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John Singleton, Sam Esmail, Nic Pizzolatto, Steven Canals, Sera Gamble and Marti Noxon star on the Drama Showrunner Roundtable. Hollywood Reporter Roundtables air every Sunday on SundanceTV.
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00:00:00Hi, and welcome to Close Up with the Hollywood Reporter, drama showrunners.
00:00:19I'm your host, Lacey Rose, and I'm here today with Sam Esnail, Marty Noxon, Nick Pizzolatto,
00:00:25Stephen Canals, John Singleton, and Sarah Gamble.
00:00:29Let's get started.
00:00:31You guys have tackled a lot of heavy, weighty subjects in your shows.
00:00:37Curious, what's the moment or scene that made you or your collaborators nervous?
00:00:43The show You has a lot of Penn Badgley braining people with hammers, or convenient rocks or
00:00:50pieces of brick.
00:00:51The scene that actually made me nervous, though, is in the pilot.
00:00:54Very early in the first episode of the show, our character masturbates on the street in
00:00:58shadow, and I was watching it at a screening in Austin, and I was like, oh, we're going
00:01:03to lose them, and they're never coming back, because he's jacking off in the street in New
00:01:09York.
00:01:09And then the next scene came with him and the woman, and everyone was back on board.
00:01:14And that was the moment I knew the show would work.
00:01:16I was really doing it on faith until that point.
00:01:18I love it.
00:01:19Anyone else?
00:01:20Top that.
00:01:20I'm not really nervous about anything, because in the writer's room, I'm a performance artist.
00:01:27You know, I try to act out what I think the characters should do.
00:01:31We're all in kind of a competition for eyes, so it's like, you know, I'm trying to find
00:01:36the most shocking, organic, natural thing that the characters would go through.
00:01:41And so if people bump against it, and they're like, no, we can't do that, I say, that's why
00:01:46we're going to do it.
00:01:46So give me an example.
00:01:48What's one of those related?
00:01:50I mean, there's a couple things.
00:01:52I mean, in the first season, we had a situation where a really tough guy robs our lead character,
00:01:59Franklin, thousands of dollars in drug money.
00:02:02And Franklin's still a kid.
00:02:04He's encountering, for the first time, these really, really dangerous types of people.
00:02:09And so he has to get his money back.
00:02:11And he and his best friend are with this guy who they're enlisting to get his help to find
00:02:16the money from another guy.
00:02:17And I suggested, well, this guy gets frustrated with interrogating the other guy, so he takes
00:02:23him back and he rapes him.
00:02:25And so, and I say this in a writer's room, and they're like, oh my God.
00:02:29And I was like, no.
00:02:30And I acted out.
00:02:32I'm not sure how that goes.
00:02:33I know that people, I know I'm affecting some of the writers when they're visually like
00:02:40aghast, you know, and I said, and I was like, we got to do this.
00:02:44Mm-hmm.
00:02:45I love that.
00:02:45Anyone else have anything on the line?
00:02:47I feel like just the idea of adapting a podcast, like homecoming to a TV show, I remember people
00:02:55thought that that was a little nutty, you know, it's two people talking in a room.
00:02:58And then on top of that, I was like, yeah, and we're still doing that.
00:03:03We're still doing it with two people talking in a room.
00:03:06Oh, and it's still going to be 30 minutes, just like the podcast, even though it's a
00:03:10drama.
00:03:11And I think a lot of people felt like that wasn't going to feel cinematic enough.
00:03:16And then there was the whole argument about the runtime, which is a little archaic right
00:03:21now, just to think about, like at this point with streaming and all the other options of
00:03:25how you consume television, it's whatever I think fits the story, right?
00:03:29And why would we want to drag it out when it worked so well in the podcast?
00:03:33So I think it never gave me pause.
00:03:36I felt very strongly about it, but it definitely, I think, made everybody around me pretty nervous.
00:03:41Yeah.
00:03:41There was also like other, I mean, every time we made a decision that was a little nutty,
00:03:45like the aspect ratio thing, I remember that was a little, what does that mean?
00:03:50The future storyline is in a smaller aspect.
00:03:53I just remember there was, you're going to do that the whole season.
00:03:56But I think to John's point, whenever people got nervous, it actually just made me more
00:04:02excited.
00:04:03I was like, oh, then we're definitely doing, you know, whenever there was like any kind
00:04:07of pushback, then it was like me sort of digging in my heels.
00:04:10But I think that's the part of the excitement is that you want to feel like it's rattling some
00:04:14cages.
00:04:15You know, you want to feel like it's, it's, you know, it's going to spark some conversation.
00:04:20Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
00:04:22That's what nerves do, right?
00:04:23They get you talking.
00:04:25When was the last time you guys were completely wrong about viewers' reaction to what you
00:04:31put on screen?
00:04:32I thought that people would be angry about Dietland.
00:04:36In what way?
00:04:37Well, I mean, we threw guys off buildings for being sexual predators and tortured them.
00:04:42And, you know, we had a fat woman in the lead of that show and sort of celebrated, ended
00:04:47up sort of celebrating all these different body types.
00:04:50And there were just so many things in that show.
00:04:52I think it just, there was so much that people just were like, it's a wash.
00:04:56But I thought that we'd have more of a reaction.
00:04:58But I think the last few years in the real world had been so insane that it just kind
00:05:04of ended up matching the, matching the world instead of feeling so outrageous.
00:05:08But when we were making it, we were like, we're going to piss people off.
00:05:11And then it came out and people were like, well, this is a nice little show.
00:05:13We're like, really?
00:05:15Yeah.
00:05:16This body positivity show.
00:05:18We're like, but the guys and the getting killed.
00:05:21Okay.
00:05:22So that's, I was wrong about that.
00:05:25I think to go back to your earlier question, the entirety of Pose.
00:05:28And I think that I got it all wrong right at the start.
00:05:35In what way?
00:05:37Well, I spent two years pitching this pilot, you know, in and out of rooms and being told
00:05:42no.
00:05:43It was too queer.
00:05:44It was too trans.
00:05:45There were too many black people, too many Latin people.
00:05:46It's a period piece.
00:05:48And so to finally have the show be produced and to have a collaborator or collaborators
00:05:53in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, it's like, you know, I won the lotto.
00:05:57And yet I was dealing with a little PTSD from all of the no's that I thought, oh, it's going
00:06:02to go out into the world and people just aren't going to get it.
00:06:05Like my fear, the entirety of filming the first season was, I'm going to be the person who
00:06:10co-created the show with Ryan Murphy.
00:06:11That's a bomb.
00:06:12You know, and then it goes out into the world and people embrace it and they love it and
00:06:18they understand exactly what our intention was and the heart space that we approach the
00:06:22narrative with.
00:06:23And so I'm glad that I was wrong.
00:06:25Yeah.
00:06:26What about you, Nick?
00:06:28You know, I don't know if wrong is necessarily the word, but flummoxed might be a little bit
00:06:33wrong.
00:06:34There was a way with this season that I tried to be as transparent as possible with the
00:06:41narrative because of the two later timelines and the way they all interact.
00:06:45It's telling you what is going to happen before it happens.
00:06:49If I can keep you interested, knowing what's going to happen, that would be really something
00:06:53for me.
00:06:54You know, you always want your work to, you hope it stirs passion in people and devotion
00:07:02and investment, but to see from some viewers the sorts of things that are going to happen
00:07:11theories that were, to me, coming out of left field, sort of like, no, we just told you
00:07:18that's not going to happen.
00:07:19We said this is going to happen.
00:07:21What I tend to do and what I'm most interested in is character and the human experience of
00:07:27the individual.
00:07:28And there's a contingent of viewers, though, that have been, you know, programmed by the
00:07:34sorts of storytelling we've had over the past few decades that are simply intent on looking
00:07:41for what would be the most outre twist, right?
00:07:48Never mind if it would make no sense, you know?
00:07:50You know, and so I was surprised, probably, by some of that more than anything.
00:07:55They're trying to get ahead of what you're doing instead of watching it play out.
00:08:01Yeah.
00:08:01They're trying to write it for you.
00:08:02Right.
00:08:03It's like Hitchcock would say, basically, you know, he designed his picture so that, you
00:08:09know, he knows what the audience expectations are in advance and he tries to go in another
00:08:14way or, you know, naturally in another way, but not in a way that's plot-based.
00:08:20It's like, you know, you're saying the character of a dictator.
00:08:23I was going to say, yeah.
00:08:24Yeah, the character has to dictate to some degree.
00:08:27It becomes symbiotic, the plot and the character, because there'll be an incident and then it's
00:08:31going to depend on how our characters react to that incident, what the next incident is.
00:08:36And you're right, it's almost like they're trying to out-guess, but along the wrong sort
00:08:41of tracks.
00:08:42Absolutely, and then they stick to their thing or what they've written in their mind instead
00:08:47of what you've laid out for it.
00:08:50I think that we sort of benefited from that in Sharp Objects because one of the things
00:08:54about the story is the people who seem the most like the killers are the killers.
00:08:59And we try, you know, when we took the book, one of the things I said to Gillian was, you
00:09:03know, I think we need to build the world out and offer some other viable suspects because
00:09:07the minute you meet these people in this creepy house, you're like, they seem like really
00:09:11creepy people in a creepy house.
00:09:13And I think we benefited from the fact that people just went, well, that seems kind of
00:09:16obvious.
00:09:16And of course, we tried to make them look in other directions.
00:09:19But yeah, the audience is so ready not to look at the thing that's right in front of
00:09:23them.
00:09:23Even when you're saying, like, no, this is going to be a story about this, you know,
00:09:27it's, it is exhausting.
00:09:29It's hard to get that overlap between character and plot.
00:09:32And when it's not, when there is a disconnect, when the plot betrays the character, then that's
00:09:37when I think, you know, yeah, it feels like a cheap twist or a cheap reveal.
00:09:41That's how I always feel is if we witness the character do something which seems entirely
00:09:46against their nature, given what we know.
00:09:48It's for the sake of a contrived twist or, you know, just some sensationalistic moment.
00:09:54That's usually when I check out.
00:09:56Yeah.
00:09:56I mean, one of the reasons why I loved Homecoming was their twists are completely
00:10:02character.
00:10:03Because again, they were, it's two people talking in a room, but that, I don't want to
00:10:07spoil it, but there's a, there's a story that gets told early on that you think is a funny
00:10:11anecdote about Titanic 2 and they're putting it on for soldiers and then later that becomes,
00:10:19again, no spoilers, but that becomes a big reveal.
00:10:22And what I love that it would slip in like that as like a natural or organic character
00:10:28trait and then it, and then it materializes as a plot element.
00:10:33But when you try and like sort of outmaneuver, I mean, even just trying to think ahead of
00:10:38like, okay, well, if the audience is expecting this, then we should do that.
00:10:41You're already kind of going down the wrong road.
00:10:44Yeah, I agree.
00:10:45Because then you're not following character and you're not staying true to whatever the
00:10:50motivations of the narrative are, you're in, yeah, you're, you're, you're playing a game
00:10:55against yourself and your assumptions of what other people's assumptions might be.
00:11:00And you're probably going to lose.
00:11:02So I want to turn to you because obviously you, you, you write the show and you have
00:11:06this character at the center who is really doing some pretty awful things.
00:11:11And yet the audience, or at least a very vocal portion of the audience is basically rooting
00:11:18for this guy.
00:11:19Right, right.
00:11:19How much did that surprise you or, or did it not surprise you at all?
00:11:23It did not surprise me.
00:11:24It's based on a book.
00:11:25Right.
00:11:25Joe is at the center of the book.
00:11:27You're inside his thoughts.
00:11:28It's called You because he's addressing Beck in his head.
00:11:30We retained that voiceover for the show.
00:11:32And there's a very vocal contingent of fans of Caroline Kepnes's book who are like, I
00:11:38heart Joe.
00:11:39Essentially what she's done is taken the classic romantic hero and just peel back the sort
00:11:45of gloss and sheen and John Cusack with the boom box.
00:11:49And she followed it to its logical conclusion.
00:11:52I mean, if you just turn off the sappy music and turn on like a David Fincher score, romantic
00:11:57comedies are stalker movies.
00:11:58The plot of pretty much everyone I can think of, and we have watched all of them many times
00:12:04in the writer's room, pretty much all of them are contingent on the, the guy, first of all
00:12:10he has to do a certain amount of fucking up so she can forgive him.
00:12:13And also he has to get over some of her shortcomings.
00:12:16I mean, that's love, right?
00:12:17But also he's like chasing her through a fucking airport, chasing her on a freeway, watching
00:12:23her sleep because he feels protective.
00:12:25Romantic comedy behavior in real life is criminal.
00:12:28So that was basically the starting place for the show.
00:12:32There it is with its big naked windows.
00:12:36It's nice, too nice.
00:12:38I was thinking subsidized school housing.
00:12:41Jesus, it's like you've never seen a horror movie or the news.
00:12:44But you want people to watch, don't you?
00:12:54You know, I plan on asking you about this quality when we get to know each other better.
00:12:57This guy has read all the great books.
00:12:59He's, he's watched all the great romances and he's a bit unhinged.
00:13:03How does he process that?
00:13:04What does he think he has to do to be a good man and a good boyfriend?
00:13:06And then you have in your star, Penn.
00:13:08I was going to say, it doesn't hurt.
00:13:10Sure.
00:13:11But also, there he is on social media sort of clapping back at these people who are in
00:13:17fact rooting for him.
00:13:18What are those sort of conversations that you have and do you want to do the same thing
00:13:23or do you sort of let that unfurl as it will?
00:13:26I try to have the prime directive to answer the second part of your question first.
00:13:30I'm happy to interact with people online to talk about like, how do you outline a script?
00:13:36But when they're like, why did you do that thing?
00:13:37It's like, you watch it the way you want to watch it.
00:13:40For Penn, I think when Greg Berlanti and I were talking about the casting, which I think
00:13:43is like maybe the single most important thing when you're making a show, we talked about
00:13:48how we needed an actor who really felt like Joe Goldberg was on paper.
00:13:53And Penn is all of that great stuff.
00:13:56He's thoughtful.
00:13:56He's a reader.
00:13:57He is a humanitarian.
00:13:59He is a feminist.
00:14:00He is extremely disturbed by Joe's behavior.
00:14:03Joe is extremely, Joe would never do those things that Joe does.
00:14:06And a lot of our conversations throughout season one when we were making the show, they
00:14:11were largely about his level of discomfort with each thing I was sending him.
00:14:15And we would, by the way, he was so, he was like A plus number one on the call sheet.
00:14:20He's never like, that feels weird.
00:14:22I'm not going to do it.
00:14:22He's always like, we're going to do it.
00:14:24We're going to do it.
00:14:25Let's talk about, and by the way, I've never been more uncomfortable in my life.
00:14:29Right?
00:14:30I also think he's got a good sense of humor.
00:14:32I think there's something kind of funny and glib about the way that he's doing that.
00:14:35That's actually very sweet to the fans.
00:14:38He expected them to be like that.
00:14:40They're like that about the book.
00:14:41So I think his approach is kind of admirable.
00:14:44What about the rest of you?
00:14:45I mean, I've noticed on Instagram, you chime in and say, you don't quite have that right.
00:14:50Yeah, I had never been a social media guy, really.
00:14:54I know.
00:14:55And a friend of mine pointed out to me that Instagram might be a more positive platform or something.
00:15:00And I was really enjoying the reactions of the fans and interacting with them and answering questions.
00:15:05And I guess it was experience from the other two seasons where I didn't want to really control an interpretation so much as temper expectations.
00:15:19Because if you're saying something wildly out of left field, I had the urge to sort of protect the expectations of the story and to just say, no.
00:15:29Like, no, it's not.
00:15:32Spoiler alert.
00:15:33It's not Amelia.
00:15:35And then you find out that that doesn't really work because people are then like, he's messing with us.
00:15:42It's Amelia.
00:15:44And I'm like, I swear I'm not messing with you.
00:15:46It's not her.
00:15:47And yeah, yeah, sure.
00:15:49That's actually so kind of you.
00:15:51He's going to mess with us.
00:15:51To do that.
00:15:53They just suspect your motivation.
00:15:55It's kind of kind.
00:15:56I'm like, tune in, find out.
00:15:58Yeah, I was just, there's a fine line between wanting people to be invested and passionate about something, but also wanting to protect that it doesn't get hijacked sort of by what John was saying, people writing their story.
00:16:13And so to sort of protect what's actually happening in the story, there were just a few times where I, you know, kind of wanted to help people out.
00:16:21And just say, if you're waiting seven weeks for this to happen, it's not going to happen.
00:16:28I will say, though, for us on Pose, it was important sometimes to ruin narrative, if you will.
00:16:36How so?
00:16:37Well, our show centers the narratives of five trans women of color.
00:16:43And at present, you know, the life expectancy for trans women of color is 35 years old.
00:16:49And so on our show in the pilot, you know, we have a character, Angel, played by India Moore, who meets Evan Peters, character Stan, and that's the beginning of the love story, right?
00:17:01But the audience who was tuning in, specifically the trans community, they were watching that narrative, and they were afraid that he was going to be violent against her because more often than not, in the real world, that is what is happening.
00:17:16And so by the time we got to, I think it was probably the fourth episode, we finally, all of us, the writer's room, just had to tweet out to everyone who was watching, like, Angel's going to be fine.
00:17:25Like, she will not die, there will be no violence enacted towards her this season.
00:17:30They were coming in week after week, holding their breath, just waiting for that moment.
00:17:35And we were like, that's not our intention here.
00:17:37But is there a piece of you as dramatic storytellers that sort of wanted that holding their breath aspect to the watching?
00:17:46No, because I think the trans community is one that has been victimized historically, and so we certainly didn't want to re-traumatize the community in any way.
00:17:57It was important for us to let the audience know that that's not the intention with the story that we're telling.
00:18:02And even though they've seen Evan Peters on American Horror Story.
00:18:06Which I don't think helped.
00:18:07No, sure not.
00:18:08Sam, you're one, somebody who's spoken in the past, and certainly this was the case of Mr. Robot, where you felt it's important to sort of find, you know, draw from yourself and your own sort of experiences with your characters.
00:18:27I am curious, when you came to Homecoming, this was somebody else's story as a podcast.
00:18:33Right.
00:18:33What are the pieces, do you need to then turn around and find the pieces of you and your story in it to tell a better story?
00:18:40Are there pieces of the sort of PTSD experience that you find a way to relate to with that process?
00:18:45I think that's mostly about theme, right?
00:18:47Or mostly about what you're trying to say in general.
00:18:50If that connects with some worldview that you have.
00:18:53And in this case, I do think there is this, like, mistrust with the world and reality and things around you that's going on that, for whatever reason, resonates.
00:19:03With me.
00:19:04I'm just saying, I'm pointing out that the only reason we think we're in Florida is because that's what they told us, right?
00:19:09I mean, that's the only reason we have to believe that.
00:19:11If we're not in Florida, where are we?
00:19:12I don't know, right?
00:19:13That's my whole point.
00:19:14See, why would they hide that from us?
00:19:15Or they're not hiding it.
00:19:16You're wrong, and we are in Florida.
00:19:18Well, because I'm usually wrong?
00:19:21No, you're not.
00:19:22Because it never lied to us before?
00:19:24I try not to impose too much on it.
00:19:28I really wanted Eli and Micah, the writers of the podcast, to be the writers on the show and to really retain the spirit of what I loved when I listened to it.
00:19:37I did not want to start putting in my stuff and contaminating, because I think that's just going to end up compromising something that I thought was really special to begin with.
00:19:47So I just wanted to draw out what did resonate from when I listened to the podcast initially.
00:19:52And I try not to psychoanalyze it a lot.
00:19:55It was a weird thing.
00:19:57After I listened to Homecoming and I jumped on board, it was after that that I started to realize, oh, there's an evil corporation.
00:20:03People are paranoid.
00:20:06I mean, it really was that.
00:20:08But I didn't want to go down into the weeds too much, because then I felt like I would overthink it and start to bring out more of it than I should.
00:20:17So, Marty, obviously, I think you've called your last three projects, what is it, the self-harm trilogy?
00:20:23Is that how you describe it?
00:20:27What are the pieces that you identify with?
00:20:32What's the sort of scab that you're picking in?
00:20:33Is it, in fact, cathartic to put these projects out there?
00:20:37So much of what motivates me as a writer is to sort of connect with people who feel unseen, in a way.
00:20:45And for me, issues of addiction or feeling othered because you don't have the right body type.
00:20:52Or in the case of Camille, like this sort of grab bag of disorders.
00:20:56You know, she's an alcoholic, she self-harms, but all of these things to me feel like parts of myself that I always felt were super shameful.
00:21:05And the more I contribute to putting those things on screen and sort of, they're not normalizing them because nobody wants these things to be emulated.
00:21:14But I think that you feel less alone.
00:21:16I'm just in town on business.
00:21:19Business?
00:21:20I didn't expect you.
00:21:22The house is not up to par for visitors, I'm afraid.
00:21:27Looks just fine.
00:21:30Come on inside.
00:21:31Goodbye.
00:21:35Can I get you something to drink?
00:21:37Alan and I are having amaretta sours.
00:21:40I'll just have it you're having, thanks.
00:21:41We're in bag.
00:21:42It's just nice and cool now with the breeze.
00:21:44It certainly makes me feel less alone to write them and then have people say, oh, me too.
00:21:49And there's so much of that with those last three projects.
00:21:52But I do feel like I've sort of excised it and now it's all like comedy musicals.
00:21:56You're like brain bones and flowers?
00:21:58Yeah, it's hard to make serious drama face, you know, because I, and I was going through my own hard time.
00:22:04You know, I've struggled with addiction my whole life and I kind of wrote my way out, you know, in a different place.
00:22:12But yeah, so next it's just going to be jokes, jokes, jokes.
00:22:16I'll be the comedy round table next time.
00:22:18I love it.
00:22:19For the rest of you, what are the pieces of these characters that you identify with?
00:22:23The pieces of yourself that you're either writing into them or, like Sam, realizing afterwards, oh, there's a piece of me in here.
00:22:30I think for my characters and our show, I'm keying into them trying to control something that is uncontrollable.
00:22:40You know, they're going into something, a world that's very dangerous and there's so many different moving parts and factors.
00:22:48I didn't invent this rock, but I'm going to blow it up.
00:22:54Detroit, D.C., Chicago, Philly, St. Louis, New York, huh?
00:23:01It's a team of trusted men in every city.
00:23:04Set up cookouts, create the demand.
00:23:07We'll be talking 50, 100 keys a week.
00:23:12A lot of keys.
00:23:13They say this when you're learning how to write, no matter how you try to sublimate it, whatever you will find out who you are as a person through your writing.
00:23:23And even if you try not to, your stuff is going to be personal, you know, and we will know what kind of person you are through the characters that you write.
00:23:31And I think that that's very, very true.
00:23:33So what kind of person are you?
00:23:34What have you learned?
00:23:35My thing is I've kind of like, I've evolved into kind of a Zenmeister where like I know what I can control and what I can't control.
00:23:44And I celebrate not being able to control certain things so that it makes it more enjoyable to see things propagate and be fascinated with what's happening.
00:23:55You know, when I got into the business, there was really, it was a nice thing for even a guy like me to go to film school and say, I'm going to be a filmmaker.
00:24:05I'm going to be a writer.
00:24:06You know, I went to school to be a writer, to make the types of films or tell the type of stories that I wanted to tell because I knew I wasn't going to be able to ride out somebody else to do it.
00:24:18So the world's changing in the time in which I was a kid and now, you know, going into a filmmaker and a storyteller and a TV producer.
00:24:28It's still the kind of same thing for me.
00:24:31And we were talking about Nicole and I'll talk about this where like you basically you want to do things that are very different.
00:24:38And there are other there are other people that don't really see it the way you see it.
00:24:42You know, Sam, you could attest to that.
00:24:48It's like and you have to, you know, you have to retain your passion for what you're what you're doing.
00:24:53And I see the kind of characters that are on our show.
00:24:57What they're doing is so absurd.
00:24:59But they're so passionate about what they're doing.
00:25:02But it's so dysfunctional.
00:25:05I mean, we're all in kind of a dysfunctional world because it's like, you know, we come up with these fantastic,
00:25:12you know, crazy ideas.
00:25:15And then, you know, people, you know, umpteen people help us put together armies of personnel to actually go out and put forth, you know?
00:25:25Yep.
00:25:26I think that's so, you know, to me, it is all about point of view and being very specific.
00:25:33And weirdly, because I remember Boys in the Hood is like one of my all-time favorite movies growing up.
00:25:38But before Boys in the Hood, you had never seen that world before.
00:25:42Not in that way.
00:25:43And I related to it, even though I didn't grow up like it.
00:25:45Like, it was so specific and so authentic.
00:25:50That's going to always bleed through if you're trying.
00:25:53You know, I think the counter to that is when people try and appease everybody and compromise as much as possible.
00:26:00And then you lose that point of view.
00:26:01I think that's when things get very vanilla and formulaic.
00:26:04And I'm sure all of you as producers can test this.
00:26:08Like, the things that I, like, betcha about on my show is we're doing a story that's at a certain time.
00:26:17And I call it a nostalgia show.
00:26:19It's not happy days.
00:26:20But it's like, you know, it's the 80s and I'm trying to basically make sure that the writers and all the creatives come in the stuff that is, like, that is, you know, the minutia of the different things.
00:26:33You know, what they're saying, what they're doing, you know, in that time.
00:26:36There's some of the stuff that I'm not even aware of, you know, that I want to discover.
00:26:40Like, you know, I always feel like, you know, we're one step away from jumping the shark where because there are people who have lived this and they're watching it and they have to be able to look at it and great, good or bad, positive or negative, they have to say that was what it was.
00:26:56You know, they have to say that is what it is.
00:26:58That is what it was.
00:26:59But if you get that wrong once, you know, we're in a world where it goes over Twitter.
00:27:04It goes over Instagram.
00:27:05So, I'm, like, really, I hammer hard on that.
00:27:08It's like, you know, when I was watching, you know, the show, what I loved about, but that one was, it was so specific to that because, you know, I tried my hand at, like, you know, hacking when I was a teenager.
00:27:21And I was just like, I can't believe he got that.
00:27:23You know, it's like, you know, all of you guys, I'm like, you know, it's like, and I.
00:27:27You tried your hand at hacking?
00:27:29I wasn't any good at it.
00:27:31Before I ended up dial-up and all this stuff.
00:27:33I got into the power company and, you know, this place, you know.
00:27:38But it's just like, you know, I love, I love seeing, you know, the specifics within a story that maybe a lot of people, audience doesn't get it, but it's so specific to that that you have to go back.
00:27:49And it adds what I call the value of telling that story because people have to roll back and say, and if they don't know it, then they want to know it.
00:27:58What was, what was she saying there?
00:28:00Or what was she expressing there?
00:28:02And I was like, you know, why was she doing that?
00:28:04And it makes it fascinating.
00:28:06Sure.
00:28:06They're seeing a reflection of a certain life.
00:28:10The characters are living and breathing for them.
00:28:13Can I add?
00:28:13Yeah, please.
00:28:14I think that that specificity is the reason why it's critically important that, you know, particularly, you know, groups that often haven't had a seat at the table.
00:28:23Women, people of color, LGBTQ plus people do have that seat.
00:28:27Right?
00:28:28The stuff that you guys do.
00:28:30You know, I grew up in the Bronx, you know, grew up in housing projects in the 80s, you know, childhood directly impacted by both crack and HIV epidemics.
00:28:38But I wasn't part of the ballroom community.
00:28:41Never walked the ball.
00:28:43You know, we have nine consultants on our show, you know, who all were part of the ballroom community.
00:28:48That's incredible.
00:28:49Nine consultants.
00:28:50I've never heard of that before.
00:28:51That's incredible.
00:28:52But it's great.
00:28:53And they're critically important in aiding us in the process of crafting our story, right?
00:28:58Like, there are checks and balances.
00:28:59Right.
00:29:00Right.
00:29:00You know?
00:29:01I'm curious for you, I mean, because you really, you are sort of striking this balance between both sort of celebrating the exuberance of the period, but also there's some real bleakness.
00:29:11How, what is that sort of navigation and the conversations that you're having with the writers as you do that?
00:29:17Right at the inception of the pose, Ryan and I spent a lot of time talking about the juxtaposition between the two worlds.
00:29:24The physical posing that is happening on a ballroom floor and then, you know, the posing that happens in your everyday life.
00:29:32The masks that we wear, who we pretend to be.
00:29:34And I think the show is trying to highlight that experience, what that means to have goals and to have aspirations, to want to live a life bigger than what the world has deemed you should live.
00:29:45Right.
00:29:46And I think that that's at the core of what, of what pose is all about.
00:29:50Everything is yours.
00:29:52Ah.
00:29:56Yes, brother.
00:29:59Ah.
00:30:00It's Angel.
00:30:01It's Angel.
00:30:02The category is high fashion evening wear.
00:30:05Ladies of luxury.
00:30:07Why are you in a nightgown?
00:30:09A lady do need beading for a formal fashion affair.
00:30:12It's chiffon.
00:30:15It's a tricky balance.
00:30:18We're like constantly sort of towing the line and walking a tightrope between juxtaposing what is happening in a ballroom community, which is fun and colorful and just effervescent and full of life, with the very real reality that a lot of the folks who were a part of the ballroom community in the 80s were HIV positive.
00:30:37Right.
00:30:39And being black or being Latin meant that they didn't have access to health care or they were being denied opportunities for employment.
00:30:47And so what does that mean?
00:30:48What does that mean for this community to exist at a time where the government was saying your life has no value?
00:30:54You know, and then finding a community in the ballroom where you absolutely do have value, but know that that's, you know, there's a ticking clock that says that, you know, very shortly, you're no longer going to be on this earth.
00:31:07Yeah.
00:31:08Nick, I want to touch with you on, so you go to Mahershala, you want him to be in the show.
00:31:13Initially, it's not for the character he plays.
00:31:16He comes back to you and says, consider me for this.
00:31:19I know this character was written for a white person.
00:31:22Curious of what that conversation was and what the ultimate realization was that led you to say, screw it.
00:31:29Well, I mean, it was a short conversation because I knew I would be really, really lucky to have an artist of that caliber playing this role.
00:31:41I said, I love the idea.
00:31:44My only concern was sort of in the times we live in, this is a story about time and memory and love.
00:31:52And I wouldn't want those themes to be subsumed because suddenly we're telling a story that is messaging about race or something.
00:32:01And I don't think I'm the right person to be doing that anyway.
00:32:05And he basically said, no, I don't want to do that.
00:32:08And what Mahershala had told me was that what he liked about the role was that this was a fully formed man and human being and often actors of color, the role they're up for is defined by race.
00:32:24So that he says, if I'm playing a detective, I'm playing the black detective.
00:32:29If I'm playing this and, you know, and so at the same time, though, I didn't want to ignore race and pretend that it didn't exist.
00:32:38It was just more in the fabric of the world.
00:32:41So, you know, again, it was a brief conversation and I just said, well, let me go rewrite the first three episodes and let's see if this doesn't work.
00:32:48And then, you know, I did that and realized, oh, it works just fine.
00:32:55And seeing how Mahershala played the character, I thought it was such a force multiplier to have an actor of color in that role.
00:33:05He's always on the periphery of things a little bit, a little bit looked over, but that also gives him the opportunity to be a much closer observer.
00:33:13And the sort of existential isolation we always associate with the classic idea of the detective, you know, like along these mean streets, a man walks along.
00:33:25I thought that sort of concretized that in an experiential way for the character.
00:33:31Being police, there's no certainty.
00:33:37A lot of the time, there's no clarity at all.
00:33:39You know, you just do your best and learn to live with ambiguity.
00:33:47I was just incredibly grateful that he wanted the role and I thought it helped me a lot to open up my work in ways I would have maybe just been shy.
00:33:59Sort of wondering like, well, is that my story to tell?
00:34:01Right.
00:34:02And then where I landed on that was I am actually the only writer on earth qualified to write about Wayne Hayes.
00:34:09Because he's a figment of my imagination.
00:34:13Exactly.
00:34:13Exactly.
00:34:15Exactly.
00:34:15Yeah.
00:34:16For the rest of you, we talk about sort of the state of the business right now.
00:34:21How much pressure do you feel to sort of strike while the iron is hot?
00:34:25You guys have a lot of sort of buzz and juice around you guys.
00:34:28Is there a sense of I got to sell more projects, do more?
00:34:31Is that the pressure from the outside or from you guys, you're laughing as though the answer is yes or no?
00:34:38Are you looking at me?
00:34:39I've never experienced this before right now, actually.
00:34:41I mean, I was very happily, pretty much today, I was very, very happily working on exactly, I mean, I had reached a point in my career where I was working on exactly the projects I wanted to.
00:34:52Frequently, those are in the fantasy and science fiction space.
00:34:55And so, you know, I like carry a little water at Comic-Con sometimes, but that's like, I'm looking at Marty because she understands.
00:35:05And I, in my spirit, I don't really differentiate between these things.
00:35:09I go where the story takes me and I don't know how to do this job if I'm not really excited about the writing of it.
00:35:15Because the rest of the job is long and it takes a lot out of you and so you want to be passionate.
00:35:20And you was the same, you was Greg Berlanti coming to me and saying, I have this very unusual book that I think you and I should write the pilot together.
00:35:29And we just saw eye to eye and that show was bought by Showtime.
00:35:35We had different visions for the show.
00:35:37Lifetime picked it up to series.
00:35:39Lifetime was a fabulous partner in season one.
00:35:41This was a departure for them.
00:35:43The executives were excited.
00:35:44They were sending me these beautiful emails with great ideas.
00:35:47I mean, they were great partners.
00:35:48Didn't work for their business model.
00:35:49We got canceled.
00:35:50So I'm like, this is essentially how I thought my career would be this year.
00:35:54And now for the first time, I'm working on a show where I go on Instagram or whatever and there's a meme.
00:36:00And I'm like, wait a minute, that's Penn on our show.
00:36:03So yes, there are people saying, oh, your iron is hot now.
00:36:06That's what that is.
00:36:07And I don't know if it's a defense mechanism or I just don't believe any of that is real.
00:36:13I was happy doing the show at Lifetime.
00:36:16I was happy writing the script for Showtime.
00:36:17I'm super happy that so many people watch it on Netflix.
00:36:20The rest of it, certainly as an artist, as a craftsperson, I have to build a wall between myself and anything that's about, like, cash money in my life.
00:36:29I want that to be, you know.
00:36:31I mean, listen, I don't hate money.
00:36:33You know, I'm not against being paid for your work.
00:36:35But I don't believe that this is a moment and that the moment is going to go away.
00:36:39The thing that I'm most excited about is that the next thing will be so different because of this thing.
00:36:44And beyond that, I'm in denial about all of it.
00:36:47I have to say, I'm in the exact opposite place.
00:36:49Really?
00:36:49Where I have a lot of anxiety.
00:36:54Specifically around, like, how do I make this career sustainable?
00:36:58Right?
00:36:59Like, there are so many incredible storytellers who have worked on wonderful shows and they just disappear.
00:37:05Where have they gone?
00:37:07What are they doing?
00:37:08I recognize that I have an incredible opportunity right now with working with, you know, one of my idols and certainly one of the most prolific TV producers working today in Ryan Murphy and in Brad Falchuk.
00:37:21And there's a part of me that is hyper aware that at a certain point we'll be done telling this story.
00:37:28And then what is next?
00:37:30I'm very methodical.
00:37:31I'm a pre-planner and so there's a part of me that's like, I don't want fear to be the compass that I use to navigate my life.
00:37:39I've lived that life before and it did not serve me well.
00:37:42So I think at this point I know I need to put the fear to the side right now.
00:37:46But I would be lying if I didn't say that there's still a little anxiety around how do you continue to sort of navigate this career?
00:37:52You know, if you're going to sell another show, well, when you decide to sell another show, what is that show?
00:37:58What does that look like?
00:37:59You know, I think there aren't a lot of people in this industry who look like me that I can then use as models, right?
00:38:07And so that I think is one of the other anxieties.
00:38:11It's like, who do I then point to to say, oh, that's the kind of career I want to have?
00:38:16I had a similar, I don't know if there's a, well, when Mr. Robot, when we were going into the fourth season, you know, I always had an end game for the series.
00:38:27So we went into the writer's room and I put up the last two episodes because I always knew what the last two episodes were.
00:38:32I put it up on the board and I said, here's where you are from end of season three.
00:38:35How many more episodes are there without treading water?
00:38:38I've always said between four and five, but, you know, everyone thought, oh, we definitely have two more seasons left.
00:38:44And it wasn't, no, it was basically one last season.
00:38:48So I went to the network and everybody was sort of like, no, this can't be the last season.
00:38:54And we kept talking about and talking about and there was a lot of anxiety of like, am I really ending?
00:38:59I mean, nobody wants it to end right now and the cast didn't want it to end, the network.
00:39:04Then you start asking yourself, well, this isn't the only story I can tell.
00:39:09I've got like five million other ideas.
00:39:11When you start playing the game of career and thinking about five year plan or whatever, I just think, what does that have to do with the story that you're telling?
00:39:21It should have nothing to do with it.
00:39:23And of course, there's the money and you're looking at that and you're doing a whole other season, a whole other ten episodes, residuals and all this other.
00:39:30Yeah, sounds good.
00:39:31And you're just like, well, you just keep going.
00:39:34I mean, you can understand why shows go on and on and on.
00:39:38I mean, what, the Law and Order just hit what?
00:39:40I don't know.
00:39:40We had a similar thing with Buffy way back, you know, low in the olden days of Buffy.
00:39:46Joss and I kind of looked at each other and we were like, we're vampired out.
00:39:49Like we got, and nobody wanted it to be over, but there's something great about, you know, I think one of the things I learned from Joss was that he always had confidence in the storyteller inside of him, that there were other stories.
00:40:00And I didn't have any of that.
00:40:02Like I was just a nervous wreck always about like, this is the end, you know.
00:40:05But I knew that we were, we had told the story and anything after that was going to feel like we were doing a disservice to the characters who we love so much.
00:40:14And there's something, too, about when you leave people wanting a little bit more instead of being like, yeah, you know, you guys really, you beat that horse.
00:40:21Yeah, it's like the dangerous question in the writer's room is, all right, so what are we going to do this episode?
00:40:27And when I start saying that, it's like, wait, what?
00:40:31No, we're driving towards something, right?
00:40:33I mean, it's almost like the anthology.
00:40:35Anthology format is, for me, like the exciting thing, because you basically finish the story and then you wait until you get inspired, right?
00:40:44Yeah.
00:40:44Until something.
00:40:45If the network allows you to.
00:40:47Yeah, and I've had both experiences where, okay, you have to do something like yesterday.
00:40:53And it's going to, it needs to be, you know, done by this date and start shooting this date.
00:40:57But having done the anthology and I find now I would like to not do that.
00:41:03Because, you know, like make these characters and feel for them and come to have great affection for them and investment in them.
00:41:11And I would like to stay with them for more than a season.
00:41:14You know, and even while having an end to a story in mind, like four seasons would be nice.
00:41:19Like, that'd be nice to live with somebody like that.
00:41:21And towards the anxiety question, I've already like seen so much up and down that I got very zen about, well, it's all over.
00:41:31Not working from a place of fear or anxiety, the way I found to remove the fear and anxiety was to just sort of, let's imagine worst case scenario.
00:41:44It's not that bad.
00:41:46Like, maybe do something else.
00:41:47Maybe you'll make plays.
00:41:48Maybe you'll write novels.
00:41:49Maybe you'll write novels that let me sort of work from a place of inspiration better rather than wondering about markets or saleability or something like that.
00:42:00Yeah, right.
00:42:03I could care a lot.
00:42:04I mean, yeah.
00:42:05And obviously there's anxiety.
00:42:07But the good thing is, is like when that conversation starts happening, I just check out.
00:42:12I don't care.
00:42:13Yeah, and I think if I tried to create something towards concerns like that, I think it would be terrible because it would essentially be me faking something the whole way through.
00:42:25And I think it would be miserable for me, too.
00:42:27I think it would be really unpleasant.
00:42:30It's like everybody is the CEO of a company and then the entire company is this like little anxious writer.
00:42:35And it's like you have to take care of the little anxious writer or you have no product, I guess, to be really blunt about it.
00:42:44I think, I mean, because I walk around with things.
00:42:45I mean, I have it every morning, actually, first thing in the morning before I even start drinking coffee.
00:42:50But I have my little tricks that I pull out.
00:42:54What are your tools?
00:42:56I have one I can share with the class.
00:42:58I was a staff writer below the bottom rung of the ladder of Supernatural at this point.
00:43:04And my family all went somewhere with a casino.
00:43:07I don't remember what it was.
00:43:07Somewhere in California.
00:43:09And I walked underneath an LED sign that said that the jackpot was $4 million, which was more than I expected to make in my lifetime.
00:43:19And I just stopped and I stood there and I stared at it.
00:43:22And I asked myself, if you had $4 million today, what would you do?
00:43:26And the answer right away was I would be a writer.
00:43:29I would keep writing.
00:43:30I actually wouldn't even quit my job.
00:43:32It came so quickly and with so much confidence, it actually surprised me.
00:43:36And so when I am not in such a panic that I forget to remember that moment, that's the one I come back to.
00:43:43That's the one that I remember.
00:43:44It's like I can't think of a situation sort of losing my actual mind where I wouldn't want to write about it.
00:43:51So, and yes, the rest I just assume will all crash and burn.
00:43:56In what ways are you like and not like your reputations?
00:44:06It's so funny because when you say that, I used to think that my reputation was being really nice.
00:44:12And now I'm like, oh, I think my reputation may be that every other show I do, I either quit or get fired.
00:44:19So, and then the other show is like a nice show.
00:44:23So I'm like, there's probably like, I probably have like multiple, like I don't have just one reputation.
00:44:28That actually, because a lot of what you guys were just talking about, I was like the biggest journey is learning how to stay true to the show that you're making.
00:44:36You know, and that's the only thing that I've learned, which is that the next show will be when I know what the show is.
00:44:42Meaning, I have a lot of ideas, but there's certain ones where I go, oh, that's a show.
00:44:47And I know what it is, and I know what the tone is, and I will defend that.
00:44:52And I don't care if people like me in the making, in the defending of this thing.
00:44:57And I don't even care if the show doesn't get made if I stay the course.
00:45:00Like, to me, that's the number one showrunner job is I know what the show is.
00:45:05And no matter what happens, that's my job to get up every day and remind everybody what we're doing and why we were doing it in the first place.
00:45:14And so, like where I used to think I had a reputation of being a really like pleasant person to work with, now I hope it's like, well, she makes the show.
00:45:21She fucking makes the show.
00:45:23And sometimes it's not pleasant, and sometimes she's super good to be around, but she does make the show.
00:45:27And if she doesn't think the show's going to stay, like, you know, in certain shows, like, I've quit, because I'm like, that's not the show we were making.
00:45:35And I'm willing to do that.
00:45:37And to your, you know, anxiety, like, as long as I stay true to that, you know, there always seems to be another job.
00:45:44Like, it's when I start worrying about, like, I was told on one of the first shows out of Buffy, like, you were, and it was kind of a hot mess, because I was trying to make everybody happy.
00:45:53And I was trying to be successful, and I wanted to show everybody that I had a show in me after Buffy.
00:45:59And when it crashed and burned rather spectacularly, one of the executives said to me, wow, you know, you were so great to work with.
00:46:06I mean, you took every note, like, maybe too great to work with.
00:46:11And I was like, oh, God, they don't pay me to be nice.
00:46:15They pay me to tell them what the show is.
00:46:19Uh-oh.
00:46:20I love that.
00:46:20What about the rest of you?
00:46:21In what ways do you feel like?
00:46:23I don't know what my reputation is.
00:46:24I don't either.
00:46:25We hear you're tall.
00:46:27Okay, I am like that.
00:46:29I think certainly for some, controlling a point of view.
00:46:34I mean, I think a lot of, I mean, to your point of in success, that can come with the territory.
00:46:41Is that really knowing what you want and sort of taking no prisoners in getting it?
00:46:46I think we all have to be controlling.
00:46:48Yeah, you have to.
00:46:49That's what we're hired to do.
00:46:51And they want you to know, to basically, at least to feel comfortable with you knowing
00:46:58you're, you know, you're responsible and you're telling the story that, you know, that should
00:47:02be told.
00:47:02I mean, I think part of my reputation comes back because, you know, I started in futures
00:47:07that I don't like is that I'm some, like, black militant, like, guy, like, really serious
00:47:13and, like, I don't like white people.
00:47:14You know, it's just like, dude, it's like, I'm kind of a goofball.
00:47:18You know, I'm funny.
00:47:20I'm self-effacing and everything.
00:47:21But I'm very serious about storytelling.
00:47:24And then, like you say, telling the narrative that hasn't been told before.
00:47:28And what I don't like is when I have people who are not from various cultures that I'm trying
00:47:34to tell a story that tell me, dictate to me what they think it is.
00:47:38And you guys can all contest that when an executive feels that they know better than
00:47:42you the story that you're telling.
00:47:44Then I turn and like, you're not going to fucking tell me what my story is.
00:47:49It's like, this is why this character does this and you bought this for a certain reason.
00:47:55And if I do this, I know the audience is going to respond in a certain way.
00:47:59If I do what you want to do, we jump the shark and they're going to turn the lines off.
00:48:04I don't feel there's a lot of people of color in the business that feel comfortable saying,
00:48:09it's going to be like this.
00:48:10I don't care what the hell you say.
00:48:12And I've gone through that throughout my, I started when I was 22 years old.
00:48:17So it's like, what the hell can you tell me?
00:48:19It's like, you know, like you said that this wasn't going to work and it worked.
00:48:22And then you said this stuff was going to work and it all worked.
00:48:25So I'm coming from a very organic place as a, first of all, an oral storyteller first,
00:48:32you know, not something I research.
00:48:34And I don't like that where like I'm running into that brick wall of like being passionate
00:48:41about something in a certain way, like you say, and then having people say, oh, well,
00:48:47you know, you know, we like it, we're intrigued, but you know, you should do this.
00:48:51And it's just like, if I do that, you know, I can't do that, you know.
00:48:55So I mean, that's what I'm saying.
00:48:58If anything that I don't like is like, you know, the sad thing.
00:49:01Because, yeah, I think I'm pretty charismatic, you know, and I do, you know, like, I'm like,
00:49:06you know, but otherwise, I just don't like people, I just like people trying to subvert
00:49:12my vision of what I think it, you know, should be.
00:49:15I'm sorry.
00:49:16Oh, no, I was just saying, and if you didn't fight and capitulated, you're not doing your
00:49:21job.
00:49:22Exactly.
00:49:22You know, and that's, I mean, I've actually used that line before that if I let you do
00:49:26this, I'm not doing the job you hired me for.
00:49:29Exactly.
00:49:29Exactly.
00:49:30There's always a weird line where I, and it always is followed by an awkward silence where,
00:49:36you know, you say, well, yeah, but I don't want to do that.
00:49:40No.
00:49:40Well, I don't even say no, I just say, but I don't want to do that.
00:49:43I don't want to do that.
00:49:44Listen.
00:49:44And then there's this weird, okay, so, and then it's like, yeah, I'm not telling you,
00:49:51if you, that's what you want, great, then I'm not, you know, and you just have to commit.
00:49:56I just want to fill in a thing where people feel like they have to justify their jobs by
00:50:01subverting what you've been hired to do.
00:50:03And I always feel like, too, like, you know, I would never say no.
00:50:07I feel like if I can't explain well why we're doing what we're doing, then you're right.
00:50:15And we shouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
00:50:17If all, if the only way I can answer something is, you have to trust me, then I don't deserve
00:50:24the job I have.
00:50:25And I tend to think people who just say, you got to trust me, generally don't know what
00:50:29they're doing.
00:50:29And what you were saying is, I think, a lot of those more, you know, about people trying
00:50:35to justify their jobs and stuff.
00:50:36I just, I think we're, at our best, we're trying to work from an organic place that speaks
00:50:41to some form of human experience.
00:50:44And they're working out of a place of fear.
00:50:46Of fear.
00:50:46But also, it's a subjective medium.
00:50:48And, you know, like, one of the reasons I love baking, like, my biggest hobby in the
00:50:52world is baking because, you know, you, everybody knows what a cake is.
00:50:55And, you know, generally, if you say it's chocolate and you cut it and you taste it,
00:50:59it's a chocolate cake.
00:51:00But ours, what we do, it may not be justifying their job.
00:51:04You said it, man.
00:51:06I got flush right now.
00:51:07You know, when we turn in script, giving notes on something like that, the only thing you
00:51:12can do is say, well, this is what I feel.
00:51:14And it's this weird struggle of, but I'm empirically right.
00:51:17Right.
00:51:18But I am.
00:51:19And the fact is, you have to keep your ears open.
00:51:21And sometimes, you know, there's notes and you go, like, that's a really good idea.
00:51:25Thank you very much.
00:51:25I heard that, you know.
00:51:27But it's this weird idea where we're all agreeing that we're making something that
00:51:32everybody can like in the same way.
00:51:34So I guess I always feel like sometimes I really think, no, every single three pages of
00:51:40single space notes you gave me on that 10-minute sequence, you all, all six of you who put
00:51:45that note down, you all agree about these contradicting notes.
00:51:48And they're all true.
00:51:49But I'm the one who has to figure out which, where we started in the first place.
00:51:54Right.
00:51:54All right.
00:51:55I'm going to end with a couple of quicker questions.
00:51:58What is your most unusual pre-writing ritual?
00:52:04Oh, I'll just start because it's easy.
00:52:06I have no rituals.
00:52:07I fall down the rabbit of YouTube.
00:52:11What are you watching in there?
00:52:13The rabbit of YouTube.
00:52:14Everything.
00:52:15Everything.
00:52:16Yeah, these days I'm watching a lot of The View, which I think is because I'm reading that
00:52:20book at the moment.
00:52:21Oh, oh.
00:52:22Yeah.
00:52:22This is really good.
00:52:23What's the book?
00:52:24It's all about the behind the scenes of the show.
00:52:28Oh, wow.
00:52:28Oh, wow.
00:52:29Chaos.
00:52:30It's great.
00:52:30A lot of chaos.
00:52:31Yeah.
00:52:31It's good.
00:52:32I jump in my kayak and I go off and I'm ready to pass the breakwater.
00:52:39I go near the pier and I face the kayak towards the shore and I let it go and let the tide
00:52:47take me all the way in and fall in.
00:52:49And I tried to clear my whole mind out.
00:52:53And I mean, I've been lucky so far that, you know, I haven't like when the surf comes up
00:52:59and the breeze on the beach that it doesn't topside.
00:53:01And if it goes up and goes right in the beach and it comes in, boom, on the sand, it's like,
00:53:06it's going to be good.
00:53:08It's going to be great.
00:53:09I love that.
00:53:09It's beautiful.
00:53:10I'm going to start making notes.
00:53:12I was recently writing a pilot about, among other things, someone who suffered a traumatic
00:53:17brain injury.
00:53:18And before I started writing, I would light a saint's candle to Oliver Sacks every day.
00:53:24It's all burnt down now because I finished the pilot.
00:53:27That was the most recent.
00:53:28I love that.
00:53:28I don't think I have time to have rituals.
00:53:31Why?
00:53:32Well, because I just have to be constant.
00:53:34I kind of have to be constantly writing.
00:53:36And so I'll write on the way to set or, and sometimes writing is just, I'm walking the
00:53:41dog and thinking about something and Emmy will look at me and she'll be saying something.
00:53:46But of course I'm in my head and she's like, oh, you're writing.
00:53:48You're writing again.
00:53:48But I think that, yeah, I kind of just have to fill in gaps.
00:53:53I like it when we travel.
00:53:54I think I like, I don't think she, she likes that.
00:53:57But, yeah.
00:53:58Like you're in a new country and she's like, let's go have dinner.
00:54:01And you're like, it's happening.
00:54:02Yeah, I'm similar.
00:54:06I love finding a new place to write.
00:54:09Like I don't love, like the people that talk about like Stephen King has this like table
00:54:14that he goes to every day in his house and he writes five pages.
00:54:17And I'm like, no, man, I need, I need to mix it up.
00:54:20So it's often just about finding the cozy place and some place a little bit distracting.
00:54:25But, you know, on days when you have to write, then there's no rituals allowed.
00:54:28You just write.
00:54:29I'm going to be a weirdo.
00:54:30I love writing at the kitchen table.
00:54:32Yeah.
00:54:32It's strange.
00:54:34It's like my favorite spot.
00:54:36That sounds reliable.
00:54:37I've found I like writing around other people.
00:54:41Like because for so long I was just alone in a room.
00:54:44And now I try to take myself out and just be around people.
00:54:48Like even, I've always hated that cliche of you always see all these screenwriters and coffee shops.
00:54:55But it's really like.
00:54:56Starbucks birds.
00:54:57Yeah.
00:54:58Yeah.
00:54:59Do you find it distracting?
00:54:59I'm one of those.
00:55:00No, I don't.
00:55:01Like I find, I find the sort of white noise of human activity comforting.
00:55:06In some way.
00:55:08And like I'll go sit at the bar at a restaurant and I'll just write there and eventually I'll order a meal just so I have an excuse to be there.
00:55:16And it's kind of just to not feel alone, to not feel like I'm drifting in outer space.
00:55:23Are you an introvert or an extrovert?
00:55:26I'm a combination.
00:55:27Like on that Myers-Briggs it was introvert, extrovert.
00:55:30But I've felt like I spent so much of the first half of my life, 35 years, alone in a room doing this.
00:55:41And I'm tired of being alone in a room kind of now, you know.
00:55:44And I don't generally strike up conversations with people when I'm doing it or anything.
00:55:49I just, I like the hum of life.
00:55:52Like it makes me feel connected to the species in a way that being in a room alone, I'd start to feel trapped in the jail cell in my head.
00:56:03Yeah.
00:56:04Like you're being punished for something.
00:56:06I used to get sent to my room when I did something bad.
00:56:08Like now I'm sending myself to my room all the time.
00:56:11What's going on here?
00:56:12I do the cafe thing too, but I'm more evil than you are.
00:56:15Because I put headphones on with nothing in them so that I don't look like I'm eavesdropping.
00:56:20And I straight rip off conversations around me all the time.
00:56:23I went places where people were on dates when we started writing you.
00:56:27So I could hear what that awkward first date banter was.
00:56:30Beautiful.
00:56:30Yeah.
00:56:31That's great.
00:56:32I mean it's super rude.
00:56:33It's slightly so sympathetic.
00:56:34It's great.
00:56:35It's great though.
00:56:35I love it.
00:56:36All right.
00:56:36Speed round.
00:56:37The film or TV show that made you want to do this for a living.
00:56:41So growing up, my parents were not big movie folks.
00:56:46They didn't want to take me to the movies because it cost too much.
00:56:49So I was just watching movies at home.
00:56:51And the movies that I did watch at home, and I don't randomly, I don't know how I got these movies,
00:56:55but I remember French Connection being like the one I watched obsessively.
00:56:58And I was like watching bad slasher horror films.
00:57:00And I kept hearing about this movie coming out called E.T.
00:57:04And it was like, oh my God, everyone was going ape shit.
00:57:09I mean, everybody in school was talking about it.
00:57:11So I convinced my parents to finally let me go into the movies.
00:57:14And, you know, they did it.
00:57:16And I was five.
00:57:17They didn't go with me.
00:57:18They bought me the ticket.
00:57:19I walked in.
00:57:20And I watched it, and I was really bored.
00:57:27I was bored.
00:57:28I was not a fan.
00:57:29I was like, what is this?
00:57:31I'm not excited.
00:57:32It's super boring.
00:57:34You saw it in the whole time.
00:57:37You saw it in the movies?
00:57:37Frogs.
00:57:38You saw it in the movies or a video?
00:57:39No, it was in the theater.
00:57:41Wow.
00:57:42I just was like, where is all the fun?
00:57:44Like, it was just like they were playing dress up.
00:57:46I don't know.
00:57:47I just didn't, I didn't, I didn't like.
00:57:49You had a different expectation.
00:57:50I had a different, I was like, it's a movie about aliens.
00:57:52I thought, again, I was used to French connection.
00:57:55So I remember walking out thinking, I can do better than that.
00:58:02Spielberg.
00:58:03Spielberg.
00:58:05So I was a little shit.
00:58:06That's how it started.
00:58:08That was a little five-year-old shit.
00:58:10That's funny.
00:58:11I love it.
00:58:11I grew up on movies.
00:58:13Movies, I always believed that films saved me from delinquency.
00:58:17I watched movies in the theater at an early age, and I also watched a lot of television
00:58:24at an early age.
00:58:25But specifically speaking as a writer, what really inspired me to write and have a certain
00:58:32kind of specific cultural vision as a writer?
00:58:35It may not be politically correct to pull up this name, but, you know, Woody Allen.
00:58:40You know, when I went to see, when I was in high school, I went to go see, to a revival
00:58:46theater, and I went to see Bananas and Annie Hall.
00:58:50And I was watching these films, and I was like, funny and then dramatic and stuff.
00:58:56And then I just realized this guy wrote every word there.
00:59:00Nothing was imprompt.
00:59:01Everything was on book, and I was just like, you know, okay, so this is what I have to
00:59:06do.
00:59:07I have to really learn a lot about how to write in a way that the actors have the material,
00:59:15and it just feels, it just rolls off the tongue.
00:59:17Sure.
00:59:18And so, for me, it was really watching Annie Hall and watching the pictures of Woody Allen.
00:59:22I'm a sort of pre-creepy Woody Allen.
00:59:24We can all sort of agree on the pre-Manhattan.
00:59:27All right, now we're really doing Lightning Round?
00:59:29What is the film or show?
00:59:30So, I like Sam.
00:59:32It's a Spielberg film.
00:59:33It was a color purple.
00:59:35I remember being a little boy, five years old, and my mom-
00:59:38You hated the color purple.
00:59:39No, I loved it.
00:59:41He wasn't a kid.
00:59:42A little different, a little different from Sam, a little different.
00:59:45But my mom had read the book, and I was fortunate to have parents who allowed me to watch anything
00:59:52and everything, you know, and then we would have a conversation about it.
00:59:54So, I was hyper-aware at a very young age that film wasn't real, but the emotions that you were feeling were.
01:00:02And that was the first time that I'd ever been in a theater, and I was only six, I think, at the time,
01:00:07but that I saw people who looked like members of my own family on screen, and then the deep catharsis at the end when Nettie and Celie are reconnected.
01:00:16And I just remember, even at that early age, feeling like, oh, whatever I do with my life,
01:00:21and I don't know that I knew that I'd be a storyteller working in Hollywood, but I just, I vividly remember feeling in that moment,
01:00:28whatever job, whatever career path I choose, I want to make people feel that same way.
01:00:34Sure, sure.
01:00:35All right, what's your show?
01:00:37When I was a kid, Twin Peaks.
01:00:39Twin Peaks is your show.
01:00:40I had no idea that you could do, I was like, that can be TV?
01:00:44Then I'm interested in TV.
01:00:45What about you two?
01:00:47I watched musicals, MGM musicals.
01:00:50It just made me want to, they took me away.
01:00:53It was every Saturday afternoon on free TV.
01:00:55What was your favorite?
01:00:57Oh, I mean, Fred Astaire doing anything, you know, the way he danced.
01:01:01Judy Garland, I felt her deeply.
01:01:04What about you, Nick?
01:01:05When I was eight, my father called me out of bed to come watch a movie with him, and it was The Godfather.
01:01:11That really made this kind of indelible mark on me about what filmed entertainment could be.
01:01:20And then sometime in my pre-teens, I saw The Singing Detective.
01:01:26I didn't even know that something like that was possible.
01:01:28Sure.
01:01:28Sure.
01:01:29I love it.
01:01:30We've done it.
01:01:30Thank you guys so much for being part of this.
01:01:32Great.
01:01:32Thanks, guys.
01:01:33Good job.
01:01:34Good job.
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