Chad Hodge: The Playboy Club

Chad Hodge said it plainly: "Hugh Hefner absolutely loves the show — he tweets about it all the time. He sends more tweets probably than anyone on Tw…" — and Premier Guide Miami was in the room when it happened.

From Academy Award-winning executive producer Brian Grazer, The Playboy Club is a provocative new NBC drama about a time and place that challenged the existing social mores and transformed American culture forever. It's the early 1960s, and at the center of Chicago lies the legendary and seductive Playboy Club — a living, breathing fantasy world filled with $1.50 cocktails, music, glitter, and beautiful Bunnies. Writer, creator, and executive producer Chad Hodge spoke with Premier Guide Miami's Daedrian McNaughton ahead of the series premiere on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Did you have any reservations when you learned of the show initially?

CHAD HODGE: When I first came into this project — which was over a year ago now — I had initial reservations. Hmmm, Playboy, what's a scripted show about Playboy going to be?

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: How involved is Hugh Hefner in the show?

CHAD HODGE: He's been involved since the beginning. He loves the show. He doesn't approve scripts or storylines or things like that. When he gets involved it's sort of like — oh, it wouldn't have been like that, it would have been like this. He corrects on historical accuracy sometimes and the history of Playboy, things like that. And he absolutely loves the show — he tweets about it all the time. He sends more tweets probably than anyone on Twitter. He's great. He's the narrator of the pilot so you hear his voice in the pilot, and then we don't continue using him as a voiceover, but Heff is always sort of omnipresent in the show — you see him from the back, people talk about him. He's definitely part of the world but it's really the story of the Club.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: And what was most interesting about your research and preparation for The Playboy Club?

CHAD HODGE: When I dove into the research and spoke to former bunnies and spoke to Heff — the first place I went was his scrapbook archive in the Playboy mansion in LA, which he still employs five people full time to archive his life. He has over 2,000 to 2,500 volumes of scrapbooks starting with Number 1 from when he was 15 years old all the way to now, and he still archives everything from his life. It was unbelievably fascinating and really inspired the show — the direction, the tone, and the characters. Diving into those scrapbooks is not like going to a library and reading a book about Playboy or even really interviewing people, which of course I did both. But the diving into those scrapbooks was, I think, the most fascinating thing I've ever seen in terms of researching history. And I've done a lot of historical fiction in the past. This was really amazing.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: Can you talk about the Chocolate Bunnies and how Naturi fits this role?

CHAD HODGE: Naturi is amazing — she has incredible energy and she's an incredibly talented actress. She brings humor, she brings heart. Her character, Brenda, is one of the first — they called them Chocolate Bunnies. Heff was hiring African American women as Bunnies and allowing anyone of any color, any race, to come to the Club when not everybody else was doing that. And he wasn't doing it so much to make a statement — he just always did what he felt was right for him. The Playboy Club became a franchise, and there was a Club in New Orleans under the franchise that would not allow African American patrons or Bunnies. Heff closed that franchise within six weeks and bought it back from the franchisees and reopened it himself with his own rules. So he really wouldn't stand for anything that went against his code of ethics. Naturi plays one of these Chocolate Bunnies who is part of this world and isn't viewed differently from any of the other characters in the show. But on that same token — because Heff didn't treat any Bunny differently than the others no matter what color her skin was — Brenda's character isn't really about that for very long, because that would be treating her differently than the others. She has her own storylines. She's an entrepreneur. She has family in Chicago who may not feel particularly happy that she's a Playboy Bunny. All these issues that we're talking about — the Bunnies talk about themselves and deal with in their storylines.

PREMIER GUIDE MIAMI: So where do you see her character evolving to?

CHAD HODGE: Well, part of her storyline is that she becomes an entrepreneur. She uses her money — the tips that she gets at the Club — to advance a big dream of hers. She wants to buy a building and become a real estate entrepreneur. And that's something that she starts on the sly without letting anybody know at first, and that's part of her storyline.

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