One of the things that I found really interesting about FOSSE/VERDON is that Bob Fosse is basically a terrible human person and yet somehow I could never write him off as just the villain or antagonist.
This isn't that uncommon, right? TV is filled with anti-heroes. But Fosse is a bigger challenge than many. On top of being a serial adulterer, he's working his way through the younger women of the casts he directs, punishing those who won't consent and sexually assaulting at least one. He treats Verdon terribly, at every turn asking for her help on his projects while almost never also giving it when she asks for the same. In the finale he's casually monstrous to his daughter as well. And the list goes on.
One technique you see a lot when you're working with a character like this is to lead with their talent. You hear people talk about "saving the cat", having a character help someone or fix a problem right at the top to generate some care for them in the audience. But what they do doesn't have to be a morally good thing as much as they have to be good at it. We respond to a character who has a talent, or has moxie--which really is just another kind of talent.
FOSSE/VERDON definitely uses that technique--after that end-of-life opening we watch Fosse in his element, figuring out the dance steps with Verdon and then slowly putting together the number. And when "bad" things have to happen in the sequence, either Verdon is the one who suggests and implements it (the firing of the first dancer) or Fosse goes about it in the most sympathetic way possible (the second firing, in which he says I'm going to help you). Even the moment of him walking off with the red head is presented in a subtle way. She sure seems to look an awful lot like Verdon, but there's nothing lascivious in his behavior itself.
That's part of actor Sam Rockwell's technique throughout--other than a couple aggressive moments with young women, he's always playing Fosse as gentle, warm, curious about others and hiding his actual wants and drives.
Which is itself a great suggestion for writers: Let your character behave and speak in ways that are the opposite of who they are and what they want. Being "on the nose" is not just about having a character say exactly what they're wanting or feeling, it's about having them make choices that are the same. People aren't really like that; we hide what we want from others and from ourselves.
Another technique is to make the character somehow sympathetic. FOSSE/VERDON opens on Fosse when he is old and fragile and seemingly about to die. And in that opening it also gives us that abrupt glimpse of his childhood, which will be this tremendous source of trauma the show keeps going back to.
Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this technique. It can be very effective, but it also becomes a way of diminishing the terrible things the character has done. He's not a monster, he's just someone that's been hurt. The fact is, you can be both, and Fosse is. If I had one note for FOSSE/VERDON, it would be that they don't allow for that enough.
But the main technique that Steven Levenson and his writers use to keep Fosse sympathetic is they Time Capsule his bad behavior. That is to say, rather than presenting his bad actions up front, they release it in small quantities throughout the series. Yes, we learn in the pilot that he's cheating on Verdon, even after promising to stop.
But we don't find out that when he started going out with Verdon he was cheating on his very sick wife until the second episode--or that he used that wife to start his career, just as he's using Verdon now. We don't see him assault a woman until the fourth episode. We don't see him hurt his daughter in any way until the finale. And on and on.
It's a companion piece, really, to Make The Bad Guy sympathetic; just as we raise up the sad parts of his backstory, we hold back on some of his worst actions until later, after the audience has had plenty of time to fall in love with the guy and is as a result much less likely to walk away from him. And even so, I think it's really notable that they save him disappointing/using his daughter Nicole until the very last episode. There's no doubt given his behavior he hurt her long before she was an adult. But if all the way along we were seeing how much he was harming not just Verdon but their daughter, would we have stayed with him? I don't know. It may very well be the bridge too far.
NOW YOU TRY...
You want to try this for yourself? Take a character you're working with. Could be your protagonist, the villain or someone else unlikable. Try playing with some of these techniques. What can you give them to make them sympathetic? What's the talent they have that you can raise up right from the start? What are the details about them you could bury and save for later, either to control their possible negative impact (if you're dealing with a protagonist) or to maximize it (if you're dealing with a villain)?
Or--my favorite technique of the bunch--can you flip any of their actions or dialogue so that instead of explicitly representing what they want or feel they suggest the opposite?
If you're looking for a fun writing exercise, you might try just writing a scene where one or a number of the characters behave in this way. Your hero's at a supermarket and she's desperate to buy mayo. GO.
