It’s Always Sunny With Rob McElhenney

The FXX series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is about to become the longest-running live-action sitcom in U.S. history. Its energetic star and creator wants to know what’s next.

LOS ANGELES — The past year in California has been the driest in a century. But on a recent mid-November afternoon, California was starting to look a lot like … Ireland.

At least it was in the edit bay for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where visual effects artists were diligently tweaking the color scheme to better resemble that of the Emerald Isle. Slowly, the parched cliffs of Bodega Bay began to look like the grassy Slieve League cliffs. The golden, dusty hills of Sonoma County took on the verdant, rain-soaked hues of County Donegal. Several episodes of the coming season are set in Ireland, where they were also supposed to be shot before the pandemic intervened. That meant adding a lot of green and gray in post.

Clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a raised fist in support of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Rob McElhenney jumped up from the couch, as if yanked by an invisible string. He poked the screen with a decisive finger.