Francesca Delbanco ’95
Dunster House
History and literature concentrator
Nick Stoller ’98
Pforzheimer House
English and American literature and language concentrator
Francesca Delbanco ’95 and Nick Stoller ’98 aren’t exactly friends from College. They didn’t meet or fall in love until long after their graduations. But their Harvard connections brought them together and have been inspiring this husband-and-wife creative team ever since. This July, they are launching the show Friends from College on Netflix, which follows six Harvard College graduates, now in their forties. The comedy explores what makes these relationships unlike any other—and all the nostalgia and complexities that come with them. Shortly after the show's debut, Netflix has now ordered a second season of the series.
Since their own days in the Yard, Stoller became a writer, director, and producer with a list of credits that include Neighbors, Storks, The Muppets, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, to name just a few. Delbanco is a screenwriter, actress, and the author of the novel Ask Me Anything. Though far from Cambridge in Los Angeles (where they live with their three children), they share how Harvard still plays a part in their collaborations, friendships, and family.
What were your Harvard experiences like? Did your paths cross then?
Francesca: I was really involved in drama and HRDC (Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club) when I was an undergraduate—it was my whole life. I remember seeing Nick in a play when I was a senior and he was a freshman. He was in Six Degrees of Separation at the Loeb Ex. He played the part of the freaked-out, screaming boarding school kid who comes home and gives this ranting monologue to his parents. It is a really small part, but it has this one amazing moment, and I remember that I thought he was hilarious. I didn’t know his name, and I didn’t know anything about him. He was a freshman. I didn’t deign to speak to him after the show or anything.
Nick: (laughs) Yeah, I was a lowly freshman. I didn’t meet her until years later. I remember hearing her name—she was someone I would always hear about.
You both were humanities concentrators. Did you come to Harvard knowing you wanted to be in creative fields?
Nick: Since I was little, I’ve wanted to write comedy and be in comedy. And all comedy nerds know about the Harvard Lampoon. I was really excited about being able to write for the Lampoon, and my goal was to hopefully get into comedy, whether TV or movies.
Francesca: I come from a creative family. My parents are both writers, my grandfather was a cellist, and my other grandfather was a painter. So, it seemed likely to me that I would probably do something creative with my life. That said, my undergraduate experience was incredibly formative.
When I took an undergraduate writing class, I was with Richard Ford and Jamaica Kincaid. To get exposed to stuff like that when you’re 19 years old is crazy, but it also helps you understand that this is a life you could pursue too.
What led you to create Friends from College? Could you summarize the premise a bit for us?
Nick: It’s about a group of friends who went to Harvard. It’s now 20 years later and they’re all hovering around 40. At the center of it, there’s Ethan, who is married to Lisa, but who has been hooking up once a year with someone who is in their group of friends. They’ve been able to do this because they’ve lived in different cities, and they don’t think of it as an affair, even though that’s really what it is. In the pilot, the couple moves from Ann Arbor, Michigan, back to New York City, where everyone else lives. The question becomes: what will Ethan do?
Francesca: We were interested in the idea that when people graduate from college, they are all in the same place. Twenty years later, it can feel very different. Some people have achieved incredible professional or financial success, and some people are still flailing around trying to figure out who they want to be when they grow up. How do they maintain those friendships?
We were also interested in how friendships can be trapped in the era in which they’re formed. We have different relationships with our friends who we met while we were teenagers than people we’ve met, say, as parents of our children’s friends. We were interested in the way that people in their 40s comport themselves in the world versus with their old friends from college. You kind of regress to all of your old habits, for better or worse.
Will your friends recognize some inside Harvard jokes or scenarios?
Nick: There are specific references to Harvard, but we tried to keep it general so anyone would get it. The characters live in Dunster House, so instead of saying, let’s go back to the dorm, they’ll say, “Let’s go back to Dunster.”
Francesca: We used Harvard because it’s what we know, and we could make it feel more authentic that way. They refer to a play they did in College at the Leverett Old Library or talk about the stacks at Widener.
So, do the friends come back to Harvard?
Francesca: There are eight episodes and in the seventh episode, three of them come back to Harvard. We had a really fun time shooting these scenes. We filmed on Mount Auburn Street with the Houses in the background and used very long lenses to have characters walk through the Yard to make it seem like we were there, very closely following them.
What’s your Harvard network like today?
Francesca: There’s no way to overstate how much those relationships are still at the center of our lives. In the course of our daily lives, we are surrounded by our friends from college. We had a writing staff of seven people, and it was me and Nick and three of our friends from college. Many, many of our best friends basically feel like our family at this point.
You both support Harvard through your philanthropy. What inspires you to give back?
Nick: Everything in our lives goes back to Harvard, ultimately.
We wouldn’t have had any jobs or —the most important thing—our marriage and our children if we hadn’t gone to Harvard. That is the most important reason. And it was also some of the most enriching and exciting periods of time for us.
Francesca: When we think about it and when we talk about it, we feel that we can trace professional, social, romantic success, and so many of the things that give our lives meaning to having been there when we were there. This is an institution that we both love.
What advice would you give to the recent graduates who want to go on to write, produce, or act?
Nick: I think just “start writing” is really the best advice. I would say also if you want to write for movies or TV, you need to move to LA.
Francesca: I’ve always felt that the people who have had the benefit of a Harvard education and the luck of the experience of the world can turn that into books and movies and TV shows. You have enough. If you want to write and you have the discipline, you have those resources. If you are graduating from Harvard right now, just keep reading.