The Watch - Steven Zaillian on Creating the World of ‘Ripley.’ Plus, More ‘Shogun’ and ‘Yellowstone’ News.

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Chris and Andy talk about the news that ‘Yellowstone’ has started production on the last episodes of it’s final season (1:00), and news that ‘Shogun’ will actually be coming back for two more seasons (9:54). Then they are joined by ‘Ripley’ creator Steven Zaillian to talk about what drew him to make another adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel (21:08), and working with actors like Andrew Scott, Kenneth Lonergan, and John Malkovich on the show (38:14). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio, liquidating his portfolio to personally fund Horizon Part 3. It's Andy Greenwald! Wow, that's projection. Standing O season continues, my guy.

What's up? You are standing up alone in your home. Wearing the same white suit Kevin Costner was it. When you heard that Kevin Costner's four and a half hour epic? Well, they only showed the first part, right? The first one's like three hours. Oh, sure. Yeah, normal.

Strap on a feed bag, man. What's the problem? What do you want from life? I want to see Costner. Damn it. Guess what? Twice this year. You're in luck.

Andy, it's great to see you. It's great to see Kyle, who we have back from... Lake Stop the Steel. Yeah, Kaya was doing some on the ground, just voter reg. Right? Or anti-Ridge? I don't know. It's not looking good in Arizona. In what way? In the way that I saw a lot of flags for a certain person.

Kaya is going through it because she is in a bachelorette season. She's in wedding season. And you can see it's taking a toll. So, Kaya, it's not taking it. Kaya's thriving. She's doing great. Kaya's having fun. Yeah.

All of her friends are having fun. All of our friends are organizing a lot of fun in a lot of places. So I did want to ask, we are going to, we have Steve Zalian on the show. Yeah, I hope Steve Zalian is listening to this wonderful intro. I think he's interesting.

Steve Zalian, the creator of Ripley, we're going to talk about that. He's on the show. So stay tuned. But first and foremost, there was an article on New York Magazine last week that was basically like, people are asking too much

of wedding attendees and Bachelorette party attendees, wedding parties, basically being like, there's now a travel requirement. There's money. There's dresses. There's synchronization of things. And what I needed was our boots on the ground, Maricopa County, Bachelorette expert, Kai, to say, what's the haps here? So I did read that article actually on my way to The Bachelorette. As you were scrolling your Wells Fargo

balance. And I feel like with that article in particular, I mean, I think some of those examples were like definitely on the extreme end. And I feel fairly comfortable. with my friends to be like, hey, man. Yeah. Let's dial it back in a bit. I would say at this point, it's less of a financial burden than it is a burden on my liver. On your immune system? Are there, be honest with this because this is a safe space and I can't imagine.

Nobody's listening. Any of your friends are listening, I promise that. But, like, are there any bubble relationships in your close friendships or you're like, I hope they break up? Because you just can't do it. You know what I mean? You're like, they could tip either way and you wouldn't be that. upset if someone became single again?

Like, just to spare you. Well, it's also, like, she might be in a situation where, like, one of her friends is like, well, I've decided I'm sober and Kai is like, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, like a wellness spatula. Yeah, if someone wanted to maybe do a suggestion of, like, a nice spa weekend, where it's like we are just mainly consuming, like, a lot of, like, green vegetables and, like, smoothies and stuff, then I would be, I would be enthusiastic about that.

Do you, like, for example, when we had HBO head Casey Blois on the podcast, he was like, you know, we're making programming decisions for 25, 26. Is that what your social calendar looks like currently? Like, do you know which ones are next to go? I do. Okay. I do. That's more. That tone of voice was, that was in a yard stare in audio form. You do know. So how far ahead are you booked? Well, I mean, as of right now, my bachelor's duties will be over in October. October 24? Dover 24, but then there's other. Right, like democracy. Yeah. That's great. Pretty much. You'd probably be feeling like Joe Biden by then. But there's others on the horizon where I'm like, okay, this is there.

An engagement will probably happen. That's actually what Kevin Costner's horizon part three is about. Is Kaya going to her 14th bachelor's party of a 24-month period? So did you of these, like, did you come back with it? Do you come back from these trips with a newfound respect for this great country of ours for, like, region? Like, do you enjoy the tourism aspect of these, or is it really more like you're focused, you're celebrating a friend, and your managing hangovers? Pretty much, yeah.

I did get an IV drip this weekend. Did you? Yes. That's clutch. And I don't feel like it did anything to help me. You seem great. I don't want to insult anyone from the great state of Arizona. I think that they've taken their lumps from the spot.

They have a good sense of humor about themselves. and it seems like they've made the right decisions with what they're doing. I'm actually, I'll break news. I'm going to Arizona next month. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Carrie Lake asked me to come just advise on social media strategy. Uh-huh.

Well, you've got a great one. No, don't do it, but look at sports things and then screenshot tweets and send them to Chris. That's my strategy. No, I'm going to take the girls to the Grand Canyon. Lovely. So maybe I'll just do a little boots on the ground reporting. Tom Friedman column style. That'd be great.

You know, with like just in line for the Avis Red to Cart. They think that the Grand Canyon is, okay. I think that's something that the people would want. Who do you blame for Dobbs? Also, can I have a CV, please? Greenwald. First of all, happy birthday. Thank you.

It was Andy's birthday this weekend. You're Benjamin Buttoning, man. You just look younger and younger every day. I had a great time with you yesterday. I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things before we get to our interview with writer and director Steve Zalian, who gave us Ripley and was so generous with his time. He talked to us for about 35, 40 minutes on the pod.

A couple of things. One, as somebody who's seasoned hand at TV production. Okay. What do you say when I tell you that apparently, you know, and I know sometimes these announcements come after the actual act that they are announcing has started? Yeah. But Hollywood Reporter led with Yellowstone being back in production

for the second half of its fifth season, the much maligned the second half of the fifth season if you're coming from Kevin Costner's camp. By the way, everybody should go read Zach Barron's profile of Kevin Costner. I had no idea Zach had been marinating him.

He'd been working with Kevin for two years on this story. Yeah, they've been, it's been a labor of love for Zach. Anyway, you should definitely read that in GQ. My question to you is, it is late May. Yeah. They are saying that they are going to have this thing on Paramount Plus,

Well, I guess on whatever channel is actually going to be airing the day of Yellowstone. It's on cable. Paramount Network. Network. In November. I mean, I can understand when the bear is like, we got this. Like, we'll start shooting in February. We'll put this up in June.

You know, it's like, it's a restaurant. Yes, chef. Yeah. This is like epic landscapes, set pieces, lots of stuff. Landscapes, you just turn the camera on. Yeah, but you can get bad weather. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Veteran production guy here. Interesting. You don't think this is possible. No, I was just like, this seems a bit rushed. But I guess this is just the way of the world. It's also possible that Taylor Sheridan has been shooting pickups for this season for the last six months, just on the way to the mail. Like at the three sixes, three sixes, fours? Four sixes.

Four sixes. Sure. Ranch. Three sixes would connote the Satan. I was lacing that in for the true heads. Is Kevin Costner in this season of television? TBD. He has obviously started speaking a lot more about what led to his fracture with that program.

I would bet dollars to donuts that there will be some conclusion to his character, even if it's just like a flashback of like one time when John Dutton said something really important. Would it be like where they'll superimpose his image and then have him floating into space like Pucci in the episode of Hitchie and Scratchy show? Probably. Like he went back to his home planet. I of the 19th century For real To seriously answer your question

Of course They can absolutely do that turnaround Okay I don't know if it would affect quality I don't know how quickly they post I mean again When something is coming from the mind Of one guy who's making all the decisions

You can get stuff done pretty quick Yeah it's true Are you jumping in 5B You're gonna get right into it Do you think that's my best entry point? I think that you would be a very confusing situation Because you would just be like This is what you guys have been talking about

For the last six years But in fact like one and two are still really really good to me. I feel pretty excited to do that, considering I watched all of Outer Range seasons one and two yesterday. I bet you did. You thought you saw me,

but that wasn't me. That wasn't me. Anything else in the news that you wanted to go over before we get to our Steve's alien conversation? Well, we didn't note. I mean, we said, we talked in the podcast

about the Hirouki Sonata signing on for more Shogun. Now it's been announced that they're doing two more seasons. Or at least that's the plan. They're exploring the story possibilities of two more season. So first of all, I want to do, I mean, we, I love doing this. I always want to commend the poker face of guests on the podcast who know much more than we do when we intentionally ask them questions they can't answer.

Yes. So when Justin Marks and Rachel Condo were on the podcast, we point blank said, would you like to do more? And they were genuine with us that they were like, maybe. And they were also like when we started this five years ago, we had no children and now we have two. And it's a really big lift. All of that was true. They also very clearly, as then Justin said on Twitter, had been thinking about it. But the things that would need to break in order for them to have the opportunity were seemed far-fetched.

Yeah. But, man, did they all break that way? And so, yeah, so officially. And the reason I keep saying officially is because we got an email from the Disney marketing team being like, hey, guys, some news. Yeah. We are doing more of this. Yeah, that actually came out on Friday after we had already done our sort of carousel through entertainment developments and news on Thursday. And the trickle-down effect is very, very strong and most immediate in terms of the Emmys.

I mean, broad, big picture, I'm excited that Justin and Rachel want to do more work in this world. I think more Shogun could be great. Writers' Room is being reassembled and they were all very talented people. Justin said they were going to Japan for research purposes. I joked you yesterday. I imagine that the research is, did resurrection exist in Japan? Because a lot of good characters, not on the table for season two. But I'm excited about that.

But the biggest thing is the Emmys because... They should dead with it. They should just have Anna's why play a different character. Why not? Anything is possible in this new golden What's the pewter age of television? What are we in?

High-right age? But, yeah, FX is going for the big guns because FX is the presumptive favorite to win the best comedy Emmy again for season two of the bear. The drama series category is wide, wide open and everyone's sort of penciling in the crown. They could take those two.

Shogun is now going to be in the ongoing drama category and is, I don't know if it's the favorite, but is definitely a... a favorite. And then... Fargo is in Anthology Limited. Shogun leaving Anthology and Limited opens it up for FX to put all of its marketing budget

in that category behind Fargo, where it will be up against Ripley, it'll be up against the various Apple things like the Breedarsen show or whatever. I wonder if Ben Franklin, what's it called? Is it just called Franklin? It's called Ben.

This is the second week. You are Franklin curious. You keep saying... You know what it is? I'm Apple curious. Every show. I'm like, oh. And then I start watching it.

And I'm like, eh. But you, I like a couple of outer ranges, though. I'm still in. I like hearing that. Yeah. I'm there with you in spirit. I just like when you sort of float trial balloons in the podcast. You're like, oh, Franklin.

Franklin's out there. Well, I just think it's an extraordinary moment in our time when Michael Douglas plays Ben Franklin in a show made by Apple and we're like, I lightly acknowledge it. But that's because it's Franklin in Paris. And we want Ben on the streets of Philadelphia. Yeah. getting mad about having to play the first game in Brazil.

Just riding ATVs down to Spring Garden. Okay, one more little piece of news was as we were coming into recording, it was announced that Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarsus had sold a straight-to-series order for a sitcom, single-cam, Syncom, starring Steve Corell. And that is news in and of itself. Bill Lawrence, obviously, behind Scrubs, behind Cougar Town, and then more recently, Ted Lassow. He's got one or two shows coming on Apple after Ted Lassow,

including Bad Monkey, which is the Vince Vaughn. Adaptation of Carl Hyacin's beloved detective fiction. And the Owen Wilson shows about golf. And I think Bill Lawrence is involved with that. But this is interesting because the press release about it, Steve Carell plays an author living on a college campus, probably teaching, I would imagine, who has a complicated relationship with this.

You don't think he's just in the campus? Just hanging out? Okay. I mean, campuses, why not? I think, and so it's Steve Carell. He's got a complicated. Do you think that the college campus show was made for TBS? And then after the last three months, they were like,

we've got to put this behind a paywall. It's too dangerous. It's the complicated relationship with his daughter. I'm sure it'll be good. And then it's, but it's on HBO. It's on Max, but it is. No, it's on HBO. Oh, but it will be on Mac.

Okay. So this is, when we, like, When you and I donate our papers, the three papers. Where will we donate them? Great question. There are a couple leading candidates. Okay, so let's talk it out a little bit. And also, it's not just papers because I think we've had written notes once.

I think it would have to be what, like, the audio files? Do you think it's like RG chat archives? That would be dangerous. No, I, we'll see the extent of the FOIA requests and what they're able to get. I always felt, I felt like Temple would be in the running. Temple, definitely. The hometown angle and your one year of service there. University of Phoenix

Oh yeah both because it is in theoretically in our favorite state but also because it is everywhere Yeah It is new media like we are And the sore bone Oh you're gonna go international?

Yeah I always thought University of Texas at Austin Because I feel like I love saying University of Texas at Austin Because that's what they say in the press releases When random ass crime writers are like I have donated my papers Which I think means they threw a Kinko's box

Out the window as they drove by on South Congress. I don't know if these universities want these papers. But anyway. But I also imagine it's like the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse where it's just like, oh, there's Chris Ryan's papers. Who gets shit? Next to the Ark of the Covenant.

Just try to picture. Do you think it's also like the papers that you held on to? Like the issues of the village voice. Yeah, it's like a New York parking ticket from 1999 that I didn't pay. Be careful. Eric Adams is coming. He's got to pay for that pre-K. he's looking for you.

The reason I use that complicated analogy that caused that digression was like certain this came up a little bit in the last week too where there are just certain like press releases or wordings or news stories that just feel very emblematic of this moment.

I just also want to say it's a, I love for us that we've moved post TV and now we're just doing TV press releases. There's so much easier to read than it is to watch television. The outer range press releases have been excellent and really informative about the show. No, what I mean is

this is a new HBO show. Yeah. But the document we received was from Max PR, and it was saying that this is a Warner Brothers television series, and Bill Lawrence has a longstanding relationship with WBTV, the studio. It's where he makes all of these shows from, and then sells them recently, you know,

many of them to Apple. But the quotes in it are from, Amy Gravitt, who is the EVP from HBO. But it's Bill Lawrence, and also Channing Dunjee, who's head of Warner Brothers Television Group. Formerly of ABC. And then I think, yes. And I think that in The Hollywood Reporter,

they did put in the piece that this was a bidding war. So we don't want to read too many, too much into the tea leaves of this, although why stop now? And it does feel like this was a big ticket down the middle. Like, this is a winner. This is Steve Carell coming back to comedy with Bill Lawrence.

I mean, he just did that with Space Force. Yeah, but that's been memory hold. Yeah. That COVID timing was good for that. Like, we're not remembering that. And this seems like this could have been on any network. And whether it was an internal mandate being like, this guy's making these hits from our studio, HBO slash HBO Max, you are streaming it. You need to get in, you need to get into this.

That's not a comment on the perspective quality of it, but it is an interesting sign to me. of even like internal consolidation within these companies. I think you're right. Nothing about this reads, oh, HBO in the sense that it's like, it doesn't seem very edgy. It doesn't seem very, you know. I mean, it could be prestigious. We don't know.

I mean, like, it could be amazing. Yeah. These people are really talented, but in terms of brand identity. The collapsing of like, what is HBO, what is Max? What are these sort of distinctions within this service is a fascinating one to see by what choices they make in programming. And I think two years ago, maybe this would have been a Max original.

But Max Original now, I think, is just like James Gunn, D.C. properties at this point. Yes. And the Sex and the City spinoff. I think when we donate our papers, it should just be a giant trash bag full of tea leaves and just be like, we read these. We drink coffee.

This is an absurd analogy for us. I want to get into our Steve's Alien interview. So Steve's Alien, one of the most revered, accomplished screenwriters of the last 30 or 40 years. Here are some of his credits. A Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Irishman American gangster, Gangs of New York, Shinler's List,

Moneyball. He... Awakening's he talks about it. He talked about it. Doing awakenings. He wrote Falcon and the Snowman was his first credit. As a director, he's worked you know, he did searching for Bobby Fisher. He directed a civil action

with John Travolta. And then worked on co-wrote or directed half of, if not more, slightly more of the night of, which is one of my favorite pieces of television ever made. He worked on that with Richard Price.

He's back, obviously, with Ripley, which he wrote and directed all eight episodes of. It's my favorite TV show of the year. I think it's among your favorite TV shows of the year. I mean, out of range. Sorry. Yeah, the out of range press release. The look he gave me.

I love Ripley. I love this chance to talk to him. Yeah. You know, this is not to compare these gray beards of Hollywood, but like when we talked to Scott Frank the other week, like the opportunity to talk to someone who has been thinking about this stuff and working in these mediums for as long as Steve has and his, I found his, even his very like relaxed and thoughtful demeanor very interesting

when you think about the work that he made here and a lot of process talk and I really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, so this is a great conversation if you've seen. I would recommend you have at least be conversant at the end of Ripley because we do discuss a little bit about the end of the series. but obviously, I hope by now everybody's gotten a chance to finish it. Andy and I will be back on Thursday. And I'm sure we'll have like a full slate of deep textual analysis of contemporary television.

And also campus life in terms of like how often people are visiting the papers, the collections and the libraries. Yeah, let us know how that's working out at University of Texas. Thanks to Kaya, half of her, whatever she brought back from Arizona. This is Kaya's flu game episode. On Mike, I didn't realize it, but she's still. We'll be back on Thursday. to Steve Zaliyan. We'll be back. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

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be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash. terms apply. Andy and I are honored to be joined by Steve Zalian, who is one of the most accomplished screenwriters of the last 30 to 40 years in Hollywood and is made, I think, my favorite piece of television this year in Ripley on Netflix. Steve, thanks so much for joining us on the watch. Thank you very much. I guess I wanted to start with some kind of origin story with Ripley, but also ask you, you know, what was your relationship to the text? Is this something that predates your career as a professional writer?

Did this go back to student days, a young reader? Like, when did Highsmith come into your life? Not student days, but around, I think it was in the 1980s. Yeah. Yeah. And I had read The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Dog's Ransom. I kind of went on a Patricia Highsmith thing, I read a bunch of her books.

but I don't think I was really in a position to do it then. And then the movie came out, and so I didn't really think about it for a long time. But 20 years later, they came to me and said, do you want to do a series? I thought, oh, that might be interesting, you know, to approach it in a different way. And I think I've seen you say in other interviews, Steve,

that the vision that you had for this television show mirrored the way the book played in your mind when you first read it. Is that accurate to say that the black and white sensibility, that just the visual language that you ended up employing was something that struck you early on? Yes. I mean, that's true of any book that I adapt in terms of seeing it. I can't really write it unless I see it. And in this case, that's how I saw it. And yeah, so, I mean, the fact that we got away with that is good, because it was part of its DNA as far as I was concerned

and so I'm really happy that Netflix agreed to do it. When you're adapting something like this and as you mentioned, you know, the film came out and you said, okay, well, I'm not going to think about this for a while. To what extent do previous renderings of Ripley

on screen come into play? Did they come into play at all in your own telling of this story? And to what extent do you kind of think to yourself, okay, I want to do something that's oppositional to that or not that, you know, when you're talking about the Manila movie or even something like American Friend or whatever you want to put your own stamp on this character. Yes, at times I did that. I mean, again, when I started, you know, the book was my Bible and I was really trying to do something that, that, you know,

visualize it in a way that Patricia Heismet had described. But there were certain aspects of it where I did not want to go down the same road as one of the movies. And an example of that is the Freddie character, you know, Philip Seymour Hoffman made such an indelible kind of impression with that part. And when I was doing auditions, everyone was sort of doing a version of that, except Elliot. Elliot did something different. And I thought, well, why not?

I mean, I'm sort of a sophisticated, smart British character instead of a loudmouth American. And so that was definitely something that was conscious. One of the things that you brought to this project that, as you alluded to, you've heard us talk about this, is that a real fascination with process, with how Ripley accomplishes the crimes or at least gets away with them. And we go so deep into the weeds in a way that is absolutely almost lugged. luxurious for the viewer to watch, and sometimes excruciating as well. Throughout, I mean, we almost see Ripley learn the value of committing to something, no matter how challenging it is. We see him learn this on the steps of Atrani quite literally as he goes up and down at the beginning.

I was wondering if that aspect of the character was something that you related to personally, because I think the thing that we're so blown away by by the series is the total consistency of execution throughout. And I have a follow-up question about whether that accurate or not, your lived experience of making the show. But to pull off something like this, where from the framing of shots, the editing, the performances, there is a consistency. I wonder if it could be rooted back to that connection to an interest in process. Yes. I mean, I'm always interested in process. And some of the films that I've gotten involved with, you know, people say, you know, write about what you know. I prefer to write about what I don't know

and learn about it as I'm doing it because I feel like it's, you know, it's fascinating to me, whereas somebody who knows all about whatever the subject is, you know, like chess, for instance. I don't think that they might see the things that an audience will find interesting. I did a movie called Awakening's. I don't know anything about medicine, but I learned about it as I was doing it. So that's definitely something that I've done, you know, throughout my career. in this case, yeah, I'm interested in how you forge a passport. I'm interested in how you get rid of a body, obviously.

Not very well. I mean, I had a post it next to my desk that said it's easier to kill somebody than it is to get rid of a body. And that was something that I really wanted to get into. And you couldn't do that in a feature film. I mean, those two, the two sequences in one in episode three, the other in five, they're 25 minutes long. I mean, that's basically half a movie. So it was something that I really wanted to do because I didn't think that's, I'd really seen it before.

And everybody involved in it really responded to that, to that, to that idea. And how are we going to shoot this and how, you know, how is Andrew going to do it? and all the questions that come up. How does Andrew do it? I mean, there's sequences in this show where I think they're very subtly, physically demanding, I would imagine. You know, whether it's some of the stuff with the boat in three that you alluded to, the steps, just the amount of repetition and also execution of things that have to be note perfect for Ripley to be who Ripley is. what kind of demands were there on Andrew, even just on a physical level in this series?

It was demanding, and it took a lot of stamina and commitment and patience and energy, and he was into it. You know, the stairs, we'll start with the stairs. You know, the stairs became a motif as we were shooting. It wasn't something that I planned to do from the beginning. but the town that David Grokman and the production designer and I found had stairs all over their place

and we walked up and down and I was fascinated by them because they were kind of this M.C. Escher you know, like system of stairs and I just thought visually it was really great. Well, if you're going to shoot a scene like that where he goes to the top of the stairs, you actually have to do it.

You have to do all your equipment and you have to do it over and over and over and my knees are shot. It's no joke. I mean, my knees got really bad making this show. But Andrew was, you know, he was, he's really good. He's really good with the process too. And so when he's doing that, you know, trying to lift a body, he's lifting a body.

When he's trying to, you know, throw Dicky out of the boat, he's doing it. And over and over and over. If he's, I don't know, just a little thing where he's forging a passport, you know, he's doing it. And he enjoyed it and he's very good at it. I want to stay on this point you just made about sort of discovering the stairs in process with the design team, the production designer. Because as I alluded to before, we're so struck by this feeling of control that is through this project, through the consistency, the filmmaking, et cetera, et cetera. But clearly, you are, in order to make anything with life in it, you have to be open to discovery.

in the moment. And I'm wondering how you, at this moment in your career, making the show approach that, from all of the preparation you did, all the education you did about what process would be, how you wanted it to look, et cetera, et cetera, to being open to saying, not only are there stairs here,

but I'm going to just naturally understand that the rule of three makes this funnier, so that he's going to have to do it more than once, and then that becomes such a memorable piece of this, you know, perfectly stitched together tapestry. Yes, I mean, there's a lot of preparation that goes into it in terms of visually, in a lot of scenes that are, you know,

straight visual storytelling. There's very little dialogue. There's no score, that sort of thing. In terms of these motifs, like I said, with the stairs, I was fascinated with the stairs in a tronnie. When we started shooting in Rome, the first scene that we did in Rome was when he goes to the, all of our hotel.

And, you know, when we got there, there were those stairs. So we used them. They were beautiful. When we went to shoot the scene for the autopsy, there were stairs. So, you know, you have to,

we had planned it out visually a lot, but we're open to these kind of happy accidents that happened with the locations. Did you feel like, I guess I was hoping you could maybe describe to us because I think when we talk to directors, often the first thing, and sometimes the only thing we really talk to them about,

is their relationship with actors and how they direct actors. But I was curious if you could just talk to us a little bit about your professional relationship and even, you know, what's your personal relationship with Robert Ellswick, who many people obviously have lauded his work on the series, his cinematography. What kind of source materials were you looking at Life magazine photographs from the era that maybe inspired the two of you? And how does the working relationship between the director and the director of photography play out on a series where

the cinematography is so distinctive and so striking. Yeah. In terms of research, we didn't do any. We didn't do any. I did a lot of that with David Brokman for the look and for the locations

and all of that and all of that. And a lot of those location, a lot of those research photos would end up in some in some way or another visually as well. It were so striking. We did not, you know, people talk about,

oh, you must sit down with the cinematographer and look at a few films that you want your film to look like. I didn't do that with Robert. The only film that I saw that I kind of took something from in terms of the look that I wanted was the conformist, which has a kind of a stark, empty feel to it. not a bunch of extras running around and very graphic sort of compositions. Robert and I had worked together once before on the night of.

He shot the pilot for the night of. And just like what I was saying about these motifs coming out as your shooting, I think he would agree that the look of our show developed. as we were shooting. You know, it was, it was not something that was, that was pre-planned. It was, you know, you get there, you do a rehearsal. I have a shot list and, and then, you know, you might obviously make changes based on, based on rehearsals and locations. But it developed over the course of the making of it, and we took 170 days, so we had a long time to,

to develop the look of it. Steve, you're obviously well celebrated for your work as a screenwriter, but you've heard us say this, I guess, over the last few weeks, but the details that we keep coming back to are, I mean, they were within your answer where you said so much of this is visual storytelling, the cinematography, the production design, even the props that were found and sourced for this, particularly I keep coming back to the sound design and the foley

and the richness of that and the storytelling that you were doing through the sound design, whether it was the desk drawers or the groaning boat. As someone who begins with words, and you've been a screenwriter your whole career, how have you grown this ability to tell the story with all of the other tools in the filmmaking toolbox? For me, I mean, screenwriting isn't about words,

or certainly isn't exclusively about words. Screenwriting is for a visual medium. And so, you know, I know I couldn't write them all. I wrote one play, but that's it. I mean, I write for the movies and I try in everything that I do, my screenplays, to tell stories as visually as I can. I was talking to somebody the other day about how, you know, we have these long dialogue scenes, which I'm not really known for in five and six with Freddie and then again. with Freddie and then again with Revening.

And even those, there's a lot of words, but what's of interest to me is what's happening in between the lines, the looks, the reactions. Everyone is lying. And so it's not about telling the story with words. It's actually about telling the story in between the words for me. I was curious whether or not I've heard you mention in passing in this interview

discussing the structure of the episodes or something that you can do in TV that you can't do in film like a 25-minute sequence of pulling somebody down the stairs or getting them out of the boat. Is that a great sandbox for you to play in? Is this world where you can take a scene that might be 35, 40, a minute or two

in a movie and have 25 minutes or an episode of how do you get rid of a body or, you know, how do you run a scam at Amex, you know, in Rome and at this time period, like, to get to sort of play the accordion with some of these scenes in a way and expand them or compress them in ways that perhaps the film medium doesn't allow for with its run times? Yes, absolutely. You know, the goal of adaptation for a film is about condensing things and combining characters and, you know, trying to cram everything into two to two hours. This is sort of the opposite.

And that aspect of it, those, not just those two sequences, but the pace and the opportunities to tell the story of a different way is what attracted me to it in the first place. And we took a lot of care with it with these sequences. They weren't storyboarded. I don't storyboard, but I do make very, very elaborate shot lists and, you know, my own little storyboards. So, you know, for a sequence, like getting the body down the stairs,

I mean, the first thing is you got to find it. And I never found what I thought it should look like. And the place that we ended up with, I twisted in my in my mind in order to make it work. And it ended up working really great, but it wasn't how I visualized it to begin. And yeah, I just, you know, you have to have the nerve, I think, to, or the confidence, to feel it's going to work.

And I would ask that myself that question over and over when we were editing, is this, are people going to sit still for this? I knew I liked it, but I've never. wasn't sure other people would, but I didn't want to second guess myself. And so we really did cut these scenes, these scenes the way they were designed. Steve, it seems clear you think a lot about the differences between the opportunities on film and in television. But I did want to sort of drill down on that point because what you've given us here is still strikes me as pretty unique, or at least very rare, because there are eight episodes and the episodes are distinct, you know, beginning,

middle and end. They are chapters in a way of this larger story, and I feel like they are treated with the care that a classic or an excellent television show treats episodes as a statement. However, it is all part of a larger hole, and I keep coming back to this point that I can't get over, that you've made this show with such a consistency and control that it feels like a movie in the best possible way. Can you talk us through your thinking of the distinction? We've talked about how you can have more time to do things. But I think that there have been other projects, we won't get into them,

but to my mind that haven't worked when someone with a movie-making sensibility tries to apply that directly to episodic television. Yeah. I mean, I don't have any experience in television. I've done one other thing in television. So the way I think is movies,

the kind of care, as you put it, is crucial and time is crucial. We had obviously more time to do it than you usually do for a television show. There aren't multiple directors, there aren't multiple writers. We're not, you know, the production isn't leapfrogging, you know,

episodes shooting at the same time or anything like that. I think it's essential that there is, you know, a clear singular approach. and you know so that's luckily what we were able to do here

whenever we talk to any filmmakers and we say oh this seemed so flawless and then usually they laugh because nothing is ever flawless if you're living in it you're in production you're in post I continue to say and I will say this critically I don't see the seams in Ripley

but I was wondering if you could share a seam that you can't unsee or is there something that you didn't think you got that you then were able to fix or address and post or something that was discordant to you maybe in the making of it that that sticks out or is that is memorable to you? Yeah, was it impossible to get the cat to behave? No, it wasn't impossible to get the cat to behave. But a lot of that was not, a lot of the cat was shot by our second unit director photography, whose name is Fred de Brofchick.

And he had enormous patience with that cat. and it's yeah no it's he was great uh he actually shot a lot of our second when i say second unit second unit for me in this case is not um i don't know action chase yeah that it's uh it's it's it's cat stuff the insert shots and it's also it's also what i what i call still lives and we shot a lot of them I would shoot a scene and then he would go back in the next day and start shooting details in the scene, whether it was a painting or a statue or, you know, a close of this or that. And I used those throughout the show.

And that became another motif with this idea that there aren't any witnesses who will testify, but there are witnesses to the crimes. Sometimes it's a painting, a portrait, sometimes it's a cat, sometimes it's a goat. There's a wonderful when you mention sound. When you're looking down at the boat, after he's burning the boat, or when he's burning the boat,

there's a sound of goats very faint in the background, you know, from the high angle shot, the sound guy is put in. And then, of course, the goat is the one that discovers the sunburn of the boat later on. So those, you know, those, the sound, just talk about the sound a little bit

that again is really important to me again for like motion pictures and sound pictures and we spent a lot of time on the sound and I don't know if you notice but

for instance there's you see one neighbor in that apartment building so the populating the apartment building in Rome is all sound. And there's a lot of it. And I love that idea

that we don't have to shoot a whole bunch of extras and other characters in order to convey a full apartment. Yeah, this is, you mentioned there being no witnesses, but there are things that see the crimes, and this is very much an off-season Ripley.

You know, like it just, everybody is wearing a sweat sweater instead of, you know, an open-collared shirt and it's not sun dappled. It's, it seems overcast. What led you to that, that vision of Italy? And I was curious whether or not it was for you specifically related to the time period. You know, it's not literally post-war, but it is, they're still coming out of World War II. And there's like a, there's a real sort of spectral presence in Italy in this, in this series. And I was curious if, if you could talk about your vision of the country at that time and, you know, the blackwater and the, these

cragly rocks and everything. And the emptiness. And the emptiness, yeah. Yeah, it's a bunch of things. I mean, in terms of, in terms of the season, that that is directly from the book. It takes place during the winter. And I don't think that that was an accident. I think Highsmith wanted it to, you know, wanted the story to have this kind of cold, sinister feel in terms of the emptiness of it of Italy during that period it was a lot more empty

it was not the tourist destination but it is now the idea of having thousands of umbrellas on a beach that you see today it wasn't like that then a lot of our research photographs were

showed that And there was one in particular of Truman Capote and Positano standing in the foreground and in the background is the beach and the town. And it looked like our beach in town, meaning it was that empty. And so I just felt that that emptiness was good for the story. When I first got into film in college, the first, it was, it was, it was, was like history of film class that I loved. It was my introduction to international cinema. And I loved to post the neo-realist films from Italy.

So I'm sure that that was in my mind a bit. And also film noir, you know, obviously. It just felt for this story that I didn't want this kind of colorful, crowded post-cold. of a look. The back of the paperback version of Ripley is always going to say that he's a con man or he's an imposter. He's a fraud. One of the things that I loved about the series was that when you took out your scalpel episode

to episode, Dickie's a terrible painter. Marge is a terrible writer who is not above using her boyfriend's disappearance for her own gain. Even Ravini, and I just want to say the name Mauritio Lombardi on this interview because, oh my God, that's the performance of the year for me. Even Ravini, who's expert and meticulous, doesn't think to look for a photograph. So all of these people are hollow at their core to a degree.

And I wondered how much that factored into your thinking of what interested you in the story and how you wanted to tell it. Because it was, you didn't shy away from any of that in a way that I thought was really refreshing. No, I love that about it. Yeah, everybody's a fraud. Even Ravini.

he's so vain his vanity is what gets in his way yes uh i don't know what to say about that other than that it appealed to me um and i love what happens with the relationship between tom and marge in episode eight because you do see that she's taking advantage of dicky's as well and it even bothers tom he feels superior to her like like he's not taking advantage of it in his own mind. And I mean, early on, I thought these two, Marge and Tom, if it worked for Dickie, if it worked for the fact that they were both in love with the same person, they probably would have liked each other.

And you see that in episode eight, that there is a kind of a little friendship that develops between them. Yeah. I want to ask you about some of the performances in the series, specifically Andrew Scott, who, gosh, I mean, like, the amount of precision in his movements

is very appropriate to the character. I was also fascinated by how even in the most intense, high stress, the walls are closing in on this character, he plays it without panic. I mean, he gets frustrated. He gets stressed out, but you don't see flop sweat and you don't see him running his hand through his hair 15 times

as he tries to figure out what he's going to do next. And there's almost a predestined inevitability to he knows what the move he's going to make is. Was this a difficult part for Andrew to play? I mean, this is a rendition of this character that feels, I think I've mentioned on the pod, like almost, he's almost like a vampire to me, the way he moves through these people's lives. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the sort of creation of the character in collaboration with Andrew.

Yeah, no, it was important to both of us. I mean, he's often said, you know, the guy's not a psychopath. And I agree with that. He's, it was important to me, to both of us, that he's not a professional killer, that he does things. the way that we would do them, meaning he doesn't know how to do them. It was important to show that he has to think this through. So a lot of these sequences, you know, where he does step, you know, one, two, three, four, five, I wanted him to stop and think about each one.

Like he can't plan five steps in advance. He can only plan one step at a time. And so these moments where he stops and he thinks about what he's doing, I felt would be good for the audience as well, you know, to do the same thing. and to see if they agree with what he's doing, if it's what they would do. So, you know, in the Freddie scene, especially, and in the boat scene as well. And, you know, the character is very methodical.

Like you say, he's not, like, ringing his hands. But, again, he's not a professional at it. It was very important with both of us that he makes mistakes. And, you know, and things he'd say. step through. There was Robert Elisweth was talking about when he I don't know if it was when he read the script or when we were shooting. He said, you know,

if you want to save some money, he doesn't have to go back to the, yeah, Apia to get the passport. He could just take it the first time he leaves. Robert, that's the point. The point is he doesn't think things through. He can't. He has to go back. And that was sort of an example of what I'm talking about. There are so many other performances in the piece that I could talk to you about,

but I have to ask about the casting of Kenneth Lonergan as Herbert. Andy and I were both delighted by that. Right up there with my other favorite Kenneth Lonergan performance of when in Manchester by the sea, he walks by Casey Hathletag. It is like, nice parenting. I'm sure you're personal friends with him, but how did you figure him for the character? I wanted somebody who was sort of down to earth, and I feel that he is.

And I was, like you, I was a fan of his appearances in his own films. I don't know if you saw Margaret. He has a part of Margaret. And I didn't want somebody who was kind of typical for this sort of character, and I think even is in the book of a kind of a blue blood rich guy. I wanted somebody who was like a working man who made, money. And I felt he looked like that and he felt like that. I just thought it was a, you know, a better, a better approach to the character, sort of in the same way that, you know, I was saying

that Elliott was in my mind a good approach to that. Yeah. And yeah, it just, I don't know, it just popped into my brain at some point to ask him. And I was very surprised what he said even do it. Speaking of people, we were delighted to see in the series. When Malcovich appears in eight, it feels absolutely unexpected and also perfect. And Justin, totally in harmony with what we've seen up to now. I love those moments where Tom meets Reeves because it accomplishes something very significant, I think, within the totality of this series, which is Tom meets someone similar, that there's a moment of recognition and he can see that there's a future in the world for him. that appearance also, for the real Highsmith heads,

opens up the possibility that there might be more Ripley to tell. And I wondered how that played in your mind when you were making this series and where you are sitting with it now, if you have interest in continuing this version of Ripley's story. Yes, I think that there's more to it, meaning there's four other books. And as far as Reeves goes, Reebmane and John Malcovic, I wanted to make sure that whoever played him was somebody, if we did do another season, it would be somebody that I'd want to see again.

And the idea of Malcovic doing, I love that you were delighted by his appearance. Because he appears so late and so briefly. But I felt it was sort of like a nice little jolt. towards the end of the story. And like Wandergan, I asked him. I said, this is not a big part, but, you know, I know you played Pomerickly before. You know, maybe it would be fun to play this other character,

two days in Venice. And he said, yes, I was stunned. Did you say it that way, or did you say, John, two days in Venice? And then after he said yes, then he explained everything else. I did say in Venice, yeah. Are future Ripley books, do they have less stairs? Like, are your knees going to be able to take any?

Well, they primarily take place in France. So, yes, French countryside, a lot fewer stairs. Good. So not to put you on the spot, but because obviously we would love nothing more than you getting another 170 days to do another one of these series. in whatever early stage imaginings you have, is it the same tone and color palette, or do you feel like each book is distinct in a way that France, after Tom, has become,

who he has become, looks different or feels different than this? I think there's a good chance of that happening. I haven't sat down and really thought about any, you know, literally doing any of the other books. I've read them all. When I sit down, if I sit down and write another one, it'll look like how I'm seeing it from a book. It might be in color, sure.

It's certainly going to look different. One of the stories, there's a lot of scenes in Germany and in England. He's kind of all over the place. So, yeah, I think the visual palette could very likely be different. Well, we hope we get to see them. Steve, thank you so much for being so generous. It was your time. And thank you so much for such an incredible TV series.

This series is a gift. Thank you so much for you and your whole team for what you did here. It's just really special. Thank you. And thanks for your student analysis of it. I was really so pleased to see that you got all the details that I was hoping people would get. and you were able to, you know, express those. And I really appreciate it.

Yeah, well, when it's this good, it's a pleasure to talk about. And you got Chris with a cat. I don't know if he's made that clear. Like, that was a wrap on Chris's fandom. Steve, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks a lot.