- 11 hours ago
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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00:00:18I'm your host, Lacey Rose, and I'm here today with Sam Esnail, Marty Noxon, Nick Pizzolatto,
00:00:26Stephen 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 pieces of brick.
00:00:51The scene that actually made me nervous, though, is in the pilot.
00:00:53Very early in the first episode of the show, our character masturbates on the street in shadow.
00:00:59And I was watching it at a screening in Austin, and I was like, oh, we're going to lose them,
00:01:04and they're never coming back because he's jacking off in the street in New York.
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.
00:01:21I'm not really nervous about anything because in the writer's room, I'm a performance artist.
00:01:27I try to act out what I think the characters should do.
00:01:31And we're all in kind of a competition for eyes.
00:01:34So it's like, you know, I'm trying to find the most shocking, organic, natural thing that the characters would go
00:01:40through.
00:01:41And so if people bump against it and they're like, no, we can't do that, I say, that's why we're
00:01:46going to do it.
00:01:47So give me an example.
00:01:48What's one of those where they said, ooh, can we do this?
00:01:50I mean, there's a couple things.
00:01:52I mean, we had in the first season, we had a situation where a really tough guy robs our lead
00:01:59character, Franklin, 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 the
00:02:16money from another guy.
00:02:18And I suggested, well, this guy gets frustrated with interrogating the other guy.
00:02:22So he takes him back and he rapes him.
00:02:25And so, and I say this in like 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.
00:02:34I know that people, I know I'm affecting some of the writers when they're visually like aghast.
00:02:41And, you know, and I said, and I was like, we got to do this.
00:02:44I love that.
00:02:46Anyone else have?
00:02:47I feel like just the idea of adapting a podcast, like homecoming to a TV show.
00:02:54I remember people thought that that was a little nutty.
00:02:57You know, it's two people talking in a room.
00:02:59And then on top of that, I was like, yeah, and we're still doing that.
00:03:03We're still doing the 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 drama.
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 now.
00:03:21And just to think about, like, at this point with streaming and all the other options of how you consume
00:03:26television.
00:03:26It'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.
00:03:37But 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, like the
00:03:46aspect ratio thing.
00:03:47I remember that was a, well, 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 excited.
00:04:03I was like, oh, then we're definitely doing, you know, whenever there was, like, any kind of pushback,
00:04:08then 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 cages.
00:04:15You know, you want to feel like 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, yeah.
00:04:25When was the last time you guys were completely wrong about viewers' reaction to what you put 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,
00:04:47ended up 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.
00:04:57But I thought that we'd have more of a reaction.
00:04:59But I think the last few years in the real world had been so insane that it just kind of
00:05:04ended up matching the world
00:05:06instead 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 made me nervous.
00:05:31And 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 no.
00:05:43It was too queer.
00:05:44It was too trans.
00:05:45There were too many black people, too many Latin people.
00:05:47It's a period piece.
00:05:47And so to finally have the show be produced and to have a collaborator or collaborators in Ryan Murphy and
00:05:54Brad 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 co-created
00:06:10the show with Ryan Murphy that's a bomb, you know?
00:06:14And then it goes out into the world and people embrace it and they love it and they understand exactly
00:06:19what our intention was and the heart space that we approach the narrative 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 wrong.
00:06:34There was a way with this season that I tried to be as transparent as possible with the narrative because
00:06:42of 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 for me.
00:06:54You know, you always want your work to, you hope it stirs passion in people and devotion and investment.
00:07:04But to see from some viewers the sorts of theories that were, to me, coming out of left field, sort
00:07:15of like, no, we just told you that'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 the individual.
00:07:28And there's a contingent of viewers, though, that have been, you know, programmed by the sorts of storytelling we've had
00:07:37over the past few decades that are simply intent on looking for what would be the most out-tray twist.
00:07:48Never mind if it would make no sense, you know, and so I was surprised probably by some of that
00:07:55more than anything.
00:07:56They'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 know, he knows what the
00:08:11audience expectations are in advance and he tries to go in another way or, you know, naturally in another way,
00:08:17but not in a way that's plot-based.
00:08:20It's like, you know, you're saying the character of a dictator.
00:08:23Yeah, 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 going to depend on
00:08:32how 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 of tracks.
00:08:42Absolutely.
00:08:42And then they stick to their thing of what they've written in their mind instead of what you've laid out
00:08:50for it.
00:08:50I think that we sort of benefited from that in Sharp Objects because one of the things about the story
00:08:55is the people who seem the most like the killers are the killers.
00:08:59And we tried, 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 the minute you
00:09:08meet these people in this creepy house, you're like, they seem like really creepy people in a creepy house.
00:09:13And I think we benefited from the fact that people just went, well, that seems kind of obvious.
00:09:16And, of course, we tried to make them look in other directions, but, yeah, the audience is so ready not
00:09:21to look at the thing that's right in front of them.
00:09:23Even when you're saying, like, no, this is going to be a story about this, you know, 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 when, I think,
00:09:38you know, it feels like a cheap twist or a cheap reveal.
00:09:41That's how I always feel, is if we witnessed a character do something which seems entirely against their nature, given
00:09:48what we know, for the sake of a contrived twist or, you know, just some sensationalistic moment, that's usually when
00:09:55I check out.
00:09:56Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons why I loved Homecoming was their twists are completely, because, again, there were,
00:10:04it's two people talking in a room, but that, I don't want to spoil it, but there's a story that
00:10:08gets told early on that you think is a funny anecdote about Titanic 2, and they're putting it on for
00:10:15its whole soldiers.
00:10:16And then later, that becomes, again, no spoilers, but that becomes a big reveal.
00:10:22And, well, I love that it would slip in like that as, like, a natural or organic character trait, and
00:10:29then 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, like, okay,
00:10:39well, if the audience is expecting this, then we should do that, you're already kind of going down the wrong
00:10:43road.
00:10:43Yeah, I agree, because then you're not following character, and you're not staying true to whatever the motivations of the
00:10:51narrative are.
00:10:52Correct, yeah.
00:10:52You're playing a game against yourself and your assumptions of what other people's assumptions might be.
00:11:00And you're probably going to lose.
00:11:03Sarah, I want to turn to you, because, obviously, you write this show, and you have this character at the
00:11:08center 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 for this guy.
00:11:19Right, right.
00:11:19How much did that surprise you, 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.
00:11:31We retain that voiceover for the show.
00:11:32And there is a very vocal contingent of fans of Caroline Kebnis' book, who are like, I heart Joe.
00:11:39Essentially, what she's done is taken the classic romantic hero and just peeled back the sort of gloss and sheen
00:11:46and John Cusack with the boombox.
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 comedies
00:11:58are stalker movies.
00:11:59The plot of pretty much everyone I can think of, and we have watched all of them many times in
00:12:04the writer's room, pretty much all of them are contingent on the guy, first of all, he has to do
00:12:11a 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 her sleep because he
00:12:24feels protective.
00:12:25Romantic comedy behavior in real life is criminal.
00:12:29So 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.
00:12:52But 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 watched all the great...
00:13:03What 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.
00:13:12He's on social media, sort of clapping back at these people who are, in fact, rooting for him.
00:13:18What are those sort of conversations that you have and...
00:13:25I try to have the prime directive.
00:13:36Why did you do that thing?
00:13:38It'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 is like maybe
00:13:44the single most important thing when you're making a show.
00:13:46We talked about how 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.
00:13:58He is a feminist.
00:14:00He is extremely disturbed by Joe's behavior.
00:14:03Joe is extremely...
00:14:04Joe would never do those things that Joe does.
00:14:07And a lot of our conversations throughout season one when we were making the show, they were largely about his
00:14:12level of discomfort with each thing I was sending him.
00:14:15And we would...
00:14:16And by the way, 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...
00:14:26And by the way, I've never been more uncomfortable in my life.
00:14:29Right?
00:14:30Yeah.
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 that's actually very sweet
00:14:36to the fans.
00:14:38He expected them to be like that.
00:14:40They're like that about the book.
00:14:42So I think his approach is kind of admirable.
00:14:44What about the rest of you?
00:14:45I've noticed on Instagram, you chime in and say, you don't quite have that right.
00:14:51Yeah.
00:14:52I'd never been a social media guy, really.
00:14:54And, you know, a friend of mine pointed out to me that like Instagram might be a more positive platform
00:14:59or something.
00:15:00And I was really enjoying the reactions of the fans and interacting with them and answering questions.
00:15:06And I guess it was experience from the other two seasons where I didn't want to really control an interpretation
00:15:15so much as temper expectations.
00:15:18Because if you're saying something wildly out of left field, I had the urge to sort of protect the expectations
00:15:27of the story and to just say, no.
00:15:29Like, no, it's not.
00:15:32Spoiler alert.
00:15:33It's not Amelia.
00:15:34And 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.
00:15:52To do that.
00:15:53They just suspect your motivation.
00:15:55It's kind of fun.
00:15:57I'm like, tune and find out.
00:15:59Yeah.
00:15:59I was just, there's a fine line between wanting people to be invested and passionate about something.
00:16:04But also wanting to protect that it doesn't get hijacked sort of by what John was saying, people writing their
00:16:11story.
00:16:12And so to sort of protect what's actually happening in the story, there were just a few times where I,
00:16:19you know, kind of wanted to help people out.
00:16:22And just say, if you're waiting seven weeks for this to happen, it's not going to happen.
00:16:29I 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.
00:16:50And so on our show, in the pilot, you know, we have a character, Angel, played by India Moore, who
00:16:56meets Evan Peters, character Stan.
00:16:59And that's the beginning of a love story, right?
00:17:01But the audience who was tuning in, specifically the trans community, they were watching that narrative.
00:17:07And they were afraid that he was going to be violent against her.
00:17:11Because more often than not, in the real world, that is what is happening.
00:17:15And so by the time we got to, I think it was probably the fourth episode, we finally, all of
00:17:20us, 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.
00:17:27There 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
00:17:45the watching?
00:17:46No, because I think the trans community is one that has been victimized historically.
00:17:53And 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
00:18:02telling.
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, I'm sure not.
00:18:14Sam, you're one, somebody who's spoken in the past, and certainly this was the case of Mr. Robot, where you
00:18:20felt it's important to sort of find, you know, draw from yourself and your own sort of experiences with your
00:18:26characters.
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
00:18:38in 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
00:18:59you that's going on that, for whatever reason, resonates with 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
00:19:08told 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.
00:19:18Oh, because I'm usually wrong?
00:19:21No, you're not.
00:19:23Because it never lied to us before?
00:19:25I 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
00:19:33really 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
00:19:44up 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.
00:19:56It was a weird thing.
00:19:57After I listened to Homecoming and I jumped on board, it was after that I started to realize, oh, there's
00:20:03an evil corporation.
00:20:04People 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
00:20:13it 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?
00:20:28What are the pieces that you identify with?
00:20:32What's the sort of scab that you're picking?
00:20:33And is 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
00:20:45a 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.
00:20:58She self-harms.
00:21:00But 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 not, they're not normalizing them because
00:21:13nobody wants these things to be emulated.
00:21:14But I think that you feel less alone.
00:21:17I'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.
00:21:31Good.
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.
00:21:41Thanks.
00:21:41We're in bag.
00:21:42It's just nice and cool now with the breeze.
00:21:45Certainly 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.
00:21:55And now it's all like comedy and musicals.
00:21:57You're like, sort of, brain cells and flowers?
00:21:59Yeah, it's hard to make serious drama face, you know, because I, and I was going through
00:22:03my own hard time.
00:22:04You know, I've struggled with addiction my whole life.
00:22:08And 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 at 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,
00:22:29oh, there's a piece of me in here.
00:22:31I think for my characters and our show, I'm keying into them trying to control something
00:22:39that is uncontrollable.
00:22:40You know, they're going into something, a world that's very dangerous.
00:22:45And 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.
00:23:00Huh?
00:23:01It's a team of trusted men in every city.
00:23:04Set up cookouts, create the demand.
00:23:07We're talking 50, 100 keys a week.
00:23:12A lot of keys.
00:23:14They say this when you're learning how to write.
00:23:16No matter how you try to celebrate it, we're going to find out who you are as a person through
00:23:21your writing.
00:23:24And even if you tried not to, your stuff is going to be personal, you know?
00:23:28And 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?
00:23:36My thing is I've kind of like, I've evolved into kind of a Zenmeister where, like,
00:23:41I know what I can control and what I can't control.
00:23:45And I celebrate not being able to control certain things so that it makes it more enjoyable
00:23:51to see things propagate and be fascinated with what's happening.
00:23:56You know, when I got into the business, there was really, it was a nice thing for even a
00:24:03guy 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
00:24:13of stories that I wanted to tell because I knew I wasn't going to be able to ride out
00:24:17somebody else to do it.
00:24:18So the world's changing in the time in which I was a kid and now, you know, growing into
00:24:25a filmmaker and a storyteller and a TV producer.
00:24:27It's still the kind of same thing for me of, and we were talking about Nick and Hall talking
00:24:33about this where, like, you basically, you want to do things that are very different.
00:24:38And there are other people that don't really see it the way you see it.
00:24:43You know, Sam, you can attest to that.
00:24:48It's like, and you have to, you know, you have to retain your passion for what you're doing.
00:24:53And I see the kind of characters that are on our show, what they're doing is so absurd,
00:25:00but 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 work because, like, you know, we come up with
00:25:11these fantastic, you know, crazy ideas.
00:25:14And then, you know, people, you know, umpteen people help us put together armies of personnel
00:25:21to 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 as, like, one of my all-time favorite movies
00:25:37growing up.
00:25:38But before Boys in the Hood, you had never seen that world before.
00:25:42Not in that way, and I related to it, even though I didn't grow up like, like, it was
00:25:47so specific and so authentic, that'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
00:25:59as much as possible, and 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.
00:26:08It's like, the things that I, like, bet you about them on my show is we're doing a story
00:26:15that's set in a certain time, and I call it a nostalgia show.
00:26:19It's not happy days, but it's like, you know, it's the 80s, and I'm trying to basically make
00:26:26sure that the writers and all the creators come in the stuff that is, like, that is,
00:26:31you know, the minutia of the different things, you know, what they're saying, what they're
00:26:35doing, you know, in that time.
00:26:37There'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
00:26:44where because there are people who have lived this, and they're watching it, and they have
00:26:49to be able to look at it, and great, good or bad, positive or negative, they have to
00:26:54say, that was what it was, you know, they have to say, that is what it is, that is what
00:26:59it was.
00:26:59But if you get that wrong once, you know, we're in a world where it goes over Twitter, it goes
00:27:05over Instagram, so 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
00:27:14one was, it was so specific to that, because, you know, I tried my hand at, like, you know,
00:27:19hacking when I was a teenager, and I was just like, I can't believe he got that.
00:27:23You know what I'm saying, you know, all of you guys, I mean, like, you know, it's like,
00:27:27and I-
00:27:27You tried your hand at hacking?
00:27:29I wasn't any good at it.
00:27:30You know, dial-up, before I ended up dial-up and all this stuff, I got into the power
00:27:35company and, you know, this place, you know, but it's just like, you know, I love, I love
00:27:41seeing, you know, the specifics within a story that maybe a lot of people, audience doesn't
00:27:46get it, but it's so specific to that, that you have to go back, and it adds what I call
00:27:51the value of telling that story, because people have to roll back and say, and if they don't
00:27:57know it, then they want to know it.
00:27:58What was, what was she saying there, or what was she expressing there, like, you know, why
00:28:03was she doing that, and it makes it fascinating.
00:28:06Sure.
00:28:06They're seeing a reflection of a certain life, the characters are living and breathing
00:28:12for them.
00:28:13Can I add, I think that that specificity is the reason why it's critically important
00:28:18that, 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, right?
00:28:28The stuff that you guys do, it's amazing.
00:28:30You know, I grew up in the Bronx, you know, grew up in housing projects in the 80s, you know,
00:28:35childhood directly impacted by both crack and HIV epidemics, but I wasn't part of the
00:28:40ballroom community, never walked the ball.
00:28:43You know, we have nine consultants on our show, you know, who all were part of the ballroom
00:28:48community.
00:28:48That's incredible, nine consultants, I've never heard of that before.
00:28:51That's incredible.
00:28:52But it's great, and they're critically important in aiding us in the process of crafting our
00:28:58story, right?
00:28:58Like, there are checks and balances.
00:29:00Right, right, I'm curious for you, I mean, because you really, you are sort of striking
00:29:04this balance between both sort of celebrating the exuberance of the period, but also there's
00:29:09some real bleakness.
00:29:11How, what is that sort of navigation and the conversations that you're having with the
00:29:16writers as you do that?
00:29:17Right at the inception of the pose, Ryan and I spent a lot of time talking about the
00:29:22juxtaposition between the two worlds, the physical posing that is happening on a ballroom
00:29:28floor, and then, you know, the posing that happens in your everyday life, the masks that
00:29:32we 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
00:29:39and to have aspirations, to want to live a life bigger than what the world has deemed
00:29:44you should live, right?
00:29:46And I think that that's at the core of what, of what pose is all about.
00:29:50Let me sing it, Joe.
00:29:52Ah.
00:29:56Yes, bravo.
00:29:59Ah.
00:30:00The danger.
00:30:01The danger.
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.
00:30:13It's chiffon.
00:30:16It's a tricky balance, right?
00:30:19We're like constantly sort of towing the line and walking a tightrope between juxtaposing
00:30:25what is happening in a ballroom community, which is fun and colorful and just effervescent
00:30:30and full of life, with the very real reality that a lot of the folks who were a part of
00:30:35the ballroom community in the 80s were HIV positive, right?
00:30:38And being black or being Latin meant that they didn't have access to health care or they
00:30:44were being denied opportunities for employment.
00:30:47And so what does that mean?
00:30:49What does that mean for this community to exist at a time where the government was saying your
00:30:53life has no value?
00:30:55And then finding a community in the ballroom where you absolutely do have value, but know
00:31:00that that's, you know, there's a ticking clock that says that, you know, very shortly you're
00:31:05no 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
00:31:13show.
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
00:31:27say, screw it.
00:31:28Well, I mean, it was a short conversation because I knew I would be really, really lucky to have
00:31:38an artist of that caliber play in this role.
00:31:42I 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
00:31:50and love.
00:31:52And I wouldn't want those themes to be subsumed because suddenly we're telling a story
00:31:58that is messaging about race or something.
00:32:01And I don't think I'm the right person to be doing that anyway.
00:32:06And he basically said, no, I don't want to do that.
00:32:09And what Mahershala had told me was that what he liked about the role was that this was a fully
00:32:14formed 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 the this and, you know, and so at the same time, though, I didn't want to ignore
00:32:35race
00:32:35and 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.
00:32:43And I just said, well, let me go rewrite the first three episodes and let's see if this
00:32:48wouldn'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
00:33:02have 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
00:33:10gives him the opportunity to be a much closer observer.
00:33:14And the sort of existential isolation we always associate with the classic idea of the detective,
00:33:22you 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.
00:33:42You just do your best and learn to live with ambiguity.
00:33:47I was just incredibly grateful that he wanted the role.
00:33:50And I thought it helped me a lot to open up my work in ways I would have maybe just
00:33:58been shy.
00:33:59Sort of wondering, like, well, is that my story to tell?
00:34:02Right.
00:34:02And then where I landed on that was I am actually the only writer on Earth qualified to write about
00:34:09Wayne Hayes.
00:34:10Because he's a figment of my imagination.
00:34:13Exactly.
00:34:14Exactly.
00:34:14Exactly.
00:34:15Yeah.
00:34:16For the rest of you, we're talking 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've got to sell more projects, do more?
00:34:32Is that the pressure from the outside or from you guys?
00:34:35You're laughing as though the answer is yes or no.
00:34:38Are you looking at me?
00:34:38I'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,
00:34:49I mean, I had reached a point in my career where I was working on exactly the projects I wanted
00:34:52to.
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.
00:35:00But 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
00:35:14excited about the writing of it.
00:35:15Because the rest of the job is long and it takes a lot out of you.
00:35:19And so you want to be passionate.
00:35:21And you was the same.
00:35:22You was Greg Berlanti coming to me and saying, I have this very unusual book that I think you and
00:35:27I should write the pilot together.
00:35:28And 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.
00:35:53Yeah.
00:35:54And now for the first time, I'm working on a show where I go on Instagram or whatever and there's
00:35:59a 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 was happy doing the show at Lifetime.
00:36:16I was happy at Lifetime.
00:36:17I'm super happy that so many people watch it on Netflix.
00:36:28I'll see you next time.
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