As a Brit, Justin Trefgarne was well versed in the legend of “Robin Hood”. What the writer of the new YouTube Originals animated series, “Sherwood” wasn’t prepared for was the instant popularity of the show. Sherwood is a futuristic take on the classic story, with a tech savvy 14-year-old girl as Robin. The series debuted March 6th, with episode #1 getting 7.5 million views its first week.

Justin Trefgarne: It feels pretty amazing. For some reason, of all the things I was thinking about when the show got released, I hadn’t registered how many views it might get. And I didn’t really look at the tally until the Monday after it got released. And I was like, “Woah. We’re at 5 million in, like, 3 days.” This is incredible. It’s the first time I’ve ever put out a show on a platform like this. I think we’re all very pleased. As I understand it, once you hit the 10 million mark, you’re in a really good place, which is great for us. It feels wonderful, and people seem to be responding to it. They seem to be enjoying it, which is really exciting.

Jackson Murphy: I enjoyed watching “Sherwood”. It’s got good action and character development, and a little bit of humor, too. What was it about YouTube that made this the right platform for it? And how did you convince them that this would be a good show for them?

Justin Trefgarne: Luckily, I didn’t do the convincing – not to begin with. The producers of the show, Diana Manson and Megan Laughton… who I had worked with a few years back on another show, they pitched the concept to YouTube before we really had anything. Before they approached me, actually. And I think YouTube was very much actively looking for the right kind of material that was going to hit their target demographic – between 6 and 11 year olds. That’s there sweet spot for most of the YouTube Originals.

As the way [Diana and Megan] tell this story, “We’ve got this thing. What do you think?” And Nadine [Zylstra] at YouTube was like, “I love it. Let’s go!” Then, suddenly, they came to me quite quickly and said, “Okay. We’ve got an idea. We’ve got the character. We’ve got the world. But that’s it. We need a Pilot script.” So we did some very quick developments, and then I got my head down and wrote the script.

And then, the idea was that the Pilot would go into YouTube, and if they liked it, they would then commission the series. As often happens with these things, the script went in and things went a little bit quiet. And then I was actually on Holiday in the south of Italy. I don’t know if you know that part of the world… but the only WiFi connection that I could find was in a cafe. And the only way I could get a strong signal in the local town was to sit on the toilet.

So they called me and were like, “Listen: they loved the Pilot. We need you to make a few changes to the script, and there’s a chance they might commission it to a series. What are you doing right now?” And I’m like, “I’m in 40-degree [celsius] in an olive grove. So I had to run to this cafe, do some work on the script and then it took about half an hour to upload this tiny document to the Internet. And then off we went. And then we got the feedback very quickly from YouTube that they wanted to go to series.

JM: Wow. I would have a hard time dealing with the lack of WiFi. And who knew the toilet would be the best place for that sometimes?

JT: I know. It’s insane. I knew the toilet was because one of my kids was trying to do Instagram and he’s like, “I can’t get any WiFi!” And then he found a spot and said, “Dad – this is where the signal’s strong.” So he came to my rescue. I wasn’t planning to be doing any work. When I go on vacation, I try and get as far away from everybody as possible. But that’s my mistake this time.

JM: Well that all worked out for you. So the show is “Inspired by the legend of Robin Hood”. You said you had a quick development. How much time did you have to really research the character and the history of the character of Robin Hood?

JT: Well I had a start on that because Diana is Australian and Megan is Canadian, but I am British. And a bit like Jesse James and Buffalo Bill in America… Robin Hood is baked into our formative experiences here. It’s one of the legends that we all know. I certainly grew up with it. And not only did I grow up with it, there was a Disney cartoon. There was a swashbuckling Errol Flynn movie that used to show up on Saturday morning TV. And then when I was a teenager, of course “Prince of Thieves” with Kevin Costner came out.

And I bought a copy of the original Robin Hood tales and did some research there in terms of getting a sense of who these characters were. But I have to say, the other thing that was important for us was that it was kind of a jumping off point. Obviously there a lot of quite faithful adaptations of the Robin Hood legend out there in the world, and we felt that this was an opportunity, perhaps, to do something a little bit more radical with the material.

We projected the story into the future – the 23rd Century. We’re very keen to bring in the environmental elements: the degraded environment, climate change, etc. And most important of all – to turn this perennial, male action hero into a 14 year old girl.

JM: And it’s about time for that!

JT: It was so liberating because you’re not beholden too much to the tropes of the over-familiar, male action hero. Instead, we were able to do something quite different. And I think one of the things was also great… one of Robin’s skill sets is that she’s a hacker and a tinkerer. She really knows her tech. She’s very adaptable. She knows how to build something out of nothing. That’s part of the through-line of her journey.

We were very privileged, because we’re working with YouTube, we went out to the Google HQ… in Palo Alto – and spent time with their scientists and future thinkers working on some of the technology. They were trying to create plausible tech – and also getting access to their data for climate change and all that stuff. So that was immensely rewarding. But some unexpected results of that… some of the people we found ourselves working with were these mid-20s… MIT grad-types, female – really interesting, dynamic, quite radical personalities. And they became another really source of inspiration for these characters.

JM: And I really like Anya Chalotra as Robin. I could listen to her voice all day.

JT: She’s lovely. I think this is the first time she’s done something like this. She’s not that recently graduated from drama school, and she’s done a bit of theater and a bit of TV. But I don’t think she’s had to be the leading voice on a show. So it was really wonderful to see her step and nail it. It was great.

JM: And you got to do some of the Additional Voices? What are some of them? And I’m sure that must’ve been a fun day for you.

JT: We had this amazing day where I went into the studio with Bruce [Carter], the director, who’s an absolute legend and who I loved working with. And we basically went through all the scripts. And he’s like, “Okay. We got an old man here. We got a young man here. We got a soldier there.” All the smaller, incidental voices and all the crowd scenes. I went in there with my partner, actually, and she’s an actress, so the two of us together ended-up doing… a day’s work in the studio with all the scripts. And it was wonderful.

I’ve actually done some voice acting before. I co-wrote a show with a couple other guys: a reboot of another British staple, “Peter Rabbit”. And I ended-up voice directing that as well. And as is always the case with these shows, you hire good actors to do your main voices, but you always find yourself short. It’s not really economical to go out and hire a really good actor to do one line in one episode. So you tend to bundle all that together. And I found myself doing the same on that show. So it’s a great antidote to being stuck on your own in a room writing scripts.

JM: I’ve talked to a lot of animation people over the past few years. But no one who has done additional voices has described it like that. That must’ve been an incredible day.

JT: It was a blast. And I had absolutely no voice at the end of it. There was a lot of shouting and screaming and running for help – and all that kind of stuff. But it was amazing. When I left college… I trained as an actor, so my first couple of years as a professional were as an actor. It was quite nice to go back and flex those muscles again after all those years.

JM: Yeah. And the Animation Director of this show, from Giant Animation, is named Alex Sherwood. That is incredible.

JT: Indeed. Who knew? Maybe you spend so much time working on the show that’s what happens. You start to lose your identity and you start becoming one with the show.

JM: And you used to work at Working Title, which has often been paired-up with Focus Features. And you were a part of some of their big movies in the early 2000s. What were some of those awards seasons like for you? Were you a part of that mayhem?

JT: I think I went to the BAFTAs once, but… I was a development executive, which is a glorified term for a story editor. And I worked very closely with the writers and directors on some of those films. But when it comes to awards season, sadly, you’re not a part of the core team that goes and scoops that up. But it’s certainly great to be basking in the reflected glory of that success. I was incredibly fortunate because I got to work with director Joe Wright on his debut feature film, “Pride & Prejudice”.

And that was an amazing experience for me. And the fact that it got nominated for Oscars. And of course he went on to do “Atonement”, which I also worked on, was a really extraordinary experience. It’s crazy. The thing about Working Title that was so extraordinary was that they are such a successful company.

The British film industry is much, much smaller than the American film industry. There are a lot of companies, and many of them… are successful. Working Title has had this 20 year track record of knocking out these hit movies. To be part of that organism was amazing, and it was my first real grown-up job in the film industry. To get a sense that the things you’re making are going to be seen by lots of people. Not all of our films are successful, but a lot of the ones I worked on managed to be. That is an incredible experience.

JM: I love “Darkest Hour”, which Joe Wright did. And the direction of his “Anna Karenina” blew me away.

JT: He’s a very, very creative guy. He’s interesting because… he’s a real artist. I think it’s amazing for him to have found himself working in a very commercial arena. But what’s great is that he hasn’t… relinquished that kind of creativity.

JM: And you think the British film industry is smaller than America… though when we watch the BAFTAs on BBC America, it seems much bigger and more glorified. The BAFTAs is so lovely and refined to watch for Americans.

JT: (laughs) Well, we’re all on our best behavior.

JM: (laughs) So Justin, you have two sons, who are 11 and 16. I think this show is going to reach out to that demo, and the younger demo, both guys and girls. What do your sons think of “Sherwood”?

JT: Well, obviously, they’re very biased because they’ve heard me banging on about it for two years. But they really enjoyed it. In fact, when some of the early animation came through, and I got to see some of the early iterations of the Pilot episode… I’ve done this many times before with them. They’re a very good audience. They watch a lot of stuff and to be fair to them, they’re critical in a constructive way. They’re not just going, “Oh, wow. My dad made it. It’s amazing.”

And they’re also not saying, “Oh, wow. My dad made it. It’s rubbish.” They’re very open-minded and both love this kind of thing. So it was great to get their feedback, even at the early stages. And they’re very excited. My youngest son is particularly… he often checks the amount of views on the Pilot for me and will… report back. “Dad, you’re up to 10 million!”

JM: I would do that kind of thing, too. I’m the kind of guy who looks at numbers and refreshes pages. Maybe our generation is into that sort of thing.

JT: I think completely. It’s a new phenomenon, really. Only in the last 5-10 years. I know that shows that Netflix put out, you don’t really know what the viewing figures are. YouTube, of course, they’re much more transparent. You can see when something’s working. But of course you can equally see when something is not working. I didn’t really think about that until I first checked the viewing figures. I thought, “Well, I’ll have a look.” And when I saw that it was looking quite healthy, I realized what a relief that was. But imagine if it had been the opposite. That would’ve been really hard, because you know how much work and love and care has gone into making the show. You just want it to do the best that it can.

JM: Sure. And you’re right when you say that every generation has a “Robin Hood”. I know there just was a movie with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx, but it didn’t do so well and American critics didn’t like it that much. I think “Sherwood” is the “Robin Hood” that will define this generation.

JT: Well that’s very kind of you to say. I’m really excited. What stands in our favor, by making Robin a girl, definitely, but also making her quite younger. I’m hoping we’re able to introduce these incredible stories and this concept of this amazing idea of someone who, effectively, puts herself, in mortal danger… to correct the injustices of her time. The MO of Robin Hood is to rob the rich to feed the poor. I think that’s a very powerful concept… even today.