewhat, at times, a bubbly antihero. What I care about is if they understand where she's coming from. I don't really care about likability, but I want people to understand why she's doing what she's doing. In the fourth episode of season one, she f--ks another guy while she's on a date with Greg. You're not supposed to like her at all in the moment—she doesn't even like herself in that moment. I think that's what I would say is: Any moment where the audience doesn't like Rebecca, Rebecca also does not like Rebecca. [Laughs.]

With that said, most of the show Rebecca doesn't like Rebecca. There are so many other things that we're doing that we're passed likability. I think and I hope that the audience knows, when she does things the show is not saying this is normal or her actions are to be emulated…I care about creating a character where you understand where they're coming from and understand it and when they do shitty things you're like, "Whoa, I really hate this person, but I get it. Because of this, this and this and this, they did that even though it's really bad."

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What can you tease about next season? Aline said Rebecca is going full crazy ex-girlfriend.
Aline and I are like balls deep in writing the season right now and what's really fun about it is it's kind of the promise of the premise of the show. You think Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, you think, not necessarily what we're going to do in the season, you think what Rebecca now thinks her role is. We leave the season with the underscore of "Villain of My Own Story." Rebecca's now like, "OK, I'm going full crazy ex-girlfriend," and then the question is how successful is that? What does that look like on her? Is she a villain? Can she be a villain?

Those are things we're currently discussing. I'm really excited for the season because it's super dynamic and it's kind of a bunch of  things that we wanted to do, and tropes that we've wanted to get underneath that we just haven't been able to because the way the story goes.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will return for a third season on The CW.