Glamour: What was the toughest scene to write for the finale? Toughest to shoot?
Jason: The toughest to shoot, just in terms of logistics, was the wedding. It was three days of shooting, and we were on location in Malibu. It hadn't rained in Los Angeles in like two years, and, of course, when we were shooting the finale, it was like torrential downpours every day. We were up at this location in Malibu and had three days to shoot, and I think on the first day we shot a total of one tiny scene. [Laughs] So that was a big challenge. It was a lot of material too.
Glamour: Maybe that was God's way of saying that Parenthood shouldn't end.
Jason: Yes, exactly. Absolutely, absolutely! So that was very hard. The hardest scene to write was Zeke dying, even though it was a very short moment. That was not fun to write that, so that was the hardest thing to actually...not that it was a difficult, complex scene to write, but it was hard to actually write that.
The very moment that Camille (Bonnie Bedelia) starts talking to Zeke, but he doesn't respond. It's at this moment that she gets up and sees her beloved husband has passed away in his chair.
Glamour: At what point did you tell Craig T. Nelson that Zeke would die?
Jason: I talked to Craig before when we first conceived of the story line and told him essentially that this year was going to be about [Zeke's mortality]. I just walked him through everything I knew up until that point of what was going to happen. I wanted to tell him right away, and I was anticipating he would have a mixed reaction, partly being like selfishly as an actor, like, "OK, I'm going to have awesome stuff to play," but as a person this is going to be very painful and difficult to tell the story. I think that was his reaction. God bless him, I talked to him for a very long time telling him everything that was happening and his reaction was, "OK, let's go. Let's do it."
