Hulu's Paradise Was Inspired By Two Wildly Different Real-Life Experiences

This post contains spoilers for "Paradise."

"Paradise" represents yet another TV hit for creator Dan Fogelman, who was inspired to develop the show after meeting with an intimidating Hollywood figure. But that was just one half of the inspiration. After that very meeting Fogelman witnessed a construction mishap and the combination of the two experiences became the genesis of "Paradise."

"Paradise" began with one of the best twists of 2025 and kept viewers transfixed throughout its first and second seasons. The show about Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) trying to solve the murder of the U.S. President (James Marsden) could have been a fairly run-of-the-mill political thriller but it had a trick up its sleeve. "Paradise" quickly revealed that every one of the characters in the series was living in a giant underground bunker in the Colorado mountains following an extinction-level event.

What Fogelman had actually delivered with "Paradise," then, wasn't just a political thriller, but a post-apocalyptic political thriller/murder mystery. Since then, the show has managed to maintain the momentum bestowed by that stunning revelation, garnering positive reviews for both seasons. Part of the intrigue here comes not only from the murder mystery or the mystery of what forced everyone to live in a giant subterranean town, but from Julianne Nicholson's Samantha "Sinatra" Redmond. This similarly enigmatic billionaire tech mogul is responsible for creating "Paradise" in the first place and seemingly holds sway over its politicians. It seems Fogelman's encounter with a powerful real-life industry figure is partly responsible for the creation of both Sinatra and Marsden's President.

According to a "Paradise" writer the show is pretty much a Western, but it didn't necessarily start out that way. Reflecting on the origins of "Paradise" during an interview with IndieWire, Dan Fogelman recalled a meeting he once had with a formidable figure in Hollywood. He said:

"As he was speaking to me, I was actively thinking to myself, this might be the most powerful person I've ever been in a room with in terms of reach and wealth and all the things. I couldn't quite hear what he was even saying to me, because I was thinking about that as he was talking to me. I was young, and I was a little intimidated."

This mysterious meeting planted the seed of an idea in Fogelman's mind, but it was only when he was driving home that he started to develop the idea, conceiving of the cataclysmic event that befalls Earth in "Paradise." "I was driving through Culver City, here in Los Angeles," explained the creator, "and there was kind of a loud bang, a crane had dropped something in a construction site. It was one of those things that makes you jump." 

According to Fogelman, this kicked off a whole process whereby he started to imagine what might happen to the man with whom he'd just met should the world go to pot. "I just started thinking about that guy and how he must have all these people around him, but when things start going really awry, he's going to be in the same position that all all of us are in." This, said Fogelman, was the "impetus" for "Paradise."

"Paradise" season 2 introduced one of the best villains of 2026 so far with Gary, the mailman (Cameron Britton). But long before Gary, Dan Fogelman was just trying to tease apart the concept of the show. The creator added extra context about his experience during an Entertainment Weekly interview, explaining that it occurred at a time when 9/11 still loomed large in the public consciousness. Talking about the crane mishap, he said:

"It gave you a jolt beyond just 'What's going on?' It led me to think, 'God, I just left this meeting with the most powerful person I maybe have ever been in a room with and when the s*** hits the fan, we're all going to be in the same boat. I wonder how long loyalty holds with the people who take care of him.""

But at this point, he hadn't yet envisioned the character that would become Samantha "Sinatra" Redmond. "As I was writing, and I was starting to really like this President, I thought even presidents have people they're answering to," Fogelman told IndieWire. "There's always somebody more powerful behind a powerful person. I kind of hinted at that person in the pilot, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to explore that person in the second episode of the show." In this way, Sinatra naturally evolved out of the pilot script, but she indirectly emerged from Fogelman's original meeting with the mystery businessman. "Originally, the construct was let's make that the President," he continued, "and then as I started writing and investigating, I started going a little deeper with it, to a different character, a different set of characters."