00:18with something like american hostage it's about how you build the pace how you sort of create the
00:25stakes as it builds and with all the different things that you guys have worked on you know
00:29it's about that but because it's compressed does it change the idea of how much you let a scene breathe
00:35versus how much exposition needs to happen listen every scene reveals itself i think in the editing
00:42room in terms of how much breath it needs um you know i'm thinking to early parts of that first
00:50initial phone call on episode two when when when tony and and and fred are on the air together
00:58those are some of my favorite pauses in the entire series you know i love pauses you know when you
01:05earn them um you know so so finding those moments where the story can breathe is is is really
01:12important but a lot of times i i think we discover those in in the editing room and you know
01:18in terms
01:18of pacing you know one of things that we discussed early on in the creative process was you know it's
01:24going to be very difficult even if we wanted to to create this sort of breakneck pace over eight
01:31episodes of this hostage situation that really goes on for 60 i always i keep hearing different
01:37numbers 63 or 64 hours that that it sort of lasts in real life there's there's a line that fred
01:43has
01:43in the series i think it's episode two where he says you know this is this is about a lot
01:49more than
01:49just a hostage situation and i think that's the approach that we took is it's it's about
01:55a marriage between fred and barb it's about a marriage between dick hall and ibi hall it's about
02:01the relationship between tony karitsis and his siblings it's about fred as a boss with his um with
02:09his news employees at the radio station it's about shifting times um the show's a lot about a lot more
02:16of the hostage situation so in those moments where you're telling stories other than a hostage
02:21situation it doesn't have to be life and death in that moment you can take those breaths that i think
02:25are important eileen if you would speak to that you know because the thing is is that it's as much
02:30about the stakes but the scale sort of expands as the series goes on because you get all these details
02:37could you talk about that build and approaching that in terms of the story and then i'll go to adam
02:42about directing the actors in that way sure well we understood obviously that the relationship
02:48between fred and tony and the situation itself was very compelling but then beyond that what are the
02:53worlds circling around that and of course when we found out about the way the cops and the da were
02:59negotiating um and that they were actually had a lot of petty infighting and quite a bit of political
03:05corruption that felt like catnip to us to explore because the thing is is that not everybody's acting
03:11perfectly in a hostage situation it's what we wanted to do with the dick and ibby marriage as
03:16well what if there's a marriage that's actually a little bit strained during a hostage situation
03:20what if the cops and the da's aren't acting with perfect accord with each other so we we understood
03:27that that wasn't just about the hostage situation but the ways in which the characters were changed
03:32in the course of these three days what what psychological what personal issues were brought to the
03:40forefront that otherwise might not have been if not for this situation adam could you talk about
03:45well you know when you're directing like the tone and the aspects with the actors because there is a
03:50lot of humor that plays in mckinney obviously one of your actors he does that well but you also have
03:57i mean i think there's a scene later on where the truth of what fred went through is revealed and
04:03there's a lot of ideas of what are we telling ourselves is our real truth versus what we're
04:09pushing out to the world because we want to get something you know the the more i do this the
04:14more i
04:14i feel like the the goals when i'm directing and the goals in in approaching life start overlapping
04:22and it it becomes a matter of of of being present and and and by that i mean you know
04:29you have this
04:30wonderful material it's it's got pivots in it that go from dramatic to comedic and and and you you live
04:37with that and you you you try to honor that then you're watching the impulses of this wonderful group
04:43of actors that you have um and and and it's a process of discovery of of kind of tuning those
04:51and and and melding what everyone's doing in a way that feels cohesive uh and leaving room for
04:57yourself to be surprised and and and hopefully letting the actors get to be surprised as well
05:02and and and finding it uh trying things different ways as well um and we had a cast that was
05:09really
05:10ready to play in that way um and we were conscious about wanting them to feel that they were part
05:16of
05:17a company um and and we had conversations not only with the cast but with their crew saying you know
05:23from one take to another you're not going to know necessarily when you're going to be on camera so
05:29everyone has to keep everything alive and be ready to toss the ball back and forth and i think that
05:35spontaneity comes across the story is about obviously power dynamics but also class dynamics
05:41and that psychology sort of plays all the way through so even if every every class every person
05:49like even ben as a character there's each scene has those multiple layers can you talk about building
05:56those you know is it about extrapolating letting the actors find their way with it or is it about
06:01making sure that those subtle notes sean we've talked about this are always there and if the
06:07audience can infer them or bring them out it becomes part of their experience of the series
06:11yeah we were certainly aware of that uh as we were writing all of those scenes particularly because
06:16tony's main kind of cry is about being a little guy who can't get a break and he has a
06:23great deal of
06:24envy and anger toward dick and his family so we knew that was present in every single scene i will
06:30say
06:30that a lot of the writing that i did with sharon hoffman we read the scripts aloud to each other
06:34so we know whether the scene is playing or not and we certainly brought it into the scene with ben
06:40especially in the flashback scene where he's interviewing for the job for the first time
06:44um but i will say for the most part is that you write it as well as you can and
06:49then you're trusting
06:50that you're going to cast it perfectly and in this case we did and adam so deeply understood
06:56the scenes um and the actors really really trust him so any little adjustment he need to get if
07:03there was a nuance that we didn't quite feel was there he just knows so instinctively how to
07:08communicate this to people um and as i said the actors feel very open and trusting of him so yeah
07:16it's just a slow process of you feel like it's on the page then you're really trusting the actors
07:21and director to embody it why these people do what they do because they're only human yeah i mean i
07:27i
07:27think that's a part of the human condition we are not one thing you know we the the best people
07:34have
07:34have uh sometimes fatal flaws to them um everyone is struggling with demons that we don't necessarily
07:42see and i think when when writing is is being true to that concept it it creates uh
07:50a familiarity and a and a and an empathy with you for an audience they want to they want to
07:57see more
07:58of what they recognize of their their own reality even if it's not conscious you know
