Jake Johnson Doesn’t Want the Leads of ‘Minx’ to Fall in Love With Each Other

HBO Max‘s Minx takes a lot from the classic sitcoms of yore. Hero Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) is a fussy feminist in the mold of Cheers‘s Diane Chambers. The ensemble cast’s diverse approaches to comedy evoke the office families we followed on everything from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Parks & Recreation. And, of course, the show’s leading man Doug is played by Jake Johnson, an alum of one of the most popular sitcoms of the ’10s: New Girl.

One sitcom trope that Minx absolutely does not want to emulate though? The “Will They? Won’t They?” storyline. From the jump, Joyce and Doug are colleagues and nothing more. There is not going to be chemistry between them, nope! Joyce and Doug are emphatically not “endgame.” They will never, ever kiss. That’s not just by showrunner Ellen Rapoport‘s design. It was also star Jake Johnson’s demand.

Minx tells the story of the first erotic magazine made just for (straight) women. Ophelia Lovibond’s Joyce is a writer whose life-long dream is to create a feminist magazine to spread ideas of empowerment to the masses. As it happens, the man in charge of publishing in the 1970s don’t see the appeal. Jake Johnson’s Doug, however, does see an angle. A pornographic one. Joyce’s politics and prose will fill the pages of an erotic mag for women they call Minx. And while both Doug and Joyce have love interests in the office, the two will never ever fall for each other, per the producers’ and Jake Johnson’s wishes.

“It was one of the first conversations that we had,” said Minx creator Ellen Rapoport. “[Johnson] said before he even signed on: ‘I don’t think I should have chemistry with Joyce.’ And I was so happy because that had always been my position that they should not be romantically entangled. I just think that’s not what the show is about. I think there’s a more interesting show to be had about friendship, business partnership, and mentorship.”

“Honestly when we were out pitching the show before anyone was attached acting-wise, Ellen always made a big point about that, too,” Minx executive producer Paul Feig shared with Decider. “She said, ‘I don’t want this to be “Are they going to sleep together or are they not?”‘ So when Jake came on and that was his first note, it was like, ‘Oh thank goddess.’ Because that’s just not the story we wanted to tell and that’s not the character Doug is.”

So Johnson’s note went over well with Minx’s producers, but why exactly was Jake Johnson — the actor behind one of the most iconic recent sitcom romances in recent years — so against a potential love story between Doug and Joyce?

“Because I like that Doug sees [Joyce] as business,” Johnson told Decider. “And I like doing a show — from Doug’s point of view — a show about capitalism, a show about making money, and a show about building a business together.”

“I think a lot of times when it’s a man and a woman [in a show], it always becomes about do they like each other? Do they have crushes on each other? And that seemed to be less exciting than two people trying to make a lot of money together,” Johnson added.

“So I didn’t want to get into a situation where people are like, ‘Wow they really have great chemistry.’ The way you do with business partners,” he said sarcastically. “And then people go, ‘Now let’s not talk about the big dream of Minx and the big dream of Bottom Dollar. Let’s talk about kissing in the rain.’  I don’t want to shoot that scene.”

The good news is it seems that Minx’s showrunner, Rapoport, also doesn’t want to shoot that scene. “When we run out of ideas maybe then,” she said. “I just don’t ever see it happening. I think the [show] ends when you do that.”

So there you have it: Minx‘s Joyce and Doug will never hook up, or get together, or kiss in the rain.

Where to stream Minx