The original post for this episode can be found here.
John August: Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it.
Emcee: All right, now without further ado, the hosts with the most, John August and Craig Mazin.
Craig Mazin: Wow. Wow.
John: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
Craig: My name is Craig Mazin.
John: You are here for Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are…
Audience: Interesting to screenwriters.
John: Wow. Incredible here.
Craig: Incredible.
John: First off, we need to thank the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. It is remarkable to be here at the Hollywood Bowl, a dream come true.
Craig: It’s gorgeous. Probably the mics that we’re talking into are pretty close to the stage, so we’re probably only picking up maybe the first couple of rows-
John: Absolutely.
Craig: … in the Garden Boxes.
John: I can the energy out here in this-
Craig: Wow.
John: … iconic location.
Craig: What a dream.
John: 15,000 people?
Craig: Thousand.
John: I’d never envision this in our-
Craig: And the weather.
John: Great. A few sprinkles, but just the best thing.
Craig: Lovely.
John: Needed a little rain here.
Craig: You know what? That felt so good, because everything’s been going so great lately, so it’s nice that we have this going on for ourselves.
John: It’s nice that we have a little bit of a moment here. Today I was out on the picket lines, and we were talking about-
(Audience cheers)
John: Oh, hey. Phew! I worried we were going to have some anti-writer people here in the crowd. I was out on the picket lines. I talked about, oh, we have a live show tonight. It’s like, oh, did you plan for it to be on the 100th day of the Strike? Today is the 100th day of the Strike. Did we plan this?
Craig: We did.
John: A hundred percent. Craig said, “John, whatever you do, make sure the Strike goes on for at least-“
Craig: Slow walk this thing.
John: Yeah, 100 days. Now, it’s smooth sailing from here on forward.
Craig: John, to be clear, you do have a little bit of a weird and creepy, and what I honestly think is somewhat a bit of an anti-union secret. I think it’s probably important for you to come clean about it.
John: I thought that was green room rules. I thought we didn’t-
Craig: No. Fuck that.
John: All right. I think people could agree that I’m generally a pro-union, pro-WGA person.
Craig: That’s what I thought.
John: I would never disparage anything about the WGA. But 100 days in, there’s something I want to get off my chest, is that I believe the iconic blue official WGA Strike T-shirts… I love them as an image. I love wearing it there. I love seeing a field of blue. Fantastic. They are not comfortable shirts.
Craig: No.
John: They are really uncomfortable shirts.
Craig: In fact, they may have been manufactured by the AMPTP.
John: The official blue shirts are union-made, and the union is not the probably here. They are 100 percent cotton. We learned from our own Scriptnotes producer, Stuart Friedel, his sense of softness, what do we need for a T-shirt to be comfortable?
Craig: You need a tri-blend, John.
John: You need a tri-blend.
Craig: You need a tri-blend.
John: You need a tri-blend.
Craig: Tri-blend.
John: They are not tri-blend shirts.
Craig: No.
John: They’re not comfortable to wear.
Craig: No. They are hair shirts. I don’t like them at all. They chafe your nipples. Do not wear.
John: Here’s what I think about it. I have shirts that I wear because I choose to wear them, and there are shirts where like, you’ve now joined the army, here’s your uniform. They don’t ask soldiers is your camouflage comfortable. That’s not their concern.
Craig: They actually might. I got to tell you, I think that we have the worst of it.
John: We have a show that’s chockablock full with amazing guests. Quinta Brunson is here.
Craig: Someone named Natasha Lyonne is here.
John: These are guests who are not only incredibly talented writers, they are also actors. As members of SAG-AFTRA, there are certain specific restrictions on what they should be talking about. They are not going to be talking about their specific shows and programs that you know them for, but instead, we can talk about the craft, the art.
Craig: Which we do anyway. We’re not really press junkety question people. As we go through the show, if you’re wondering, hey, why don’t they mention muh or meep, it’s because we just don’t want to get them in trouble with their union. Also, I’m in that union too.
John: You are, yeah.
Craig: I’m in SAG.
John: You’re in SAG.
Craig: I’m in SAG. I’m an actor.
John: You’re an actor.
Craig: I’m a real actor.
John: I almost said the word. I said half the word of a show that you were in.
Craig: You can say it. That didn’t break the rule. You’re not in SAG.
John: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is sitting right out there. He’s got a sniper rifle, so if we say the wrong thing-
Craig: Great.
John: We are going to talk about how they got started, how they got to this place they are today, but we are also going to have some fun. We’re going to play some games. We’ll do some audience Q and A.
Craig: With slightly stricter rules, because you guys really can’t talk about those shows either. That’s fine. That’s no big deal. I wanted to introduce somebody really quickly who’s going to be with us today. You’re going to be seeing him floating around over there. That’s Elliot Aronson. Elliot is going to be our ASL interpreter tonight. Elliot also was the ASL interpreter… I can say a show that was on the air, right?
John: [Crosstalk 00:05:31].
Craig: I’m going to do it. He worked for The Last of Us. He was Kevionn Woodard’s ASL interpreter.
John: I think he’s a former One Cool Thing.
Craig: He is a One Cool Thing. He will always be One Cool Thing. I’m sort of annoyed that he’s not signing right now, because I would force him to have to sign about himself and talk about himself as an incredibly handsome person and a wonderful guy whose name is Elliot. This is me. I am Elliot, and I’m amazing. He’s never going to get a chance to do that again.
John: Let’s get started, Craig. Our very first guest is a writer, a producer, an actress, a comedian. Last year, she was listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year. We’ve wanted her on the show forever, Craig, and now we can finally have her. Welcome, Quinta Brunson.
Quinta Brunson: Hi, everybody. Hi. How’s it going?
John: Quinta.
Quinta: Yes?
John: Backstage you talked about that you are not a huge podcast listener.
Quinta: No.
Craig: Me either.
Quinta: Or doer.
John: Or doer. Thank you for making an exception for us here.
Quinta: Of course.
John: You actually have some history with Hollywood Heart.
Quinta: Yes. I used to do improv at Hollywood Heart. This was probably the summer of, what’s this called, 2023. Then that was probably maybe six, seven years ago. I did improv shows with my troupe, Summercon [ph]. It was four of us. We would just do improv and then have the kids come up and join us at the camp, which is on a really scary… You guys, it’s on this hill.
John: Oh, no.
Craig: We’re trying to raise money to get them off the hill.
Quinta: It is terrifying.
Craig: Describe the hill.
Quinta: The hill is something of your nightmares. You know when you go in those canyons around here, and you’re like, “Whoa, this is crazy,” but then you get used to them because you’ve been in LA for a while? This shit, it’s like going to Bowser’s castle. It is insane. It’s windy. You feel like you’re going to… Kids, because we just talked about mortality back there, they don’t know that they can die, so they’re not afraid.
Craig: You’ve told them.
Quinta: Yeah. I think that’s why Hollywood Heart didn’t invite me back, because I put it in my improv. I just was motivated to tell the truth.
Craig: I like that most of your bits were just about how shitty that camp was. That’s pretty awesome.
Quinta: The camp is beautiful. It’s just the road on the way up there.
Craig: I see. It’s getting there.
Quinta: It’s in heaven. It’s so high up. This is why I don’t love to talk. I’m not talking correctly, you guys, because I’m not-
Craig: You’re out of practice.
Quinta: I should be a writers’ room. I’m not doing well with sentences.
Craig: We’ll work you through it. It’s going to be all right.
John: Quinta, before you were traumatizing children in this improv group, what is your comedy background? How did you get started? What was the spark? How did you actually go from like, “I like comedy,” to, “I’m doing it.”
Quinta: It was the connection between my siblings and I. My siblings are all significantly older than me. My closest sibling is eight years older than me. He hated me, because he was the baby for so long, and then I came along. He really didn’t like me. I was like, “I gotta win this guy over,” truly. That was a big motivator for me. He really liked Ace Ventura. He hated me. We had a Jack and Jill door. Do you guys know what that is? Between our bedrooms.
Craig: I had one of those.
John: Like The Brady Brunch.
Quinta: Yeah. He just couldn’t stand that he was sharing his space with this freaking baby. Then I would see him watching Ace Ventura and laughing really loud with his friends. I was like, “I can make my butt talk too. I can do that.” I started mimicking what was happening in the movies, and he would laugh, and he would like me.
I just started liking comedy, because that was a connecting factor between all of my siblings and I. My oldest brother, he loved the Kings of Comedy, so I would do impressions of Steve Harvey on that. Then my sisters, they were great, because they had different tastes. My one sister loved In Living Color, but the other sister loved SNL. One sister loved Martin. The other loved Conan. She was into late-night shows. It just became a way for me to connect with everyone. Same thing with my parents, who are also really old. I watched The Brady Bunch with them. I just like this.
Then high school, when it became taste to me, because I loved it so much, and I knew so much more about comedy than everyone else that I would bring DVDs to school and be like, “This is what you need to be watching. This is the new shit in the streets.” They’re like, “What the fuck is Napoleon Dynamite?” I’m like, “You’ll learn. You’ll learn.” Remember that? Remember when you gave someone a DVD, and it meant something?
Craig: I don’t know how young they are. DVDs were these round things.
Quinta: You gave it to them. You were like, “Return it.” You trusted them to return your only copy.
Craig: Not scratched.
Quinta: Not scratched.
Craig: Not scratched.
Quinta: That meant something to me to bring that. Then college, I was really good. I was a good student all my life, but then I just started fucking around. I was like, I don’t care about what I’m doing. I was an advertising major. Then I was just watching SNL one night and was like, where did these people all go to do this? That’s when I learned about Second City. Then that’s when I actually learned that I could do it for a living, because that was the change, and like, okay, this can be my career.
Craig: You mentioned growing up in Philly.
Audience member: Woo!
Craig: All right.
Quinta: Yay!
Craig: Philly’s got its own… It’s got an interesting comedy tradition. One of the things I’ve noticed about people that come out of Philly, especially people in comedy, like Kevin Hart or Rob McElhenney, is that it’s not a chip on the shoulder as much as, “You underestimate me at your own peril,” which is a very Philadelphia kind of vibe.
Quinta: Yes, absolutely. Love it.
Craig: I just want to ask you how you bring a little bit of the place you came from to your voice and how you apply that to writing and what you do.
Quinta: That is an excellent question.
Craig: Thank you!
Quinta: I love this.
Craig: Show over.
Quinta: I feel like I live my whole life like an underdog. I think my comedic voice, the projects that I have done all deal with underdog, underestimated characters and stories. Philadelphia as a city is the little cousin to New York. No one thinks of us until we…
Craig: Until you get stuck there.
Quinta: Get stuck there, or when you make it to a Super Bowl, everyone’s like, “Oh.” It’s like, yeah, we have a good fucking team. What are you watching? I was so mad during the Super Bowl last year when people were like, “Oh, the Eagles.” Bitch, the whole fucking season-
Craig: They won just a few years earlier.
Quinta: … was incredible. What are you talking about?
Craig: That’s Philly.
Quinta: It’s really frustrating. It’s also a really foolish city. We have that statue of Rocky. That is so foolish. We believe in ourselves so hard that even when you come… Allen Iverson is an honorary Philadelphian. I don’t think of where he’s from. To me, he’s from Philly, because he became a part of the underdog story. I say all that to say it’s just a city that makes you believe in the underdog more than any other city I think in America, but I still want to be the underdog, so maybe not as much as any other city.
Craig: You have to be an underdog in the race to be the underdog.
Quinta: Yeah. I had a hard time during the last two years of my life, where I was losing my underdog status.
John: Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, yeah.
Craig: It’s a little rough.
Quinta: My friends started clowning me a little bit. They’re like, “Bitch,” because I’d be saying stuff like, “Oh, man, I don’t know if I can get in this club, but we going to try.”
Craig: They’re like, “Bitch.”
Quinta: Like, “Yeah, you’re going to get in the club.” Stuff like that. I’m dealing with that.
Craig: 100 Most Influential People of the Year.
John: This underdog thing of yours, the first thing that broke for you was Girl Who Had Never Been on a Good Date.
Quinta: On a Nice Date, yeah.
John: On a Nice Date, which Instagram video, not even reels, an early Instagram thing. Talk to us about decision to do those and what happened when those caught.
Quinta: Instagram wasn’t Instagram yet. It was 2013. The platform had just gotten video. I was just fucking around. I just wanted to make my friends who followed me… I might’ve had, I don’t know, maybe 1,000 followers, just friends from college and friends from high school and stuff. I just wanted to put up videos to make them laugh. I really was just testing out the platform, I guess. We didn’t even speak like this back then.
John: I know.
Quinta: We weren’t saying platform. We were just like, “Yeah, my Instagram account.” The first video that I posted had just gone viral, which that wasn’t even a thing besides describing YouTube, virality in that way. I saw an opportunity to capitalize off of it. I was like, “I’ll keep making them. People like it. This is the same as garnering an audience where people come to see you at shows. It’s word of mouth.”
I was a person who was really, really against the internet. I despised YouTubers. I despised just the internet. At the time, I was doing improv at ImprovOlympic, which no longer exists. I was like, “I’m a stage performer. I can’t be doing this.” But I came to accept it. It really helped kick off my career, so I’m very grateful for it.
Craig: We have spent a long time, over a decade now, teaching about writing and our business, to people, through this podcast. Your mother was a public schoolteacher?
Quinta: Yeah.
Craig: Both of my parents were public schoolteachers.
Quinta: Oh.
Craig: We have that shared experience. I’m curious if coming from a teacher the way you did, what you think about the way writing is taught, because we have an issue with the way writing is taught and the general education of writers, and I guess also the education of how to work in the entertainment business. I’m curious, as somebody who comes from that tradition, what you think about how we are doing things and who we’re bringing in and how we’re helping them or teaching them.
Quinta: I think there should be a little bit more focus for writers on, you said it, how to also do business and how to communicate with partners, whether it be other people in a room, a writers’ room or a studio or a network, because you can be really talented and not know how to communicate your idea, not know how to communicate it even on paper. You could have just such an incredible story in your head and write it down. Sure, amazing to you and your two friends. Do you know how to communicate it to other people who don’t come from the same background as you, who don’t speak the same language as you? When I’m writing-
Craig: A show. Let’s just stipulate.
Quinta: When I’m writing a show-
Craig: A show.
Quinta: … and I decide that I would like it to be for a broad audience, I think, will a person in Korea understand this? Yes, it’s in a different language, but will they understand it if it’s translated into their language?
I think that’s a huge thing that people miss out on. Even if you’re writing it in English and you’re writing it for Americans, why don’t you test and see if someone in France can understand this story, because I think that’s such a huge part of writing is just clearcut storytelling. It can be done on a wide, complicated scale. We’ve seen huge movies do it very, very well. It can be done on a small scale, like with a TV show. Does the story make sense to other people who aren’t you and aren’t your friends from school? Is that a good answer? I wish that was taught more.
Craig: I think it’s a great answer.
John: It’s a great answer. Before you started working on official Hollywood things, you were working at Buzzfeed for a time. It seemed like you had a chance to do a lot of stuff. Were you writing, performing, editing, all that, the whole cycle?
Quinta: Writing, performing, producing, editing. Producing was the biggest thing I got out of Buzzfeed, because we had a $300 budget to make videos. Man, that made me scrappy. My brain is just forever scrappy in that way. Even if I receive a big budget, it’s just still working on that $300 in a way. I have to be told, “Expand your mind. You have more money.” Those are the things I…
Editing too. I’m so grateful for learning how to edit there. That is another thing that I feel like anyone who is making something, if you can, spend time with an editor. Make sure you take yourself to an editor suite. Just get on the equipment yourself and start fucking around, just to see. It’s another part of it. Is your story communicating to the editor? It’s such a huge-
Craig: It’s how you finish. It’s the end of the writing. We think writing ends when we stop typing. If the point is to make, so there’s your production, and then the editing really is, it’s your final draft.
Quinta: Yeah, but if people never sit with an editor or-
Craig: They don’t know.
Quinta: … get on the programs themselves, they don’t know.
Craig: I remember the first time I saw the things that I was writing being edited, I wanted to barf, because I realized how far off I was, or also just how impotent my plan was. In my mind, I was like, “I have thought of it, and therefore it will be.”
Quinta: I think that I got a real appreciation for editors from Steven Spielberg. I was obsessed with Jurassic Park when I was little. I found everything he ever talked about, wrote, did, any video I could find. When YouTube came around, I just got on… Who’s that guy?
Craig: He is our ASL interpreter.
Quinta: Oh, hey.
Craig: You weren’t here for that part.
Quinta: I wasn’t.
Craig: Did you think he was-
Quinta: I was like, “Everybody’s cool with this?”
Craig: You think that we were about to get jumped?
Quinta: I did. I carry my purse because my shank’s in here. I was like, do we need to-
Craig: Like I said, Philadelphia.
Quinta: Seriously.
Craig: That’s how it used to be at the old Veterans Stadium.
Quinta: Oh my god.
Craig: Someone runs out there.
Quinta: Hello. Thank you. Where has he been the whole time?
Craig: He was down there, but I think the person that he’s interpreting for has arrived is my guess.
Quinta: Wow. That’s amazing.
Craig: He sprung into action. His name is Elliot. He’s wonderful.
Quinta: Hi, Elliot. That’s amazing that you have that. That’s great.
Craig: I’m glad that he’s up there, because now I once again-
Quinta: It’s really cool.
Craig: … have to say that Elliot is a wonderful, handsome person, and once again, he needs to sign it, which is spectacular.
Quinta: You should tell people that. I think Natasha’s going to lose her shit.
Craig: No, I’m going to going to. I want to see that.
Quinta: Wait. I watched Steven Spielberg talk about editing when I was younger. I was like, “Man, the editor’s the final part. He said he couldn’t do this without the editors.” There was a video of him sitting with the editors, working on Jurassic Park. The editor that really blew my mind when I was little, I was like, “Oh my god, he worked on Star Wars too. This is fucking crazy.” It just really painted the picture to me that they were a vital part of the process.
One of my favorite editors, Richie, he and I share a brain. I did one show that I sold to… It doesn’t exist anymore. It was Verizon’s platform. I had an editor who was Argentinian.
Audience member: Woo!
Quinta: Okay. Yeah. What a diverse audience.
Craig: One person from Philly, one person from Argentina.
Quinta: Super diverse.
Craig: Everyone else from Silver Lake, I presume.
Quinta: Some from Echo Park.
Craig: Yes, of course. It’s West Echo.
Quinta: I made this show. It was poorly written. I’ll say that. I think it’s great to get an opportunity to poorly write something for a digital platform that won’t exist anymore. The editor didn’t get it. I was like, “This rhythmically is missing something then. I’m going to take myself back to the drawing board of writing.”
That show was actually my first attempt at a mockumentary. That taught me another thing, like, okay, the rhythm of a mockumentary is different than the rhythm of another single-cam, which is different from a multi-cam. I have to write with that in mind. I have to make sure I can communicate it to someone who is an editor, who is not from where I’m from and may not pick up the same cues. It needs to be in the script properly, so that they know how to cut and know what they’re doing. That was such a big learning experience for me at Buzzfeed.
Craig: Do we have time for one more question?
John: One last question just for Craig.
Craig: One last question real fast. Speed round. You mentioned failing.
Quinta: Failing, yeah.
Craig: One of the things that’s interesting about people that work in a room, as you might, on a show, if you’re going to be failing, a lot of times you’re failing in front of a lot of people. I wonder, do you give yourself some space to go fail privately in quiet and then come back-
Quinta: Yes.
Craig: … into the room to be like-
Quinta: Oh, in the room?
Craig: I’m saying can you give yourself a place to go dance like no one’s watching and then come back and dance like other people are watching?
Quinta: Hm. That’s such a good question. I like to find safe spaces to fail. That used to be stand-up. I don’t feel comfortable failing at that anymore. I recently did a show with Brett Goldstein from (bleeps).
Craig: Other shows.
Quinta: In (bleeps).
Craig: From some shows. From some shows.
Quinta: From (bleeps).
Craig: She’ll get it. [Indiscernible 00:23:27].
Quinta: Oh, shit, I can’t talk. I’m sorry.
Craig: It’s okay.
John: Duncan, put down the rifle.
Quinta: Safe space to fail.
Craig: Safe space to fail.
Quinta: That helps make my point. This feels like a safe space to fail. The stage feels like a safe space to fail for me. Brett’s show, first I didn’t want to do it. I’m like, I’m not ready. I was like, you know what? I need to go on a stage and fail out loud and fail with an audience. It’s almost never a fail. It’s a good experience. We have a human experience together. I got to do improv for the first time in forever. That felt really good.
I like to play video games that I’m not good at, because that makes me feel like I’m failing. I like to lose, but I’m competitive, so I like to win, so that makes me better. I try to make food. I’m not good at that. Fail every single time in the kitchen, but I keep trying. I just find other spaces to fail in. In my room, I’m A1. I’m not a failure.
Craig: Nice.
John: Quinta Brunson, thank you for the most [crosstalk 00:24:28].
Craig: Thank you, Quinta. Thank you.
Quinta: That was really fun.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Come back at the end. We’ll do some questions.
Quinta: I’ll see you in a little bit.
John: That was the fun part of the show.
Craig: Now it’s going to get weird.
John: Craig, this is the 608th episode of Scriptnotes that we’ve done.
Craig: It’s a lot.
John: It’s a lot.
Craig: It’s a lot.
John: In addition to the main show, for the last year we’ve had the Scriptnotes Sidecasts that Drew and Megana have been helping out with. Huge props for them.
Craig: Let’s give them a hand. Amazing.
John: Drew and Megana! I think understandably, we’re always approaching things from the writer’s perspective.
Craig: Of course, yes.
John: Tonight I was hoping we could hear from the other side, which is why I reached out to the AMPTP to see if we could get their response to some of our concerns. To my surprise, they said yes. Everyone, if you could please welcome AMPTP spokesperson Nancy Sullivan.
Craig: Yay-ish. There she is.
John: Thank you for being here. Thank you.
Craig: Hi.
John: Hi.
Nancy Sullivan: Wow, this is a theater. I’ve only been to the theater one time. I saw Cats when I was seven. I love that show.
Craig: Great.
John: Nancy, thank you so very much for agreeing to be on the show.
Craig: I should warn you, this may not be the friendliest audience for you.
Nancy: I have to say, it’s just such an honor to be here. I’m such a fan of your show.
Craig: Really?
Nancy: Oh, of course, a huge fan, especially those episodes where you sit down with filmmakers and showrunners and really get into the minutiae of the craft. Huge fan. Huge fan.
Craig: I have to say, that is legitimately a surprise. I would not have pegged an AMPTP person as a cinephile.
Nancy: Oh, no, no, you have me wrong. I’ve always been obsessed with film and TV. I remember, in fact, watching Amadeus with my father. I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. I was just being blown away by what Miloš Forman accomplished with the cinematography and the mise-en-scène and his reversal of the classic protagonist-antagonist relationship not just in dialog, but in the blocking and the framing of these two candlelit warriors always in a battle that they didn’t know it was about.
Craig: You were eight?
Nancy: Or nine.
John: Nancy, honestly, I was probably watching The Love Boat when I was nine. That blows me away.
Nancy: I don’t know what that is.
Craig: Is it just me, or is her smile terrifying?
John: Yeah. You were watching Amadeus?
Nancy: I was watching this masterpiece, Amadeus. His name is Miloš Forman, so it’s actually pronounced Amadeus [ah-mah-DAY-oosh]. I said, “Daddy! I know what I want to do, Daddy! I want to do this. I want to work with the greatest writers and filmmakers in the world and find a way to crush them economically for the benefit of multinational corporations.”
Craig: There it is.
Nancy: Let me explain. If you look at great artists throughout history, what is the unifying theme? Hardship. Suffering. Emile Zola, I believe it was, wrote, “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” If I can help make that work almost unsurvivable, if I can bring filmmakers to the edge of ruin, take away every bit of comfort and safety that they have, then true art is possible.
Craig: Wow.
Nancy: Thank you.
John: That is some Fountainhead shit there.
Nancy: Fun fact, my bat mitzvah was themed around the works of Ayn Rand.
Craig: Your name is Sullivan, and you had a bat mitzvah. Okay, anyway. Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you joined the AMPTP because you wanted to make great art by punishing the people who make it?
Nancy: Oh, no no no. No no no. Craig, Craig, I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’ve dedicated my career to the genius visionaries who make film and television. By that, of course, I’m referring to the studio bosses, because they write the checks. They’re the ones saying, “Let’s make a show based on a zombie video game.”
Craig: They’re not zombies.
Nancy: They’re not, right. That’s so sweet. You’re so sweet, because here’s the thing. If I’d shown a picture of one of those, whatever you call them, creatures to 100 people and said, “What do you think this is?” do you know what all 100 would say? They’d say they were zombies. They’re zombies.
Craig: They’re not zombies.
Nancy: They’re zombies with mushroom hats.
Craig: They’re not zombies. They’re not zombies.
Nancy: They’re zombies with-
Craig: They’re not zombies.
Nancy: They’re zombies-
Craig: They’re not zombies.
Nancy: … with mushroom fascinators.
Craig: They’re not zombies. They’re not zombies.
Nancy: They’re zombies.
Craig: They’re not zombies!
Nancy: They’re zombies!
Craig: They’re not zombies.
John: Back to the topic here. I think it sounds like what you’re saying, Nancy, is that you’re okay imposing unnecessary-
Nancy: Necessary suffering, go on.
John: … suffering on writers and actors, and not in the pursuit of profit, but instead, of some kind of warped vision of artistic integrity?
Nancy: I never said actors. As Alfred Hitchcock [hitch-KAAKH] I think once said-
Craig: Oh, come on.
Nancy: … actors are cattle. Of course they’re cattle. You don’t see them typing with their hooves. For actors, our approach is basically herd management. You want to make sure you have enough, but not too many. That’s why we’re so excited about AI, about scanning actors’ faces and bodies so we can recreate them digitally. It’s like having all the free beef you want.
John: That’s horrible, but not surprising. Last month, an anonymous studio source was quoted saying the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.
Nancy: I know. Horrible. We would never say anything like that on the record. Off the record, we might float that out there, see what kind of reaction it gets, and then maybe walk it back. Back to Amadeus, Mozart was on the edge of ruin for most of his career. While Salieri is portrayed as complicit, in reality it was systemic under-evaluation of the arts and the misaligned incentives of the patronage system that put Mozart in that situation.
Craig: You’re saying that like it’s a good thing.
Nancy: I’m saying we have to change the system so that writers and filmmakers, and sure, even actors, are properly oppressed, so that great art can flourish. There was no WGA back when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane.
John: Let me guess, Charles Foster Kane-
Nancy: Hero.
Craig: Okay. Nancy. Jewish Nancy Sullivan, let’s cut to the chase. We’re now 100 days into the Writers Strike. The companies are facing growing pressure, because the pipeline is empty, and the projects that aren’t finished cannot be promoted. When is the AMPTP going to get serious about coming back to the table to resolve this?
Nancy: Sorry. No comment on that, guys. Wouldn’t want to leak it to the press. Wink.
John: AMPTP spokesperson Nancy Sullivan, everyone.
Craig: She does look a whole lot like Rachel Bloom.
John: Rachel Bloom, everyone.
Craig: That was hard. I almost didn’t like Rachel Bloom.
John: It’s tough. That’s tough.
Craig: You make it hard. You make it hard, kid.
Rachel Bloom: To like me?
Craig: To not like you.
John: Rachel Bloom, you are often at this theater, because you have been doing your one-woman show, which is here for a little bit longer, then you’ll go to New York. Tell us about your show. You can say this because it’s a stage thing.
Rachel: It’s a stage thing. It is not in the union. It’s such a weird time we’re in where theater is the most stable industry you could be in. For the past couple years, I’ve been working on this show that is now called Death, Let Me Do My Show, which is about various experiences, thank you, that I’ve had with death. I’ve been using this theater primarily to workshop it a lot. It is going off-Broadway in September. We will be at the Lucille Lortel Theatre September 6th through the 30th. It’s a very beautiful theater. We just decided to do one more show in LA before we go. That will be here on August 26th. All of the proceeds are going to go, I believe probably to the Entertainment Community Fund.
Craig: Great.
John: Hooray.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Rachel Bloom, thank you so much.
Rachel: Thank you.
John: You’re going to come back for questions.
Craig: Now shit’s about to get real.
John: Oh my god.
Craig: Here we go.
John: This is the warmup.
Craig: Here we go.
John: Do you want to do this one?
Craig: Sure. Our next guest is an actor, writer, producer, and director. She was also listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year. What the fuck are we doing wrong, by the way?
John: I don’t know.
Craig: Let us welcome out the great, one and only Natasha Lyonne.
Natasha Lyonne: Hello, everyone. I brought a lot of supplies.
Craig: You can share my table with me if you want.
Natasha: You know what? You’re a real sweetie, cutie, honey-baby.
Craig: Thank you.
Natasha: So are you, John. So are you.
John: Thank you. Natasha kept apologizing to me backstage in the green room like I was offended. I’m not. I’m delighted by you.
Natasha: It’s just that Craig and I, we get very riled up when we’re together.
Craig: It’s a situation.
Natasha: Then I felt apologetic that maybe we’d gone too hard, too fast. We were doing bits about shekels. There was a lot of bits.
Craig: There was a lot of stuff going.
Natasha: If you don’t know what a shekel is, you don’t need to.
Craig: She brings the State Island out of me. I don’t know what to do. It’s just what happens. I get very Staten. Then I start talking like I used to talk. Then it’s a whole fucking thing.
Natasha: Then we get into a whole thing. The next thing we know-
Craig: Let’s code switch back. We’re code switching.
Natasha: We’re code switching.
Craig: Here’s my neutral podcast voice.
Natasha: The thing is, I don’t know, as the second Time 100 guest, I like to keep it very neutral.
Craig: That’s actually creeping me out.
Natasha: This is how I talk. I’ve always been this way.
John: NPR host voice. I love it.
Natasha: I architected a thing, a building. I’m an architect.
Craig: We’ve failed to mention that in your intro.
Natasha: I do think it was weird that you didn’t bring it up, because I dropped out of architect stuff in order to get into the biz.
Craig: Yes, just like most architecture students who refer to it as stuff.
Natasha: I was like, “Blueprints, blueprints, a script,” I said. You’re welcome. I was 4, and now I’m 44. That means I’m getting younger every day. This is what it’s like. You just don’t care anymore. It’s day 100 of the Strike, folks. I have not worked since December.
Craig: Everyone’s going a little nuts.
Natasha: We are heading towards September.
Craig: You’re doing great.
Natasha: I thought I was going to get a lot done this year. I’ll be honest.
Craig: No, nothing’s happening.
Natasha: All those years, but really. Anyway. Quit smoking. Endure this. I’m going to be like John Houston with a cigar in an interview, or Sean Penn anywhere I guess.
Craig: Keep going.
Natasha: I’m just saying people that smoke publicly in interviews.
Craig: You can hear it, I think. You can literally hear the vape on the microphone.
John: We know this because Craig used to vape in the early episodes.
Craig: I still do.
Natasha: You know what? It’s the ride of life. Take the ride. Buy the ticket. Take the ride. Anyway.
Craig: We’re not going to ask any questions, are we?
John: I’m going to try to ask a question.
Craig: What’s the point? Why bother?
Natasha: What it’s about is community.
Craig: Thank god.
Natasha: If you look at Bergman’s birthday, Stanley Kubrick writes him a letter and he says, “Great work.” Now we’re seeing it freaking dying. Everybody’s coming out. Coppola’s writing notes. You know what I mean? It’s about community.
Craig: I don’t.
Natasha: That’s my point. That was the answer to your question. I thought this was a Jeopardy format.
Craig: Hang on.
John: It is a Jeopardy format.
Craig: Just hang on, John. Just hang on, baby. You’re doing great. Amazing. I legitimately have a question.
Natasha: I’m from New York.
Craig: What?
Natasha: Yes, please.
Craig: This is a legit question. I looked on IMDb.
John: He did research.
Craig: I did research for this. They list your writing credits, your directing credits, acting credits. I have 26 credits. Natasha, do you know how many you have?
Natasha: 27. It’s like that game where you go one … The Price is right.
Craig: Just say one, $1.
Natasha: $1. $1.
Craig: You have 152 credits.
Natasha: Thus the attitude problem. There’s been many, many, many years.
Craig: I haven’t gotten to the question yet.
Natasha: It’s an endurance test. If you just stick around long enough, it’s like being an old, old turtle. What’s the question, please?
Craig: Thank god.
Natasha: Yes, Craigy.
Craig: It strikes me that after all these years, almost 30 years, I’ve got these 26 credits, I’ve worked on these things. There’s so much that I can learn from experience. Actors, especially somebody that started as a kid, you will, as an actor like yourself, get so much more experience on set and in production, acting. I’m curious, what wisdom have you learned from all of that time, that writers who have maybe only been on a set once or twice might not know? What can you share with us that you’ve learned every?
Natasha: I’m not going to look at you I think for the rest of it.
Craig: I think that’s a great idea.
Natasha: I’m also look out at the distant … Just so you know, I’m nearsighted. Genuinely, it is a Fossie-esque experience. I would say something I learned when I transitioned into the writers’ room, for example, on… I guess I won’t mention any shows. Let’s say on certain shows or certain movies, I would see an ellipses, and I would think, oh my god, I’ve gotta nail this.
I’m somebody who, despite my personality, is actually quite obsessive and a workaholic and perfectionist, obsessive about the work, and in all areas, too much so. I would think that there was something in there that I was missing. I would go to the writer, or I would go to the monitor area.
Craig: Video village.
Natasha: Video village. I would try to go searching or something. I think then later, as a writer, the great discovery was there was no there, that oftentimes, it was a cheat for any number of reasons, especially when in showrunning or in directing, once you’re doing that, you’re like…
The great gift about acting while you’re doing that is you know why scenes got cut, or why entire storylines or a C-storyline, so that actually, the connection between this moment to this moment, we had to cut that entire deli sequence for budget reasons, that’s why it’s not there.
Weirdly, it was like once I started writing for myself, or even if… First of all, I’m usually collaborating, so I wouldn’t want to take that credit for myself. I would say that as I was working with writers’ rooms and working with other creators and things like this, that was when I really became a good actor, in a way, because I understood the space in between, of the motivation, or even the backstory of how we got there, because I was the guy in the room on the whiteboard or something.
Craig: Actually, it’s the other way for you, in a sense, that the writing helped you be a better actor.
Natasha: It’s funny, because I’m only so old relative to how young I was-
Craig: Great insight.
Natasha: … on some level.
John: [Crosstalk 00:41:13].
Natasha: Which is to say, it would’ve been great if show biz was like, hey, we’re going to give this to you at 24 or 34, but they wanted to really hold out. I think in many ways it’s because of that fallback energy that we respond to so much as actors that are so seasoned, of a Gene Hackman in Night Movies or Jeff Bridges in Lebowski, or Bill Murray has that sort of energy, or Harry Dean Stanton, a sense of like, “I don’t even really want to be here.” Like Peter Falk. Like, “Please, film anything but me.” I think that comes from also that, if you truly understand the motivation.
Then I would say as a writer, additionally what I learned, and as a director, just from loving actors… Sam Rockwell made me start working with his acting coach against my will, because I’d never taken a lesson. I was at film school at Tisch at 15, but I never did anything with it. I dropped out. I was very offended that they wanted me to pay tuition, because the teenagers, they were watching Apocalypse Now. I was like, “If you’re watching Apocalypse Now, why are you in film school? You should’ve already seen this movie. That’s what would make one go to film school, theoretically.”
Craig: It’s a little weird.
Natasha: I was supposed to be a double major with philosophy, and they were out of classes. Their classes were full up. I just didn’t understand why they wanted my money at that point. I was like, “This is not what I came here for.” I was like, “Are you going to pay?”
Craig: They weren’t going to pay you. Elliot, do you need any Gatorade? How are you doing over there?
Natasha: Sam introduced me to this guy, Terry Knickerbocker, who’s a great acting coach. What I would do with him is I would actually sit there with the laptop open and go over every other character’s motivation as well and type in real time, to make sure that I wouldn’t be this jag-off on set who was only taking care, let’s say, of… So that way, I had answers for other people. I don’t know that I always succeeded, but I would try to really build out and make sure that everybody was protected in terms of their motives, basically.
Craig: Exactly, that you understand that both sides of-
Natasha: Yeah.
John: What I hear you saying though is, as an actor you’re approaching character from one perspective. You’re approaching what is it that I’m going to do. As a writer, you’re approaching character from a much more macro, whole perspective, because you have to think about-
Natasha: I gotta tell you, first of all, what’s most challenging about the Strike I think for all of us is the atrophying of the brain that you’re experiencing here in real time. It kills me to not be at a whiteboard and in a room. I love the excitement of ideas. I love all of it. I love storyboarding. I love this big, holistic thinking about things and making sure that it’s okay. I love the math of it, whenever I’m doing music budgets and trying to calculate it all. I love it so much more in 3D.
Also, weirdly, I think as just an actor, this weird thing happens where you need other people’s approval, and also you need to get hired. It’s incredible to have that autonomy suddenly. It’s such a gift.
Also, I would go to video village, seeking the feedback. Really, what you find out is that if you’re doing a good enough job, nobody talks to you. Once you’re at video village and you’re actually a producer, being a writer, producer, whatever, director, you discover that usually what’s happening in video village is a panic attack about something the next day, like so-and-so did not make their flight, we’ve gotta rearrange the day. What’s happening there is everybody’s talking about tomorrow with the first AD and trying to figure out how to fucking save this fiasco. They’re not talking about your scene. Otherwise, you would know, because you’d fucked up your scene, and they would be talking to you.
It was also a big revelation that I think made it much more fun for when I was just acting in something, because it was no longer a head trip of a curiosity of, did I do okay?
Craig: There wasn’t this constant loop of, the director comes over and gives you a thumb up or thumb down.
Natasha: Exactly.
Craig: You’re absolutely right. If you’re doing a good job on the day, directing, it’s a little bit like being a parent that’s driving a car, and everybody in the car trusts that the parent is a good driver, and so they can fall asleep.
Natasha: I would say also other things made me a better actor to work with, for hire. I’m looking for work, obviously. I’m hoping somebody has a job.
Craig: Can’t work right now.
Natasha: Oh, right, SAG Strike. Anyway, so the other thing I would notice is, it’s so funny now, when I’m directing, and I’m sure it’s the same for you, that when you try to convince somebody of whatever, especially if you have a heavyweight or like an Ellen Burstyn or a Nolte or something, and you’re like, “I was sort of thinking, what if you were here. It’s just an idea. Maybe then we went there,” but really it’s because there’s a fucking window there, and the light’s going to change, and if you sit here, I’m fucked or whatever.
Craig: Have you ever tried to just say that?
Natasha: Sometimes I do. I think the reason I bring up people that are such giants is because it’s very intimidating to-
Craig: Yes, it is.
Natasha: … try to explain to somebody that’s a giant. Usually, the way I came up, there was time. I think it was probably because it was film, not digital. There wasn’t a sense of like, let’s just go.
Craig: That’s a good point.
Natasha: If you think about Raging Bull or something, this final monologue, they probably really had to rehearse, I don’t know, so that they didn’t-
Craig: Run out the mag.
Natasha: … run out of film, run out of the mag, and make sure that everything, the lighting was perfect and all that stuff. Usually, it was about a private rehearsal, and then everybody else comes in and that kind of thing. I’m sorry, now we’re not getting to the game. I see you’re stressing about time.
John: No, no, no, no.
Natasha: It’s okay. I’m just trying to tell the kids the truth.
Once upon a time, it used to be that it was this private thing, where the actors would work with the director on figuring out the blocking. As it’s evolved, especially in television, I think, it’s more about things are pre-shot-listed in order to make these impossible fucking days, because Prestige TV especially has become so dense that it’s unmakeable.
You’re doing everything you can to be like, “Hey, I really need you to sit here, because the sun is going to set.” It’s easier, I would say, to do, and it’s easier to understand then. I’m like, “Oh, so you want… Got it. Let me help you. Okay. I’ll just sit right here, and then you have your shot.”
Craig: I do love a pro.
Natasha: It’s interesting in so many ways, the evolution of that. Sorry for the long answer.
Craig: No, it was a great answer.
John: A fantastic answer.
Craig: That’s why you’re here, my friend.
Natasha: I’m here to party, baby.
Craig: We did not bring you on for the short little bursts.
Natasha: I am sorry.
Craig: I like that you assumed this, “I have finished. Now you will entertain me.”
Natasha: I just felt like I talked a while.
Craig: You did a great job, kid.
Natasha: I just felt like the answer needed to be complete.
Craig: It was.
Natasha: I didn’t want to give you a fake answer.
John: Let us welcome back out Rachel Bloom and Quinta Brunson. Hi. You can ask from there. Ask from there, and we’ll say it out loud.
Audience Member: This is a question about adapting a book. My question is, how often do you run into problems as far as what characters to pick in the screenplay itself? How much push back do you get from the authors as far as what percentage of essentially characters you’re using from the book itself and what percentage of characters you’re coming up with whatever is best for the story? How does that work?
Natasha: Actually, I don’t know if I can say the name of this person, but she’s wonderful. She’s like the lady Thomas Pynchon or something. She’s brilliant. It was so intimidating to write her this letter to ask for this book that I wanted to do since I was a child. I wrote it with two lovely ladies. I’m not even sure if I can say who they are. I’m not sure the rules of the game.
Craig: I think you can say people’s names.
Natasha: Oh, great. I wrote it with Liz and Carly, who created GLOW, and who I love. I love those ladies. It’s a bunch of short stories. We really had to make those questions. We ultimately went a certain way. I think it’s excellent.
The funny feedback I want to give you is… It is a very high-concept thing, almost magical realism, let’s say, without being too specific. In the first seven pages of the book, she’s a loser lawyer, this character. Then we were told by the studio that really what they responded to, even though they had greenlit and paid for it, that really what they responded to was the lawyer part.
I just want to say that what was weird was it took so much nerve to write this lady Thomas Pynchon this letter to beg her for this book I’ve loved my whole life, and then to have Liz and Carly be down to, all of us write this thing together, and the amount of work we put in to create this lady Cohen brothers meets Guillermo del Toro world, and then be told that really it was …
The oddity of this business is that the thing that you think is going to be the trouble spot, it’s usually some fucking eighth thing over there, inevitably, that’s like, literally, “Oh, we really liked the part that she was a lawyer and that she was dating this guy.” I said, “Do you mean you want The Practice or Abby McBeal or something?” They were like, “That would be great.” It was so weird. The three of us were texting each other like, “What is happening in this moment?”
Craig: It sounds like what she’s saying is you’ll never see the person that kills you. That’s comforting advice.
Natasha: Do you find that?
Craig: Yeah. For sure. There are circumstances where the network or the studio may have strong feelings like there, but there are also circumstances where sometimes everybody’s aligned except the author. That’s not uncommon. Authors can be precious about things, just like we all can. I have been lucky to adapt something with someone that was great and understood the point of the adaptation.
I think our job is probably not to worry too much about the author. If you actually love it, you love that material, you would … I think grown-up, responsible artists will understand that a different medium has different needs, hopefully.
Natasha: It is really challenging. I’m thinking actually about another book that I really wanted to adapt, that at first seemed like it was going to be a go, and we were so in sync, and then really it did fall apart.
John: I had one of those too, where I went in, I got the book set up at a studio, and then I was in conversation with the author about, okay, as we introduce this character, we have to think about cinematically how we’re going to first encounter this character. She’s like, “Oh, no, no, you can’t change a thing. It has to be exactly the way it was in the book.”
Natasha: That’s what was so weird was I thought that we were having the same conversation for so long, and then suddenly, we weren’t. The other thing I think that’s interesting, which is not exactly an answer to your question, but that’s obviously not my bag, is that so much of what I was so in love with in this book was the dialog and how dense it was and just how brilliant of a writer she is, and realized that in script, that dialog felt insane. It just didn’t feel necessarily like people talking, so that we had to actually change so much of … Do you know what I mean?
Craig: Oh yeah, for sure.
Quinta: Absolutely.
Craig: You have to adapt. Smart authors understand.
Natasha: I’m like, there’s so much material here, and then you get in there and-
Craig: Not as much as you thought.
Quinta: I feel like that reminds me of what I was saying earlier about communicating to the audience. Sometimes with a adaptation, you just can’t have that same monologue from the book. Maybe you can. God bless if you can. That’s incredible, or the same amount of dialog. It has to be able to translate on screen in a certain way.
I haven’t adapted yet, but I have been in material that’s been adapted. I’ve had the feeling of wanting to express, this feels like too much for anyone to want to listen to on camera, in a comedy especially. Nobody feels like fucking sitting there and hearing you say something that was written for that long. I have nothing else to add to that, by the way. I haven’t adapted anything, but as an actor, I [00:54:04]-
Natasha: The other one is … Sorry. The other one that I think is interesting is when you try to adapt inner monologue. That’s so tricky, that you realize that the book that you fell in love with, it’s like you can see it in your mind. You have the vision of it, so you can see the world you’re going to build. Then you realize that it’s essentially internal.
Quinta: That’s exactly what I mean.
Craig: There are some great novels that have made some bad movies. Then there have some … The Godfather was pulp. It was just a pulpy novel that made a great movie. It was just awesome plot, big, awesome characters.
Natasha: Arguably, Raymond Chandler, why he’s-
Craig: Absolutely.
Natasha: … so good at … That genre translates well.
Craig: It just goes right-
Quinta: Have you read the Jurassic Park book?
Natasha: No.
John: No.
Rachel: It’s pretty good.
Quinta: Rachel.
Craig: That doesn’t seem like what she was going to say.
Quinta: Rachel. That is the most boring-
Rachel: Yeah, it’s plodding, but it’s not terrible.
Quinta: Lord.
Rachel: It’s Jurassic Park.
Quinta: That’s a book I’m like, they say pterodactyl one more time, I’m going to throw this fucking book out the window.
Craig: You had to know they were going to say pterodactyl a few times.
Quinta: Too sciencey. I don’t want to see all that science on screen, something that they understood. We don’t want to see that. It’s good.
Craig: It was a good adaptation.
Rachel: I think also, when this struck, I was in the middle, for the first time of my career, of working on some adaptations. I’m actually working on something right now that’s a podcast/musical, so not in WGA, that I can talk about a little bit.
What I think is interesting about adaptation is … I learned this when I took my first musical theater class. I’m going to relate everything back to musical theater. I apologize. When you’re writing a musical, the first question you’re supposed to ask is, what about making this a musical improves upon the subject matter, or am I just making it a music because IP sells?
I think that that should be the question for any piece of adaptation is, what can I add to this material, what’s my point of view on this that can add to this canon of material, as opposed to being redundant or worse?
Craig: Good answer.
John: Good answer.
Craig: Good answer.
John: This is normally the part of the podcast where we’d do One Cool Things.
Rachel: Wait. Didn’t someone win the right to ask a question?
John: Oh, shit. We completely forgot that. Who won it? Back there. I see the hand waving. Rachel Bloom saving the podcast yet again.
Quinta: The right.
John: You.
Craig: Nice.
Quinta: Didn’t someone win the right to ask a question?
John: Do you have a question for us?
Audience Member: I do.
John: Ask your question. Thank you so much, Rachel.
Audience Member: Oh, I’ve got a microphone too. I actually have a question about directing. Natasha, you talked about how the schedules are crazy, and there’s this constant push to go, go, go, go. One of the things that I struggle with on set a lot is when producers or first ADs tell me to shoot a rehearsal. I don’t know how to respond to them politely with, no, I absolutely do not want to shoot the rehearsal. I wonder if the people on stage had recommendations for how I can politely say fuck no?
Natasha: Is that directed at me? I’m happy to answer.
Audience Member: Everybody.
Natasha: I would just say, in the first place, there is nothing really to fear in the arts. I guess just an illusion of fear. I think it’s always very useful to remember that we’re all going to die. I think that the stakes-
Quinta: True. So true.
Natasha: There is a sense of false stakes that get created around-
Craig: The stakes couldn’t be lower.
Natasha: The truth is that you’re just trying to make art and do the best you can. That’s all you can do. In a weird way, it also becomes a question of path of least resistance is sometimes in your favor of being like, “Great, why don’t we shoot this useless rehearsal so we can see why we shouldn’t shoot the rehearsal,” or alternatively, you can say, “Simply because we’re not ready.” I think that both things are valid in a way.
Craig: Is this for television?
Audience Member: Yeah. I work in both.
Craig: For television, we do have the luxury of doing the thing that you were talking about, that a lot of times you can’t. We do get to have a private rehearsal, and then we bring in the crew for crew show, and then we talk about the shots. By the time we start shooting, we’ve already gone through it, which is nice.
If you say to the showrunner, “Look, I don’t ask for much. The one thing I just want that I like is to have a couple of rehearsals. It just makes me feel better and better,” and say, “If I can do that, the actors know there’s nothing running, so they’re not burning all their rocket fuel.” Hopefully, they would recognize that that just makes you more comfortable.
Natasha: Or also, the truth is that sometimes you can tell them, “It’ll actually go quicker if we do this.” Sometimes I get very excited, and I’m like, “Oh, let’s shoot this. Let’s shoot that.” If you’re with the right camera operator, sometimes they’ll have fun doing it. Other times, actually, rehearsal really does save time in a way, because it’s not just for the actors and the director. It’s actually so that everybody has focus marks.
Craig: Exactly.
Natasha: It’s going to be a mess. You can tell them also, “Hey, it’ll actually save time.” It’s true that the camera department really does not love that game.
Craig: Nobody does.
Natasha: Even if actors like to be like, “Hey, let’s just fucking try one.”
Craig: You gotta do a walkthrough. They gotta put the tape on the floor. They gotta do all this.
John: Quinta, on a show like yours, you might have different directors coming through, doing different episodes. Will they have different working styles?
Quinta: You.
John: You as an actor in that situation, but also a producer, have to adjust. What is that like?
Quinta: The main director that I work with, his name is Randall Einhorn, and he’s fantastic. He’s really great at establishing tone and also relationship with every director who comes in. I think that’s a big part of it too. The other directors coming to set the week before get a hold of how we work. The show that I work on currently is weekly. It’s fast. We’re filming while we’re airing. We don’t really have a lot of time. Our first priority is saving time.
I was thinking about that question. Randall is so good at being like, “I don’t want to do that.” That’s it. He’s like, “I don’t want to do that.” It’ll be like, “Yeah. Okay. Guess what? You’re the director. You’re running the show.” Now, in my state though, it’s a different situation. That’s very family. I would never even ask for that.
For another person coming in, if they want to shoot it, they would say, “I think this would make me feel good, just to get it, just to have.” Especially on a mockumentary, it can be beneficial sometimes. It’s like, “All right, cool, we’ll give it … ” I think it’s just about clear communication, like you said. The stakes are very low. We are not saving lives. Clear communication will help us, just, “What do you need? What do I need? What do you need?”
Natasha: That is the weirdest part I think about what we do, and in a weird way, life in general, but certainly making movies and making TV and all this shit that we do and writers’ rooms and studios and networks. It feels like the stakes are just so high. Part of me, as an adrenaline junkie, loves that. Really, they’re just not. That’s where you start losing humanity and all these other things. Everybody is a human being that deserves to get what they need. It’s just making art, so it should feel good, but it feels so scary, the time. It’s always time is the enemy. I would say time is a bigger enemy than money.
Craig: Which the director is the person worrying about the most, usually, because as the day drips away, when I’m directing, that’s the thing that I’m aware of is that my options are dwindling. Time is scary. Sometimes, also keep in mind that when you are visiting a show, the producers know things about the actors that you don’t.
Rachel: That’s a great point.
Quinta: Huge.
Craig: Some of them really do not like that rehearsal stuff at all.
Quinta: Yeah, they don’t.
Craig: They’re just like, “I know what I’m doing. Let’s go. Let’s shoot.” Part of it’s cultural too.
Quinta: Some people really want it.
Craig: Exactly.
Quinta: For sure.
Natasha: It is also though that thing of knowing, whatever, kill your darlings or whatever. In your shot list, the things that felt like such a dream and being okay, you gotta go through that day, and you’re like, “That’s done, that’s done, and that one’s out, and we’re going to really focus on this.”
It’s so crazy that, also, that’s why preparedness, I just believe in it so much, of being overly prepared so you can be loose, because the more time … Even if I’m a visiting director on a show or something, I always try so hard to spend time with the first AD and the DP, really walking through every single shot we’re going to do, in an effort to be prepared for if the producer, who is really the boss at that point, not the director, if it’s not an auteur special, then really feeling like we’re prepared for the situation.
Rachel: On the show I did that I will not name, but it was the show that I did, I have a very small bladder, and I like to drink. I have a steady drip of tea, and I pee a lot. The AD, I found out in Season 4, let every director … My pee breaks were built into the schedule, because they know I needed that, otherwise I’d piss my pants. I thought that was very communicative of him.
Quinta: Nice.
John: Nice. Don’t know actors would piss themselves.
Craig: I think that’s why SAG is on a strike, to get that enshrined in the agreement.
John: Build that back in the contract.
Craig: Pee breaks.
John: Are we doing One Cool Things or not, Craig?
Craig: Let’s just roll right to the finish line.
John: Let’s roll to the finish line and do some thank yous.
Natasha: Not One Cool Thing?
Craig: You know what? We’ll catch up on those.
John: We’ll catch up on-
Craig: We do it literally 608 times.
John: I’ll save mine for next week.
Craig: We’re good. It’s all good.
John: You can email Craig and tell him what you want to recommend if you have a thing.
Natasha: All right, I’ll send him some bucks.
John: We have some thank yous to get out to people.
Craig: We do.
John: Scriptnotes is produced, of course, by Drew Marquardt.
Craig: Yay.
John: Drew!
Rachel: Woo!
Quinta: Drew!
Craig: Woo woo!
John: Who did a phenomenal job putting together tonight’s show.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Thank you very much, Drew. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli, who is here.
Craig: Yay. There you are. Hi.
John: Who also did our music this week. Thank you so much, Matthew. Thank you to Hollywood Heart and Dynasty Typewriter for hosting us. For folks listening at home, the thing about being at the Hollywood Bowl, that was a joke. We really weren’t.
Craig: We really are not at the-
John: The Hollywood Bowl.
Craig: I know, shock. Of course, thank you to our ASL interpreter, Elliot Aronson.
Quinta: Oh, yay.
John: Elliot.
Craig: Who remains incredibly handsome and really good at his job.
John: We of course have to thank our incredible guests, Natasha Lyonne.
Craig: Natasha Lyonne.
John: Quinta Brunson.
Craig: Quinta Brunson.
John: Rachel Bloom.
Craig: Rachel Bloom.
John: Make sure you get tickets to see Rachel Bloom’s show either here or in New York. It’s at rachelbloomshow.com.
Craig: Thank you to everybody in the audience here in the room and listening at home and in your car. It is so much fun getting to do this live.
John: Thank you all, and have a great night.
Craig: Thanks, guys.
Rachel: Thanks, everybody.
[Bonus Segment]
John: All right, Natasha and Craig, our experience has been that the film and television industry is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear, whether it’s true or whether it’s not true. To make sure that we’re keeping our skills sharp during this work stoppage, I thought we might play a little game with our audience members. We have three audience members who volunteered to help out in a segment we’re calling That Sounds Familiar. Jax, if we could bring up the house lights a little bit. Our three guests, I see a Number 1. Number 1, if you could make your way around to this microphone stand over here.
Natasha: Wow, three boys. All right. I see it’s a Mae West production.
Craig: What the fuck?
Natasha: I don’t know.
Craig: I don’t know. What happened?
Natasha: I’m not here. I don’t exist. I’m a melting clock. Just leave me alone. I don’t know why you invited me here.
Craig: Melting clock.
Natasha: I could’ve gotten here at 9:00.
Craig: For charity.
Natasha: I was on the 101.
Craig: You did a great job. Let’s play a game.
Natasha: I was bumping into cars like it was The Matrix.
Craig: Let’s play a game.
Natasha: Yes, gentlemen. I’m ready for the game.
John: Contestant Number 1, could you introduce yourself and tell us something fascinating about you?
Contestant 1: My name is Eric Wandry, and I’m the oldest of 13 kids.
John: What? Oh my god. Contestant Number 2, tell us something interesting about you.
Contestant 2: My name is Eric Wandry, and I’m the oldest of 13 kids.
John: Oh, shit.
Natasha: Oh, I see. This is a little tricky. I’m sorry, sir.
John: Contestant Number 3-
Natasha: Where is your sticker?
John: Could you introduce yourself and tell us something interesting about yourself?
Natasha: Where is your sticker, sir, the other gentleman? Thank you. A little respect for the game. Thank you.
John: It’s a sticker. Get going. Could you tell us about yourself?
Contestant 3: I’m Eric Wandry and I’m eldest of 15 kids, 13 kids.
Natasha: Wow. You know what?
Craig: We’ve narrowed it down to two.
John: Wow.
Craig: It’s a 50/50.
Natasha: You didn’t even want to be here. Is it against their well?
Craig: You rattled him.
Natasha: I’m assuming they’re volunteers.
Craig: You rattled him.
Natasha: I didn’t rattle.
Craig: You rattled him.
Natasha: They were trying to be the same person. He was missing the sticker.
John: He was missing a sticker. You rattled him. [Indiscernible 01:08:11]. I’m not intimidated, but I could see [crosstalk 01:08:13].
Craig: Also, John’s rattled.
John: I’m not. I’m not.
Natasha: When people say that, I feel like it’s because I’m a woman, and then I regret my entire life.
Craig: No, no, no, it’s not because you’re a woman.
Natasha: How can I help?
Craig: What are we going to do?
John: One of these people-
Craig: How can I help.
John: … is lying. One of them is telling exactly the truth.
Craig: We can eliminate Number 3.
John: One of them is telling the truth, and one of them is lying. We can ask up to five questions of these people. What questions do we want to ask? Craig, how do you help narrow this down?
Natasha: I want to ask about religion right away.
John: Go for it.
Craig: Go. Do it. Go.
Natasha: Number 1.
Craig: This is to Number 1.
Natasha: Excuse me, so what religion are you?
Contestant 1: I come from a Catholic background.
Natasha: Interesting. Another question. Are your parents still together?
Contestant 1: No.
Natasha: Interesting that you hesitated. Is that because of trauma? The body keeps the score. Or just because of lying?
Contestant 1: One of them passed away.
Natasha: Wow.
Craig: Welcome to the Natasha Lyonne show.
Natasha: Touche, Number 1.
John: Oh my god.
Natasha: Touche.
John: Touche.
Natasha: All right, Number 2. Are you guys also asking questions?
John: We can ask questions too.
Craig: At this point it’s all you.
Natasha: Please do it as you … I’ll take a little nap.
Craig: I’m thrilled with how this is going right now.
Natasha: No, no, no, no, no. I’ll be here. Go off on Number 2.
John: I’m curious about geography. Eric Number 2, where did you grow up?
Contestant 2: Indiana. Small-town Indiana.
John: Contestant Number 3, where did you grow up?
Contestant 3: Waterbury, Connecticut.
John: Waterbury, Connecticut.
Craig: Can I ask a question of Number 2?
John: Sure.
Craig: Number 2, you said that you were the oldest of 13, is that right? What is the name of the youngest?
Contestant 2: Melissa.
Craig: Thank you.
Natasha: Melissa Rivers?
Craig: Yes, Melissa Rivers.
Natasha: I’m just here to help. I’m just here to help. I’m taking a backseat. What?
Craig: I want to ask a question of Number 1.
Natasha: Mustache, why? No, I like it, but is it a family thing? Do all your siblings have mustaches?
Contestant 1: I’m the only one.
Natasha: That was not your question.
Craig: How many boys and how many girls?
Contestant 1: Seven boys, six girls.
Natasha: Again, the hesitation is …
John: I have a question. I’ll ask for Number 2. You’re the oldest of 13. Is everyone biologically related, from the same parents, or is it a Brady Bunch situation? Talk to us about the relationship to these people.
Natasha: Are your parents in an open relationship?
Contestant 2: No, everybody’s together. Everyone’s a big happy family. It’s all biological, everyone.
Natasha: What religion are you?
Contestant 2: Christian.
Natasha: A lot of Christians here. You guys [indiscernible 01:11:07] Craig around.
Craig: You and I are the Jewish population of this.
Natasha: Don’t tell them.
Craig: They know. They know. They’ve looked at our faces.
John: Eric Number 2, I’m curious, talk to us about a family vacation and the most that your family’s ever been on vacation and how that went.
Contestant 2: It was kind of tricky, obviously, because of how big the family was. We would generally go to areas that were adjacent to where I grew up. We would go to the lakes. We would go in the mountains, if we could get that far. It was generally-
Natasha: What do you mean if you could get that far?
Contestant 2: Because Indiana’s geographically not that close to mountains, but we could-
Craig: There was nowhere to go is what he’s saying.
Contestant 2: Yeah. We could get there.
Natasha: What kind of a car were you guys in?
Contestant 2: We had several because of the size of the family.
Craig: This guy’s the guy.
Natasha: Hold on. I can’t tell.
Craig: This guy is the guy. What are we doing? He’s the guy.
Natasha: I’m sorry, what kind of cars?
Contestant 2: We had two trucks and a station wagon.
Natasha: Only two parents?
Contestant 2: Only two parents.
Natasha: Until the eldest was driving the third car?
Contestant 2: Yeah. I was pretty much the babysitter for most of my childhood.
Craig: What are we doing? This is the guy.
John: I’m not convinced.
Natasha: I’m with you, honey.
Craig: I’m sold. I’m sold.
Natasha: I’m not sure about-
John: Should we vote now?
Craig: I’m ready to vote.
John: I think I’m ready to vote.
Craig: I’m ready to vote.
Natasha: I’ll do whatever you guys want.
Craig: I don’t care. I don’t care if I lose.
Natasha: How much money is in it?
Craig: [Indiscernible 01:12:27].
John: The stakes could not be higher. It is bragging rights for this segment of Scriptnotes. A lot.
Craig: I got 200 Canadian in that wallet [crosstalk 01:12:38].
Natasha: You brought your wallet onstage.
Craig: Always.
Natasha: That makes me very concerned about leaving my passport back there.
John: Quinta did bring her purse out.
Natasha: By the way, always bring your passport, because you never know when you might need to leave the country.
Craig: You never know.
Natasha: That’s another piece of advice.
Craig: Let’s vote.
John: Let’s vote.
Craig: Let’s vote.
John: Who on stage believes it’s Contestant Number 3? Who believes it’s Contestant Number 2?
Craig: Yes.
Natasha: Yeah.
John: The audience too, applause? Who thinks it’s Contestant Number 1? That’s me.
Natasha: A little.
Craig: A little? You and I think it’s 2. He thinks it’s 1.
John: No, I think we voted for … Who’d you vote for, 1?
Craig: No, 2.
Natasha: I went 50/50 because I wasn’t following.
Craig: I thought you said [crosstalk 01:13:22].
Natasha: When you involved the audience, I didn’t realize it was only up to us. I thought it was a-
Craig: The stakes could not be higher.
Natasha: Sure, I’ll go with 2, honey.
Craig: Thank you.
Natasha: We’re going with two.
Craig: Aw. Thank you.
John: Contestant Number 2, are you the oldest of 13 kids?
Contestant 2: I’m an only child.
John: Whoa.
Craig: Nicely done. Nicely done! You sick fuck!
John: Contestant Number 3, are you the oldest of 13 kids?
Contestant 1: When he said that the whole family was in a van, you should’ve known that when you’re the eldest of 13, that the groups of kids don’t all know each other. The younger group-
Craig: Is this a yes?
Contestant 1: … they were out of the house before I even-
Natasha: Is Number 3 the guy?
Craig: I think it’s Number 3. You said 15.
Contestant 3: Yeah, I was nervous.
Craig: Oh, wow.
John: Contestant 3-
Craig: You rattled him. You rattled him.
John: Are you genuinely the Eric who’s the oldest-
Craig: You rattled him.
John: … of 13 kids?
Craig: You’re the one.
Contestant 3: I’m the oldest.
Craig: You’re the one.
John: Holy shit!
Natasha: Oh my god.
Craig: Wow.
John: Contestant Number 1-
Natasha: Pathological liar.
John: How big is your family?
Contestant 1: I’m the oldest of 13 kids.
John: Oh, you are genuinely the oldest of 13 kids.
Contestant 1: Yes.
Craig: What the fuck is happening?
John: I thought the game was over.
Natasha: Now I’m confused.
Craig: What the fuck is going on?
John: It was Number 1. It was Number 1. Number 3 was still playing. We’re good. We’re good. The game is over.
Craig: Oh, Number 3 was still playing. Number 3 was like that soldier who doesn’t know the war is over.
John: The war is over.
Craig: You can go home now.
John: I was so confused there.
Craig: That’s outstanding.
Natasha: Wow.
Craig: I gotta be honest, Number 2 should be in prison. That’s a dangerous man.
Natasha: He’s an only child.
Craig: That’s a real dangerous man.
John: Craig.
Craig: The way he said only child, he’s like, “After I killed my siblings, I was an only child.”
John: Here’s how we got these people. I emailed out to our Scriptnotes listeners who were going to be in the audience, and I said, “Hey, do you have a really interesting story about your life that we could use on this, or are you really good at playing Mafia/Werewolf?” That’s what you are.
Natasha: Have you played the new game, Werewolf?
John: Thank the three of you very much for doing this. Let’s give them a [indiscernible 01:15:21].
Natasha: I’m just kidding.
Craig: Thank you guys. That was outstanding.
Natasha: Number 3, I’m sorry.
Links:
- HollywoodHEART
- Quinta Brunson on IMDb and Instagram
- Rachel Bloom on IMDb and Instagram
- Natasha Lyonne on IMDb and Instagram
- Quinta Brunson’s The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date
- Quinta Brunson on BuzzFeed
- Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Show at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York City
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
- John on Mastodon
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
- Our ASL interpreter was Elliott Aronson
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.