A man on the insideNetflix latest comedy seriesreunites actor Ted Danson with creator Mike Schur, who previously worked on Schur’s sitcom The Good Place.

Schur is back with another comedy series that follows the story of a retired widower, Charles, who becomes an undercover agent at the Pacific View Retirement Residence.

In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum, Schur discussed it A man on the inside is loosely based on the 2020 documentary The Mole Agent and a real-life event following a nursing home in El Monte, Chile.

He revealed how he came across the documentary, and the film’s theme resonated with him. His producing partner Morgan Sackett advised him to create a series around it with Danson playing the main character.

Schur also revealed that he wanted to depict the theme again, which is not often explored in mainstream cinema.

More about A man on the inside inspiration in our story.

Schur took inspiration from a 2020 documentary for A man on the inside

The powerful 2020 documentary The Mole Agent was Chile’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards, followed by a nomination for Best Documentary.

The film is based on a real-life 83-year-old widower named Sergio Chamy, who inspired Danson’s character. Chamy is hired by a private detective, Romulo, to investigate potential staff abuse at a Chilean nursing home.

“The hero, Sergio, is so wonderfully created, so real, just a wonderful human being.”

Although Sergio finds no traces of abuse, he finds very odd characters inside the house, where one of the members wants to marry him.

The documentary ends with Sergio reporting that patients are being treated well at the facility and are returning to their families in Santiago.

The film takes a closer look at retirement facilities and how lonely the people who live in them are. It is a very real depiction of how people are kept from society after a certain age.

”It’s a beautiful meditation on aging, a subject we’re uniquely terrible in this country at confronting, dealing with or discussing. It showed the reality of aging for people across a very wide spectrum – some people who did well and some who didn’t – and it really grabbed me.” Schur on The Mole Agent

He also revealed that he has tried to capture the essence of the documentary in the series, confronting themes such as aging, memory loss and illness.

What is A man on the inside If?

Although the real-life incident involves a son hiring a PI to investigate his mother’s potential abuse at the facility, the series does not dramatize the events to this extent.

In keeping with the comic streak, Charles is hired by a PI to investigate the missing necklace of one of the residents, as reported by his son.

This opportunity could not have come at a better time, as Charles feels lonely after retirement. He finds a second chance in this job opportunity and he goes as an undercover agent.

He meets new people and makes new friendships along the way, which is the underlying theme of the show Schur wanted to encapsulate.

“We just tried to stay true to the documentary because I really feel like the documentary kind of nailed what matters. What’s worth talking about with people the age that Sergio was in the documentary,

Catch all episodes of A man on the inside on Netflix.

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