Ilana Glazer Says ‘Broad City’ Was Supposed to Last Seven Seasons Before They Opted to Exit

Ilana Glazer is revealing there could have been more “Broad City.”

The series star, who co-created the acclaimed comedy alongside Abbi Jacobson, said during NPR’s “Wild Card with Rachel Martin” podcast that the hit Comedy Central show was supposed to air for seven seasons. “Broad City” first began as a web series in 2009 before landing a five-season run on Comedy Central starting in 2014. The show concluded in 2019.

“‘Broad City’ was like a big [deal]. We had signed our contract of seven seasons and then, we both came to it, Abbi and I. And Comedy Central was like, ‘Huh?'” Glazer, who uses they/she pronouns, said. “We were like ambivalent and unsure, but I think that’s something I would say is elegant about me knowing when things are at their end.”

Glazer continued, “And like being able to trust that I am generative beyond this moment, whether it’s a creative project or anything, you know, but I am secure that I will keep generating new layers and do without thinking. […] I was a drummer for many years. I miss it. And I just loved percussion for a time. For a time, I was like, ‘I’m going to be an orchestra percussionist.’ Can you imagine me like on a timpani? Like, dum da da dum ba dum. And it’s like, I think it’s like a rhythm thing. You know what I mean? It’s like a larger scale rhythm thing of like, ‘This is over,’ and accepting the loss too.”

Glazer told IndieWire in 2019 that they were ready to move on from the show despite its continued success.

“I think we always knew that this show had to end to still feel like this flash-in-the-pan experience — this quick, specific, ‘everything’s moving so fast’ both in the city, but in their minds, between the two of them,” Glazer said. “I think part of us knew that this was going to end at this point and started getting other projects on our plates.”

They added, “It’s like my entire 20s was ‘Broad City.’ I didn’t have those experiences. I wrote them and then enacted them, but I didn’t experience them. I’m feeling that now. Really, looking back and being like, ‘Wow, the past 10 years I’ve been writing and curating and acting.’ Not solely, but I’ve been thinking about the gap between [my character] Ilana Wexler and Ilana Glazer more.”

And two extra seasons isn’t the only thing that was axed during the “Broad City” run: Glazer recently told The Daily Beast that they “unfortunate[ly]” had to scrap the original hour-long Season 3 finale in 2016. The episode was supposed to be filmed in Israel, with Zoë Kravitz potentially guest starring.

“It included the Red Sea curing my bacne. It had one of the few very famous Black Jews — like, perhaps Zoë Kravitz — representing Jesus in a mirage on the desert. It was really funny, but we just were like, ‘We have to rewrite this,'” Glazer said amid the “violence between Israelis and Palestinians” at the time.

“I don’t think either one of us had taken our journey into understanding the situation there to the degree that we do now, but it was just a bad vibe,” Glazer said. “It just got really scary at the last minute. Our director, Lucia Aniello, one of the creators of ‘Hacks,’ was literally walking to the door with her suitcase to go location-scout when she got the call that we were like, ‘We can’t do this, dude. This is freaking us out.’ […] And we were promised all of this army protection, you can film and there will be soldiers there with guns, and we were like, wait, what are we doing? We have to fully pull the plug. This is not appealing and that’s not what safety sounds like. And yeah, we pulled it.”