‘BoJack Horseman’ Creator on How Feeling “Isolated and Lonely” Inspired the Show

Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator, writer and producer of Netflix’s animated series BoJack Horseman, says that the concept for his series’ main character stems from his own personal experience of moving to Hollywood.

“When I first moved to Los Angeles, I was staying with a friend of a friend of a friend up in the Hollywood Hills. I was in this tiny little closest paying $400 a month in this beautiful house,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I stayed in the house a lot and I didn’t go out and I felt so isolated and alienated, and that dichotomy of being simultaneously on top of the world, and also never more alone, was really the beginning of thinking about this character of BoJack.”

Waksberg, now going into the show’s fifth season, took THR’s “Make Me” series inside ShadowMachine Animation Studios to reveal the process of making BoJack.

Behind the scenes on the show is a team consisting of production designer/producer Lisa Hanawalt and supervising director Mike Hollingsworth, who designed the animated figure.

“It’s really fun and creative, and every episode is different so there’s different challenges every time I come into work,” Hanawalt said.

Of the “twisted” fifth season of BoJack, premiering on Netflix Sept. 14, Waksberg says he feels “lucky to be writing television in this time when I’m allowed to be honest” about the characters’ emotions.

“I think, in the last five to 10 years, it’s been really exciting as these new networks have kind of allowed writers to more freely explore their own neuroses and darkness and anxieties in ways that aren’t just about, ‘Oh we gotta slap a happy ending on this,'” he said.

“I think there’s a real opportunity to go, ‘No, let’s actually explore this and explore this emotion and explore this relationship,'” he added.

See more behind-the-scenes action on BoJack Horseman in the video above, and take a look at the customized Hollywood Reporter character below.