WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1647 - Scott Frank

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Scott Frank is one of Hollywood’s most prolific screenwriters but he still has perpetual anxiety about his job security. Scott and Marc talk about the impulse that keeps him grinding away, whether he’s working on original screenplays, rewrites, or his limited series like Godless, The Queen’s Gambit and his new Netflix show Department Q. They also talk about Scott’s mentors, his influences, and the construction of his most well known screenplays, like Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, and Logan. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Note that this grant is only dispersed after teachers arrive to New Zealand and meets the other accompanying criteria. Alright, let's do this. How are you what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck Nicks? What the fuckadelics? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast WTF it's been my podcast for almost 16 years. That's crazy That's crazy Yeah, how you doing? Today on the show I talked to Scott Frank He's a writer director producer and one of the most prolific screenwriters in Hollywood

He wrote the screenplays for Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Minority Report, Logan and a lot more Including dozens of uncredited rewrites on films like Saving Private Ryan and Gravity He's the writer and director of the Netflix series Godless and The Queen's Gambit, as well as the new crime thriller Department Q, which I watched all of. You know, I've never been a binge watching series guy, but I've had a few guests lately where I get it. I get how it's satisfying. And Department Q was very satisfying. And I also watched Friends and Neighbors, and now I didn't get all the screeners So now I'm hanging out just hanging here like everyone else waiting for Friday

for the end of that thing anyway My buddy Jack came over and I love Jack. I've known Jack for years. We became friends back in the San Francisco days I guess that would have been geez whenez, when was that man? 92, 93, somewhere in there. And we don't stay in touch as much as we should because sometimes, you know, friendships, it's not even that they get strained. All of a sudden you just, time flies.

No, I don't even like that. Time, you just kind of realize one day like, oh fuck, I haven't talked to that guy in a month or two or three or six I can't even really remember the last time we hung out but it had been a while and it's just an interesting moment when you haven't seen a friend in a while and your Contemporaries and you look at him and you go like wow

We are old guys. And look, I'm not saying I'm old, I'm not whining about it, but I'm 61. You know, when I was 15 and someone told me they were 61, I'm like, holy shit, that guy's almost gone. But now I'm 61 and Jack's a couple of years older than me. My buddy Steve, who I've known since college, he just turned 63.

There's a zone of aging that seems to happen in around 60 to 65 where you make this one of the major turns physically. And that's just my speculating. But it just was this moment where I'm like, Oh, man, because Jack doesn't have kids either. And so we can't really judge ourselves against their growth or anything else. So there's some part of us that are still 1994. There's some part of me I think that's still like 1980.

But I think there's some part of me that's 1972. They all exist within me. And a lot of them haven't really aged. But there is this current of, I don't know if it's youthful thinking. It's just not really knowing. If you're just spending most of the time alone or with one other person that you see a lot, you just don't know until you see a pal you haven't seen in a year or so. Like, oh my, it's happening dude, look at us. Because like so many of the cities I've lived in

have changed dramatically over time. So many of the people that I knew are either gone or have disappeared to where I don't even know where they are. He was talking about San Francisco and we were there in the 90s and how amazing it was before it all crashed. COVID really knocked the shit out of that place.

And all this stuff that him and I were brought up on, you know, we, you know, I grew up in, I mean, in terms of formative years. So I graduated high school in 81 and I was 10 and 16 73 15 and 78 and all the stuff that we were picking up was the stuff left over from the 70s and everything that San Francisco represented all the free love and and sort of celebration of of weirdness and the embracing of of of the gay community and all the sort of wild underground comics, underground art, all the weirdness of New York and LA, all the freedom of expression that used to define some of these cities, all the beautiful diversity of creativity and just like pushing the envelope to find out what is the edge of the human expression.

All that stuff is exactly what's being steamrolled and buried today with anti-diversity policy, anti-diversity movement, anti-gay movement. All this stuff moving towards this homogenization of mediocrity and thick-mindedness and bigotry is a fucking disaster for the arts, for creativity, for human potential, for things that are interesting and provocative. It's all being pushed aside in the name of anti-woke policy or in the name of anti-censorship so we can do hack jokes about vulnerable, marginalized communities. It's just such a...

It's so, like, when I was talking to Jack and what we kind of grew up with, you know, R. Crumb, weird records, all kinds of strange, like, the residents. Like, it just... It's just the entire expanse of... And I watched that Pee-wee Herman documentary, half of it, the world he came from,

the arts of the 70s. It's just all of that, what it was defining and essential and interesting. And now we're just moving into this zone of authoritarian boredom and fear. And it's such a fucking shame. It's such a fucking shame to have people on podcasts looking at some of the greatest art of the 20th century and

going like I could do that. It's just so thick-minded, out of context, without any sort of sense of open-mindedness or exploration and these are people that pay a lot of lip service to freedom of mind and freedom of speech And I just it just fits so snugly into a very fascist point of view And it's just it's heartbreaking above everything else. It's angering and it's scary but above everything else the sort of movement to erase the kind of progressive and truly edgy creativity that was evolving

and progressing in music and painting and dance and writing and live performance. It's just, it's such a fucking heartbreaking thing to grow up with such an exciting, full spectrum of human expression and just seeing that just bulldozed. Also just by the nature of media in general. It's just sad and I guess this is like an old guy talking, hey what about what's going on now? It's not the same doesn't have the same visceral connection Doesn't have the blood guts and soul and sweat of you know actually being around Exciting things happening, but is this just me being old. I don't know. I don't know I Do know that I just did the beginning of the press

junkets for the show stick which premieres June 4th on Apple TV, me and Owen and Marianna and Peter and Lily, we're all doing sort of press tour stuff. That's gonna be exciting. I haven't watched any of it. I'm gonna watch it with everybody else, or maybe not watch it at all,

because that's what Owen does. I can follow his lead. It's not great to watch yourself. Sometimes it is, but usually it's not great. But everybody seems to like the show. Also, if you're gonna be in New York on June 14th or 15th and you wanna come to the showings of Are We Good?, the documentary about me,

the premiere is on the 14th. You can go to WTFpod. slash tour to to get tickets to that And I don't know a lot of things going on a lot of things going on a lot of them bad But in my life, you know if I can continue to celebrate what I believe Real creativity is and just hope to God that people are out there Still doing it still pushing the envelope in a way that takes real risks. God, I hope you're out there. I'll be looking for you.

So look, Scott Frank is here. His new series, Department Q, premieres on Netflix today. And it's good, it's a good watch. It's one of those kind of traumatized, angry police situations, cold cases, you know? I don't know the genre, but it turns out that it's better that I don't binge these kind of shows because I can't stop.

And I guess that's the idea, but I've managed not to get too completely absorbed by too many of them. But I really enjoyed this one. And I enjoyed talking to Scott. And so I'll let you listen to it now. And also, before I got a pretty big announcement on Monday, got a pretty big announcement on Monday.

This is me talking to Scott Frank. What is happy travels? It's exploring the world your way and creating cherished memories. With a sun vacation, cruise, flight or hotel deal. That's by experts who have been where you are now and have gone where you want to go. Booking is easy with vacations for every traveler. Organized by destination, travel provider and more. Find your getaway, contact a travel expert or visit You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map.

You battled crackens and navigated through storms. You battled Krakens and navigated through storms. Your spades struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. I think people get very, you know, very comfortable with their discomfort. I don't know, what do you, mine manifests itself in catastrophic thinking and dread and you know. I catastrophize over everything.

Right. And then it stays in my brain and then I also. Spend the day with it. Yeah. Why not? I would sit down to read a book. Yeah. And I would still feel anxious like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

Maybe I should be working. Maybe I should be and then, you know, and then in our world, our business, nothing is secure, you know, and especially with kids and everything. And I, the more world, our business, nothing is secure. And especially with kids and everything. And the more I, and this is, it didn't get better, it started to get worse as I got older. Just pile it on.

Yeah, that's what's happening, it's worse. Yeah, everything gets worse as you get older. I know, but the odd thing is, is that now you're financially more comfortable. It's not necessarily that you have a guarantee of a job, but it seems like you do all right. At some point, you gotta look at your resume and go like, I've never stopped working.

Right, but still, it's like telling a manic depressant to just cheer up. Is it though? I think it is, I do, I think it is. I think that for me, I couldn't, I tried meditating, I tried a lot of different things. And I hear meditation is great. I was probably the wrong time to try it when I tried it.

I mean, I've tried it. Yeah, I think if you get a practice going, like in, you know, like my late partner, you know, she would do it twice a day. She was TM. Twice a day. Yeah, but yeah, she was strict, you know, TM. I mean, that's what you do. Twenty minutes, twice a day. She was TM. Twice a day. Yeah, but she was strict TM. I mean, that's what you do, 20 minutes, twice a day. And like 20 minutes, twice a day, it's fucking nothing.

Yeah. And there's some things become so big in my head. Like I don't have any sense of time. Like, you know, you're coming, you're supposed to be here too, but you're coming over and I'm like, I'm up at nine and I wanna go to the gym before you come. And I'm like, oh fuck, do I have enough time?

It's like you have four hours. I mean, what? I, I, so, so I am the same way. And I feel like 20 minutes in the morning, are you fucking kidding me? I need to get going. I need, that's my good writing time. That's my, you know, and, and especially

when I started directing too, you know, everything was too big in my head. I realized, and my son said to me, my son who's sober, a lot of people in my family are, and he would say to me, you're not, dad, you don't enjoy anything. You have all these things, you have this great life, and you don't even seem to really enjoy it. It's like you're in, you know, fight or flight all the time. Yeah, I don't know if I'm in fight or flight, but I don't, my whole new special that I just recorded has to do with this, about the inability, some of the jokes, inability to identify happiness.

And you know, anxiety anxiety and SSRIs. But like you're saying, this idea of identifying happiness, number one, and then sort of like experiencing joy, number two, I'm like, that sounds like bullshit. Or being in the moment, being comfortable being uncomfortable. Oh, I'm definitely that, I can do that.

I don't know that I could. I had to kind of fix everything right away. And the irony is, in work, I'm a big believer, you know, when it comes to writing especially, it's messy. You have to be comfortable with it being wrong until it's right for a year or two or whenever, however long it takes.

It's just messy. Don't know how you do it. And you, it's why I hate all these, you know, the, a lot of the film school programs and, and books and podcasts and things that try to organize it and turn you into a good student. Yeah. You know, I really think that the great stuff

comes from the mess and the happy accidents, but you have to really constantly tell yourself that this, that eventually, like, you have the flu, you know you're going to get better. Sure. You just tell yourself, I'm going to get to the other end. But also you've got to do the work. You have to do the work.

You have to sit there and do the work. I mean, that's, I mean, I think that is the hardest thing. I think that people that are coming into writing without really doing it, you know, they're looking for a system. Yes. So they can write within the system. But if you don't have just the need or the compulsion or the discipline to just write the fuck out of things, what are you going to do?

No, listen, this is one of my favorite subjects. And it's the talent or the way of thinking even. And so they tell you if you just follow everything that's in here. Yeah, and then you write an issue. You have an outline, you have a this and you read scripts and things that where people are behaving because the script said so. Yeah. Well, but also it's just like, I hate it. I hate writing and I'm a good writer, but I hate it. You know, I've written scripts. I, you know, I do this weekly thing that keeps me engaged with prose anyways, and sort of first person stuff. But like when I've done shows and I've had to write scripts,

it's to me it's like, oh my God. It's hard. It's miserable. It's like I just want it to be done. But do you find, is there a point, I noticed with what I do with stand up where I work and I work and I work, and then it gets to a point where, yeah, I'm in it, I feel good about the work, you know, I perform it in a way that doesn't require me to life or death it. So is there a point where you're like, yeah, this is good, I'm writing. No, what it is is there's a few minutes a day where it's going really well, where it's subconscious

and I always talk about it, it's like this ball of dough that lands on the board and you start rolling out that ball of dough. And as it gets thinner and thinner, you're hoping for another one to drop and hit. But I mean, this is like, you know, you've written some great movies. Little Manta was the big first one. Get Shorty, Out of Sight, which I just watched recently.

The interpreter, the Wolverine and Logan, Marley and me. The interpreter for me, like, there are certain movies. I was trying to make a list for myself while I was on the treadmill today of modern masterpieces, in terms of like underappreciated movies. And one of the ones that you wrote, which is at a site, I think is one, Michael Clayton is one.

Yeah, it's a perfect movie. It is, right? It's a perfect movie. I cannot shut up about it. I get excited. And I'll tell you something, I'm gonna put Sicario on the list. I love Sicario.

I'm gonna put Sicario on the list. There are a few movies that I, there's nothing wrong. They're absolutely perfect movies. Sicario, I would absolutely, you can put that on the list. Right, Three Kings. Love Three Kings. Right. And then like, but Pollock, you know, who,

did he direct the interpreter? He did, he directed it. So you work with Sidney. He was my mentor. The best. Yeah. The best? Yeah. The best. And some of the movies he directed, grown up movies.

Grown up movies. For grown up people. Right, where they never get together. The couple never gets together. That was his thing. And he, I've had some really good mentors in my life. I've been really lucky. Who was the first one?

Lindsay Duran, great producer, was the first one who taught me how to write. Then Sydney, then Bill Goldman. Oh, Bill Goldman, yeah. Bill Goldman, and... He must've been old. This was 1990, I was 29. Well, just to blow some smoke up for a minute,

like, Absence of Malice, The Firm. The Firm is great. What a great fucking movie. Great. Why isn't that celebrated? Great. It's a really good movie. Random Hearts.

Random Hearts I have more trouble with. The Later On, Savannah, Random Hearts, even The Interpreter I have some trouble with. Jeremiah Johnson. I love Jeremiah, that's a perfect movie. Three Days of the Condor, you haven't mentioned that one. That's amazing for that day. One of the greatest lines ever at the end.

Jeremiah Johnson, for me, because no one really kind of lumps it in with those kind of revisionist westerns. It was. It's great. It's crazy. It's great. How about Will Gere in that too? Just unbelievable. I love that movie.

That's a perfect movie. I used to watch that and Outlawed Josie Wales on the same day. Oh my God. Another perfect movie. I watched, you know, I watched The Unforgiven pretty frequently. A perfect movie also. Totally, and you know what's interesting about it

is like he gets all the motifs in, right, of all the Westerns, and he does it pretty well. Yeah. Maybe not all of them, that's not exactly true. Like there's some Westerns where like the ones that I think that are massive failures because of their need to, they overreached was like Silverado. Yeah.

Like, Cas and Smart Guy. Yeah, very smart. Smart writer. But, like, I don't know what happened in that movie. It should have been good. But it seemed like he was trying to do too much. You remember it? I do remember it.

I remember it being a lot of fun. Okay. I was, I remember it being a lot of fun. Okay. I remember it being a lot of fun. I remember, and listen, when I wrote and made my own Western, I watched everything for a year. I only read Westerns and only watched Westerns. Well, you mean Godless or a movie? Yeah, Godless, that's all I looked at. So it was a genre study?

Yeah, I thought, I really, I loved them, but I thought, if I can't make people talk, I can't write it. And I was worried really I love them, but I thought I don't I'm if I can't make people talk I can't write it and I was worried about writing like right Russell up a bunch of grub or right right right yeah Yeah, why you know it's I think oddly in my memory and I'll watch it again It's sort of a very finite and kind of a perfect Western is Pale rider pale riders very good. I it's it Pale Rider's very good. It's very good. I like Pale Rider a lot.

Yeah. It's very much... It's a warm up though more for Unforgiven. Oh, totally. Yeah. Because he kind of limited the scope. Outsider comes into the town, saves the town people, goes away. Yeah.

Who was that guy? Right? Which is what? Shane kind of? Shane, which I love, is for me another perfect- Searchers? Searchers? I get bored with the searchers. I like it because he's like a flawed guy.

Yeah, well he's a racist for starters. Totally. And there's a great moment in it too. First of all, there aren't a lot of closeups, which I think is great, because everybody shoots, there are so many closeups today, and that movie proves that not every other shot has to be. Well, that's because he was in love with the landscape.

But there's one moment, though, where when he shows up and the wife, I forget her name now, she takes his coat, and you see her just rub the coat as she's about to put it on the chair. And that tells you everything in that. I love little moments like that. It's great. coat and you see her just rub the coat as she's about to put it on the chair and that tells you everything in that in that I love little moments. It's great. She settled. Yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah, yeah. Butch and Sundance. That's also terrific and that script is a ball to read in

fact that's what made me want to write scripts. I wrote it when I was 11 and there's a line in it. Yeah, it was at the Gemco checkout. So I'm a little older than you, probably. But the- I'm 61. How old could you- 65. Oh, you look good. That's all that SSRIs.

Yeah, or all your insanity. They're both. But there's, you know, when you're 11 years old and you read in a screenplay, which I'd never read before. I'd never read a screenplay before. And it says, Butch delivers the most aesthetically exquisite kick in the balls in the history of modern American cinema. And that was Goldman?

Goldman. I went, I'm 11, I'm a young kid. This is what I want to do. I want to do that. And Dog Day Afternoon was the other one that did. Dude, I can't stop watching it. I had them screen it at Cinematheque. Because they asked me, like, you know,

you want to host a screening? And I'm like, yeah, let's do that. He's one of my favorite directors as well, the other, Sydney, and there's no score in that movie. There's just the Elton John song at the beginning, and then no music for that. And also, it's just one ride. Yeah, it's one ride.

It all happens in real time. Yeah, and then makes this fucking left turn in the middle of it. And the audience goes with it. They go completely with it. With the lover? Yeah, he's got a wife who's a guy. Yeah, yeah. But it's just so, the intensity of it.

And just like that moment where Casale, is that how you say his name? John Casale. John Casale, yeah. Casale. He's like, did you mean it? Cause I'll do it when he said, I'll kill him. I'll kill him.. He's like, did you mean it? Cause I'll do it. When he said, I'll kill him.

I'll kill him. And he realized like, oh no, he's got to manage that guy. Yeah. Like this whole- And what country do you want to go to? Wyoming. Yeah. And the fact that it's a botched robbery

from the second the movie starts. Right, the kid who was supposed to drive. He says, I can't go. I can't, I have to go. Gives, throws him the car keys. And the gun. And the gun. And the gun. Oh my god.

And then he tries to open the box with the flowers, with the gun in it and in the bank. And it's a mess as he tries to. You're laughing so hard. And I remember sitting there in the audience. And you're laughing at the beginning. And when he gets to the point where he's chanting, Attica, you know, the Attica.

Everyone in the audience is applauding and screaming with him. And then it gets dead silent at a, everyone in the audience is applauding and screaming with them. And then it gets dead silent at a certain point in the audience. It gets super quiet. And it was amazing. And you're looking around. There were three movies that I remember watching in that. As a kid. As a kid, I was like, I think Dogged Afternoon,

I was probably 14 maybe. There was that. There was Harold and Maude, which did that, because Hal Ashby, another of my favorite directors. Oh my God. To watch, you know, being there. Shampoo. Sure, shampoo. Last detail.

Coming home. Coming home. The last detail in coming home. Fucking John Voight. What happened to that guy? Well, you know, who knows actors? You know, we all make assumptions because of what they do, but, you know, you don't know them. You know, and I don't know. I don't know them. You know, and I don't know what his dad was like.

I don't know what any of them are like, but you know, the gift of the actor is we never knew who they were as people. Well, I wish I still didn't know him. Well, that's the problem. No one shuts up now and everyone, you know, but he's particularly bad. But that movie is great. He's amazing. Bruce Dern is amazing in that movie.

Amazing. And the other one was that really, believe it or not, Robert Aldrich, I think. The best. The longest yard, his version of the longest yard. Was it worth it when you hit the game ball? Yeah. When you didn't know if he was gonna win or not?

Would you call that, that's the denouement. That's the beginning of the third act, right? Right right is when he decides to win the game. Yes. Mm-hmm. Oh, it's so good It's the best Eddie Albert. Yeah, kill him kill him. He's trying to run. He's trying to run and then that great character actor Yeah, and ball and what is it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, but Aldrich did he'd been around a long time Oh, yeah, baby Jane whatever happened to Baby Jane? The Big Knife. I don't think I've seen it. Really?

No. With Rod Steiger and Jack Palance? I've never seen it. Shelley Winter? I've never seen it. Oh, you gotta find it. It's a Hollywood movie. And he did.

It's about an actor who, you know, does a contract, an actor who had integrity. Like, you know, imagine, cause it's Odette's, it was like, he was part of the living theater and now he's in Hollywood and he does a contract, an actor who had integrity. Like, you know, imagine, because it's Odette's, it was like, he was part of the living theater, and now he's in Hollywood, and he does this contract with this studio, and Steiger plays the head of the studio, and he sells his soul, and oh boy.

It's one, it's, I've never seen, there's a few that are embarrassing that I've never seen, and, but he also did Kiss Me Deadly, which is great, which is fun. He did the Frisco Kid. Yeah, and the Frisco Kid. I just watched that again, what a, it's great, which is fun. He did the Frisco Kid. Yeah, in the Frisco Kid. I just watched that again. It's great.

It's great. So funny. All of those. But, all right, so you read that at 11, and I imagine you saw the movie. And so what is it that sets you spinning? You mentioned there's some alcoholism in your family. In not my immediate family,

but in my sort of chosen family. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah. But how'd you grow up? I grew up very boring. I grew up, my dad was a pilot for Pan American. That's not boring. You get to go in the cockpit?

Oh yeah, all the time. That's not boring at all. That's crazy to know what goes on in a cockpit. It was great. And he loved to fly and pilots are like cops. All they talk about are flying. They all get together and they sit around. They talk about flying.

They love it. They love it. And they talk about, when you listen to the black box recordings, my dad would always say there, before they take off, they're always talking about the three S's, sex, salary salary and seniority

Yeah, well, I mean have you watched this new Nathan Fielder thing? Yeah, I just started Wow They should they should probably you know manage those conversations better. Yeah So but yeah, because even when I'm on a plane now and you know when when it when a pilot Has to take it out of autopilot and fly the plane and you can feel it I'm like he's having fun like you know I can I love it when they're flying the plane. Well they might not even be you might not be right. Yeah they might be autopilot. They can I don't think they do but the autopilot can they can land everything now and and I'm not sure, it depends. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, I'm always wondering.

But it was, he loved his job and it was great. And he was a captain and he flew everywhere and it was before Pan Am. You know, he used to fly all over the Asian Pacific routes. Those were his favorite. Did he have his own plane? He had a little Cessna that he used to pick me up at UC Santa Barbara in sometimes.

Where'd you grow up? Northern California, Los Gatos. Oh, okay. In the Bay Area. So you just fly down? Just fly down. So did you fly? I flew, but then I stopped, and I still could,

but I stopped because I'm a daydreamer. And I thought I'm a danger to myself and others. I should not be in a plane because I find myself driving and I go, wait, I was supposed to get off the freeway eight exits ago. And flying, you have to be, you can't make mistakes and you're so, you have to really go through the checklist. And by the way, my dad was a lot like Sydney that way.

Sydney Pollock believed, because he was a pilot, he was a really good pilot. But if you just follow the checklist, everything will go fine. So you had to, you know, I can't like, I don't know. So you're in the cockpit where your dad, is he showing you how to fly? He's showing me how to fly. And just right away, whenever he takes anyone up, he just says, okay, you got it. And let's go of it and let you fly. Panic. And the story I would always tell, which just contributes to my anxiety,

I've told it a lot, but it's, he would say, okay, the engine cuts out, where are you gonna land right now? Where are you gonna land right now? The engine's gone, where are you gonna land? And so it made me, in my life and career, always think about where am I gonna land? Okay, this isn't gonna, I have to about, where am I gonna land? Yeah. Okay, this isn't gonna, I have to think about

where am I gonna land? Nothing, nothing lasts. Also, you know, being a Jew, you're taught that nothing lasts because history has fucking proven that. Yes, yeah. That you could be having a great life, and in they come with boots and guns, and off you go. Sure, yeah, we're, I think we're probably a couple down on the list, but you know, it's happening now.

Yeah. Not to Jews. I know, I'm trying to look to see where I can get a foreskin quickly. And it's not, sorry. Otherwise I'll see you at Guantanamo, we can meet up there. Yeah, your identity's in the cloud, buddy.

There's no, you can't hide behind a foreskin anymore. They know where we are and what we're doing. Whoever they are, whoever they decide to be. But it does teach you, and also my parents grew up, you know, they were products of the Depression too. So I got a lot of, you know, it's all gonna be gone tomorrow. You never know, you might be doing well today,

but you never know. And my mom constantly, you know, the might be doing well today, but you never know, and my mom constantly, you know, the other thing I love talking about is I would come home and she'd be watching Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin and to go, that's Bobby Sherman, he's broke. He lost everything. He's almost dead right now.

That's so-and-so. They lost all their money, that's it, they're all done. Yeah, well, I grew up with different, not that same kind of pressure for some reason my my parents were Self-involved enough to believe that I had my shit together, which was its own problem But they always thought I would be okay You know, my grandfather was different, you know He was like you maybe you should get a job at the post office

Because there's security and you get a pension that was my mom and dad. What did your parents do? My dad was an orthopedic surgeon and my mom was, I think she wanted to be an artist but you know she ended up being some variation of a surgeon's wife. Oh okay. But you know they were just very, you know they were not equipped to parent. They had me when they were very young. So what I usually say is I don't see them as parents, I see them as people with problems I grew up with. And I needed things from them emotionally that I didn't quite get. But you

make it, you fix it, or you live with it, whatever. That's my anxiety. It's like, who's going to take care of me? Right. That's a whole other thing. And who am I? Those two. But not narcissists that way, just, or were they narcissists? No, my dad, I think, that word gets bandied about quite a bit,

but I think both of my parents had empathy, and I think that, my father was pretty close to a narcissist, but he was also bipolar. So that fortunately kind of breaks the narcissist shell in a way. And now he's like, you know, mostly demented. So he's become amazingly,

the depression goes away when they have dementia. But the- Oh, that's what it takes. That's all it takes. Yeah, that's all it takes. But the narcissism, not so much. But yeah, no, he was definitely a kind of megalomaniacal guy. Not really equipped to do that stuff.

But that's my life. So you're growing up in this. You got siblings? I got two siblings. I have a twin sister and an older sister. Do they take normal lives? Very normal lives. Happy, not a lot of anxiety going on there.

Huh. Really? Yeah. And so you have a younger one and then a twin? I have a twin sister and an older sister. Oh, okay. Almost four years old. But you're the kid, like, you know, you're interested in the arts early.

Yeah, very much. I wanted to... So you're getting a pounding by them from day one? No, only when I wanted to take it seriously. Only when it was, I'm going to school and I'm getting a school and it's, I'm getting a lot of, you know, doctors can write too. Um, Michael Crichton is also a writer. You know, you know what, being an airline pilot,

that's good, I have sons of, I know a lot of pilots who are writing at the same time. You have to get something with security. What are you gonna fall back on? You know, and I had a great teacher at Santa Barbara, you know Which was not a famous film program or anything, but he was great And he was he used to be a vice president under Harry Cohn at Columbia. Oh, wow Yeah, and he was teaching screenwriting. Yeah great teacher and he said to me you're 19 years old

If you have a fallback, you're gonna fall back You don't have a family. You don't have this just go for it You know, and let for it, you know? And let's see if you know how to write. And if you can write, then you should chase it. And then you get to the point where there is no more fallback. There is no more fallback.

Yeah, and you know what the fallback always is? So when things get dire, let me guess, I could teach. I could teach. I could teach, and they are. Yeah, I could teach. I mean, and so that's the thing. And so you just realize that you have to at least try, let the universe tell you that it's not gonna happen.

You know, not, you know, as a parent, you want to, I feel like. But if you're delusional, which you have to be to pursue a creative life, you know, you're gonna push back on the universe. Well, I would say reasonably deletion. Okay. Okay.

So how does it unfold? Do you study screenwriting? I studied film studies, which is- Yeah, I did that. I'm minor in that. It's good. Yeah. And so at Santa Barbara, because it didn't have a lot of money or production facilities,

that's super interdisciplinary. So you're taking art history. Yeah, exactly. Other things, and you're kind of looking at other kinds of movies. And you're also really steeped in literature, art history, and film history as well, which is great. And as a writer and even as a director,

all that stuff I still think about all the time. What was the stuff where, you know, at that time, because I remember, you know, I grew up, okay, you're a little older than me, but there was, you know, I took a screenwriting class and I took a history of film class with Roger Manville. And I took, I did an art history minor, primarily focusing on the history of photography.

So, but the, you know, there was always this kind of like, well, Chinatown. I mean, Chinatown is Chinatown. That's the script. That's the easy go-to, isn't it? Yeah. It is, right? But then you sit there and you toil over it, and you're like, yeah, I get it.

It's great. It's pretty perfect. Because of the levels, you know, because of what it's really about is political and about greed and real estate. I watch it once a year maybe. But then when you get into Lumet, right? Lumet also... But he's very versatile.

That movie is an anomaly for him. I mean, it is his movie. Well, it's a New York Well, I guess yeah, but still but stylistically, you know, you look at the black and white you look at 12 angry men Yeah, and then you if you move through his his filmography. He's very adept at different styles Yes, he and he's not locked in. Yes, but I mean but that's as a director But I like directors like that William Wyler is another one one I love. He does the heiress, he does best years of our lives. He's a really interesting filmmaker for me,

who they're just well-crafted. Who is that noir guy? I kind of went on a little thing with him, and now I'm forgetting his name. What movie? It was not the Kubrick killing, it was another killing. It was called The Killing. Oh, Siad Mack?

Siad Mack. Yeah, Siad Mack. Yeah, he's interesting. Right? Yeah, very interesting, yeah. I mean, just sort of like matter of fact. Yeah, and you know, kind of blocked. And that's, when I went to college,

film noir became the other thing like Sidney Lumet that infected me deeply. Yeah, out of the past, changed my life. Lady from Shanghai. That's when the, that was Wells, right? Really big effect. Yeah, that really was for me something amazing. I just, all the stuff going on and the stuff said

and unsaid and they're all fucked up. Yeah, oh yeah. I really, really liked that. Touch of Evil. Oh, yeah. So yeah, well, it's got that. Just unhinged. Just totally unhinged. Totally. You know? Oh, that was crazy.

Really, what the famous tracking shot. Yeah. But also his sheriff was kind of something else. Just that sheriff. Hey. He, he, he. Totally. But also, you know, the third man.

That's an amazing movie. An amazing movie. But in the arc of your life though, what do you, and I know this is kind of a shitty question, what do you see as the best screenplay that kind of like works for you as a model of a lesson? I mean, that's a good question because it leads to the notion that

you can be taught something. Which is problematic. Which is problematic. Right, and also we're talking different genres and screenplays have different intentions and story is, it's relative to the story. But screenwriting, unlike any other kind of writing, seems to be one of those things where,

where on every side of the equation, people think that there is, that there's a way of doing it. And especially in this world where we game everything now, from politics to marketing, to all these things. It's game. Oh yeah, everybody is, but everybody thinks they, you know, that all you have to do is- Have an idea.

An idea, and then also, but there's also, the bar has been lowered tremendously. Well yeah, because- I mean, only certain things can be successful So the bar has been lowered tremendously. Only certain things can be successful in a mainstream way, but any idiot can make himself a few bucks if he puts some bullshit together. But you can't really bullshit with screenwriting because ultimately, I mean, there are bad movies, but if a movie sells, it sells. And so you work within that.

And if you're willing to sort of say like, well, I don't care if this sells, this is my vision. And then it sells, you're like, wow, we got lucky. Or my new one, so, but I love the movie. But I love the movie. And well, that's a good feeling when you're done with something and you say, I don't care what happens to this, I love doing it

and I'm happy with it. The problem is when you go to the movies, your disappointment 99.9% of the time is not with the cinematography or the acting or the direction or the music, it's with the story. Yeah, blame the writer. But nobody even knows who wrote anything anymore. That's really gotten kind of confused.

Yeah, but that's interesting. You're saying it like that, given that, you know, you are part of like, you know, dozens and dozens of movies in a capacity of fixing scripts that, and your name's not on it. You just get to say it now. And then people go like, really? What would you do?

Right, and- But that's guild rules, right? It's guild rules, but I don't even like, people dig it up. People will say, did you do this? Did you do that? And I'll say, no, because I didn't, I came in. Oh, you didn't do the story.

I know, or I came in and fixed something, but it's very different when you come in and you do something you're not. 90% of the time, the writer or writers I'm fixing deserve the credit. I don't deserve the credit, but that just shows you the kind of peculiarities of creation in movie making. And the other thing is, but that's a problem.

And those kinds of movies that I'm fixing are rarely sort of, no one's gonna fix a Wes Anderson movie or a Paul Thomas Anderson, because they're so singular and we're not taught to do that. The movies that I'm fixing are often approached so mechanically that you can fix them. Or the studio will say, you know. Just do a pass. Will you do a pass or actors are insecure.

Can you just do and writers might be good at structure, but the dialogue isn't good or they have a great idea. And screenwriters, because they've been taught this, I think, have confused participation with creation. So they think, well, I was there first, I should have a credit. I was there first, that means everything came for me. Not really, and it depends.

It's more complicated than that. And the fact that you don't know it's more complicated than that is kind of interesting. And then, so that's, and it's a third rail of guild politics is when you talk about that. And the fact that you don't know it's more complicated than that is kind of interesting. And then so that's and it's a third rail of of guild politics is when you talk about that. Right. Right. And then some people get their name on there, you know, one way or the other. There's two or three names on there. I share credit with a couple of people that way.

Yeah. And of whom has a big award nomination. Yeah. We're not going to go there. But it's fascinating to me. And because I remember sitting there with the co-writer writing together for six weeks from a blank page, and that was that. And that happens a lot.

And then you have people shamelessly either arguing that they deserve credit. There's a famous case, the movie, the Miracle on Ice movie, Miracle, the hockey movie. The writer wrote the script for that movie and found out after the movie was done that somebody had written the same story in the Guild and Its Infinite Wisdom. Yeah.

Gave the first guy sole credit because it was based on a true story, so he must have got it. And it's like stuff like that happens all the time. Well, that's just. Because they don't want to get sued, I think, so they're so careful. So they, instead of playing to win, they play not to lose all the time. And so then it becomes ingrained.

And because I think it's hard to have a career in Hollywood that lasts, it's very difficult. And I think that you think the credit is the thing. And so there's a lot of fight over for credit. And I understand because a lot of people are denied credit that deserve it as well. But you listen to actors and directors going, I basically rewrote it, I wrote the whole thing. And it's like, no you didn't.

No you didn't. So how do you end up, because in terms of the type of movies that you've written, I mean, they're kind of, they go a lot of different places. So when, but Little Man Tate was your first big movie. Right, I wrote that in college. You didn't get made until 19. And that's an original screenplay.

Yes, original screenplay. And that seems like an odd place to start. What was, you know, the impetus? It was a weird impetus. I was home for Christmas, um, my sophomore year of school, and I remember the, uh, the Iran hostage situation. It's all going on. Yeah.

And I remember watching it on TV, and I just woke up in the middle of the night, and I had this idea that I was gonna write a series of columns for the Daily Nexus, the school newspaper. Yeah. Written by, called Little Man Tate, and it was gonna be a series of columns for the Daily Nexus, the school newspaper, written by, called Little Man Tate, and it was gonna be, the joke was, it was a eight-year-old kid commenting on world politics.

Because there was such petulance, I felt, watching everybody screaming and this, and I thought, I'm gonna have a kid talk about world politics. Now there's like thousands and thousands of Little Man Tates. Yes, there are. Yes, there are. Yes, there are. And so that's how it started.

And then I got into this screenwriting class with Paul Lazarus. And although he actually wasn't- Harry Cone's guy? Harry Cone's guy. Actually, it was a different teacher the first time and named Chuck Wolf. He was also great.

And I needed an idea for a movie. And all I had was the kid and his mother because he was always going to be talking about his mother. And I just started writing it as a script. Oh, OK. And then it became a thing. And it became a thing. And that's what got you in?

It's what got me in. But I had to rewrite it quite a bit, you know, because there are lots of movies being made. You know, Gary Coleman and the kid with the 200 IQ. And I would just see it's not. So it's not a really original idea. So I have to do something else with it to make it more interesting.

Oh, and so in that script got you an agent and got you? Got me an agent, got me an office on the Paramount lot when I was 24, 1984. Wow, so you're in and Jodie Foster gets to? Ends up direct later, she ends, Joe Dante was gonna direct it for a while. Oh, interesting. And then.

What would that movie have been? It was actually, the original version of the script was a very black comedy. Okay. And Jodie, and I really like her version of the movie too, but she was more interested in alternative parenting. Yeah. And how that works. Oh, and that made it a broader appeal?

I don't know what, it just made it a different movie. And I think that, and I really liked the movie and I loved the experience of doing it with her, but it was different than what I had in my head. But we had a great time doing it. Also, because it got made nine years later in some ways, and I'd written it at such a young age, it was a little like looking at a high school term paper.

I lost the feel for it, you know? I just lost the feel for it. Right, but ultimately once you write it and it's in the director's hands, I don't know, what's your involvement generally? It depends on the director. It depends on me. It depends on what the movie is and how it came together.

And I was there with her in Cincinnati while she was shooting it. I came home because Ken Bran Cincinnati while she was shooting it. I came home because Ken Branagh was gonna start shooting Dead Again right after that. So while that was shooting. And he wanted you on set too? He did, and because he came from the theater,

God bless him. And again, Jodie and I, so two actors directing two of my early films. The first movie was called Playing Clothes that Martha Coolidge directed. You really don't have to seek out or look at it. You really don't need to. But Ken Marana came from the theater,

so he wanted to have, and we were all, what was also interesting is they were two actors and we were all the same age. And so that was an interesting experience for me. And Ken would shoot a couple takes and say, anything you want me to try? Anything else? And I would look around wondering takes and say, anything you want me to try? Anything else?

And I would look around wondering, who the fuck is he talking to? He's not my job. Yeah, wait, no, but it's great when he wants to do that. And so it was interesting. And then gradually, the more time I spent on sets, I just realized it's so boring. If I'm not directing it, I'm just sitting there.

You have a voice but no say. I find that as an actor. Yeah. That the boredom is like, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm working on a script. I'm looking to direct and my buddy Sam Lipsight wrote this book. He hammered out, we've gone through, he's writing the script but I of coming in doing passes on it

We've been through five versions and I was I was sort of surprised at my instincts about you know Taking something from a novel, you know in terms of how how is this a movie? Yeah, because you have there's so much more you can do in a novel So you've really got to figure out what the story is and say like, all these other stories, gotta go, right? Right. And I mean, I can't imagine what it's, you had to have to do that with Elmer Leonard stuff,

but you had to deal with that. I mean, you had to take that writer and figure out how to make a movie out of those books. So what's the challenge there? It was hard and I had a lot of help. I had a lot of help. I had. From him?

From no from although he and I were we're always talking about it and he I'll tell you a story about the ending of Out of Sight that he really helped me with in a second. But but I had on Get Shorty both both of those movies I had Jersey Films and people don't realize that Danny DeVito's company Danny was a real deal producer. Yeah. had on Get Shorty, both of those movies, I had Jersey Films and people don't realize that Danny DeVito's company, Danny was a real deal producer. An amazing producer, he had Stacey Scherr working for him who's another real deal producer. And so I had help, I had help from Barry Sonnenfeld

on Get Shorty. And the only reason I give the edge out of sight over Get Shorty is Barry did a broader version of Get Shorty than I had in My head a little bit. He wrote a whole script. No. No he he directed Barry was the dresser I thought was a director and he he his sensibility which works great. He's great guy I never did he's so much fun and I love the movie. So let's be clear I really loved the movie. Well, you got all those fucking actors, dude

But it was different for me in a way than what I had in my... Same with Ken Brana on Dead Again. I had written what I thought was this dark thing, and he made it very theatrical in a way that works also. And so I'm learning all of that early on with Jodie. She made a different version. So what, did Sonnenfeld make it funnier than you anticipated? He just made it broader.

It was just a little broader in tone a little bit, but I really, I so enjoy it. And then on Out of Sight though, it was, I thought I did it because we had three kids all in one room and we needed a house, wanted to move to Pasadena. And I grabbed it, because I thought I had gotten away

with one Elmore Leonard adaptation. Because I remember when I met him, the I thought I had gotten away with one Elmore Leonard adaptation, because I remember when I met him, the first time I met, he was telling me story after story over lunch about all his books that had been fucked up as movies. Yeah. One after another. Yeah.

And so I thought, I don't want to end up another story and some other young assholes' lunch. Yeah. And so we did, we got, I got a lot of help on Get Shorty, as I said. And so the script, the movie worked. And, but then I was in a panic because I needed a bigger house. Because I, it was getting ridiculous.

And so I grabbed that and I thought, I'm going to write this really quickly. It took me over a year. To do out of sight. By what? Heaven's Prisoners didn't get you the house? Heaven's Prisoners, you know what? Heaven's Prisoners got me a lot of things because it was a rewrite where I was paid a lot of money while I was doing that. Okay, good, good.

I have a few of those. When did you start getting that kind of work? Early on, very early on when I was at Paramount, I got a call to rewrite a movie that Danny Houston was directing because we had the same agent at the time, roughly. And he was doing a Disney movie of the week called Sasquatch, literally about Bigfoot.

Yeah. And they paid me $11,000 to rewrite the whole movie over the weekend. Yeah. And they were happy with it? Yeah. And so then you became the guy? Then Ivan Reitman had me rewrite.

His wife was doing a movie, a musical at the time, called Casual Sex, based on the Groundlings show. And he gave me the movie to rewrite and paid me some money and gave me like eight days to do it. And the first thing I did is made it not a musical. And rewrote it, and I was probably the wrong guy for that, but I just started doing it and it just kind of escalated. Well, I imagine that helped you in the sense that, you know, you could interpret,

you know, the voice and not structure, but at least the voice of other people's work. Yes. And so that as an adaptive skill enables you to broaden your own ability to certainly adapt from fiction. Yeah, and in the case of someone like Elmore Leonard who has a very specific voice, so you're trying to catch that voice and you're trying to, because in his case, we, you know, there's a need always to invent a lot of plot. You have to invent or invent some plot. You need to invent some things because oftentimes, in his books, he'll be, he'll either introduce a new character

toward the very end all of a sudden, or he'll become disinterested in a character. And so you're trying to find a movie shape to it, you know? And that's what was really hard about it, less the, but the ability to sort of catch a tone and do that, I don't know, it was like those people who have a good ear for music and they can play the song. I've always been that way with dialogue and tone.

Does it help when you have actors attached? Yes, yes, but they're usually not attached while I'm writing. Oh, okay. Rarely are they attached while I'm writing. Oh, okay. Interesting. Rarely are they attached while I'm writing. Because, like, they're, I mean, those roles in Get Shorty are crazy. Great. That's Barry. Yeah.

Barry's something, man. He's the best. I read his book and I interviewed him. It was great. Both of them are really funny. Yeah. But I just watched out of sight. I was like, I have to re-watch it. And what, and I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, it was sort of a throwback to a 70s movie that wasn't existentially challenging.

It was just, it's sort of like, it's a romance. But it's set in this way where you used to see this, it's almost like, I don't know the leading guys, like Burt Reynolds, there were these, there were guys back in the day that would carry these movies that were relatively serious and had some menace to them. Paul Newman, Harper.

Yeah, but they were so charming that what elevated the thing, you didn't care about the dark backdrop. And I think that the dark backdrop of some 70s comedies is kind of, have you ever seen how many people were killed in Freebie and Bean? It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. And did you have you ever seen how many people were killed in freebie and bean? Yeah, it's crazy And it's a comedy and that was when I had that realization like they're not killing people anymore You're not seeing that. I mean they destroyed a city in a cop comedy

But but nonetheless I felt like it had that there was a lightness to it because you had you know You can get you lightning in a bottle with those two though. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Jesus. Absolutely, and the thing with also, you know, Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, that was the right time for them and out of sight. And Steven, I remember him coming to my office. Yeah, he would come to my office in Pasadena and we would sit there and just go through the script

and act it out. And it was an amazing experience. Okay. And we would just sit there and, you through the script and act it out. And it was an amazing experience. Okay. And we would just sit there and, you know, talk it through and work it out. And at one point I panicked and because I'd sent the script to Elmore Leonard and he said, I don't like the way it's all jumbled.

The time, what are you doing? And I'm saying, well, Elmore the- Oh, you're going back? Yeah, going in the book. You know, you open with the? And I'm saying, well, no more the... Oh, you're going back? Yeah, I go in the book. You know, you open with the jailbreak, but then you flash back in the trunk, you get 30 pages of history of this guy. So I'm trying to figure out how to do that and make, give the illusion of the movie moving forward. And he, and I being, you know, the basically easily influenced, strained it out. And I gave the script to Stephen all straightened out.

He said, what the fuck are you doing? Put it back. Oh, really? He said, yeah, put it back. What are you doing? That's crazy. But the greatest thing Elmore did was the ending. I wasn't sure how to end it.

In the truck? The book ends, yeah, the book ends where she busts him and she calls her dad on the phone and her dad says, my daughter, the tough babe, that's it. That's it, that's all. And in the movie, I thought, in the book, she doesn't ever change as a character. Karen Sisco is sort of the same beginning to end

and she's defined by this kind of really sexy competence. But he's really sad. He's all about the road not taken. He's like, if only I hadn't done all this stupid shit, I'm such a fucking idiot. So you took that out. No, I put that in. I really leaned on that and made the movie about him. So it couldn't end right there. But what was his regret?

That he couldn't be with someone like her. Oh, you mean on the emotional level, but he didn't regret his line of work. No, no. He just realized it was a stupid line of work. Yeah, yeah. But he was good at just realized it was a stupid line of work. Yeah, yeah. You know? But he was good at it. He was good at it. Yeah. And so at the end, I was trying to figure out what to do.

And I was just talking to Elmore one day. And he said, you know, he had just hung up with this guy he's been corresponding with in prison. And he was telling me that this guy's trying to write a book, and he's talking to him all the time. And he said, um, he said, yeah, and Omar just throws out, yeah, and he's like broken out from like 11 federal lockups. And I went, I have to go. I have to hang up now. I just need to go right now. And I just, it just hit me when he just said that. I went, of course, of course, I'm gonna put him in a van with that guy.

But I'm gonna do a different version of him. I'm gonna do, you know, the Muslim version of him. Right, but then it gives you a romantic ending. Yeah, exactly. And that, you know, and that, like, it seems like in the book, you know, she was not invested in her love. No.

And in the movie, you're like, here we go again. Right, but you don't even know. Maybe he will break out, maybe he will break out. Sure, sure, but it's that look on her face. Yeah, that look on her face. And you wrote that in. Yeah, that's all in there. That's all in there.

And, but that, when that happened, then I realized, okay, we're done. We're done, now we got it. Yeah, it was great. And then how do you go, and then you go to Minority Report? The hardest thing I ever worked on. It's a hard movie.

Really hard movie, a really hard movie. And it, we spent a long time, originally that was gonna be a job where I was gonna work for a few weeks and on the script. And he, Steven Spielberg was, was just wanted to work on, had a few things on the list he wanted to do with the script.

And it was a very different movie. And it's a short story that's all of 11 or 12 pages, I think it's a very short, short story. Who did it? Not J.G.Boward, who was it? Philip K. Dick. Oh yeah, Philip K. Dick, yeah. And it also, it's sort of,

he was an interesting guy as a writer. He seemed, you know, sort of, seemed kind of to me almost fascist in some of the ways he thought about politics in his books, but also was really into drugs and experimenting and things like that. I find him endlessly fascinating. But the book, rather the short story ended with him

sort of trying to support pre-crime, which is terrible. Yeah. And so it was, and they had a movie version that was very good, but it was a different movie. Yeah. And it was about an America where everybody wants to live in the 1950s. And so their houses looked like the cars, everything sort of felt like the 1950s. It was a very different tone. There really wasn't a mystery in it. It was very different. But it was this guy, John Cohen, very good

writer, had done a really interesting job with it. But it didn't quite work. And so we began working on it. And then what happened is Tom Cruise is shooting Mission Impossible 2 in Australia and his schedule, they shut down to rework that script. So now suddenly we have endless amounts of time in front of us. Yeah.

And Steven said, well, let's really look at this. So we ended up starting and- And you'd worked with him before Spielberg? I worked with him. Yeah, I had done a rewrite with him before. Of Saving Private Ryan? Yes, yes. And it was just the two of you?

Yes. What were the fundamental issues that he was worried about, the voice? He wanted to give the characters more individuality. Oh. And to sort of give them. Yeah, you had a dirty dozen in it. Yeah, he wanted to sort of give them so that they could be a little more specific.

And it's funny, I never ever really talked about that movie until Patrick Radden-Keefe outed me in The New Yorker. But it was a really good script and a really good idea by Robert Rodat. And he deserves all the credit for it. But it seemed like, you know, when a director or when you do rewrites, like in certain situations, it's really not about the story, per se. It's about, you know, elements of language or character. Yes. Yes. And that's usually, you read something and it's like the characters are not characters.

They're attitudes or types. Sure. Or even worse, jobs. Or even worse, the actor. Yeah. You know? And so they're always looking to find a way to give them something to do to make it.

Because character is what makes you care. Yeah. You know, that really is the the thing and plot should really come from That not from sort of and then this happens and then that oh interesting You know because you don't want people doing you got to believe that the character is going to move through that plot Yes, and you don't want people my pet peeve is when you see characters doing something because the script said so yeah You know where the why are they arguing with each other right now? Well, yeah.

Why don't they believe Jack Bauer? He saved the world 100,000 times, and now he's saying, I'm going to save the world again. And then they say, no, you're not. You arrest him. Lock him up. You're like, wait, what? Or the little kid says, mom, I saw a thing.

No, that's just your imagination. And so that's lazy. You need to go figure out why they won't believe him. As he is a boy who cried wolf. Is it a boy who cried wolf? Is it a this? Otherwise, you're just annoyed. You're not feeling the tension of somebody not believing you. Or worse, like in TV writing, like certain things that I've had to come up against as an actor,

is that like this wouldn't happen. Right. I mean, why do you have this guy doing this? There's no way, no matter how ill-defined the character would be, he's defined enough to know that he's not going to do that. So what are we going to do about that? Because the outline has him doing that. I know.

It's just a guy in a room's decision. Because it's funny or whatever. And it's like a lot of times it doesn't make any emotional sense or character sense. Right. And so that is, so that's something that you find yourself fixing. And by the way, the other thing is the way movies are developed isn't helpful to writers. So a lot of writers will get bounced off projects. There are things, I just read something not too long ago where I said, you don't want to get rid of this writer. This writer can write.

You're just not, no one is having the right conversation about the script. You don't want to get rid of them. And I wish I had been mature enough or smart enough to recognize that because there are probably many times where that had happened in, of the 50 or 60 or so things I've done over the years. There's a lot of them and there are many jobs that I didn't do.

Where what, you didn't stand up for the other guy? Right, where not that I didn't stand up for the other guy but that I didn't realize that they don't need me. They need, there's something else going on here. Okay, yeah. You know, that this is another thing. And listen, as writers, we're also frequently

our own worst enemy and sometimes... Yeah, sometimes it's just a personal lack of communication. Or they don't want to do it or they refuse to do it. There are a lot of those where, or most of the time when I'm fixing things, there were already, listen, I wasn't the first one on Private Ryan. Frank Darabont was in before me.

You know, so there's a lot of times there are, you know, people who are working on a lot of different, a lot of different scripts at the same, or working rather, a lot of different writers on one script. And so you come and you see your number eight on the list of all these people. In that case, I'm there for the, you know, I don't really care.

I'm there for the money. Right, but also- And to do a good job, of course. Also when you have somebody like Spielberg, who like he knows that he makes big movies that are unique to him. And he's obviously, you know, beyond capable. So anyone he brings in, it's like,

is there, can I make it better? Right. Right? It's not like the other guy fucked up. No, it's because he, that's really smart because he has, the thing, the good thing is that he has endless resources in terms of people he can talk to. Right.

So there's always ideas coming in, all new things. So if there's a way to make him better, he's agnostic in terms of who's making it better. Yeah. You know, he has his ideas and he just wants to see those ideas made manifest. And so it's not really a personal thing for him. It's just like, I need this done.

Can this person get it done or can that person get it done? Right. And then like the interpreter working with Sydney, what, that was a book? It was, no, it was an original script. By you? No, I came in later. I came in, Charles Randolph wrote an original script.

And the problem with the script, from Sidney's point of view, is it had a very surprise ending, a kind of six-sensey sort of ending. It was when they were all the Vogue at that time, you know? So it no longer, it didn't work to kind of do that movie. Wasn't a human story. It was, but it also relied on this twist at the end and everything was built toward the twist.

And so what Sydney wanted to do, which was I think a great idea, what Sydney really wanted to do is make a movie about someone who believes with her whole heart in diplomacy, but ends up with a gun in her hand at the end. Yeah. How do you do that? Right.

How does that happen? And he thought, and I agree, I think that was a great idea. And he wanted to shoot in the UN. No one had ever shot in the UN. It was great. And he was fascinated with, with, um, you know, the way diplomacy works and how it's getting a bad name and how the UN was getting a bad name. So wait, in the original script,

her family weren't victims? They were. They were. All of that was there in the original script, but it was a very different kind of story. And I think that what he wanted to do also was focus on the relationship between the two of them. Shaun Pence characters.

Yeah. And so I think that was a big thing for him, that he really wanted to, what is the dialogue they're gonna have, the running dialogue they're gonna have as this movie goes on? And is she really mysterious? Do you really, could she be involved? Do you really, could she be involved?

We want to know, might she be involved? What happened? We keep learning things about her that make her more and more suspicious. She's acting like she's afraid of something. And in the script, all the threats against her were fake. She was making it up. And so you had to believe that she was pretending to be scared by herself sometimes. And so the big change that we made in the final, in the film was to make it,

she's really under threat and yet he's not sure, he needs, he's trying to find out the mystery of who might be after her and why. And so we had to create a whole new subplot with other leaders from the country and we had to make the guy she wants that that they want to protect We had to make him a real person So we really did I read a lot about Mugabe and they called him the teacher and all these things that I loved Yeah fucking sold out his country for him. Yeah, right and And so we just sort of started going deeper and deeper And Sydney guided you there.

He guided me there. But we also, it was hard and I felt like I couldn't deliver for him. I felt like at a certain point I gave up. He was very upset with me. I kept saying, I don't think I'm giving you what you want. And I don't, and it was interesting because his apartment in New York City overlooked the UN. Okay.

It was on the East River and out the window, you could see the UN. And I just was feeling kind of stuck. And I felt like, you know, maybe I should go home and do this alone and see if I can do it alone. And I couldn't. I just couldn't figure it out. And I remember one day, all three kids, my wife and myself, we all had the stomach flu at once, which was awesome.

And yet nothing was coming out of me. I was sick, but nothing, and I thought, this is a sign. I go, this is a real... You're blocked very deeply. I'm blocked very deeply. And so I said, you know, and so I left the project and then Steve came in and finished it. Cause I just didn't feel like I was doing a good job.

I wasn't making it better. And did you and Sidney survive that? Yes. Yes, eventually, you know, he was really upset with me. And, but we talked later and made up. Oh, good. But after, like, so, and then the next few movies, yeah, Marley and Me, what was that?

I know, that's, my son loves to make fun of me about that movie. You know, if he's trying to dig at me, he'll go, yeah, well, dad, you wrote Marley and Me. It was a big movie. I love that movie. And we're big dog people, you know? And I-

You needed a break. No, it was weird. I didn't wanna do it. Elizabeth Gabler, who was running the studio, said, I need a rewrite on this movie. And Don Roose, who wrote the first draft of the script, is going off to make his own movie, so he can't do this, which is usually a very common reason for why they

need somebody else. Somebody's not available to finish, or they don't want to finish. But Don was going off to make his own film. And I said, I've read that book. My daughter knows that book. And my daughter, every night we would take the dog for a walk, she would tell me another chapter.

That's so not me. And she goes, you know, it's a story, and the story needs fixing. And I think, and finishing, and I think you could do it. Just take a look at it. And so I read it, and I realized, oh, this isn't about the dog, it's about my marriage. I'm gonna make this about the messiness.

And when I think about the history of our, you know, 37 whatever years, I think all you think about are the dogs and the different dogs and the this. And it's like this great metaphor. And so I really ended up having a ball doing it. And so that's how it happened. Oh, that's great. And then like, I guess, I mean, I'm not a Marvel guy, but the Wolverine and Logan are pretty high up

on sort of the list of great, you know, kind of different type of Marvel movie. Am I wrong? Logan, certainly. Yeah. Yeah, Logan, certainly. Wolverine was, and you know, I say this to Jim all the time, so it's no secret. Demangled?

Yeah, it was frustrating for me because at the studio, I read the script and I didn't know anything about Marvel. I really barely do now even. I had not read anything. Right. And so I read a script that I thought was really good. And I go, I don't know why you want me to come on here. Yeah. And he said, well, I'm trying to do something a little different. And he talked about it. And I said, well, the only thing I can think of

is in the end of the movie, he loses his power for five minutes and then he gets it back again. I go, what if he lost his power in the first 10 minutes or 20 minutes or even the first act, say? And now you have this guy who's immortal and all of his problems come from his immortality because you watch people you love die. And now he's stuck in feudal Japan, hiding in feudal Japan, like Witness, Harrison Ford,

among the Amish. He's among the people in, well, not feudal Japan, but in rural Japan, sorry. And he's with this woman that he actually really cares for. And the irony is, he doesn't have any power to protect her. I go, that would be really interesting. And so we kind of wrote that all up, and the studio said yes,

and the movie that was written ended with a giant robot at the end and all these things. And I wrote the script, rewrote the script, and next thing you know, the studio was like, well, where's the robot? Where's the this? Where's the bullet train chase? Where's the that? And suddenly, so the first third of it is one movie, and then it just becomes a Marvel movie. So when Jim wanted to do Logan, I said to him, why?

After all that happened before, he said, well, it's a different studio regime now, and they're telling me I can do what I want. And he would send me the scripts. And I was, I had just moved to New York, and I was working on my novel. And I was at the writer's room in New York. They have this place, it's like across from Tisch,

School of the Arts. It's just a room where you get a desk. And I wanted to go someplace different to write a book because I wanted to feel what that felt like. Because screenwriting, you have so many voices in your head and I thought this is gonna, I wanna try and purge all that. And I had a deal with Knopf and so I thought I'm gonna do this.

But he would send me, two things would happen. He would send me scripts all the time of what he was working on for Logan. I would go, this feels like a Marvel movie. This feels like every other Marvel. They're killing the vice president, they're this. He's a cage fighter at the beginning. He's a, you know, they're all these characters from, you know, touchstones.

And he had someone come in once, and they did a version of it. Then someone else did another version of it. And the thing that was so annoying is, the reason I bring up the writers' room is, I was so happy. And I had told my agent, I'm gonna do nothing for a year now.

I have, for the first time in many years, cleared cleared the deck I'd shot a pilot that wasn't gonna happen yeah so I had all this time in front of me I don't want to do anything and in the writers room you're not allowed to answer your phone yeah so they you have to get up and leave and you can't be walking out going hello or they have all these rules and then they have this little area so every time he fucking called me it was a hassle to get on the phone to talk to him. I would have to walk out, call him back. Maybe I miss him, maybe we, you know.

And then he would send me these scripts and I was just getting really annoyed with him. And then finally he said, and I was about to go shoot Godless in two months. And he said, I need you to do this. Can you do this? And he said, I need you to do this. Can you do this? And he sort of, and what had happened,

the way he got me on Wolverine was he sent me a comic book. And I'd never really read any of these comic books. And it was a different one. It was called Old Man Logan. And it was Logan as Clint Eastwood. And I loved it. And so he sent me another comic book, and it was him with this little girl who has claws coming out of her hands for this one.

And I thought, oh, fuck, it could be a super violent, like, paper moon. What if we did that? And so it kind of, I despite myself, and so I said, okay, what if I write the opening scene? And Jim is, he's the best writing partner imaginable. He's so good and he's so, and even if he's not writing, he's just giving you, you know, guidance as a director. It's, he's so smart. A big brain and, and he's, he, he kind of is very clear

with his intention all the time. And it really is a kind of one in one is three situation for me. I really enjoy doing it with him and I hope we write some other things. He's one of the few directors that I'd still love to write for. But the last thing I was going to say is I said, I'll write the opening scene. And if you don't like it, because it's going to be the key of the song, then we'll part company. And he said, well, why? What are you thinking? And I said, well, I'd always wanted to do a James Bond movie that opens with not a giant stunt, but he gets the shit kicked out of him. And that's what I want to do here. And so he said, well, show me what that looks like.

And so I started to do it, and I was so mad that I had said yes, as I'm writing. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but it's coming out in the writing. I'm so angry and I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but it's coming out in the writing. I'm so angry that I literally stop and write this two or three paragraph obnoxious as fuck manifesto about this movie will not be this. It will not be that. It will be this. If somebody falls out of a window, they're gonna fucking die.

If somebody gets it, it was like this awful, stupid thing that is still to this day in the shooting script. And then I wrote that opening scene that's in the movie, and they were like, yes, let's do this, let's go. So you were in. And then we just did it back and forth. We just literally, he was in California, we just passed the script back and forth. And I kept saying things like, I just wrote a scene where this whole family gets massacred.

There's no way anyone's going to want to do this. And he's like, I love it. And so we, and then Shane, two things happened that were fascinating. He decided to use Shane, he was watching it, and he said, we're gonna use this in the movie in a great way. And it completely organized everything in my head. And then-

What was that element? It was the idea that, you know, the mentor, the violent mentor, and then the young kid, and the sort of, the, the using the, the tone of Shane for this, and also the sort of Western feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Jim loves Westerns, and so do I, and so I thought that was a really good idea. It was so smart. And then I had this weird idea that just came out of me one day when I was just writing on it, which is, what if the whole thing this girl believes is true?

This whole journey he's going on is based on a comic book, a Marvel comic book. Where he realizes this whole place that she's got me taking her to, this Eden, isn't even maybe a real place. And then the joke is, it turns out, of course, to be a real place. And then we finished the script and I forgot about it. And he had had an outline that he wanted to follow, so we kind of knew the basic outline of it. And we wrote it, we wrote it very quickly,

and then I went off to go shoot Godless, and he went off to go shoot Logan, and I forgot about it. And a year or so later, he said, you know, I... I... You know, Godless was a long, long shoot, because it was a long... It was, you know, seven episodes. So I finished after he did Godless was a long, long shoot because it was a long, it was, you know, seven episodes. So I finished after he did. And when I finished, he said, you know,

I have a cut of the movie and we tested it and it tested incredibly high. And I said, that's impossible. And he showed it to me and I watched it on my laptop. He sent me a link. I was so skeptical that I didn't even put it on a big screen. I just watched it on my laptop.

And I thought, oh my God, he stuck to his guns. He did everything he said. Nobody got in his way. They let him make this movie. I can't believe they let him do some of the things he did in this. And it's one of the outside of the first time I saw Out of Sight. It's one of the happiest I'd ever been to see an early cut of something. And God bless him for dragging me into that.

That's funny, it's the closest you've gotten to an independent film. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You work with a guy who is in the biggest machine in Hollywood. Yeah.

And you guys made an independent movie. I don't know how we got away with it. I don't know how we got away with it. I have no idea how we got away with it. So, there you go. But you don't do like that thing, the independent movie thing. Well, The Lookout was a small movie. Sure.

You know, but not, I haven't really. I have for, I don't know why. Do you think it's cause like you work for a living? That could be. It could be the monthly nut, you mean? Yeah. But that was the, Lookout was the first one you directed?

That was the first one I directed. Yeah. And then what, you did one other film directing and writing? I did a walk among the tombstones. I did this pilot called Hoke based on these Charles Williford novels I love. But for FX that ultimately didn't happen,

but it was a great experience. Oh, good. Then with Godless, you were able to shoot a lot of those? Yeah. Did you shoot all of them? All of them. Yeah. All of them and all of the Queen's Gambit.

Well, that's interesting because you must have learned something from focusing on the novel in terms of your own voice. It freed me up. It was like, I mean, two things happened. One, I think going on Zoloft at that time. Two, I think working on the book and just hearing, just freeing up my brain just to be loose and more supple in terms of, and not so careful anymore.

And also you weren't limited to like, you know, with Queen's Gambit, it was a very interesting environment or world. Jared Larsen Yeah. Pete Slauson Right. You know, no one's going to come up with that idea. Jared Larsen No. Pete Slauson You know what I mean? And well, God bless you, you were able to exercise everything you wanted in terms of westerns. Jared Larsen It was a great sandbox to play in.

Yeah. But I assume it's just interesting to me that as opposed to playing in the field of like being a big scriptwriter and doctor and stuff to just pull out and go like, I'm going to do an indie movie and not care, is that you know, you picked a fairly big audience. Yeah, Canvas. Canvas to work your shit out with a lot of support. A lot of support, but this is where Steven Soderbergh comes in because on a walk among the tombstone,

and Tony Gilroy, you know, two of my oldest friends. Oh, those are great friends. And they're nasty when I show them stuff. Tony can be brutal. And he's Michael Clayton, right? Yes, he's Michael Clayton. He's Andor right now. Yeah.

He's unbelievable. The best, yeah, I talk to him, yeah. And, you know, we've known each other forever and maybe even longer than I've known Steven, I think. But I showed them a cut of a walk among the tombstones and the two of them just ate my lunch. I mean, I got vertigo walking home from that. They were so brutal, but they were right.

In what way, what'd they say? It was, every scene was a new movie. I realized that there was a lot of, I didn't have rules for myself. There was a lot of look-mime directing. And I over-compl, and Steven taught me. He came into the cutting room with me. And we recut the movie together.

And he said, I'll be your editor. Let me be your editor. And I said, well, I don't want to cut your movie. I want to cut my movie. And he said, well, we're going to cut your movie. You have it all there, but you're using all of it. And you need to simplify it. And what I learned going through the process in just a couple

days with him, I mean, we spent a week together in the cutting room, but is that simpler, the effort to make something simpler as a filmmaker makes it more elegant. And in order to make it simpler, you need to have real rules for yourself. And so after that, I did Hoke where I experimented on that and then Godless really solidified that for me and Queen's Gambit. Well, Queen's Gambit had to be meticulous. Absolutely meticulous and it was really, instead of trying to overcomplicate it,

how do I really make this simple? How do I choreograph or block certain things? You make it about her. You make it about her, but it's even the filmmaking. How are you telling the story? And I relied more and more and on Mr. Spade, I really experimented with this. How much story can you tell in a single composition?

How much can you tell? And in God? In his own sand? Yeah, exactly, and how much, because you don't have to cut a lot. And a lot of these young filmmakers, Ari Aster, I was watching Midsommar, and I thought, Midsommar, Midsommar, I don't know how you say it.

But it was an amazing movie, and he would just have these wide shots, and the story would play out, Midsummer, I don't know what you say. But it was an amazing movie and he would just have these wide shots. And the story would play out and I thought, he really has, there's clear intention in everything that he's doing. He's a hell of a filmmaker. Hell of a filmmaker and a lot of these young horror filmmakers are doing that now. Well, that's where it's all happening. It's fascinating to me.

And so in Godless, I shot almost all of it with a 25-millimeter lens. And it's like, what can we do? And you still have to pace. Instead of cutting just to cut, you cut when you need to cut. You cut when you need to punctuate something or when you need to. Yeah, but you're not making a gimmick out of it. No, no, no, no.

You're just utilizing the medium. You shouldn't notice. It's like I go back to William Wyler. You shouldn't notice. And it's still beautiful. It's like I go back to William Wyler. You shouldn't notice. Yeah. And it's still beautiful. It's still got its own rigorous palette and it has a very strong look.

It's still got all of those things and the performances, you're still directing it, but you're not running in front of it waving. And also when you do these series or these mini series or whatever they're called, limited series or whatever they're called, now limited series or whatever they're called, you can make an eight hour movie. Yes, you can. And I shoot them like that. I don't shoot them episode by episode.

I did on the on department Q recently, but that's just the way that came together. But normally I shoot them like a movie by location. Yeah, I mean, I think it must be very exciting to know the craft so well and then to engage in this other craft, but being so adept at writing that it frees you. You're not insecure about that. No. So you can really like, all right, if I'm insecure about being a director, I can go

to my own scripts or I can go to these peers that will, you know, inform me. And again, Stephen said to me when he watched Walk Among the Tombstones, he said, it's very insecurely cut. You don't have those exact words and then talk about shriveling. And so there are times I'm on the set where I'll be shooting and I'll realize because it's all about the story, it helps you have a conversation with your actors.

Those conversations are better. I know I'm OCD, anal, whatever you want to call it, but I'm always, I'm very, prepping is really important to me to know just so I have freedom to work with the actors. It really, it's my favorite part of directing, I think. But there'll be times I'll be shooting and I'll say to the crew, we have to stop.

I made a mistake. We're not telling the right story here. It's the wrong point of view or we're not focused on this and I'm gonna have to shoot my way back. So we need to stop right now rather than waste time. So I'm gonna figure out to create a scene I can cut that's the wrong scene anyway. Let's, and then I would tell the story to them.

I would remind them of what is the story here and everybody gets excited and we go. And that happens at least once or twice on everything I've ever done. Now, when you do like, you know, we'll talk about Department Q, but like just, what did you learn from Goldman essentially? Goldman was just a great yarn spinner.

His instinct for going in the opposite direction, where they think you're gonna go, to not do, to lead people on, like this is what's gonna happen and that doesn't happen, something else happens. Well, that's what, Department Q is all of that. That's all of that. That's all of that.

It's like, I'm pissed off because I only got five fucking episodes. That's all, I'll give you the rest. Tell them to give me the rest, because now I'm in. Yeah, because I only got five fucking episodes. That's all? I'll give you the rest. Tell him to give me the rest because now I'm in. Yeah, the last four are the best episodes. And is that it or are you going to do... I would love to do another season. But you shot this as if it was it?

No, we shot it like hoping it would be another season, but... But this crime gets solved? Yes. Yeah, well I need the rest of it. And I can't wait for however fucking long. When is it going to be out? May 29th. Oh, soon. Yeah, soon. want I don't want you to forget the first five because I'm locked in I watch I gotta give you I'm gonna get you I'm gonna get you the next tell them to send it to yeah

But but like when you when you're going to write a movie What do you know you have to do In terms of yeah, we know this a three act structure, but like not necessarily Okay. Well, okay, so that's out the door. But yeah, but like in terms of like, you know, what are the essentials? You know in terms of style or in terms of form that you you've they're already ingrained in you Yeah, but if you were to tell somebody if you know not not to make it easier for them But from your point of view, what do you got to do? Once you have the story.

So the idea is just the excuse to start with. The idea isn't everything. And when you put too much pressure on the idea, you're in trouble. And so the thing I need to be really clear about is who? Who am I writing about? And if I can't make two people talk to each other, I can't write them. I can't write characters if I can't, I don't know them well enough, and so no plot is gonna come from these people

if I just know slightly of them. And so that's one thing. Character, character, character, who are these people? I would say the other thing you need to know is you need to constantly be telling yourself, do you have the ability to spin yarn? Can you do the once upon a time? Every time you're writing a scene,

what comes next, what is surprising to you? That's why I don't outline. I outline a couple scenes at a time to know, but beyond that, I don't know where it's always going. I have an ending maybe in mind, I have an idea of where it's going, but I feel like I just wanna keep making it feel downhill as I'm telling the story.

I don't know necessarily what the whole shape will be, I get ideas as I go. I'll spend months just writing about the script before I write it, not doing exercises or things. Just writing whatever... Whenever it comes to you? Yeah, whatever I'm thinking about. And then I'll reorganize that into kind of an order.

But I think the main thing is to keep yourself open and to not do things, again, to not give yourself these tasks that are more about being a good student than being a writer. And a lot of people, they love their dry erase boards and their cards and their this and that works for them. But I have a very neat desk, because I have a very messy fucking head.

And so, that for me, I need to be able to just go off and try and write, because that's how you get the happy accidents. If you're careful, which I was sometimes early on, if you're too careful, you're not gonna, it's gonna feel that way. And so I would tell people, when you start, just make it downhill.

Don't have expectations as to how long it's gonna take you to write, because that's always disappointing. And it's gonna take you longer. And it does, no one wins prizes for getting a script done. You know, the contract in Hollywood is 10 or 12 weeks for a first draft. I have never in four decades ever made that deadline.

Yeah, yeah. Never, never once. Yeah. Because you can't. I don't know how you can. Yeah. And so, so that's where I would, where I would say that if you, if you approach it with these little

bite-sized things, then you kind of make it downhill. Okay. And with Department Q, I mean, is this all original? No, Department Q is based on a novel. It's one of a series of novels from this Danish author, UC Adler Olsen. Because it's another one of these worlds where not unlike Queen's Gambit, where you're like, how are we in Edinburgh with a cop with PTSD because of a very specific thing that he might have fucked up and, you know, kind

of moved from there. But like, I don't watch a lot of that type of television. And because of that, and also because it's so good, I'm like, oh my God, why am I not watching more of this kind of thing? You know, like, you know, it's my... There's like a little bit of a true detective element to it. Well, I love those British procedurals. And this is a Danish novel that I turned into a British procedural.

And I'm obsessed with like Happy Valley and Broadchurch and Line of Duty, which is this fucking masterpiece that's like their wire, I think, the blue lights, all these are going back to Prime Suspect, and they're great. And what I wanted to do, what was so fun about doing Godless was to embrace every single Western cliche there is, the gunfight, the breaking of the horses, all this, the crazy bad guy, all this, and then turn it on its head somehow.

And so I wanted to do a procedural that's also on tilt a little bit. Right. And so that was the fun of it. And so I read these books. The author just gave me the books 15 years ago. Yeah. He said, they're yours.

And I was never going to write or direct them. Yeah. I just wanted to watch them. Yeah. And so I kind of was trying here and there to get them made and I couldn't do it and I was in prep on Queen's Gambit when Rob Bullock, this terrific British producer at Left Bank, came to visit me in Berlin

where I was shooting and he said, listen, let me help you. We'll get a writer, you can work with somebody and you can develop it and you can, and then, you know, and I said, okay, but I'm not gonna direct it or do any of it and We worked for a year with this lovely writer Chani Lakhani who who I co-created the show with and then What happened was everything got escalated?

Super fast the strike came on and I had to stop working on the show, but the British writers were still working They had two other writers, but the problem was I wasn't involved. So through no fault of their own, the strike ended. I'm reading scripts that we can't shoot because they're different than what I think the show should be. So I ended up writing and directing. I wrote them all, co-wrote, well, wrote them all essentially, or co-wrote with the other people,

and then directed Six of the Nine. Yeah. wrote them all essentially or co-wrote with the other people and then directed Six of the Nine. Yeah, well no, because like, you know, it's one of these things where there's a few turns, you know, like within the last episode or two, or maybe even the fifth one that I watched, it's not just penance. No.

And then you're like, oh God, so all of this shit's connected. Yes. And now I don't know how. I'm right on the precipice. Well, the good thing was, because I didn't shoot this, because I wasn't going to be directing it, it was set up to shoot in episode blocks, and I was writing it while we were shooting it.

I was building the airplane while we were flying it. I've never done that before, and I don't think I'll ever do that again. But because we were going in order, I could do that. Yeah. Because I didn't, so there were times where I didn't finish writing the last episode until two weeks before we wrapped the entire season shooting. And so I would say to the production designer, I think I need a, I think I need a laundry mat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gonna have a scene in a laundry mat. I think I needed this.

Oh wow. I think I needed that. And it was crazy. And by the way, because of that, it was eight scripts that became nine episodes. And I've done that a few times. It happened on Godless, it happened on, because I don't know what I'm doing in terms of that stuff. I just do it all and then chop it up.

Well, that's interesting because it comes back around to, and it's sort of the way that I create comedy bits, is that you don't know where it's coming from. So whether it's a muse or a gift or whatever, but when you're cornered and you've got no choice, you've got to find a place to land. Right. That's exactly it. You've got to, where are you going to land? land. Right, that's exactly it. You've got to, where are you going to land? Right.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And sometimes when you're cornered, I find myself doing amazing work. And sometimes I find myself so frozen. Well, that's when you bail. Nothing happens. You eject with a shoot. Yeah, I realize nothing is happening.

I can't, you know, you're hoping, here's this facility that's going to kick in and it just doesn't. Well, that's the risk, but it seemed to have worked out for this last one anyway. Yeah it is and that's why again going back to writing and listen you're storytelling, your work is storytelling, you are telling stories. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end and that's what you're doing and so and the fun is that we can't guess where it's going.

And also the liability of that is that, you know, once you get it all done, a month later, you're like, I could have. I know, well, that's just the part of us. Yeah, you're like, I could have landed. Just to know. I could have tied the two landings together. You know what?

The people who feel that way are usually really good at what they do. The people who say, I nailed it, are usually not. Oh, good. I never. No, I just watch and I think, oh man, if I had 10 more minutes on that day, or if I'd written. Because my comedy is so fluid, you know, in terms of how it unfolds, you know, in real

time and then kind of builds itself, it doesn't stop building itself. No. Once I've shot it. Right. So, you know, what are you gonna do? You can add, you can- Do it later. You can keep going with it. Well, great talking to you.

Likewise, thank you so much. Thank you. There you go. You can stream Department Q on Netflix. It's a good show, it's engaging, I liked it. Hang out for a minute, folks. If you're anything like us, you love attention and my favorite way to get all eyes on me is with next level shiny glossy

hair which is why we're so excited to tell y'all about the new LaMela Gloss collection from the girlies at Tresemme. And gigglers, we've got you too, because Tresemme partnered with us to bring you 1-800-GLOSS, a special bonus episode of Giggily Squad, where Hannah and I give advice on all things hair and giving gloss. Check out the episode

and grab the LaMeller gloss collection today, because I'm officially declaring this spring gloss season. Imagine waking up to breathtaking landscapes, vibrant culture, and a welcoming community. New Zealand is calling. If you are a passionate early childhood primary or secondary school teacher, New Zealand says, come teach us. With up to 10,000 New Zealand dollars in relocation support, now's the time.

Make your move. Find out more about moving to New Zealand dollars and relocation support, now's the time. Make your move. Find out more about moving to New Zealand to teach at workforce.education.govt.nz. Open to existing qualified primary, secondary and ECE teachers. Note that this grant is only disbursed after teachers arrive to New Zealand and meets the other accompanying criteria. Hey people, John Mulaney is back on the show next week, and before his new episode on Monday, you can go back and listen to him on episode 551. You saw my worst set ever, I think.

At that one man show? No, in Aspen. Did I? Yes, you don't remember that? Of course you wouldn't. That was a huge moment in my life and not- But I was there. You were the host.

I met you that weekend. I hosted for you and Tosh. You guys were co-headlining a show. This was. Oh my God. You were wearing American apparel jackets and overcoats a lot during that time. Sure, sure. So you were very nice to me.

Yeah. I had just seen you on Conan. Yeah. I really liked that joke you did about your mom calling you and asking you what you thought of this guy, Sabu. And you saying, mom, do you mean Barack Obama? So I told you that at the Tosh. I got to host for you and Tosh.

And I walked up on stage and I started to talk it was You reminded me of it when you said my laugh was up here I couldn't breathe at all hard to breathe there couldn't breathe at all though and my first joke remember this I died it died and Then oh my god, I remember my hot panic rolled over right, but you're having trouble I was having real trouble right both in the bombing sense, and also I couldn't breathe. And to this day, I don't know if I was having a panic attack or elevation sickness or something.

But there was like concern. Like you got off stage and it was like you were fucked up. Yeah, you and Mike DiStefano were very nice to me backstage. They got me an oxygen tank. I remember this now. Right? And Mike DiStefano sat with me for a little while. You came and checked on me, which I always, never forgot.

You were very cool in that moment. And you came on stage and, so I bomb and almost die. You come back on stage and said some nice things about my set and kind of used one of my jokes to get into one of your jokes. It felt, I remember hearing it and going, oh, he's really trying to make it seem like that went fine.

That's from episode 551, available for free on all podcasting apps. For every episode of WTF, ad free, sign up for WTF+. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF plus. Again, John Mulaney will be the guest on Monday show. And I also have an important announcement at the beginning of that episode. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by a cast here.

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