Search Results for: youtube

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2016/how-to-introduce-characters).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. So, on April 16, 2016, I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom to talk about their amazing show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. This was all part of the Writers Guild Foundation Craft Day 2016. It was a full day session. So, I did this panel in the morning with Aline and Rachel. Later in the afternoon I did the panel with Lawrence Kasdan and me and Craig. They were both great.

This one was wonderful for reasons I didn’t expect, partly because it was filthy. And so this is also my parental advisory warning. If you are in the car with your kids, it’s not appropriate probably, because specific things are discussed which are probably not things you want your kids to be hearing. But, it’s just great, and so we had a fun time talking about the show and really focusing on character introductions, which is how do you first let your audience know who these characters are, what they should be looking for. And I thought the pilot for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was incredibly useful on that front.

So, enjoy. And we’ll be back next week with a normal episode. Thanks.

[Start of live show]

Hello and welcome. I’m required to say hello and welcome whenever I greet a crowd here. So, in addition to being a screenwriter, I’m also host of a podcast called Scriptnotes. Thank you. Some people are listening to Scriptnotes. And Craig Mazin and I each week talk about the craft and business of screenwriting. And I think our very first guest ever on the show was Aline Brosh McKenna who is going to be joining us up here in a second.

Aline is fantastic. And Aline tells you exactly how things are supposed to be and what to do and what not to do. She gives us fashion tips, which I don’t ever take. Not this last Christmas, but the Christmas before she came to our holiday special and she brought a special guest. And that guest was the star of the TV show that they’ve created together. Her name was Rachel Bloom and she sang a song to the Scriptnotes thing called When Will I Be Famous. And the answer to that question was 2015 when her TV show debuted and was phenomenal and everyone loved it. And then she won the Golden Globe.

So, we are so excited to welcome as our first guests today Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom, creators of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

**Aline Brosh McKenna:** Hi everybody. Good morning.

**Rachel Bloom:** Good morning.

**John:** Good morning. So, I’m obsessed with your show. And I think anyone who listens to the podcast knows that I’m obsessed with your show. I have seen every episode. I’ve seen some episodes multiple times. I saw the version back when it was a Showtime show and then I saw the CW show. So we can talk about all that stuff.

But because this is Craft Day, I thought we might really focus in on just really craft topics, especially I’d like to talk with you guys about how you introduce a character. Because we can look through how you guys introduced characters in the pilot, how you introduce characters later along the way. If people want to read along at home, if you go to johnaugust.com/crazy, the scene pack that we’re going to talk through is in there. It’s a PDF. So you can look through that. Also, in Weekend Read, you can see the whole script, which you guys were so generous to provide for us. The whole pilot script for what you shot. And we can talk through stuff. But, characters?

**Aline:** Well, I can give you an example. We were trying to figure out the character of Greg’s dad. And we kind of didn’t really know what to do with him and how to make him special and interesting. And it was kind of close in to when we needed him to work. It was actually we were in production already, because it was for episode six. And we just couldn’t kind of get a beat on him.

And then Rachel and I met at Starbucks and we were like, “How do we do this?” We knew we wanted him to be sort of a macho guy, and then I said maybe he was a chef. And then we went on this thing of maybe he had had a restaurant that closed. And then Rachel said — so this is I think typical of our collaboration — so I said, you know, maybe he’s a chef and the restaurant closed and we can talk about West Covina, how like all the good restaurants have been replaced by chains. But it didn’t really give us any behavior.

And then was like, well, what’s funny about him? And Rachel said, “Maybe he’s got macaws.”

**John:** So a specific bird reference there.

**Aline:** Maybe he has two macaws. And it was like we started talking about, and that gave us a lot of stuff about him being like very stubborn and collecting birds, even though it’s like not great for his son. And then that led to him like — we had always had him being somebody who is kind of sickly. And that led to him being somebody who still smokes and drinks, despite having emphysema and heart problems. So, it was like — it was a combination of really trying to find the purpose and the narrative, and then finding things that were quirky and special.

And Rachel in particular, in part I think because her background is in sketch, always approaches a character with putting some topspin on them so that there’s always something else going on that makes them kind of interesting and different and special.

**Rachel:** But, Aline, you do the same thing. We’re right in the middle of writing season two right now and I feel like we have this great pattern where one of us will ask kind of a general question, and then the other will answer with a really unexpected specific.

I remember in the original Showtime pilot, and this ended up being in the CW, we were talking about what happens when Greg and Rebecca go on this date. And then out of nowhere you were like, “What if she just like gave him a hand job?” And I was like, what, no. And then — but then it was like, okay, well what if she did that? And that ended up being really like the thing that sets up their relationship. This idea of this hand job/make out interrogation scene where this idea of from the beginning it was always about this messed up sexual power.

**Aline:** And that she’s not afraid to use her sexual — she doesn’t even understand that that might not be okay. That she’s just like — and in her mind, if you asked her, she’s just giving a guy a hand job. She doesn’t realize she’s doing an interrogation. Which is something they should do by the way. I think it would be much more effective than waterboarding.

**Rachel:** I totally agree.

**Aline:** Because you could get anything out of a man.

**Rachel:** Oh yeah. Yeah. If you just threaten like, you won’t get to cum, like, “Okay, fine! The bomb is here.” Yeah.

**John:** I saw the Showtime pilot.

**Rachel:** Saturday morning. You like my cum sounds.

**Aline:** This is what we do all day.

**Rachel:** All day.

**Aline:** This show is very much built in conversation. You know, Rachel and I spend, somebody said what are you doing to prepare for season two. I said, well what we always do, which is talking for hours, and hours, and hours. And we talk about stuff that’s not relevant to the show at all, like stuff with the characters and stories. We know things about these characters that isn’t relevant and will never be relevant.

I always say it’s like when they go into a hoarder’s apartment and he’s built like an entire universe out of like creatures he made from soda cans and, what do you call that fuzzy wire, pipe cleaners? That’s sort of what we do is we build this world and then we populate it. And it is sort of like kids playing with a dollhouse.

**Rachel:** Yeah. I mean, that’s why writing with Aline always feels like — we were just talking about this — it feels like the most effortless part. The time just flies so quickly. Because it’s building a world made up of a bunch of really fun specifics. And I learned so much, because I come from more sketch, and animation, I kind of worked in more broad strokes. Okay, so what are the ideas we want to service, and then kind of like not working in stock characters, but like how do the characters service this premise.

And when we started creating the show, I mean, I’ve learned so much about character specificity from Aline, but I remember like the first day it was like, okay, so it’s going to be a show about how love takes you over, so how is this girl a symbol. And you were like, “What’s her favorite color? What’s her favorite meal? What was her childhood like?”

And it was like going into it with an emotional specificity that I hadn’t done before, and that’s how now we approach every character. And I learned that from you. You’re so smart.

**Aline:** That’s what we do.

**Rachel:** I love you so much.

**John:** So, Aline, I know you from things like Devil Wears Prada. You’re known for long features, where you’re setting up a character and taking them through this journey, a journey that happens exactly once, versus a TV show which is we’re seeing this character again and again, and all of these characters again and again.

Rachel, I first knew you from Robot Chicken. And so Robot Chicken, those are incredibly fast sketches where the first frame we have to understand what that character is supposed to be, and then getting to the joke as quickly as possible. So, what was this first conversation between you guys about who was this character? Did it start with who is the Rebecca character, or did it start with the situation? What were those initial conversations like?

**Aline:** They were kind of both, but I will say, you know, we’ve always felt like we were writing a 45-hour movie. That’s always how we’ve approached it. I think the series that I love the most are the ones where you feel like the creators are in control of the whole story. Like when you’re watching Breaking Bad there’s no question in your mind that he knows where he’s going. Mad Men.

I get tense when I watch TV shows where I feel like you know that every week they’re like [makes noise of car screeching]. And so we divided it into four chapters, and every chapter has an ending, and it’s building to an ultimate ending. And that’s the only way I could approach it.

**John:** Are these chapters seasons?

**Aline:** Seasons.

**John:** So, when you guys were having this conversation, were you talking about how you were first going to meet her. What were the initial conversations about how we first meet Rebecca?

**Rachel:** Do you remember the construction site?

**Aline:** Yeah, I do.

**Rachel:** So, I think originally — because when we first met it was going to be a network show. And we weren’t even sure if I would get to play it, because like who’s going to hire this over someone famous. And so we were like, okay, so we weren’t thinking as much of like me playing the character as much as the character. And originally the pilot started with this scene of there was a construction site. It was a going to be a helicopter shot of New York City.

**Aline:** Right. We were not really up to speed on budget.

**Rachel:** No. [laughs] A construction site and she walks onto the construction site in giant stiletto heels and says–

**Aline:** Well, it was going to be a thing where there’s like a bunch of dudes on a construction site, and then this girl comes out with these heels and she kind of goes through. And then the very next thing that happened is she Instagrams a selfie of herself on this construction site, trying desperately to get everyone. So you sort of immediately contrast like she’s very capable at work, but she’s a loser, has no friends, so she Instagrams a picture of herself with a helmet. And the guys behind her–

**Rachel:** Yes. And she chews out the guys. She basically — she calls them all mentally handicapped. And she makes one of them cry. And then she’s like, “Having fun on the job.” And like hashtag Work Times. And like no one — and she keeps refreshing it and seeing if anyone likes it, and no one likes it.

**Aline:** Right. And then we very early on had this idea that she runs into this ex-boyfriend, and we spent just an inordinate amount of time figuring out if it was a high school boyfriend, or a college boyfriend. There was a whole long thing that led us to summer camp boyfriend, but there were a lot of considerations.

But, ultimately she runs into the boyfriend and then we had her having a panic attack in the script, in the outline for a long time, in the script for a while she was cutting herself in the — right now in the pilot she’s taking those pills. She used to be cutting herself.

**Rachel:** You had the really crazy idea that she would — and I kind of loved this — she would take out a pack of cigarettes, and you think she was going to smoke, and then she’d take out a needle or a razor blade and be cutting herself like below her nailbed. And this is when we were with Showtime. And they were like, “Wow.” [laughs] They were like, “That’s dark.”

**John:** They’re like, “We had Dexter on the air. Like that’s dark.”

**Aline:** But you know what, that became our litmus test when we were pitching the show. We’d pitch that, and that became our litmus test for should we do the show here, because people who blanched at that so much, it’s like cutting is super prevalent, guys. Lots and lots and lots and lots of women do this, particularly — well, men do it, too. But it’s very prevalent behavior that you almost never see, especially not in a high-functioning person. And when we pitched it that became our litmus test to like people who blanched too much at that.

And then ultimately Showtime was excited about that kind of stuff. But we ended up peeling away from that just because in that moment we had gone to this thing of trying to explore her medication and how she was medicated, so that’s how it ended up being that way.

**Rachel:** And then I just want to say one more thing, that the show then, once we settled upon the idea that I was going to play the character and we were going to pitch it to smaller cable places, who wouldn’t care as much that I wasn’t a name, that’s — we basically wrote the pilot by improvising aloud to each other. And as I started to play Rebecca more in the improvisation with Aline, the character changed.

**Aline:** It changed.

**Rachel:** Because it was like, oh, here’s how I portray her. So I think she was much more of a hard-ass, and then when I started to portray her there was this weird musical theater ingénue bubbliness, where it was like she was never necessarily going to be the person to be like, “Fuck you, you fucking ass — ” Like, that just wasn’t my portrayal of her. So it changed with that improvisation.

**Aline:** That’s right.

**John:** But from the initial instinct, it was always that she was the highly functional dysfunctional hero of this story.

**Aline:** Yes.

**John:** And the idea that we would get access to her inner mind by songs, was that in the very initial conception?

**Aline:** Always.

**Rachel:** Yes.

**Aline:** Always. And Rachel comes from a background of doing musicals, traditional musicals, and then also her music comedy videos. And so she knows way more than I do about when to have a song and how the song accesses emotions. And that’s all completely second nature to her.

And one thing that was interesting about working with someone who is a lot younger than me, and in certain areas was not as experienced, Rachel has like rock solid experience and convictions about the music, and the songs, and how they’re put together, and where they belong in the narrative. And it’s just — it’s that thing we’ve talked about a lot on Scriptnotes, about expertise. Rachel is — no matter where we were, how intimidating the situation was — when we’re talking about the music and the songs, Rachel has such a firm point of view. She knows every musical. And knows the background of American musicals inside and out.

So, that’s where our background. And I’m a newbie and a learner about that stuff.

**John:** Let’s take a look in the packet here. I’m going to hand these out to you guys.

**Rachel:** I haven’t seen this in a while.

**John:** Yeah. I know.

**Rachel:** It’s really cool.

**John:** It’s so weird with a TV show, like when do you ever go back to the script.

**Aline:** Yeah. Yeah.

**John:** You shoot a script and it’s dead to you.

**Rachel:** Last revision September 15, 2015.

**John:** And this was Golden Rod pages. This is–

**Aline:** This is what we shot–

**John:** This is what you shot for the CW when you–

**Aline:** This was our CW version, yeah.

**John:** I’d love to start with this first scene here. So this is a first time you’re going to the new offices. So, essentially for people who aren’t familiar with the show, Rebecca has bumped into her camp boyfriend in–

**Aline:** Oh, these are selected scenes. Yeah, okay.

**John:** These are selected scenes. She’s bumped into her camp boyfriend, Josh, who is now moving to West Covina. She’s like, “You know what, I hate my job here. I’m going to move to West Covina.” She’s gotten herself a job at this law firm and this is her showing up at this law firm for the first time.

So, this is our first time meeting really important characters who are going to be series regulars, so Darryl, her best friend who is going to be following her around. So, let’s read aloud.

**Aline:** Oh, okay read aloud. Great.

**John:** Do you want to be Darryl and I’ll do scene descriptions?

**Rachel:** Great. And I’ll play Rebecca.

**John:** That’s a bold choice.

**Rachel:** Did it a couple months, so.

**John:** So we start off-screen. So there’s a pre-lap voice over of Darryl here.

**Aline:** I hope you don’t mind, but I handed out copies of your resume. We’re just — oh you’re going to read scene description.

**John:** So, then we’re inside Whitefeather Law Offices, morning. The offices of Whitefeather and Associates. Everyone stands up to watch Rebecca and her new boss DARRYL WHITEFEATHER (50’S) walk through.

**Aline:** We’re just so honored… and confused, frankly… to have an attorney of your caliber here.

**Rachel:** So, Darryl WhiteFeather…That’s an interesting name.

**Aline:** Yeah, I’m what they call a full one- eighth. One-eighth Chippewa. That’s why everyone here calls me Chief.

**Rachel:** Interesting…

**Aline:** Yeah, they don’t, but I wish they–

**John:** She checks her phone. Still nothing.

**Rachel:** Hey, is there a problem with cell phone service in West Covina? Like some kind of mountains or…magnetic clouds?

**John:** No.

**Aline:** No, I have Sprint. It’s the bomb. I’m sorry, I have kids.

**Rachel:** Oh.

**Aline:** But I am getting divorced.

**Rachel:** Oh, I’m sorry.

**Aline:** I’m not! Hey-o! Let me show you around.

**John:** They walk through the office.

**Aline:** So you’re from New York? Spent some time there myself.

**Rachel:** Oh, yeah?

**Aline:** Yeah, a week after college with my buddies. We went to ALL the best places. They still have that greaaaat pizza place downtown? De– something? You know that one? The one with the pizza, that has pizza?

**Rachel:** Oh, yeah, that one…it’s great.

**Aline:** Cheese and–

**Rachel:** Yeah. That’s pizza. Yeah.

**Aline:** Yeah. That’s it. We actually have some great places here in the ‘Cov. There’s a wine bar on Foothill, has a killer Riesling. And the restaurant in the Hilton, the chef there trained in…was it Tustan? Or was it…no, it was Tuscany.

**Rachel:** That’s in Italy. Cool.

**Aline:** Yeah. It was Tuscany. Have you ever heard of Branzino?

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Aline:** It’s a fish.

**Rachel:** I know.

**Aline:** Oh, because I thought it was a sandwich.

**Rachel:** Oh.

**John:** Yeah.

**Rachel:** Well, I really look forward to everything this town has to offer. That’s why I moved here, to chillax. Live the SoCal sunny lifestyle.

**Aline:** We are only two hours away from the beach. Four in traffic, but it’s not a big deal.

**Rachel:** Exactly.

**Aline:** Feel like you and I are gonna have a lot in common. And not just the pizza and the fish.

**John:** He smiles. She reaches over to a desk, grabs a few brochures for the firm.

**Rachel:** …until my business cards come in, think I’ll just take a few of these to show I definitely work here, in case anyone asks or is curious.

**John:** ANGLE ON: Paula, who is at her desk, looking at Rebecca’s resume. Paula’s cubicle is decorated with a mix of angry cubicle art, puppy and kitten photos, sexy vampires and office-themed cartoons.

**Aline:** I don’t get it. You see this resume? Harvard, Yale, special skills: Mandarin? She get this out of a resume book? What the hell is she doing here?

**John:** Mrs. Hernandez shakes her head, shrugs.

**Aline:** Exactly. Makes no sense.

**John:** Rebecca and Darryl pass Paula’s desk. They stop.

**Aline:** Rebecca, this is Paula.

**Rachel:** Oh, great, hi. Are you my assistant? I’m gonna need a ton of help getting my computer set up, I’m a total grandma with that stuff.

**John:** She notices Paula is glaring. And Darryl is afraid.

**Aline:** Actually, Paula is our head paralegal.

**Rachel:** Oh, I’m so sorry.

**Aline:** Two years of training, six months of night school, fifteen years of experience, but never mind. Those are some good knockoff Louboutins. I know how to say it. Yep.

**Rachel:** Oh, thanks! Actually, they’re real, but I got them on sale.

**Aline:** Lindsey Lohan wears those. She’s been to jail six times and has fake hair. Did you know that? Everyone knows that. Right, Mrs. Hernandez?

**John:** Mrs. Hernandez nods. “For sure.”

**Aline:** Oh, sorry, this is Mrs. Hernandez. She is our communications director.

**Rachel:** Pleased to meet you.

**John:** She shakes hands with Mrs. Hernandez, who crushes her hand.

**Aline:** Careful there. She went to a “Women in Business” seminar a couple of years ago, came back with that death grip. So, what brings you to our lovely West Covina?

**Rachel:** Just looking for a change.

**Aline:** Oh. Know anyone in town or have any relatives? Anything?

**Rachel:** Um… nope.

**Aline:** Huh.

**Rachel:** No.

**Aline:** Huh, I see. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well welcome aboard.

**John:** They walk away. Paula turns to Mrs. Hernandez.

**Aline:** “They’re real, got them on sale.” Who is that person?

**John:** She eyes Rebecca who walks into Darryl’s office.

We can stop there. So, let’s talk about–

**Rachel:** That was weird, because I was doing an — we shot that scene in the original pilot, and then we reshot because we recast the role of Darryl. And when I reshot it, I was kind of doing an impression of myself in the original pilot, because I had watched it so much. And right now I was doing an impression of myself doing an impression of myself.

**John:** You’re a copy of a copy of a copy.

**Rachel:** Yeah. [laughs]

**John:** So good. So let’s talk about introducing Darryl and Paula.

**Aline:** Well this is interesting, I think, for people who are crafty folks and making things. So, Darryl went through a lot of evolutions. We wrote Darryl, he was kind of a stock character, I would say, like the dumbo boss. And we auditioned a million people, including Pete Gardner, but he didn’t get the part. Michael McDonald got the part. And the reason we hired Michael was that he brought this weird intensity to Darryl that we really loved. Darryl seemed like some really strange things had happened in his life. And we really liked that.

So, Michael is in the pilot. You saw Michael. And Michael brings a completely different thing than Pete does. Michael really brings this thing of like he hits on her a bit, and you can’t get a beat on him, and you would sort of believe that he was secretly blackmailing everyone in the office. There’s something a little nefarious about him.

So, then when Michael — so some of this dialogue is improvised by Michael McDonald in his audition and on set, right?

**Rachel:** Yes.

**Aline:** And we incorporated. So these poor actors — so then Pete came back with a bunch of other people to audition and had to read stuff that had been improvised by Michael.

**Rachel:** And Michael couldn’t do it because he had other — by the time we got ordered to series on CW, which was more episodes than Showtime, he has a ton of directing commitments. So it wasn’t like a bad–

**Aline:** He was the in-house director for Mike & Molly. And he was really sad, but it was more of a time commitment. So, we cast this wide net. We got a bunch of different people. And we found Pete. And Pete is a veteran — most of our cast are veteran Broadway people. And Pete is a veteran-veteran improviser. I mean, anyone in Los Angeles who does improv knows Pete.

So, when he was improvising with Rachel, I remember during his audition they improvised a lot. And I remember Rachel said to me after the audition, “I feel so safe with him,” because you could anywhere, take the scene anywhere. And then Pete has then kind of lovable goofiness. He’s so sweet. And so he has brought a lot of his Pete-ness to the role.

So, that role I would say of all the roles evolved the most to kind of suit the actor. And I think one of the things that’s interesting when you’re writing something is particularly sometimes if you have a character who is maybe not as strongly conceived as some of the other ones, an actor can really bring something very special to it. And we have really — our characters have flowed to the actors that we cast very frequently.

**John:** That’s the luxury of television is that you get to see who those people are and what their strengths are and play to their strengths.

So, let’s talk about how we first meet Darryl. So, from the very start, “I hope you don’t mind, but I handed out copies of your resume. We’re just so honored and confused, frankly, to have an attorney of your caliber here.” So right at the very start he’s laying out exactly sort of like — he’s like the dog who is rolling over on its back and exposing his belly, saying, “Ooh, we’re so happy that you’re here.” And it puts him in a strange place. It also gives Rebecca a lot of power in the situation, which is an unusual dynamic for somebody to be coming into an office as–

**Aline:** A beta boss.

**John:** Yeah. A beta boss is sort of a new thing. Then we’re getting into his Native American heritage, which we’ll get into a little bit later on. He leads with the fact that he’s divorced and that he’s sort of flummoxed, that he’s easily sort of overwhelmed. So it’s an interesting, exciting character. I noticed that there’s actually very little scene description here. It’s mostly just a big run of dialogue.

**Aline:** Yeah. There’s probably more — this is a production draft, so if you went back to our pilot draft, I’m sure it’s filled with lovely crafted sentences. And then when you’re in production it’s like, “Who needs all that?”

**John:** But you’re still trying to keep up Rebecca’s story. So, Rebecca has moved here and she’s trying to find — doesn’t want to make it seem strange that she’s moved here. So she’s grabbing the brochures in place of business cards in case Josh sees her. It’s like, “Oh, well this is going to be my excuse for why I moved here. And I really do have a job here. I’m not just stalking you.” Even though she’s really just stalking him.

**Rachel:** Yeah, because there was a risk of this scene just being like kind of a typical sitcom, like meet the new boss at the new firm, and throughout it she’s checking her phone, checking her phone. We never wanted to drop the plot of the pilot.

**Aline:** And this is the big lie that’s revealed in — spoiler alert — but it’s revealed in a later episode, in episode nine, that this is a bunch of — she then tells people that Darryl recruited her. And like a lot of liars, Rebecca doesn’t bother to clean up her lies. Because the clean-up of the lie is often the thing that undoes the lie. So, she just lies and just thinks–

**John:** She lies and walks away from it.

**Aline:** Hopes for the best, right. And this one comes back to bite her on the ass. She never tells Darryl that it’s a secret, because it would undermine her. But she basically just said, you know, once he got that resume. But, part of Darryl thinks, “Oh, I deserve this. I’m wonderful. And this is one of the wonderful things I deserve. And I finally am getting something good.”

**John:** Yeah. Like he did The Secret, and he visualized this moment and now it’s come true.

**Aline:** Exactly.

**John:** You are his embodiment of a secret.

**Aline:** Darryl has multiple copies of The Secret, for sure.

**Rachel:** There was always this idea of Darryl putting on an identity because he didn’t know who he was. And so hence the one-eighth Chippewa thing. He’s searching for who he is. And we’ve dropped this a little with Pete’s particular portrayal, but this idea he thinks he’s — he’s kind of falsely sophisticated. And so the idea that he would deserve a Harvard lawyer.

Originally I think Darryl had a little bit more hubris. And now Pete has brought this sweet, sad, humbleness to it, but we always knew, even though he was kind of stock, that there was a deep sadness to Darryl. We just didn’t always know what it was or what it was rooted in.

**John:** And so how early on — this is a little spoiler for people who aren’t caught up on the show — the idea that he is bisexual, or discovers he’s bisexual. Did you know that when you were writing the scene, or was that just–

**Rachel:** Yes.

**John:** Okay, you knew that. Wow.

**Aline:** We knew very early on. And it was partly because Darryl’s sort of like search for identity and the amount of upset that he had about his divorce, but he doesn’t dislike his wife, he just feels really upset about the divorce and he really misses his daughter.

And we just started talking about like who would Darryl go out with and what would Darryl’s dating life be like and would he be interested in Rebecca. And that never really made sense to us. And also the thing about being bi is like it’s the only thing that I can think of that you work up an enormous amount of courage and you say to someone, “I’m bisexual,” and they go, “No you’re not. You’re not. No.”

You know, I mean, if you tell someone you’re gay, a negative reaction might be they were upset or they’re judgmental, but bisexual people confront someone going, “No, you’re not. No.” And that seemed like a good predicament for Darryl, because Darryl is always trying to find an identity, and people are always saying, “I don’t believe you. You’re not really that.”

And so what I love about where we went with that ultimately is that when he discovers he’s bisexual, that’s the first thing in his life that has really rung true for him. It’s really like, “That’s it.” And so that’s why he embraces it so fully. But we did know that here. But there were a lot of things in the show that because of the really detailed pipe cleaner art, that Rachel and I knew that we waited to reveal until — I mean, we still have stuff that we haven’t revealed, but we just waited a long time with Darryl for the right moment. We didn’t make it part of his shtick in other words.

**John:** Let’s talk about Paula, because she’s the second most important character in the show overall, because she ends up being the confidant, the buddy, the cheerleader. Like you’re on the road to destruction and she’s the one who says, “No, go faster. Go faster.”

**Aline:** Totally.

**John:** Let’s talk about Paula here. Because when we first meet her, it seems like she’s going to be a stock villain. She’s going to be the stock person who is taking you down. If this is 9 to 5, she’d be the Roz character who is going to stop you. And what I love about how you set her up is from the start we see her cubicle decoration, even though we’re not going to really catch that in the pilot, it’s important for it to be there so we sort of inform the choices about her.

But she’s telling us about herself, which is really telling us more stuff about Rebecca. “You see this resume? Harvard. Yale. Special skills: Mandarin.” Again, it’s reminding us, oh don’t forget, she’s actually really competent, which was crucial. You’re setting up Mrs. Hernandez, a character who never speaks, and who’s sort of like–

**Rachel:** And we know why that is by the way. And we’ll–

**Aline:** We’ll get there.

**Rachel:** We’ll get there.

**John:** You’ll get there eventually.

**Rachel:** I just want to say we know why that is. It’s not just a gag.

**John:** Not just a gag. All right.

**Rachel:** Put that out for all the haters. Because this audience is clearly full of haters.

**John:** But in her dialogue choices, you’re describing she’s getting a chance to say things that she actually knows about. And she’s obsessed with popular culture. Louboutins. She wants to be — she aspires to be the person who gets to talk about these things, and yet she doesn’t. So, when you were writing this character for the first time, did you have a sense of who that person was going to be cast down the road? It wasn’t written for a person, but it was just a type?

**Aline:** She was always an antagonist — she’s the antagonist of the pilot. She doesn’t get on board until the very end. Well, we cast — the widest net we probably cast was for Paula. We saw every kind of — I mean, we weren’t restricted. We were color blind in almost all our casting except for — no, we were pretty color blind in most of our casting.

**Rachel:** Except for Josh, who was specifically Asian.

**Aline:** Except for Josh was always supposed to be Asian. So, here’s my tip for you. If you are looking for the deepest pool of talent in the world, it’s women between the ages of like 38 and 58. I’m telling you.

**Rachel:** They’re unbelievable and they can all sing.

**Aline:** Literally people you don’t know can sing, so here’s the thing. When we cast Greg, there’s a lot of dudes, especially white dudes, who think they’re amazing. And have been told they’re amazing. And we saw more bad auditions. Like guys were like kind of handsome and someone said you should be an actor. We saw millions of those.

**Rachel:** Okay, wait. I just want to clarify. I think the thing, and this is actually really good to know for any actors out there, the problem with a lot of the people we saw for Greg was because they had in their heads, okay, I’m the like hot romantic lead, everything was really small. And everything — the wine bar is over on — and they’re basically falling asleep because someone had told them this is what naturalistic acting is. This is your role. You’re the romantic heartthrob lead. And that’s why–

**Aline:** But it’s also a supply and demand thing. I mean, if you’re a handsome Caucasian gentleman, you know, 30, plus or minus five, you’re on a TV show. You have your own TV show. They’re so in demand. Middle aged ladies, who are so talented — I mean, literally, women would come in and crush the scene, and then you could click on their singing thing and it would be like, wow, that was a really good sing. And then they would sing and it would be like — it was like that commercial, your hair would be blown back, by how good they sang.

We could have cast that part — I mean, Donna is amazing, amazing, amazing, and stood out even in that group, but I’m telling you, we saw women from all different backgrounds, in a 20 age range, and they were incredible.

**John:** Let’s talk about that age range, because it’s an interesting gap between the two of you. Because she’s not quite a mother figure, I mean, she’s old for being a friend, but she’s not quite a mother figure. It’s a really fascinating gap that I don’t see a lot in television.

**Aline:** Well, it’s not that different from our age gap.

**John:** All right. Is there a degree to which the nature of that relationship was your relationship, or that gap?

**Rachel:** Yes. I mean, I actually remember when I first pitched the character of Paula to you. Do you remember this? And my thinking was — I remember I was filming a web series in Westwood and I was eating lunch. And I was like Rebecca needs a best friend.

And I was like, well what’s like a best friend character we hadn’t seen. And I’ve been watching a lot of Frasier, which I always do. I love Frasier. And I was thinking about Niles is a more Frasiery Frasier than Frasier is. And I was like, oh, what’s Rebecca’s Niles? And then instantly I was like, oh, it would be someone who buys into all the shit that we’re trying to deconstruct with the show. Buying into romantic comedies and buying into like love, destiny, destiny.

And when I think of that, I think of like — I mean, the people now who are glued to their phones and Twitter and Snapchat, arguably more than 13 year old, are like 50-year-old women.

**Aline:** So it was like Minivan Moms. It was right around that time of 50 Shades and it was like Minivan Moms who have 50 Shades, Twilight, and some good vibrator. A good vibrator stashed somewhere. That was kind of the genesis of it.

And I think there’s a — the season finale is on Monday and Paula has–

**John:** Which you directed.

**Aline:** Which I directed.

**Rachel:** Ah yeah.

**Aline:** Paula has a huge number in it. And I have been talking to Donna about like I think there’s this vesuvial rage in middle age ladies, because I always feel like there’s three genders. There’s men, women, and women over 40. And it’s sort of like — and luckily we have Jennifer Lopez working on it. But I feel like — I just feel like there’s this age where women sort of disappear and people start to look through you. And Paula is the smartest person in our office. And she’s just as sexy and sexual as Rebecca is, but the world is telling her to sit down and shut up. And she doesn’t want to.

And so she doesn’t know how to do — what she decides to do ultimately is to live vicariously through her friend.

**John:** So, ultimately we’re going to find sort of Paula’s backstory life. In the pilot she’s just sort of the foil for Rebecca, but we’re going to find out her unhappy family life and why she’s so determined to act out. How much of that did you know going into this pilot about what her home life was going to be like and what her–?

**Rachel:** We knew a lot of it. I mean, I think that Paula is very much like a symbol of what happens to a dream deferred, right? And, again, there’s still stuff we know — I don’t know, the stuff, once we started talking about Paula it really came–

**Aline:** Yeah, I mean, one of the things, their dialectic, like Rebecca is sort of a person who makes terrible decisions and does things that are not great. But worries a tremendous amount about being a good person and seeming like a good person. And Paula could give a rat’s ass about that. Paula does not care about whether people think she’s a good person. She knows what she believes in and what she thinks are the things to do, and she’s very — she’s the Henry Kissinger of sexual politics. She is realpolitik above all.

And she thinks everybody in the world is out to get some, and get theirs, and that Rebecca should be doing that, too.

**John:** Well, also, Paula is a character who didn’t do all that stuff in her time. And so she made the safe choice every time and she’s regretted making those safe choices all those times. So she sees this character who will make wildly dumb choices all the time and is like, yes, you should do more of that. And it’s a very interesting choice.

Let’s jump ahead to page 14, which is the final scene with Paula and Rebecca. This is happening at a house party. Rebecca has gone there to try to find Josh Chan, because there’s legend that Josh Chan is going to be coming to this party. So, in the Showtime pilot she’s just started to give Greg a hand job and that didn’t go well. In the CW pilot–

**Rachel:** No, no, in the Showtime pilot, she’s actively blowing him.

**John:** Oh, that’s right.

**Rachel:** And crying on his dick. By the way, and then when I did ADR for it, I had to — honest to god — I got an unpeeled banana and I put in my mouth doing ADR.

**Aline:** The sound guys were so happy.

**John:** They didn’t have Foley they could go through for that? Or have some sort of like sound effects library for that?

**Aline:** Everyone was like we don’t want to ask her. I’m like, don’t worry about it.

**Rachel:** [laughs] Oh, there’s this great — oh, the teamsters story.

**Aline:** Oh my god.

**Rachel:** Oh, there’s this great story about — real quick. This has nothing to do with anything. So the original Showtime pilot, the whole, just picture the CW pilot, but the whole scene, instead of like about to give him a hand job, I’m actively jerking him off. Like the whole conversation is like, “So what, this is a great party, this is a great party.”

And so we’re in the car on a location, we’re in the van on a location scout in West Covina.

**Aline:** We’re in the van with a bunch of — I mean, we’re with the line producer, and the department heads, and the teamsters driving.

**Rachel:** Yeah. And with our director, Marc. And I said to Marc, we were talking about the hand job scene. Very earnest question. I was like, hey, so should I spit into my hand? And he was like–

**Aline:** No!

**Rachel:** He was like, “What are you talking about? What do you mean spit into your hand?” I was like, that’s how you give a hand job. And he was like, “No it isn’t.” And we had a whole argument in the car–

**Aline:** A whole argument.

**Rachel:** Of how to give a hand job. And we came to the conclusion that the way penises are, some people are like shaft tuggers, and other people — no, no, no, some people are, what is it?

**Aline:** Strokers and tuggers.

**Rachel:** Strokers and tuggers. Strokers and tuggers. Some people have excess skin where you don’t need…anyway.

**Aline:** So Rachel was about to turn to the teamster–

**Rachel:** This is for the scene. It’s really important.

**John:** Art.

**Rachel:** I need to know what Greg Serrano’s dick looks like. Like that’s really important.

**Aline:** They’re having a heated conversation. Rachel is about to turn to the teamster, who is the only other man in the van–

**Rachel:** And be like, “How do you like be jerked off?”

**Aline:** And she gets a text from our line producer saying, “You’re approaching actionable.”

**Rachel:** People have been sued for this. And we are saying it would have been the first time that an actress was sued by a teamster. [laughs] Anyways, so if you notice, I do not spit into my hand. Oh, no, you don’t know that. I don’t spit into my hand.

**Aline:** We’re going to try and put it up one day, because it’s a funny–

**Rachel:** It’s a great scene.

**Aline:** Quite funny scene with the actual hand job.

**Rachel:** And the sound effect of slapping. I don’t know where they got it. They wouldn’t tell us.

**John:** All right.

**Aline:** The CW scene is–

**John:** It’s a wet Shammy.

**Aline:** –amorous smooching. It’s amorous smooching.

**Rachel:** And at one point I’m like grabbing his nipples and stuff. I think I had my hand up his shirt.

**Aline:** Well, there was another thing, which was they finally start making out, and to do this scene, and our actor is so kind and respectful to Rachel that he’s not touching her boobs. And I turned to Marc, the director, I’m like there’s no way that anybody would be on a date with someone who looks like Rachel and the first thing they would do is get to the boobs. Like, you got to go tell him to touch her boobs.

**Rachel:** And I think you went up to Santino — this is obviously the show.

**Aline:** No, no, I didn’t. I told Marc. I said you got to go tell Santino that he needs to–

**Rachel:** Yeah, I think Marc was like, “Um, can you…can you touch her…touch her boobs?”

**Aline:** For the realism of the scene. Anyway.

**John:** Page 14. We are outside Beans’ house. Here’s a question for you, because I don’t honestly remember the pilot very well. So, Josh’s friends and Greg’s friends, are they all at this house? Did we meet them there?

**Rachel:** No. They are theoretically there. We just don’t–

**John:** We just don’t see them there. All right, so we’re at Beans’ house, front lawn, night. Rebecca and Paula walk out onto the front lawn. I’m sorry, we should say that Paula has tracked Rebecca down to this party.

**Aline:** By breaking into her computer.

**John:** Yes. And so that’s where we first learn that she is a hacker extraordinaire.

**Aline:** Yes.

**John:** Rebecca and Paula walk out onto the front lawn.

**Aline:** Is this far enough from the house?

**Rachel:** What are you doing here?

**Aline:** You think you are so much better than me. Harvard, Yale… I’m just as smart as you, Miss SnootyShoes…

**Rachel:** What are you TALKING about?

**Aline:** I’m talking about Josh. Chan? Joooooosh Chaaaaaaan?

**Rachel:** What? What do you know about Josh?

**Aline:** Let’s see, well, I know he lives in town, which is weird because you told me you didn’t know anyone here. And clearly you know him, you checked his Facebook 63 TIMES today. And his Instagram, 18 times.

**Rachel:** Have you been going through my computer?

**Aline:** Yes. Yes, I have.

**Rachel:** I could have you fired.

**Aline:** You lied to me–

**Rachel:** Lied to you? I didn’t lie to you! No one shoved a bible under my hand when I met you in the office.

**Aline:** –and you lied because whoever this Josh Chan is, you’re OBSESSED with him–

**Rachel:** WHAT?

**Aline:** You’re in love with him. Look at you. Look at those love eyeballs.

**Rachel:** Oh, “love eyeballs”, yeah.

**Aline:** You love him. You moved here for him. And you won’t admit it! Why?

**Rachel:** In love with him? That’s ridiculous. I barely know him. I dated him for a summer when I was 16. Okay, what are you saying? Let’s unpack it. You’re saying I uprooted my entire life, left behind a job that paid me…oh, there’s a typo. Paid me thousand dollars? I think $500,000 was it. Left behind a job that paid me $500,000. That’s right. For some random boy I haven’t seen in ten years who likes to skateboard and thinks “whatever” is two separate words? That makes no sense. Look, it’s simple.

**Aline:** Ten years?

**Rachel:** What happened was, I was in New York and I saw him and he made me feel all warm, like glitter was exploding inside me, and now I’m here. But I didn’t move here FOR him because that would be crazy. And I’m not crazy. Am I… crazy? Ohmygod. OhmyGod. Is that what I am?

**Aline:** Okay, stop. Stop it. Right now. You’re not crazy, you hear me? You’re in love. That’s different.

**Rachel:** I can’t be in love with him. That would mean I’m stupid.

**Aline:** You’re not stupid. You’re following your heart. That’s not stupid. You just shoulda told me, that’s all–

**Rachel:** No, no, I am, I’m stupid and emotional and irrational, I’m every rotten thing my mother says I am…

**Aline:** STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. Don’t you ever talk like that about my friend again, you hear me?

**Rachel:** We’re… friends?

**Aline:** I’d be proud to be your friend. Now that I know the truth? What you did for love? The sacrifices? You’re brave. Wish I’d been that brave at your age. Look, I get it, it’s a secret. I won’t tell a soul. But I’m here now. You’re not alone anymore. We are going to win this, you hear me? We won’t let what happened to Justin and Selena happen to you, I promise.

**Rachel:** You don’t understand. It doesn’t matter anymore. Josh has a girlfriend. Yeah, A GIRLFRIEND. Also, I texted him 46 hours ago and haven’t heard ANYTHING. So clearly all he cares about is his girlfriend. And not about me.

**Aline:** His Facebook status is SINGLE. If he was into her, would it say that?

**Rachel:** That’s what I said!

**Aline:** So maybe he doesn’t realize his true feelings right now, but if we play this right, one day he will. One day it’s gonna hit him like a ton of bricks and when that happens, HE WILL TEXT.

**John:** At that exact moment, a miracle. A CHIME FROM REBECCA’S PHONE. A TEXT MESSAGE.

**Rachel:** Are you a witch?

**John:** AND NOW TIME SLOWS DOWN. Slowly, Rebecca picks up the phone. Reads. Flips it around to show Paula.

**Aline:** Wanna grab dinner? Smiley face.

**Rachel:** IS THERE REALLY A SMILEY FACE???

**Aline:** THERE’S A SMILEY FACE.

**John:** HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Rebecca and Paula are blown away. Rebecca begins to sing. A reprise. The West Covina song.

**Aline:** Oh, no, no, you don’t want to hear me sing.

**John:** So, and then we get to the song, my favorite of the song of the whole series. West Covina. California.

**Rachel:** Do you want to do Paula’s part? Do you know it?

**John:** Yes, I do. But no. I don’t have all the words here. So, this is the turning point.

**Aline:** Yeah.

**John:** And honestly, if it were not for this scene, she would probably go back to New York City, don’t you think? What’s your hunch about what would happen next to Rebecca Bunch if Paula had not shown up here?

**Aline:** I think she would lock herself in her apartment for a week and go on a very deep dark dive. And then, yeah, and then just leave all her shit in the apartment, close the door, and take a flight back.

**Rachel:** Yeah. Wow.

**Aline:** We haven’t talked about that. But I think you’re right.

**Rachel:** We never talked about that.

**Aline:** Yeah. I think you’re right. But Paula is the fuel. She’s the person who tells her that this is okay. And what we love about it is it’s the mothering that Rebecca wants and needs, but it’s so wrong. It’s not right.

**John:** It’s the wrong mother.

**Aline:** It’s the wrong advice.

**Rachel:** It’s interesting reading the scene because, so this is the September — so this is hybrid. This script right now, it’s a hybrid of the original scene we had and then improvs that we did when we actually filmed it, because this was the shooting script for when we redid some stuff for the CW pilot. But the Paula and Rebecca scene, we didn’t reshoot that. So, it’s interesting, like on page 15, where it’s like “that would be crazy and I’m not crazy. Am I crazy? Ohmygod. Ohmygod.”

**Aline:** Those were improvs that we then put back into the script so that the script reflects the shooting of what we shot.

**Rachel:** And originally we were going to — it was — I mean, obviously in the scene it’s even longer, because the way that we wrote, I realized that emotionally to get to Rebecca panicking, it actually has to be a longer–

**Aline:** Ramp up.

**Rachel:** –build up. Yeah. And so we use a lot of improv on set, but especially in really heartfelt emotional scenes, because it — I don’t know, sometimes when you’re on set you feel the trajectory of a scene in a way that you can’t when it’s just on the page.

**John:** So, you’re a writer who is on set, and you are on set as well. So, when those moments happen, is it while you’re running through that you feel it first? I’m not going to be able to actually get to this moment and we need to stop and pause. And we need to ramp up?

**Aline:** No, Rachel just does — I mean, Rachel is the team leader, obviously, for the comportment of the actors, because she’s the EP and it’s her show. And so Rachel doesn’t do the scenes the same way ever. She always does something a little bit different and she always adjusts the lines and she often adds improv. And it’s super effortless. I’ve never seen her say I’m doing this or think about it. It’s just like what comes out of her. Like one of the lines here, where she says, “I like to you? Nobody shoved a bible under my hand.” That was an improv.

And what’s great about it is it’s very much on script, but it’s also improv, if that makes any sense. It’s always the intention of the scene, but it’s the sort of wonderful filigrees. And it really has freed up the other actors to do that. And we’ve just gotten wonderful, wonderful moments.

But it also keeps it very live. If you watch our dailies, they’re very live. There’s always, if we don’t have something, I mean, I have the vantage point of looking at all of Rachel’s performances in the editing room, and what’s amazing is there are some actors where like they’re so consistent, and that’s great, because you have what you have. But Rachel does so much variety and gives us so much variety that we can often make big adjustments in the performance because what she does is so flexible.

**Rachel:** And the thing, I just want to add one thing, I think that’s the biggest thing I learned as an actor watching people audition for my show, it didn’t matter if they were loyal to the commas. It didn’t matter if they got all the beats and like these reversals. The only thing that mattered was do I buy it. Do I buy them saying these words? And do I buy that these words are coming from their mouth? And so that taught me a lot going into the role. Like that’s the most important thing is to feel like these words are coming out.

And it’s actually taught me a lot about being an actor because I co-wrote this pilot, I had an ownership over the words where it was like I — it was an ownership over the words where like they were my words. And I’ve realized that that is the way that I and all actors should approach every script, as if you wrote it, so that you have a real ownership of the material, and the emotions, and you’re not doing an impression of what you think the writers want, or what you think the directors want.

**Aline:** So you’re interpreting, yeah.

**Rachel:** Yeah. You’re interpreting and you’re changing.

**John:** You’re channeling.

**Rachel:** You’re channeling in a way that feels authentic to you. And that every actor on our show does that.

**John:** So, to wrap up the discussion of character introductions, people we haven’t talked about here, Greg. We first meet him at the bar where he works, which becomes a standing set that you’re going to go back to a lot. What were the initial conversations about Greg and sort of what we need to know about him? Did you know what his plot function was going to be, or was he just this friend of Josh’s?

**Aline:** I mean, he is the guy who really knows what’s up very quickly. That’s basically his role in the pilot, was like he’s on to her very quickly. And he doesn’t care. And that’s the thing about dudes, like, some of them really like actively like women who are crazy. And men will say, “I like them crazy.” And Greg sees through her bullshit immediately, but is wildly attracted to it. And the crazier she is, the more into it he is. And because it allows her to reject him, and that’s what he wants ultimately.

He’s very comfortable in a space where he’s being rejected. Because the first thing he says to her is, “You’re beautiful, and you’re smart, and you’re not listening to me. So you’re obviously my type.” He knows right away that she doesn’t really — she’s so attracted to someone else 99% of the time, and so that was kind of the germ of his. But, again, because we saw so many people who read that scene so straight, that was the scene we were the most sick of in the auditions.

**Rachel:** Yeah. And I remember watching, because we cast a lot of our main cast out of New York. And so we were watching tapes. And I remember Santino’s audition came up. And before even watching it I was like, oh great, another white guy. Wonderful. I was just tired of white guys.

**Aline:** And she called me and said, yeah, I mean, he really took — he didn’t think he was going to get the part. He thought that we were going to cast some super uber beefcakey guy to play the part. So he kind of didn’t give a shit, and he came in and he did one audition on scene, and then he did one super riffy thing. And the riffy thing is what we used.

And then we had a funny thing. We sat down with Marc Webb when we were kind of down towards the end. And I hate to sell out Marc when I tell this story, but let’s just say Marc has insight into this character. And he gave us a couple of really great lines. I think the thing of like “you’re beautiful, and you’re smart, and you’re not paying attention to me” came from Marc.

**Rachel:** Well, that’s what happened. So we cast Santino, and part of the reason we cast him was he made these big choices with these lines. And he was actively like, “You from around here?” He really made these big, bold choices that felt fresh and unique and brought another depth, brought another dimension to Greg’s character.

And so I remember we’d already cast Santino. We were doing a final pass before the table read, and Marc happened to come by your house to hang out. And I was like, “Marc, I feel like we need to add — we need to add some sauce to this scene.” And Marc and I improvised together for like a couple minutes. And that’s where we got “You’re pretty, smart, and ignoring me. You’re obviously my type. Are you looking for an eight-year-old or an alcoholic? Because that’s what we got here.”

Marc really brought this doting bitterness.

**Aline:** Doting bitterness.

**Rachel:** Doting bitterness. In just improvising with him. So, yeah.

**John:** So the quality of Greg, that he’s like a grumpy old man who’s only 30, that’s–

**Aline:** That’s a combination of what the part was intended to be, what Santino brought to it, and that little germ of Marc that we got. But really no one is better at — if you guys don’t know, Santino who plays Greg is Hans from Frozen. And he’s really good at conveying sort of an arched eyebrow. Always.

**Rachel:** He plays high status. That’s his thing is to play high status, which was interesting because ultimately his character for most of the show is low status in that he’s on a leash by his dick when it comes to Rebecca, but doesn’t like that he’s on a leash by his dick.

**Aline:** So every line he’s ever said to Rebecca in the entire series, the parenthetical under it would be “you’re an idiot.” But he loves her, but he’s constantly telling her, “You’re an idiot,” which is how he shows love.

**John:** With future episodes, you talked a little bit about Rebecca’s dad, but can you give me an example of another character who had to be introduced over the course of the series who we first meet over the course of an episode, how do you get a beat on a character and then how do you communicate what that is supposed to be to casting so you get a sense of who that person is coming in?

I’m trying to think, over the course of the series, people you have introduced–

**Aline:** So like we have Trent, we have a character of Trent. And Trent is this guy that Rebecca doesn’t remember from college, but he remembers her really well, and he’s very in love with her. And the germ of that came about because we were bringing in this person who was like he’s Rebecca to Rebecca, and she thinks he’s horrible and creepy. And she doesn’t recognize her behavior in him.

And so he was very much — one of the things is most of the characters were conceived by Rachel and I in the pilot process. And then a lot of the other characters were conceived as the writer’s room developed. And Trent, being super weird and awkward, and wearing turtlenecks that he tucks into his pants, like anybody who’s been in a writer’s room knows he is room bait. So writing Trent was something that everybody in the room got very excited about and pitched in a lot of stuff about.

And then so we had this very weird guy, and we actually didn’t have the scene ready for casting, so we wrote a scene before we even had it in the script, and we sent it out. And then this — we saw a bunch of a people who were funny, and then we saw this guy Paul Welsh. It’s the hardest I think the writer’s room saw me laugh the entire — I wish we could put up his audition. I literally fell out of a chair.

**Rachel:** We can.

**Aline:** We should put it up. I laughed so hard. And he improvised things, like there was a line of like, “Do you want to watch a movie?” And then he said, “Do you like Tarantino? I don’t.” And I will tell you that we have enough Trent material from like the two days that he works to cut that episode 15 different ways, all of them hilarious.

**John:** It struck me as a crucial character, becomes he comes in in such a weird off angle. So, it’s a character who she’s found him on Facebook and claimed that he’s the boyfriend, never having met him. And then suddenly he shows up.

**Aline:** Right. And he knows her and he’s love in with her. And then there were other characters, like we always knew we had to do her mother. Her mother speaks in the pilot, but doesn’t have a role. So we always knew that was coming down the pike. And then Tovah is a more traditional, she’s a Broadway actor, and she’s a singer, and so we wrote this really specific thing. And she had to be Jewish. And so we looked for an actress who really was Jewish and who brought that to the part. And she looks a shocking amount like Rachel.

So Trent is sort of a room funny, but the part of the mother is a big deal. We spent a ton of time on that. That was a very important episode, because you see her incoming from the pilot, and if you’re a fan of the show and watching the show, you understand that Rebecca’s mother is the Bundt cake in which she was formed. And so–

**John:** There’s an Aline Brosh McKenna metaphor there.

**Aline:** There you go.

**John:** I was waiting for one.

**Aline:** There you go. So, it was really, that was a very important role. That was extremely important.

**Rachel:** But I just remembered, I mean I feel like, you’re talking about introducing a character, finding like what are the most important things of a character, it just — it’s like getting more and more specific. And so it’s like, well, what’s that one line in the first draft, it’s like what’s that one line that says everything that you need to know about them. And then we’ll get the actor in. And then we’ll get even more specific ideas.

And so then the dialogue will get even more specific. And with Tovah, there’s this final scene where she and Rebecca are yelling at each other in a mall, and Naomi Bunch says, “I want you to survive. Survival. Survival.” And that’s based on Tovah. Like that’s — we had these scenes written, and then I had an hour long conversation with Tovah on the phone where she talks a lot about the history of the Jewish people, and the state sponsored Pogroms, you know, of the Russian government. And her whole thing is like that’s why Jewish mothers are the way they are. It’s survival, survival, survival.

And we just wrote that in. Like what a great, she just kind of gave that to us.

**Female Audience Member:** Hi, so I’m a really big fan of the show, and you mentioned that Josh was initially supposed to be Asian, but you didn’t know what Asian specifically. And I’m Filipino and a lot of the jokes are insanely accurate. So I just wanted to know like–

**Aline:** So he was written to be Josh Chan.

**Rachel:** No, Josh Chang.

**Aline:** Josh Chang. And we saw Asian dudes of every description. And we always knew that whatever nationality he actually turned out to be, we would adjust it for that. And so Vinnie is Filipino and we liked the contrast of the name, so instead of doing the more Spanish sounding name, we were looking for a — so Chang doesn’t exist in the Philippines, but Chan is a name that some Chinese descent Filipinos have. So we changed it to Chan.

And then we just wrote to Vinnie and we have an amazing writer on staff named Rene Gube who plays Father Brah.

**Rachel:** Who plays Father Brah.

**Aline:** And he’s one of our staff writers. And he’s Filipino. And so we got so much of our specifics from Rene. I mean, about, you know, just Dinuguan, but also calling your aunt, Aunt [Ah-Tay] and we got so many specifics from him. It was a real, I have to say, real lesson for us in terms of like as we said a lot, we tend to write really specifically, so we were really specific about the bisexual thing. And we were really specific about the Filipino thing. And we really wanted it to be accurate.

And that’s something that I’ve done in my career with workplace stuff, where I’ve always done a ton of research because I want the people in that workplace to be like, “Oh my god, totally.” And with the Filipino thing we just did the same thing where we like drilled down. And now we have a whole company of the Chan Fan Bam. We have a whole company of Filipino actors. And Amy Hill, who is Filipino, but plays the mom.

**Rachel:** But it just, I mean, I think that situation especially with Rene giving us these specifics we otherwise never would have had just proves why diversity kind of starts — one of the places it starts is in the writer’s room because you don’t want to create like a false character and then just work it out in casting it.

**Aline:** Yeah, I mean, we had Vinnie. And Vinnie gave us also some things. And when the writers started, they all came in and had lunch with the writer’s room. And he and Rene right away had all these things. But the fact that his sisters are named Jayma and Jastenity, we wouldn’t have known that that’s a thing, where like they name the–

**Female Audience Member:** All the random Jay names. I was like, yes, dude, yeah.

**Rachel:** Like the made up names.

**Aline:** No matter in depth we would have done our research, we never would have gotten things that — so, one of the things I would say, I don’t know if you’re a writer, but being diverse is not a — you’re not asking people to hire you or consider you because they’re nice and they want to change the world. That’s a qualification. You know, that’s an experience of the world that most people don’t have. That’s something that’s great to have in the writer’s room people who are older and younger and female and male and gay and straight and bi and trans and, you know, from the Midwest. You’re looking for a wide variety of people.

That’s the best writing is going to come from — no, I’m not kidding. The best writing is going to come from a room where not everybody is from the same background. And so, I mean, we even like have a writer from Ohio. We have a writer who–

**Rachel:** The Midwest being the most diverse.

**Aline:** Who spent part of her life in South Africa. I mean, you’re drawing on life experiences, so for us it’s like it’s a benefit and a qualification to find people who have had diverse life experiences, because you’re trying to write about a world that has a diversity of experiences in it. And there’s even little things, like sometimes we’ll stipulate the character should be overweight, because otherwise they won’t bring you someone who is, you know. So, we kind of try and stipulate that.

But, you know, I would say I think it’s a huge qualification and asset to have an unusual background.

**Female Audience Member:** Oh, thank you.

**John:** Thanks.

**Aline:** You know, the thing I will say, it’s funny, because sometimes people say, you know, you discovered Rachel or whatever. Rachel was doing amazing work. It was just a matter of time. I mean, what she was doing so brilliant, and so funny, and so amazing. I just maybe sped up the process by a little bit, because what she was doing was such standout work.

And I have to say every day that we work on this show, it’s like such a privilege to work with somebody who is so smart, wise beyond her years, the kindest person. She’s so beloved on the show. But so sensible. I mean, we’ve been in stressful — when we started, Rachel was 26 years old. And as you guys have heard, I’m the old lady on the hill. I’ve seen it all.

And we’ve been in some situations which were very weird and stressful, where people said really weird things and acted in a strange way. And she’s just like so mature and so sensible, in addition to being so incredibly talented in sort of like a visionary way. You know, I feel like in a lot of ways she discovered me. I feel like I got a chance to do this and play in this sandbox that I never would have gotten to play in otherwise.

**John:** Aw. That’s a nice way to leave it tonight. So, Aline, Rachel, thank you so much for being on this.

**Aline:** Thank you, John.

**Rachel:** Thank you, John August.

**John:** And thank you guys. Thank you.

Links:

* The [Writers Guild Foundation](https://www.wgfoundation.org/)
* [Aline Brosh McKenna](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112459/) on episodes [60](http://johnaugust.com/2012/the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes), [76](http://johnaugust.com/2013/how-screenwriters-find-their-voice), [100](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-100th-episode), [101](http://johnaugust.com/2013/101-qa-from-the-live-show), [119](http://johnaugust.com/2013/positive-moviegoing), [123](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-holiday-spectacular), [124](http://johnaugust.com/2013/qa-from-the-holiday-spectacular) [152](http://johnaugust.com/2014/the-rocky-shoals-pages-70-90), [161](http://johnaugust.com/2014/a-cheap-cut-of-meat-soaked-in-butter), [175](http://johnaugust.com/2014/twelve-days-of-scriptnotes), [180](http://johnaugust.com/2015/bad-teachers-good-advice-and-the-default-male), [200](http://johnaugust.com/2015/the-200th-episode-live-show), [219](http://johnaugust.com/2015/the-one-where-alines-show-debuts), [231](http://johnaugust.com/2016/room-spotlight-and-the-big-short) and [242](http://johnaugust.com/2016/no-more-milk-money)
* [Rachel Bloom](http://www.racheldoesstuff.com/) and on [IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3417385/) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs8sqIPEhf8lqM2C8rTVfYg)
* Aline and Rachel on [Scriptnotes, 175: Twelve Days of Scriptnotes](http://johnaugust.com/2014/twelve-days-of-scriptnotes)
* [Crazy Ex-Girlfriend](http://www.cwtv.com/shows/crazy-ex-girlfriend/?play=caa8daf4-44a2-4e03-8117-981c890386ff) on CWTV.com
* Follow along at [johnaugust.com/crazy](http://johnaugust.com/crazy) or on [Weekend Read](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/weekendread/)
* [West Covina](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKnWw7ou4ik) from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2016/pitching-an-open-writing-assignment).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Sexy Craig.

**John:** And this is Episode 248 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the show we’ll be talking about how you pitch on an open writing assignment, plus we’ll try to tackle the question of whitewashing Asian roles in feature films.

**Craig:** Mm, yeah, that does sound kind of sexy.

**John:** Oh no.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Sexy Craig can’t be here for the whole episode.

**Craig:** No, Sexy Craig doesn’t last that long.

**John:** No. Let’s do some follow-up. So, last week’s episode was the Lawrence Kasdan show which was great. Thank you everyone who wrote those nice tweets about how much they enjoyed the show. We really enjoyed recording it. Thank you to the Writers Guild Foundation and The Academy for having us host that little Q&A session.

**Craig:** It was great. And Larry was in fine form.

**John:** He was. I would say if I had anything I would improve about that episode is Lawrence Kasdan is an incredibly talented screenwriter. He is not a good holder of microphones. And so even as we were recording the show, I wanted to grab the microphone — I wanted to have Stuart just come up and hold the microphone in front of him so he wouldn’t wrestle it around so much. If there’s you noise you hear on the track, that’s entirely Lawrence Kasdan.

**Craig:** Yeah, but it adds to his charm.

**John:** It does absolutely add to his charm. Also I thought we did a good job visually. If like this was a TV interview, we finally figured out like, oh you know what, we shouldn’t straddle the guest. We should actually both be on the same side looking at them. Because so often as we do live shows, the guest will be in the middle and we’ll get sort of like ping-ponged back and forth between us. And this time, we did the Kelly and Michael way of sitting together and talking to our guest.

**Craig:** Yeah. I don’t mind straddling my guest.

**John:** Oh no. I walked right into that.

**Craig:** I don’t know why you did that.

**John:** It’s going to become the “that’s what she said” of the podcast.

**Craig:** [laughs] Sexy Craig is always there. You know, the thing about Sexy Craig is he doesn’t show up a lot, but when he shows up, he really is irrepressible.

**John:** Yes, that’s true.

**Craig:** And you have no idea what to do with him. You are at a loss.

**John:** I am at a loss. I’m flummoxed when Sexy Craig shows up.

**Craig:** Yep.

**John:** Last week was also special because it was a two episode week. We put out that little special Gold episode, the Gold Standard episode, which was really fun and random.

**Craig:** It was fun. Yeah.

**John:** So the reason we did that was because we changed something with the feed. Basically we changed the URL for the feed and things had to redirect. And it seemed to work. No one has written in with complaints saying that they lost the episodes, so hooray.

I don’t know that we’ll do more little special things, but it was kind of fun talking about like non-screenwriting things, and doing something short. So if people have suggestions of things you would like me and Craig to talk about, maybe we would do one again.

**Craig:** Yeah, it was fun. It’s fun also because I feel like you and I are both eternal students. So we like learning new things, so that’s fun. I’m really glad that the redirect worked because, you know, we had a big episode coming up. I didn’t want anyone to miss the Larry episode, so that’s great.

**John:** That was our real worry. Also, this last week I talked to Justin Marks, the screenwriter behind Jungle Book. I did a Q&A at the Writers Guild screening for the film. And so we did a half-hour conversation. It was really fantastic. So, Craig, I don’t think you’ve listened to that episode yet, but it’s just a half an hour that we put up in the premium feed. And I had sort of known this when I was talking to Justin while the whole process was going on, but they ended up writing it and sort of making it much more like an animated film.

So, he talks through about how — basically he was sequestered in an office at Disney for a very long time, and he would have to write and pitch, and write and pitch, and put up big art boards on the wall, and pitch Sean Bailey and Alan Horn through the whole movie for a long time before they actually said, “Okay, write a script,” or they got a director on board. And that whole process ended up being very much an animation process.

So, even though the movie is kind of live action, it’s very much how you would make an animated movie, rather than how you’d make a live action movie. It was a great conversation.

**Craig:** That is fascinating. And very interesting to me, just the creation of it, because I have a movie — the script that I’ve written for Lindsay Doran, and it’s a bit like Babe, you know, murder mystery involving sheep. And one of the questions was can you make animals now properly perform, you know, CGI animals. And whereas in Babe they used real animals and just did the old mouth movement thing which was fine, but people sort of are expecting a little bit more than that now. And it also limits your performance from the characters themselves, the animals. If they’re just real, it’s not like they can raise an eyebrow or anything, you know.

And this, I think, Jungle Book was the first movie — I think it’s historic — I think it’s the first movie where you now have what appear to be photorealistic animals that are acting. And apparently Weta handled the apes, but MPC is the company that did most of the work on the other animals. And remarkable stuff. Really amazing.

**John:** Yeah. So in our conversation, Justin talks about how it wasn’t until they really got their first test footage back from the animals that they knew what degree the animals could act. And before that point they were still debating how much of the emotion are we going to have to play on the boy’s face versus playing on the animal’s face. And once they got these tests back they’re like, oh, we can actually see reactions in the animal’s faces in ways that were just not possible before this.

**Craig:** Pretty amazing stuff.

**John:** Progress.

**Craig:** Yeah. It is real progress.

**John:** So I’ll also put a link in the show notes to this YouTube video that has Jon Favreau, the director, talking about the process of how they shot — basically in this big warehouse downtown they shot everything with motion capture. And they went back months later and shot the boy again, sort of in full costume, and sort of inserted him into scenes. So that whole process was really strange and groundbreaking, but just terrific.

So I’ll put a link in the show notes to that video as well.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Well, let’s transition to our big topic today, which is how you pitch on an open writing assignment. This is something that came up this week for me because you and I have both gone in, we’ve had these meetings where they’re looking to hire someone to adapt a certain property. And in general, an open writing assignment, just so we have sort of terms defined, an open writing assignment is something that a studio or producer, but generally a studio, is looking to hire a writer to do. So, this could be an adaptation of a book. It could be an adaptation of an existing piece of property like a TV series or a remake of a film. Or it could be a rewrite. It could be a script that they’ve already purchased and they’ve done work on, and they’re looking for someone else to come in and do more work.

We define open writing assignment differently than you going in to pitch an original idea, which is a completely different beast. So, an open writing assignment basically means there is a job out there, and we are going to hire someone to do this movie, to write this movie for us. And sometimes you’re meeting with multiple writers and figuring out which writer is the correct writer to hire.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Usually, Craig and I are the people go in and pitch on those jobs, but this last week I got to be in the room for a couple people pitching movies to me. So, I’m a producer on this film and I got to hear the pitches of these different people coming in to pitch on the same property. And that was actually fascinating, because I got to see what it looks like from the other side of the table. And they were all great.

And so I really liked sort of all the people who came in, but they were just so different. And I thought this would be great to have a conversation about what kinds of things you need to be sure you’re doing if you’re going in to pitch on an open writing assignment.

**Craig:** What a great topic. OWAs as they’re called, they land at the agencies, right. So a studio — let’s take a step back and talk about the birth of an open writing assignment. Sometimes it begins because a studio executive has a general idea or a piece of property. And it is agreed at the studio that somebody should write a screenplay, but if they can come up with an impressive take. But they don’t necessarily want to go to some big shot writer.

So, that becomes an open writing assignment. It is sent to all the agencies. At each agency, there are agents that cover a studio. So they have their own clients, of course, but they’re also responsible for fielding those general incoming calls from the studio. Sometimes an open writing assignment occurs when a writer has been let go because the project isn’t working, and they want to restart or come up with a new thing. And so the open writing assignment call goes out.

**John:** Indeed. And so also to differentiate, a lot of times the stuff that Craig and I are seeing, they are coming specifically to us, maybe exclusively to us, and that’s because we’ve made a lot of movies. Typically earlier in your career, you get out sent out for these open writing assignment to try to land these jobs. And so the writers I was meeting with are people who’ve actually gotten movies made, but they’re not sort of big, giant established writers yet. And so that’s why they’re going into these meetings.

**Craig:** Yeah. And that’s important to know, too, when you go out for open writing assignments, because I don’t really do that, John doesn’t do that. So, on the one hand, here’s good news, your competition is not A-list screenwriters, because they’re generally not coming in for OWAs. But also then you need to know that the net will be cast fairly widely and so you may not have star competition, but you’re going to have a great quantity of competition.

**John:** Absolutely. So, let’s talk about what things you need to do before that meeting ever happens. And so this is what I want to define as understanding the property, or like what is it that they’re trying to actually make. So, the questions you need to ask is why would the studio want to make this movie. What is it that they see in this property that they feel is a movie? What do you think they see as the movie they could actually release in theaters? Because if you don’t understand what they’re looking for, you’re very unlikely to be able to deliver it to them.

Ask yourself what are the required elements. And so, if you’re coming in to pitch on Ghostbusters, or some sort of adaptation of Ghostbusters, or an expansion of Ghostbusters, well Ghostbusters are going to have to some Ghostbusters in them. They’re going to have to have ghosts. They’re going to have to have certain minimum requirements for what is a Ghostbusters.

Same thing with Charlie’s Angles. It has to somehow involve the talent agency. It’s going to have to involve Charlie’s Angels, and probably three angels. What would you have to have in there in order for it to be Charlie’s Angels?

Or, if you pitching on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, there’s going to have to be a Mr. Toad and there’s going to have to be a ride quality. And if you have a great idea for a movie, and you think like, oh, I could maybe bend this to become Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, make sure you really are pitching something that fits the title or fits the name of — fits the idea behind what the property is.

**Craig:** All good advice. And it goes again to how the open writing assignment was created. Somebody in the studio needs you, the pitcher, to come and give them this wonderful ammunition that they can then walk down the hall and say I think we found the person who has cracked this.

In order to do that, you need to be cognizant of what it is that they want, because that’s the filter through which cracking it is going to be viewed. So, in addition to the notion of what is it that they need, the other thing that I would think about a lot when I went out for these things is what is my unique perspective on this.

Because if I don’t have one, I’m not going to get the job. Everybody can come in and give the generic version, right? So, better that I come in with a point of view. That point of view, if it’s incompatible with what they want, I’m not getting the job. But if I don’t have one, I’m also not getting the job.

**John:** I think it’s always worth asking what is sort of the minimum viable product version of this idea, or what is the bad version of this idea? And just think through what that is, because that’s what everybody else is going to probably be pitching. If you’re going to pitch the down the road middle version of that idea, and if that’s as far as you get, and that’s all you have for an idea of what to do with this property, you should probably just back out. Because it’s unlikely to get you through to the next level, and you’re going to burn a lot of time pitching this sort of like “eh” version of the movie.

You should only go after it if you have an exciting, interesting take. Something that you are excited to have the opportunity to write. And so the pros and cons. Going after one of these jobs — it gets you in the room. It gets you talking with these people. It gets them thinking about you as a person they could hire. Even if they don’t hire you for this job, they might hire you for something else. They might think you’re really interesting.

But if you’re pitching them something that is just sort of blandly generically a version of that idea, they’re unlikely to be so excited about you for the next thing.

**Craig:** You know, this is where I think — this podcast actually transcends screenwriting, and now we can just talk about life and life strategies. I don’t care what it is that you do in the world. If you do not manage to make yourself distinctive, you will be ignored. And the key to making yourself be distinctive is to actually have a point of view. To have a perspective. To have something about which you’re passionate in your field and whatever you’re going for.

That is what gets noticed. What they’re looking for — they’ll tell you what they’re looking for, but they don’t know what they’re looking for. What they’re looking for is a sense of excitement, comfort, this person has got it, they’re going to get it, they’re going to deliver something interesting or special. Understand every time you stick your neck out with your point of view, there’s a chance it will get lopped off because someone will say, “Why would I ever do that specific thing?”

But, there is no success without being specific. I do believe that. So, you roll the dice on these open writing assignments. You go in there thinking, well, if they don’t like my specific angle on this, I don’t get the job. But there’s no point in playing it safe on these things. None.

Precisely for the reason you just mentioned. Maybe you don’t get this job because they don’t like your specific take here, but they just might like you and the fact that you have specific takes.

**John:** Yeah. This is essentially a job interview. So whether you’re a feature writer going in for an open writing assignment, or you are a television writer going out for staffing, you need to be able to approach that meeting with an understanding of what they’re expecting — so it’s sort of what that minimum threshold is — and you probably already crossed that minimum threshold because you’re in that room in the first place.

So, then, look for what is unique about your take and you as a writer, something like, you know what, this is the person I should take the chance on writing this script. Because unlike sort of hiring somebody to work at Starbucks, they’re only going to hire one person. Or they’re only going to hire one person at a time, unless we’re doing some sort of crazy writer’s room. So, they want to know can I trust this person to deliver. And so they’re going to trust the person who seems prepared, who seems to have an interesting idea for how to do this thing. Who seems like a good person to work with.

Those are the qualities you’re trying to convey while you’re in this meeting while still pitching a three-act movie to them that hopefully makes sense and is engaging. So there’s a lot you’re trying to do simultaneously here.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm. When I talk to studio executives or producers about certain projects, sometimes I’ll just say, “Oh, what are you guys doing?” And they’ll say, “Well, we’re doing this thing, and we have a writer who came in and just really impressed us.” And when they describe what impressed them, almost always what they talk about is that person’s love for it. And their passion for it. And their enthusiasm for it. That’s what they respond to.

And you may say, “Well, if you’re going to make a movie about the Rubik’s Cube, you know, who really loves the Rubik’s Cube that much?” Well, if you don’t love it that much, don’t do the movie. Just don’t. Because, look, they’re the ones who are supposed to be cynical and money-grubbing, right? So, okay, I’ll give you an example. I’m not going to say what the title is, but there’s a children’s book that we all know that we’ve read to our very small children. Everyone.

And a studio decided — they owned it and they wanted to make it. And they wanted to make it very much because they did calculations. That’s why. They didn’t care that much about the character and the book, or the book itself, but they did their calculations, they ran their numbers, and they saw that it could be very profitable. And so one of the people they talked to about it was me. And I just have no passion whatsoever for that.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** They’re okay with that. They respect that. They move on. You can’t be matching their cynicism. That’s their job. And they are not looking for somebody to be like them. They’re looking for somebody to be actually emotionally invested.

**John:** Exactly. There was a big project years ago that it was between me and one other writer for it. And it was a big high profile thing. And we both pitched our hearts out on it and he ended up getting it. And the word I got back was that like, oh well see, ultimately they felt like he was a super fan. He was a super fan of that property. And ultimately they just felt like, you know, they kind of liked some things in your pitch better, but they thought this is the guy who will kill himself for this, and they went with him.

And I get that. I understand that. There’s definitely been things where like my being a super fan made me the right person to do that job. Charlie’s Angels was a great example. I knew every little bit of Charlie’s Angels. And I knew what that movie wanted to feel like. And I was enthusiastic about it in a way that no other writer was going to be.

**Craig:** See, that’s exactly it. The whole, I don’t know, art of matching writers to projects so often comes down to that. You know, Max Landis, just sold a big — he sold like four big screenplays or something in a week.

**John:** Yeah, we had that conversation about like, oh, is the script market dead. And then Max Landis sells four things.

**Craig:** I think the spec market is dead unless you’re Max Landis. But, it’s so evident to me when I look at him — every now and then I’ll see a video or something of him. And it’s so evident to me that the reason that he’s successful, and forget, you know, I think whatever his success is on the other side of it has to do with an ability to write well. But on the front side of it, which is convincing people to buy something, or to hire him for something, his passion for whatever he’s talking about is just so evident.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And so of course they hired you to write Charlie’s Angels because you loved it. And it wasn’t like a fake love. It’s like when Dan and Dave who do Game of Thrones, when they met with George Martin to basically say, “Hey, would you let us — would you give the rights over and let us do this?” They said he had one question for them and it was, “Who do you think Jon Snow’s mother is?”

**John:** Hmm.

**Craig:** And they answered and they answered well, apparently. You know, he needed to know like do you love this because the worst thing you can do I think — if I were an executive, the thing that I would be the most terrified of is hiring somebody who just was looking for a check. You know?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** You do that later when, okay, we have a movie. We need somebody to come in and kill for us on the third act, or this character, or production work. That’s, sure. But that’s far along, right? The basis of it needs to be somebody who loves it.

**John:** Yeah. And you and I have both done that work where we come in and we do that sort of craftsman work of fixing small problems, but I’ve definitely been that craftsman in movies that I never should have or would have been the first writer on because I don’t have the passion for it. I don’t have the — I’m not going to kill myself every morning waking up to try to write another draft of that movie.

**Craig:** Exactly. Exactly right.

And maybe that’s hard for non-writers to understand. Because the thing is it’s not like you and I don’t care about those jobs and doing the best we can when we do those jobs. That’s why we take them. But, there is — and it sort of ties back to the Huntsman. There’s an emotional difference, right? When you’re saying, “No, no, no, don’t let anyone do this. I have to do this.” Right? “I love this, I need this.” That’s a different deal.

And so that’s what they’re looking for on these things.

**John:** So let’s talk about when you actually get in the room and sort of how you are starting your pitch and sort of what the most crucial elements of that pitch process are.

I think you have to start — again, this is me watching on the other side of the table — you have to talk about what you’re going for quite early on. So like what the movie feels like for you. And this is where it’s okay to use references. I try to avoid the “it’s this meets that,” but it’s great to say, you know, “What I loved about this movie was the way they did XYZ.” Or talk about — we had the conversation with Lorene about movie touchstones, like the things you always bring up in the room.

So like The Burbs if you’re Lorene Scafaria. It’s absolutely fine to do that as sort of the early getting people comfortable with what you’re about to say, because as long as what you’re saying is going to match your pitch, it just gets them sort of seated in a comfy chair so they can actually hear what you’re about to say.

I think talking about in a general sense of like what the tone and the goal of your pitch is at the very start is really crucial, because in some of the pitches that have not gone so well I didn’t quite know what kind of movie I was signing up for. And in the case of this property, there’s a lot of different ways you could go, and if I didn’t know which way they were going like two minutes into it, I was nervous. And worried for them.

**Craig:** Yeah. No question. The way you’re talking about starting here, the big picture, also helps them key into where your passion is. Because generally speaking, your passion isn’t going to be in story structure. Your passion is going to be in the theme and the characters and the feeling of the movie. And these things are the big things that they will then convey.

You’re probably not going to sit in a room with the head of the studio and spit out your scene by scene structure. They’re going to call it a few moments that made sense and they’re going to tie them back into this part here, the big picture of why you want to write this.

**John:** Absolutely. And so to me every pitch that I’ve heard that’s worked, they started with a clear sense of who the characters are, and sort of who we’re going to be following. And so that’s obviously you’re protagonist. This is the person who most of the movie is going to be on their shoulders. But also the surrounding world, just so they’re specific.

And you don’t have to sort of necessarily cite actors, but you should describe them in a way that I can picture somebody playing that part. It’s worth spending a little time on who those people are and sort of what they’re like. And give us a moment very early on in the pitch that shows their personality and shows their unique thing, so that essentially if the plot of the movie never started, I would still find that character interesting. I would still want to be in a story with that character.

And so often pitches will start with just like plot, plot, plot, plot, plot, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be following. I don’t know where my entry place is to this individual story.

**Craig:** Yeah. You can certainly start with a kind of cold open “wah” right, but once you get the “blah” out of the way, stop, and give me the characters. And then, as you’re going through and you’re talking about how you would approach this open writing assignment, focus all of the plot and all of the set pieces and the things you want to do through the lens of character. All of it.

People relate to character. The story parts, they’ll want. Believe me, they’ll be happy to say, “Oh good, you have a set piece. Oh good, you have this. Oh good, you have that.” But focus it through the character. It will make them appreciate it so much more.

**John:** Yeah. And as you’re crafting your pitch and you’re trying to make sure that all these points are focused through your character, you’ll start to recognize like, oh, is that really a character, or is that just a trope I’m putting in there. And so if you feel like it’s sort of a stock character who is, god forbid it’s your hero who feels like that stock character, but if it’s really that secondary person who you’ve just sort of shorthanded and you sort of used a trope for them, it’s going to feel really obvious as you’re working through your pitch. Like, oh, I don’t really have anything for that. I’m just sort of like pasting another character from some other movie into that spot.

You have to really make sure that it feels specific to the story you’re about to pitch. And that the choices that the characters are making match the overall description, overall sense of tone and what the movie feels like from the start. The worst thing that can happen in a pitch is where a bunch of stuff just happens to your protagonist, and you feel like they are just witnessing the movie happening in front of you.

**Craig:** And that would be an indication that the person pitching has not really thought this through. And behind that even, I hate to say it, but maybe doesn’t have the passion that they’re advertising they have. Because I’m not sure how to love the idea of writing something if I don’t know the beginning and the end.

And I don’t know the beginning and the end in any other way other than through the lens of character. So, I need to understand these things. And therefore I will never end up pitching something episodic because my passion won’t let me. My passion is telling me do this instead. These are the reasons why these characters must be doing this.

**John:** Yeah. And if you do find yourself pitching television, when you pitch television, you pitch a pilot, you really are pitching the characters. You’re pitching the characters and their situation. You end up pitching the episode, like sort of what happens in the pilot, but it’s mostly what you’re pitching is these are the characters, this is the world.

In the case of a feature, here you’re pitching this is the situation these great characters find them in which happens to be the perfect way to explore this property or this idea that you’re bringing me in for.

So, I think it’s also really crucial that whatever the property fundamentally is, get to that quickly. Don’t wait 15 minutes to get to the thing that is the thing. So, if you’re pitching an adaptation of that great game Star Raiders for the Atari 800, you have to attack the base pretty soon in the story, or else it’s not Star Raiders. It’s not the thing we went into.

If you’re pitching the Towering Inferno and you spend the first third of your pitch out in the desert, well, that’s not the towering inferno. That’s not — we’re basically going to be kind of discounting everything you said because that’s not the thing that you are supposed to be pitching.

**Craig:** Well, also, you’ll start boring people. You can’t be boring, right? So, obviously the primary component of boredom is a poorly thought out story that is episodic and the characters feel like they’re watching the story and it’s a lot of “and then, and then, and then, and then.”

The other component of being boring is you talking too much. It’s too long, right? I’m kind of curious, what were the lengths of pitches that you saw?

**John:** These pitches were all about 20 minutes, I would say. And some of them were writing teams and they would just sort of hand off the talking points in — actually all of the pitches I heard, they were fully written beforehand. And so they were referring back to a document and sort of going through stuff. And they were rehearsed. These pitches didn’t invite a lot of “let’s come in and stop you for a question.”

Actually, when I pitch things, I love to be able to — I plan for places where it’s very natural for them to ask a question. I can sort of anticipate what the question is going to be, so they feel engaged, so they’re actually asking questions about what’s going to happen next that the characters would want to ask. These were much more off of paper, but they were pretty good versions of off the paper.

How about you? When you’re pitching something, what’s your structure?

**Craig:** Very much like yours. I never go off of paper, in part because I never want to seem like I’m pitching. My goal when I’m pitching something is you didn’t know that you just got pitched something. We just had a conversation. And through the conversation, I demonstrated the possibility of a movie.

And the reason for that is, well, a bunch of reasons. One, if you’ve rehearsed something, it feels a little sweaty, even if the context is “come and pitch me something,” it feels a little sweaty to me. And, two, because it should be a conversation. I don’t like sitting and listening to somebody describe a movie to me. I like walking through it with somebody and having us connect on why we both want to do this, right? I’m trying to figure out also why they want to do it. And I’m trying to show them where my passion is.

The last thing I want to do is walk through a whole bunch of story if I think like, oh, they don’t really like this. So, it’s not necessarily what everyone can do, but the less rehearsed you are frankly the better. Because there’s a certain artifice to it. And subconsciously I think people are looking for writers who feel confident and the rehearsed quality can cut into that a bit.

**John:** The best thing about the conversational aspect of a pitch is that the things that you said were very important when you set out your pitch, like these are the things I really wanted to focus on, it invites circling back to what those things are that are very important. And so this project I pitched recently, I could sort of have three bullet points for like these are the things I really want to hit. These are things that really spoke to me about the property. And we get to a place and it’s like, “Oh, I see what you’re doing there. It’s because of this.” It’s like, yes, exactly. I think this is a really great way to sort of get into this thing. And it gets them involved in the process.

Now, that said, next week’s episode we’re going to have Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom talking about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And they ended up having to pitch to like seven studios and it was a very rehearsed pitch. And Aline tells a story of how they were pitching one place and she just like flubbed one of the jokes. Like it was a practice joke, but she just flubbed it. And one of the guys who was in the room with her who had heard the pitch a bunch of times just goes, “Ugh.” She’s like “Audible sigh, oh, you whiffed that joke.”

And so there are situations in which really rehearsing it may make sense. The key is not to make it feel like you’re giving a performance. Make sure it feels like it really is a conversation.

**Craig:** Yeah. The nice thing is that when you allow, conversationally allow questions to be asked, the answer that you give in response to a question is so much more powerful than if it is just given. Because it implies that you’ve thought this through.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And you’re sharing something with them. And you’re also picking up on some things that they’re interested in. I’m very much about that. And you can just start the conversation by asking them a question, you know.

**John:** And then it’s possible to sort of circle that back in as you’re giving your pitch, then it’s clear that you are thinking about the same things that they are thinking about.

**Craig:** You’re also not just there to recite to something. You’re actually listening to what they have to say.

**John:** The last thing I’ll say is in terms of the pitch itself, when you’re actually describing the story, make sure you stick the landing. And this is sort of from my own bad history. There have been times where I’ve come in with a really strong opening, and the first act is great, and I’m sort of getting through those middle sections, and then I just don’t — I hadn’t thought through how I was going to close up the conversation of the story. Basically what the last things of the movie are going to be or sort of how we’re leaving it. And if that last bit is bad, they sort of remember the last bit.

So, if you’re going to practice anything, practice how you think you’re going to get out of it, or at least a couple ways to get out of your story, so that you can actually put some closure on it so it just doesn’t fizzle out here. So it doesn’t just sort of fade into nothingness.

Make sure it’s clear when you’ve reached the end of your story.

**Craig:** If you finish a pitch and then there’s silence and then someone says, “Oh, was that the end,” you’re not getting the job. The easiest way I think to approach this is to look at your story like a circle and when you get to that end, close the circle. And just say, “So, the person who wants blah, blah, blah now dah, dah, dah.”

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** And there’s the circle, right? Just a way for them to see like, okay, yeah, this is of a piece. It’s not an “and then, and then, and then.”

**John:** Yeah. So, you’re done pitching the story, and this is where I think the actual most crucial part of the process is, which is where you’re listening to what they’re saying and what they’re asking you. And if they’re asking you very specific questions about things that are in your pitch, that’s a really good sign, because that means there’s something that they are fascinated about or curious about in your pitch and they wanted more details. That’s amazing and that’s awesome.

If they are asking a question that speaks to your general idea of your pitch, that’s not a good sign. That means they fundamentally wonder if you’ve pitched them the wrong thing or the wrong approach, the wrong take. So be very mindful of the kinds of questions they’re asking, but then also try to answer them and try to make it clear that you can think on your feet, that you are flexible, that you actually have interesting ideas. That you are willing to defend — not defend — to explain your intention while still being open to other possibilities.

**Craig:** Well, I think it’s okay to defend certain things. I mean, remember that this is a job that it’s you don’t have. That means you also don’t — you could say no, too. Right? I mean, nobody is tied up yet. So, if there is something about your pitch that is that kind of beating heart, it’s okay to just say, “Well, if that’s not working for you, that’s probably — I may not be the right person.”

You don’t have to say that. You don’t have to give up the job in the room. You could just say, “Well, you know, that to me is where my passion comes from is that concept. But I can see what you’re saying about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And you can be flexible about other things.

When they ask questions, welcome everything. Even if you disagree, disagree in a welcoming way, because this is after all kind of pie in the sky time. Everyone can sort of chip in here and be heard.

**John:** I would say in general if the discussion after your pitch is longer than the pitch itself, that’s a really good sign. Unless your pitch was just like so amazing that they start talking about next steps immediately, which is sort of the fantasy scenario. It’s like, “Well that was fantastic. I need you to come in here and pitch that to the boss. Or we need to set up a meeting for tomorrow to go into the studio.” That’s your fantasy scenario. But if they’re asking questions that show that they’re engaged in it, you’ve done really well with whatever you’ve pitched so far.

**Craig:** Yeah, no question. [laughs] I will say that there are people who are not readable. When I went in to pitch this miniseries, my producer said, “This gentleman that we’re pitching to, you’re not going to know when you walk out of there.” And I was like, “Eh, I’ve been doing this a long time. I think I’ll know.”

I had no clue. None. None. Just didn’t know.

And some people are — it’s not like they’re doing it on purpose. They’re just sort of inherently inscrutable and you won’t know. There have been times I’ve walked out of a room and thought, well, that was a disaster. And then an hour later, got the job.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** And vice versa.

**John:** That absolutely happens. And so what I take comfort in is that like I pitch just as hard on the ones I didn’t get as the ones I did get. And while I can’t properly predict which ones are going to work and which ones aren’t going to work, I can only sort of control what I’m doing. And I just try to make sure that I was as ready for each one of them as possible.

**Craig:** Indeed.

**John:** Cool. Our next topic, probably the best jumping off place for it is this Chin Lu article for Vice entitled Being An Asian Actor Is Hard Enough Without Scarlett Johansson Taking Your Roles.

**Craig:** Great title for an article.

**John:** There will be a link to this in the show notes. And it basically talks about Asian American actors frustrated that certain roles are going to white actors and actresses when they could have been going to Asian actors and actresses. Specifically in this case the flash point was Scarlett Johansson’s casting in Ghost in the Shell, and to some degree Tilda Swinton’s casting in Doctor Strange.

But there’s a long history of sort of casting white actors in roles that are either explicitly Asian or could be Asian. And a frustration about that. And I think it’s an interesting topic to sort of get into because some of those decisions are made at the writing level, but a lot of them aren’t made at the writing level. And it might be useful to discuss the degree to which a writer can be involved in that process and not be involved.

**Craig:** Yeah, my guess is almost none of them are made at the writing level. Well, first of all, let’s say you’re right, that there is a long tradition of basically let’s call it “yellow face” in Hollywood, whether it was Joel Grey and Remo Williams, or John Wayne. I mean, John Wayne, you know.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And in our culture, we have come to understand that blackface is just incredibly socially taboo. In no small part because it’s also linked to slavery.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** We haven’t had the same taboo about yellow face.

**John:** Yeah. But I think it’s a growing taboo.

**Craig:** It is.

**John:** And so I think it might be helpful to differentiate between two different kinds of things that are happening. And there’s some overlap, but I think there’s also some useful distinctions. So, there’s the very classic case of like this is a role that is clearly Asian. This person has an Asian name, and we are casting a white actor in that role. So that’s Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Fisher Stevens in Short Circuit.

**Craig:** Right. Right.

**John:** And the controversy over Emma Stone who is playing biracial in Aloha. And that’s one of those things where it feels like, well, that feels like a really bad choice you made. And this is a role that was clearly meant to be an Asian person and you are choosing not to cast an Asian person in that role, but instead cast a white actor. And that is a certain kind of frustration that feels like it’s sort of in column A.

The column B is the situation where a role is considered Asian because of its source material, or because of something else around that character, but it’s not so clear that it has to be an Asian actor in that role. So this was Rooney Mara in Pan. And so there’s a lot of controversy over that role and sort of this fictional creation. I guess Tiger Lily is perceived to be Asian, but it’s also in a fantasy universe, so what does that mean?

I think you could say the same thing about a lot of the roles in Game of Thrones. To what degree are you casting a person who is Asian in a specific part considering it’s a fantasy universe that doesn’t necessarily match our cultural geography?

Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell might be a similar situation where the source material, that character is Asian, but she’s not identified as being Asian in this movie specifically. It’s a remake. Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange. That role was a man I think in the original comics, I believe.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And is in Tibet, so he’s Tibetan, but it’s also a drawn character.

**Craig:** Well, you’ve hit upon some factors here that need to be teased out. So, first of all, I think that the days of yellow face are happily over. I don’t see that continuing. But then you have this other issue of whitewashing. And you’ve described the two kinds.

Now, sometimes it’s hard to differentiate even between like which category it goes into. For instance, Scarlett Johansson is playing a character that in the source material is named Major Motoko Kusanagi. And the character is now named Major. [laughs] So, you know, okay, but you called out two instances where the question is, “What are the intentions?”

So, is the intention to be racist because studios don’t like Asian actors? I don’t think so, although I would argue that the result is a racist result. I think what’s really going on here is star-washing and China-appeasing.

**John:** Oh, how fascinating that is. I really like the term “star-washing.” Did you make that up?

**Craig:** I did. I just made it up.

**John:** Craig, it’s going down in the pantheon. We’re going to put that in the Scriptnotes Wikipedia immediately. I think star-washing is actually a fascinating thing, and I think it’s also a false excuse for reasons we’ll get into later on.

But so I do think that’s really interesting, that idea of you’re being very flexible on the casting of a role because you want to cast the biggest star in there and you can’t find an Asian star.

**Craig:** Right. And so obviously anyone who thinks about this for a half a second can realize the vicious cycle, right? So, it’s true, if you look at the biggest, most bankable stars, I don’t know, maybe there’s one or two Asian Americans, and my guess is they’re on the male side, and probably action. And so what they do is they go, “Well, we’re spending all this money on Ghost in the Shell. We need to make our money, so we need a star.”

Oh, there isn’t an Asian star, right. Her name is now Major. Okay.

But, of course, how do you grow Asian American or Asian stars if that’s how you approach things? You’ll never get there.

**John:** Well, the other great argument against this idea of star-washing is that in cases where we’ve just chosen to find the person of the appropriate race or background to play that role, it tends to go kind of well. So, take a look at Jungle Book. We could have cast a white actor in the part of Mowgli, but they didn’t. They found the kid, this Neel Sethi guy, and he’s really good. And he’s appropriate for it.

You look at Vincent Rodriguez in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That was a role that was specifically written to be Asian. They went out, they found a bunch of great Asian actors. When they found a guy who was Filipino, they changed his name from Chang to Chan, and they built out his whole family as being Filipino very specifically so that race could be a part of that.

And so it was never sort of backing away from the tough choices because, oh, we won’t be able to find a star for that part.

**Craig:** Right. I think that this is an area where the studios are probably — no, I’m going to say clearly — they’re being way too conservative. Way too conservative. Because, look, I understand that a big star is a big deal for a big movie. But I have to — I don’t know — I’m not familiar with Ghost in the Shell, but I have to believe that there are opportunities for star-washing in some other characters, but then, you know, there are wonderful Asian actors out there.

I mean, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, how much money did that movie make?

**John:** A zillion dollars.

**Craig:** Okay, there weren’t any people in it that we even knew the names of, because it was a good movie. The audience does not care — I really believe that. I think that the fetishism of star power is overrated when it comes to some of these bigger movies in a weird way. Especially movies that are based on properties that people really like.

**John:** I agree.

**Craig:** Look at Doctor Strange. Okay, Doctor Strange is a Marvel film. So, right off the bat it’s going to be a huge hit because literally every single one they make is a huge hit. They have Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange. Great. There’s your big star.

Now, we have this other character to cast. Now, in this case, the character I believe in the source material was Tibetan and here we have a Chinese problem. The Chinese government is locked in a dispute with Tibet, if you want to call it a dispute. I’d like to think of it more as the Chinese government is repressing Tibet. And the Chinese market is enormously important to movie studios. And they don’t think that the Chinese censors will let a movie with a Tibetan hero go through. That’s what I think is going on. I probably just cost myself every Marvel job possible. [laughs]

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** But, you know, I don’t care.

**John:** So in this case they’ve taken a character who was described as Tibetan in the source material and made now her non-Tibetan to take that controversy away.

**Craig:** Although we can then go a step further and say, “Eh, all right, maybe that’s why that character is no longer Tibetan,” but that character could be Asian. Right? That character could be Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese.

**John:** But also that brings up the question of even if the character wasn’t that in the source material, any character in any movie could be Thai, Chinese, or any other thing. So, I guess I understand the frustration is that like this is a character who there was a pattern and a precedent for why this character should be a certain Asian background, and now it’s not. So I understand the frustration there.

**Craig:** I completely understand it. And I also think that if you look at comic books where the hero is African American, there’s no way that Marvel would cast a white guy in that part, at least not in 2016. No way. So, why is it okay to just go, “Well, let’s just ignore the fact that that character is Asian American and cast a white actor.” I’m a little surprised, I got to be honest with you, by some of the stuff.

I mean, look, the Emma Stone thing was crazy. And the Scarlett Johansson thing is star-washing. This one I just don’t get. I don’t get the Doctor Strange one at all. I mean, Tilda Swinton is amazing —

**John:** I think Tilda Swinton is amazing. I think ultimately it comes down to Tilda Swinton is amazing, and so having Tilda Swinton in your movie is kind of awesome and amazing and — not only is she great, but she’s just so wonderfully strange. That I kind of get it. And I can both understand why you make the choice to cast her in it, and I can also understand why people are frustrated and to some degree outraged over it.

I want to talk about the outrage, because I think the outrage is an interesting double-edged sword. It’s like the pros of being outraged or expressing outrage over it, or sort of letting there be a Twitter storm about it is that it gets people talking about it, it gets people noticing it, it encourages people to make their lists more diverse and inclusive, and really think about if a character is described as being Asian sort of keeping them Asian.

I think the cons of the outrage is that I know people in Hollywood and they’re so skittish. And so what they’re going to do is they’re going to back away from the controversy by just like backing away from the chance for there to be a controversy. So, a character who was described as being Asian, they’ll just get rid of that description before it ever makes it out there so that the character is no longer Asian.

**Craig:** I don’t think that will happen.

**John:** You don’t think so?

**Craig:** No. I think that that was all too often the response in the past, but you know, I encounter more and more an insistence on the studio side that the movie not end up being all white people.

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** And I also think that there is somewhere some people must understand inherently that they’re not going to lose money by casting an Asian or an Asian American actor to play an Asian part. I mean, it’s hard enough for Asian American actors to get parts because of the default white syndrome, and now they can’t even get parts where the characters are Asian.

You know, I think this discussion is very, very long overdue. And I think it’s going to have a very significant impact on how things go forward. I do. I believe that.

**John:** Let’s look at what screenwriters can do and what they can’t do. So, what screenwriters can do is you can — you ultimately get the choice of what you’re going to name these characters, and so if you name a character Woo, you’re sort of describing that person who is probably Chinese, and that is an affirmative thing you can do.

You can suggest actors, you can suggest to people involved in casting the movie that let’s try to keep this role Asian. You don’t get the final decision on that, but you can always make that suggestion. But I think the most important and sort of interesting thing that writers can do is actually write about.

So there’s a great episode in this batch of Kimmy Schmidts where Titus Andromedon is putting on his one-man show about his past life as a geisha. And so he’s in sort of geisha white face for the role, and so there’s a huge outcry of Asian American actors about this sort of terrible thing, this affront he’s doing. And that show was able to really dig into it because they had the ability to have characters on both sides and really explore it.

And so one of the rare luxuries as a writer is you can actually write about these situations and these frustrations and explore it. And so one of the few gifts you actually have as a writer is the ability to create fictional scenarios in which characters are grappling with these issues.

**Craig:** Yeah. And, of course, we have enormous latitude here to describe our characters as we wish and to do so and then leave their race behind. You know, I mean, you introduce people, this one is Chinese American, this one is African American, this one is white, this one is whatever. And then that’s it, because most people, typical waiter in a restaurant works with people of every different race, and it’s not part of the daily discussion.

So, we can do that, but as you mentioned kind of at the top of this discussion, when it comes to casting we just don’t have the ability to determine these things. And we get blamed sometimes which is crazy.

**John:** And we get blamed for it and at the same time we are not particularly well positioned to defend ourselves. And so I would say if you are the screenwriter who is facing this situation, Twitter is not going to be a great place for you to sort of go out and try to defend yourself, and defend these decisions. You’re not going to win. No one wins on Twitter. It’s impossible to win on Twitter.

**Craig:** I’m currently winning on Twitter, but only because, you know, look who I’m fighting against.

**John:** Unfair advantage.

I think we’re living in a really exciting time, a really fascinating time for dealing with issues of race. And it’s because race is both an internal identity, it’s also a perceived identity. It’s something you hold inside yourself, but it’s also what someone sees you as. And that is rally challenging. It’s really interesting both on a fictional level and dealing with it on a daily basis.

A friend of mine is an actor who often gets cast as a terrorist because he looks sort of Middle Eastern, which is offensive. And also, he’s Italian, so he just happens to look like what we think a Middle Eastern person looks like, but he’s not. He’s Italian. And his wife is mixed race and gets cast as sort of like anything ambiguous she gets cast as. And that’s because no one is checking — I don’t think they actually even are allowed to check what is your actual ethnicity. They just say it’s what you came in the room looking like. Oh, well, he’s that guy, or she’s this thing. And race is a really interesting, frustrating, challenging thing we’re still trying to put our heads around.

**Craig:** Yeah. You can see people sweating as they attempt to do the right thing. You know, we are as an industry we are being asked to be more inclusive, and I think most people in our industry believe that that’s exactly what we should be.

But then, of course, to be more inclusive you have to be race aware. When you are race aware, suddenly you are beginning to traipse through a minefield, whether you know it or not. So, on the one hand you’re trying to do the right thing. On the other hand, you may end up blowing it. It’s difficult.

Regardless of the fact that it’s difficult, it is less difficult than actually being an actor of color, or a writer of color. That is harder to do. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the business to suck it up and deal with the uncomfortableness and the awkwardness and the occasional flub and make things better for these people who are honestly being treated unfairly. And there’s really no way to deny it.

**John:** Yeah. I agree. Craig, I have one last thought experiment. So, you’ve heard of this musical Hamilton?

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, my question for you is what do you think happens when the first time they cast a white actor as George Washington in that show?

**Craig:** I think it will be fine.

**John:** Yeah. It’s a really interesting situation, because there you have the precedent for the show is that the cast is not color blind, I’d say it’s actually race aware. You can argue both sides, sort of where it’s falling on that. But musically it feels like that actor, there’s a tradition where that actor should be African American, or at least non-white. And yet, of course, he’s playing a character who was in fact white.

So, I find it an interesting thing to look at in terms of is the role based on sort of our perception of what that role is like in the show, or based on the real person.

**Craig:** Yeah, I think that Hamilton, which will be performed 14 billion times by 14 billion casts until the end of time, will detach itself from any sense of needing to adhere to a format of casting. You’re going to see women playing Hamilton. I mean, everyone is going to play Hamilton. You know what I mean? So, over time, everyone will play it.

You already have, I mean, you can’t really point to that cast and say, “Well, it’s about being African American.” It’s not because Lin-Manuel Miranda is Puerto Rican American. And Phillipa Soo is Korean American, I think. So, it’s not about being black, and it’s not about being Latino, and it’s not about being Asian. What it’s really about is not being white.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And that is an interesting commentary because the founding fathers in that world was so white. So, it’s like, okay, we’re not white. But over time, white people will play those parts, too. Because, A, white privilege, what? But, B, because in the end I think the music and the story of Hamilton start to transcend some of the racial contrasts that the original cast has presented.

**John:** Yeah. I’ll read those articles when it happens and see what the discussion is.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think Washington is the right place to start, by the way, if you were going to do it. If I were going to do it —

**John:** Rather than Jefferson Lafayette?

**Craig:** Yeah, Jefferson has got to — I mean, right now, there’s something about the fact that he has got his slaves moving his staircase around as he returns from France. It’s just more delicious the fact that he’s African American. I don’t know. I think so. But —

**John:** We’ll see. I’m not going to get my shot.

**Craig:** Not going to get my shot.

**John:** Craig, it is time for our One Cool Things.

**Craig:** Yay. My One Cool Thing is so, so cool. This was sent in by a Twitter follower and they are gloves that translate ASL, American Sign Language, into verbal speech.

**John:** That sounds great.

**Craig:** How cool is this? So, it’s a couple of kids, and they’re adorable. These two boys. I can say that now, because I’m old. These two boys who work at University of Washington. I mean, they’re undergrads. Undergrads. They really are boys. At the University of Washington. Their names are Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor. And they just won a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, which is a national prize for the most inventive undergraduate and graduate students. And so they’ve invented these things called Sign Aloud Gloves, which translate American Sign Language into speech or text.

So, I assume that they figured out how to put little sensors into all the fingers, and the palms, and everything, and then all that stuff goes into a computer. The computer translates the movements into speech. And it’s awesome. And if they can get this refined and everything, wow.

**John:** That’s great.

**Craig:** How great would that be?

**John:** Very, very cool. I like our love inventors.

**Craig:** I know.

**John:** And when they make the Young Inventors movie, I really hope they don’t cast two white guys in that movie.

**Craig:** Well, I don’t know if Navid Azodi is — I don’t know. I don’t know what —

**John:** I would guess, Navid sounds South Asian.

**Craig:** No…I’m going to go with Israeli or maybe Persian. I’m going to go Persian.

**John:** So, can you cast a white person as a Persian? I ask because Nima Yousefi who works in our office, whenever he sees something he doesn’t like, he’s like, “Oh, white people.”

**Craig:** [laughs] Well, he’s whiter than I am. I think Persians consider themselves Aryans in the old sense of the word Aryan.

**John:** It’s complicated the idea of racial identity.

**Craig:** It is, yeah.

**John:** You don’t have to write into me or Craig about that.

**Craig:** Yeah, yeah. Don’t yell at us. We’re just trying to figure it out. We’re stumbling through, guys.

**John:** Stumbling through life. My One Cool Thing is called Hands in Wheat. It is a Twitter feed by Andy Baker. And it’s basically a bunch of stock photos of like people running their hands through wheat. And it’s one of those great absurd Twitter feeds where it’s like, oh wow, you know what, it really is such an incredibly overused visual cliché. Because no one in real life ever does that. And you see it all the time in movies and ads and other things. Like connection with your food and with nature and all this stuff. It’s just so funny.

And I love it and he’s incredibly angry in the feed about like it’s hands in wheat, it’s not elbows and wheat. The wheat has to be at just the right height. So, I’m a fan of a lot of absurd Twitter feeds, but this is a new one that I liked a lot.

**Craig:** Have you seen Women Laughing While Eating Salad?

**John:** Yes, that is a fantastic one.

**Craig:** It’s amazing.

**John:** I also love Women Who Can’t Even Drink Water. Like Water Fails. Women pouring water on themselves as if they can’t do it.

Another good Twitter feed I’ll throw in for bonus is Baby CMO. And so he’s a Chief Marketing Officer for an Internet startup, but he’s also a baby, and so he’s talking about his sort of two conflicting needs at times. And so he uses the jargon of both, which is great.

He’s very much like Stewie Griffin.

**Craig:** Excellent.

**John:** Excellent. That is our show this week. A reminder that next week’s episode will be Aline and Rachel Bloom talking about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. This was a live show I recorded with the Writers Guild Foundation. So it’s basically the same day we recorded the Larry Kasdan interview. That morning I spoke with Aline and Rachel and it was fantastic. It’s actually maybe our dirtiest episode ever. It may have crossed over the Rebel Wilson thing.

**Craig:** Whoa.

**John:** So, don’t listen to it with your kids, mostly because Rachel has to, or chooses to go into a lot of detail about how she did the ADR for a scene in the original Showtime pilot where rather than just making out with Greg, she is performing oral sex on him. And so she goes into quite graphic detail about the ADR session she did for that.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. Our outro this week comes from Jonathan Mann. It is fantastic. And Jonathan Mann is sort of a legend in the podcasting world for doing music, so he did one for us, and that was awesome. So, thank you to Jonathan Mann.

If you have an outro for us, you can write into ask@johnaugust.com with a link to it. It’s also a place to send in questions or feedback on the show. On Twitter, I am @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin.

Our show is produced by Stuart Friedel. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. You can find us on iTunes. Thank you for all those people who have left new reviews on iTunes. That’s always lovely and much appreciated.

You can find bonus episodes, including the Justin Marks interview, over at Scriptnotes.net. That’s also where the Scriptnotes App finds its great content. It’s a $2 a month fee for all the back episodes, including those bonus things. And there will be bonus Q&A I think for Rachel and Aline’s episode next week as well. So, if you sign up for that, you’ll get that as well. And that’s our show.

**Craig:** Great show.

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** Thanks.

**Craig:** See you.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* [Scriptnotes, 247: The One with Lawrence Kasdan](http://johnaugust.com/2016/the-one-with-lawrence-kasdan)
* [Scriptnotes Bonus: Jungle Book Q+A, with screenwriter Justin Marks](http://scriptnotes.net/bonus-jungle-book-qa)
* [The Making of The Jungle Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkNArCG80Bg) on YouTube
* [Being An Asian Actor Is Hard Even Without Scarlett Johansson Taking Your Roles](http://www.vice.com/read/being-an-asian-actor-is-hard-even-without-scarlett-johansson-taking-your-roles)
* [Students Invented Gloves That Can Translate Sign Language Into Speech And Text](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/navid-azodi-and-thomas-pryor-signaloud-gloves-translate-american-sign-language-into-speech-text_us_571fb38ae4b0f309baeee06d)
* [Hands In Wheat](https://twitter.com/HandsInWheat) on Twitter, and [Women laughing alone with salad](http://womenlaughingalonewithsalad.tumblr.com/), [Women struggling to drink water](http://imgur.com/a/79OsM), and [Baby CMO](https://twitter.com/babycmo)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Jonathan Mann ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))