Kara Young and Nicholas Braun on Settling Their Differences in ‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’

Young was drawn to the time-jumps in Joseph’s story, which follows two friends from the age of eight to 38, with each scene moving either 15 years forward or 10 years back. “It’s one of the great exercises for an actor,” she said, adding that she was excited to fill in the linear blanks left by the script. As the title suggests, the friends don’t have the easiest go of it; what starts as an innocent schoolyard accident for Doug leads to a life of hurt, both for him and Kayleen. No matter how time and circumstance pull them apart, they have a strange, strong bond rooted in an understanding of each other’s pain.

“We’ve been discussing the humanity that is brought forward, in regards to the human connection with the people who might love us the most, or at least once in our lives,” Young added. “Does that love ever go away? Have we missed opportunities with people? It makes me think about the friendships that I treasured once that, due to time and work and life, there’s not a consistency around what it means to reach out and tap in. I feel like this is a reminder to reach out to the people you love the most, no matter what happened between you.”

Here, the two chat with Vogue about the show.

Vogue: These characters are so symbiotic. How do you work on your character individually, knowing that, in a way, it only exists as an extension of the other one?

Kara Young: Rajiv laid out specifics about each character. It’s very clear to me that they come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and that paints a picture of what their lives might look like moving forward. When we meet Kayleen at the age of 23, she mentions what her occupation is, and Doug has been living a completely different life, almost free of worry. Rajiv has given us so much on the page, the littlest details that open up each of their worlds. As we got to the fourth preview, I started to realize the severity of these humans’ brokenness in their own ways.

Nicholas Braun: There are clues in the writing as to, what does she need? What does he need? And then it’s working backwards and going, I’m going to try and give that to her in this scene. If she’s in a bad relationship and feels all alone and overworked, then I’m coming in to give her that love. They’re the thing each other needs the most, so let’s go towards that. They fill in all the gaps for each other.