Behind the scenes of This is Love’s Season 3 journey to Italy
All six episodes of This is Love season three are set in Italy. That’s right: the whole team — host and co-creator Phoebe Judge, co-creator Lauren Spohrer and senior producer Nadia Wilson — flew to The Boot for 10 days to record their new season. So, what does an American podcast do when it goes abroad? We asked Phoebe about the team’s trip across the Atlantic to beautiful Italy.
What inspired your decision to record all six episodes of the new season in Italy?
There’s so much personal storytelling coming out of the United States, we thought it would be an adventure to go elsewhere and see what people are talking about, and bring their stories home with us. Why not the land of St. Valentine and Casanova? We like to push ourselves, maybe too much. Who knows.
Do you speak much Italian? How did you overcome the language barrier to find stories and conduct interviews?
We don’t speak much Italian at all. Basically none. We knew that was going to be a challenge! We invited along an American friend, Lindy Russell, who lives in Europe and speaks beautiful Italian. She was a lifesaver, especially in very small towns like Piobbico and Pontito.
Were there any other challenges to recording all six episodes of season three in Italy?
We recorded eight stories in 10 days. We’d never undertaken such a rigorous reporting trip before, and so there was definitely a learning curve. One of the trickiest parts was explaining to people what, exactly, we were doing!
What was the hardest piece of tape to get while you were there?
The hardest tape was probably the day we spent in the cat sanctuary in Rome. Not only was the space packed with meowing cats, it was echoey, and I’m incredibly afraid of cats. The other tricky part of Italy is that it’s just loud. It was hard to find quiet spaces to record.
Since you spent 10 days in Italy, how did you prepare for the trip to ensure you made the most of the time you had there?
We had a strict itinerary and stuck to it. We had so many batteries from Costco. We knew what stories we were going to be recording each day. We made train reservations in advance, we had rental cars lined up. And we built in time in case something didn’t go as planned.
Any favorite or memorable moments from your trip?
Of course we ate well everywhere we went. In each new town, we would get a recommendation for the best place to have dinner. It was the highlight of the day. We had various regional specialties like polenta, truffles, risotto and, of course, so much pasta. There’s a pasta called Strozzapreti, which means “priest strangler.” The other highlight was probably having homemade wine with the Ugly Club at 10 a.m.
Is there anything else you’d like listeners to know about the making of Season 3: The Boot?
Our goal was to bring back stories that surprised us, but also to meet and spend time with people who were quietly doing good. Towns and communities where people are coming together to save things that are important. Those are the kinds of stories we want to tell.
