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Question: How did you come up with the concept for THE LAST MAN ON EARTH?

Chris Miller: Well, it was a team effort. Phil and Will and I hung out for several days. We wanted to make a TV show together, and we've been friends for many years.

Phil Lord: We came to Will as a writer first; we said, "Look, I obviously would love for you to be in this." But we met Will when he was a writer and that's how he was paying his rent, and we just had so much respect for him and his voice and we just wanted to figure out the best vessel to get that on to television.

Chris Miller: And one of the ideas that we tossed around was this idea of something that sort of takes place in a post-apocalyptic state, and all the questions that that brings up. It was something that Will sparked to immediately, and then basically went home and over a weekend wrote a treatment for an entire season, and it was amazing. So, it was just something that he was really inspired by, and we were just excited to help support his vision.

Will Forte: Yes, we knew that it was the right thing for us to work on, because once we settled on this concept it just jumped out at us. It was almost hard to stop typing, because it just was really like we had talked about, so many different areas and we're trying to figure out how to turn it into a show, and then this just leapt out at us and it immediately felt like the right thing to do.

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Question: What can you tell us about Phil Miller's journey this season?

Will Forte: It's very hard to answer that question and not give away some very tightly held secrets for what happens down the line. I guess the best way to answer it is that we had a plan from the very beginning. We pitched the show with the general outline of the whole first season already pretty well thought out.

Phil Lord: We always talked that this is a person who is very flawed, and a person who maybe needed the entire world to end in order for him to become his best self.  And we've always talked about writing the show about somebody for whom the end of the world might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to him, and over 100 episodes he basically turns into the person that we all hoped that he could be.

Phil Lord (continued): The one thing that's challenging is seeing people say, "Oh well, there's no way that concept can last for an entire season." And then we're sitting back here going, "You don't know. There's so much more to it than you know," and not being able to say that. Hopefully we can get the message across that there's a lot more to come and we just don't want to spoil it for anyone. 

Will Forte: Yes, and pretty much every episode ends with a twist, or a cliffhanger, or a new development, so it's pretty fun.

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Question: How long do you think it would take you to go insane being the last man on earth?

Will Forte: I think I would go insane pretty quickly. Actually, you know what, I might last a little while, because I get kind of a hyper focus going, so I think I would probably get into some weird computer game that would take my mind off stuff for a while. But inevitably that would wear off and I would go crazy pretty quickly. I'm starting from a place of near craziness anyway, so it's debatable that I'm not already there in a land with people.

Chris Miller: And my answer is seven months before I go crazy. I could watch a lot of movies, distract myself, drive around, check out some stuff, and then after seven months I think I would go full on crazy.

Phil Lord: I vote seven days.

Chris Miller: Seven days?

Phil Lord: I enjoy myself entirely when my girlfriend is away; seven days is great, and then I get real lonely.

Chris Miller: People go on those weird retreats where they have to be quiet for seven days. People do that all the time.

Phil Lord: Yes, and they come back maniacs, schizophrenics.

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Question: What are some post-apocalyptic or dystopian movies and books that are mentioned in the writers' room?

Will Forte: There are a bunch of very obvious ones that you would think of from the get-go: OMEGA MAN; I AM LEGEND; and 28 DAYS LATER, the first part, when he's walking around the empty streets. But one of the big things to me was my fascination with that show LIFE AFTER PEOPLE. I loved that show; I was so fascinated by it. The parts of these movies that I always love are the parts where the character's just wandering around an empty city. That is so fascinating to me and it always makes me wonder what it would be like if I was that person and what I would do. So, that was a big deal to me.

Chris Miller: Yes, LIFE AFTER PEOPLE was something that we talked about.

Phil Lord: The one I can't stop thinking about is OMEGA MAN, just because it's so crazy. I like the Will Smith version a lot, especially before the zombies show up, but the Charlton Heston version of that character, it's so B-movie and pushed, and his performance just really feels like a guy who went crazy, and just him driving around with just a shotgun in a convertible just seems like the funniest thing to me. I felt like no one had explored how silly that experience would be.

I think in a strange way Will wrote the most grounded, most real version of that experience, like what you would really do is kind of fart around and I think he got to how lonely that would feel. In a weird way it felt like we were simultaneously doing the comedic version, but also the most honest version.

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Question: If you were suddenly the last person what is the first thing you would do?

Will Forte: A lot of the things that I would do are things that I actually do in the pilot in the first couple of episodes, a lot of wish fulfillment stuff. It doesn't take much to make me happy, so if you give me a steamroller and some breakables I'm pretty good -- or a flame thrower. But another thing that I think would be at the top of the list would be going and finding all the classified information that's out there in Washington, D.C. and just figure out what really is happening with all these conspiracy theories. I love that stuff.

Chris Miller: I like Will's answer -- go to Area 51 or something and see if there's actually aliens there.

Phil Lord: I honestly would be thrilled to just figure out how to make a fire and get back to basics. I'd kind of want to just see what it's like to live in ignorance for a little while.