Showrunners from Aziz Ansari to David Mandel take us into the writers room

hello and welcome everyone my name is Yvan Villarreal and I cover television here at the Los Angeles Times thanks so much for joining us for showrunners panel thanks for being here guys Thank You weirdest strike captain okay how do you guys met each other before any of you office Panetti passing it we yeah we had thousand we met before hmm well let's make it a lively conversation what can you I'm always curious like what do you remember about your first time being in a writers room it's starting out we remember our that horrifies terrified yeah I like the far way too much oh did you guess I I got fired from every job I ever had so til I was running a show yeah what was your first writers room um a show called higher ground which was on Fox family a long time ago Hayden Christensen was in it was his first job but then it was ER after that that's why I really screwed things up well your favorite writers room you're in the ones I've run yeah much better yeah because but you know what did you change that they did couches not tables countin on ya table kills you table yeah that seems like once you go couches you can never go back yeah I master done we always just and I've heard of other people doing this too where we just kind of rent a house or something so it feels like a little more oh that's a cool idea yeah I do it on couches in the house yeah and I mean we're a 12-second hockey right errs rumors I could see that we wrote in New York and we would often like just go on walks and stuff and people would go go get ice cream and come back with a scene my brother came back what's he like at all was I so on today's like you guys didn't go and watch people and got ice freeze like bully wrote the scene like it's funny all right Gloria what were you saying about being terrified well it's just I've you know the only woman and a bunch of very smart Harvard guys because they'll tell you they don't keep it they're not shy what room no I quit quintuplets which actually did end up having another woman come aboard but we weren't allowed to sit together we were told we were a yeah yeah yeah yeah why I don't know told you that the show Fenner really yeah it happens you know listen it happens that the women tend to sit next to you so we would just text each other all the time and we need things when you're the only I make our women civic you don't either one here the other way no they're they're very nice to me though I have to say they were nice to me but it was you know it's a lot of older dudes whoa well I one thing I got from from Mike Schur who ran Parks and Rec as I remember I never wrote it on Parks Rock but I would go in and he had so many different kinds of people and I think that really helps us on master of none just to just to have different opinions and you know yeah what goes into assembling your room I think we just try to get a bunch of different voices like my brothers very young you know we try to have a good ratio of men and women we try to have you know different how many people do you have linear let's go this season we had a little more we had let's see I mean around like five six you know sometimes people weren't there sometimes we'd have some extra people but we really tried to get kind of a not that I hate the word diverse now but we try to go to the verse group but you know it's initially there's one day we're doing master none where some people were gone and it was me my brother one of my writers woman Lakshmi who wrote on Brooklyn nine-nine and Alan and I was like wow this is the only writers room that's never had a white dude in the mix and we got so much great stuff done that but that was weird of just like to have I mean that was like the to have three Indian people in the room it was really any others I'm sorry I don't finish a lot it was it was something that would never and never thought I would be in a room like that you know but it was cool is it because I remember I saw some some interview one of these kind of things with what the guy that runs Empire I know was they did okay yeah he and he was talking about like all he has all black writers room and he goes in and it's I know the feeling you're describing kind of just being the only person that kind of looks like you're and that's what I movie I haven't seen that movie get out but I've been gone I've had a chance over it's great but I you see that trailer like I know what that's like you're always whatever you're the room full of white people you're scared they're gonna kill you or make you clean something after the levee and I and I will because I like things to be clean so who kind of works both ways Peter what went into assembling the room for better call Saul well we we're very lucky because there's a core group that's been working together for a long time and it's um we do a lot of promoting from within actually we've had a lot of success having ride resistance in fact geez and now three of our writers started out as writers assistant so it's it's it's half the room at this point and it's it's just you know it's like I'm not a musician but I guess it's like playing in a band where you have a there are things that you kind of know each other and you know the characters in the story but then on the other hand we like to bring new people into because you can get it can get to be like a sequestered jury where you're just you know you just know each other's quirks and everybody certainly knows my quirks so the that's it's it's we like to bring in some new folks which we've done and it's a it's different every year I think that's the thing that's funny about it is no matter even though you have some of the same people people change over the years and we've been working together for 10 years and so there there's there's a you knows writer Jenny Hodgson who started out as Ryan assistant I remember her she was so quiet when she was righteous and she's very quiet she'd take notes and she'd be but she'd be very quiet and now you just can't stop her she's she's she's she's pushing the story forward she's great where is she allowed to sit anywhere she wants any where she was absolutely I disagree with appetite you find that abrasive from the same seat all the time yes because I move around all the time did you have that growing up was a Racine at the dinner table where everybody said it the same see we have we have one very very tall writer named Ian Mac Stone Graham who if you've ever seen the The Simpsons episode with the 22 stories about Springfield the very tall man that is modeled on him and he's so tall that whenever he sits in a seat he had just sit sort of way lower but that so he can kind of go back and stretch out his very long legs very sort of Kareem abdul-jabbar kind a Game of Death and then what happens is he gets up and you know the day is over and then we come back and then it's sort of like this bad musical chairs game of someone sitting down and going man I'm in the e/m chair and so no one ever really wants to Ian chair but everyone's always moving around well and what surprised you about being the boss and the types of tasks that are now your responsibility or the things you need to do to run a show you get to do a lot it's really fun I love it I really love it I'm a this is my first time running a show and I'm Co running it with microwaves he's wonderful and listed in Everybody Loves Raymond and and so it's he's been a real guide to me and Norman Lear obviously have been real guides to me and showing me the ropes and and and you know our room is half Latino which is also like what how are we here I mean it just blows our minds because there's such a Latin component to the show and and I didn't want to be the only one in the room for this specific one so that they allowed that they not only said that was cool but supported it like kind of blew my mind and so just getting to make those sorts of hiring decisions and you know what things look like on our sets and I mean it's everything how about you Bruce the first time you ran a show what were you have to finish the same thing like welcome what were you surprised by what was now your responsibility um it's interesting I think it's like a lot of things that did your writer your writer your writer your writer and the skills that you need to be a showrunner aren't at all this that you need to become a showrunner so it's like you know when you're a computer programmer and you're computer programmer and then they say okay now you're managing a bunch of computer programmers that's very LA based no I will simply say I was lucky enough my first real first full-time job I did a little thing at comedy central my first time job was sign I live and the one advantage of saying I live as I look back on and you know you're sort of there and you're miserable as is everybody and then you leave and it was wonderful but uh you're kind of very much from day one you are the mini producer and almost director of your sketches and so I did three years of like you know Friday night 4:00 a.m. you know when they were still doing tape to tape editing like calling edits and learning how to edit and you know your sketch was picked and your first job was go talk to the set decorators and the second job was go talk to costume and then go talk to music and all these things where you didn't necessarily think you were I wasn't like oh I'm learning to be a showrunner per se but when I got out to LA and realized that people sort of were on my level I guess that had been only solely in a room just didn't have some of these like I mean I hate to say normal human skills but things that I took for granted a little bit but I also there I say and not to not to give Rell everything I have many problems with rooms in general and obviously we ever write hazardous writers rooms I mean I love yes yes you know I want to know like what it what have you done that you found to be effective for example like in last Verdun room I try to like ban people using phones and we try to like take walks and like keep everybody's energy up is there things you do to kinda mean mine or more philosophically from the beginning which is I love punching up in a room obviously I think you know I think especially a small group of people certainly but even if it's a large group of people I think you can take something and make it better but I despise and refuse to write scenes in a room I I do not do there is no writing of scenes in my rooms we do not group right we do not and this is stuff that I guess was sort of imparted on me by Larry David on my that's where I basically learned to write sort of by him both in terms of the importance of the outline and structure and what you're trying to do but more importantly than that that the writer pitches the stories for his episode and then goes off and writes his episode and then maybe yes then the showrunner in that case Larry and Jerry take the show and perhaps do things but it is your episode as opposed to and again I'm talking more specifically about comedy rooms and I think it is a little different in a drama world and I know that but a lot of comedy shows and this is I guess what I have my issue with we're all sitting in the room and you pick out all these wonderful stories but it's your turn to write the episode so the writers assistant sort of types all this stuff up and you go off and don't really have any responsibilities either however you want to talk about ethical II or even just comedy wise responsibility but it's your turn to write it up and now you're writing it up and I also do think a lot of times in rooms especially when you're trying to write stuff again different than punching up I think there's a lot of like things that get matte and again I'm talking comedy things that masquerade as jokes in rooms that just sort of just are terrible I don't know what else to say so I have those issues beyond yeah I love taking a walk and all that kind of stuff well yeah but I was still talking we go yeah yeah I know I scream all for it but that's why I'm trying most I'm lucky enough that most sisters I've ever worked on before I was a show writer didn't really have the traditional comedy writers room so I always talk about my staff more than I talk about my room just cuz not not a fan I do think it's a real cultural difference between comedy and drama and I'm always interested people who who shows like yours kind of thread that line anyway that they're they're you know multi camera you know multi camera or single camera or that kind of thing because in a bill you know are we we never write in our room we don't punch up in our room but it'll touch stuff in our room you know always there i scribble evite or the drama room be it be any different what do you guys do that's so different I don't understand well I don't know I guess important our cases it's a Vince the way he ran Breaking Bad is very much the way we run better call Saul and it's the the individual like SNL the the once we we talked through the story that's what we do in the writers room we talked about write a beat and we talked through the story as much detail as we possibly have we're shaving would try to figure out and you guys do that thing that I've heard about in drama rooms were like sometimes you're kind of like like if you're doing 10 you're sort of thinking of like the first three the second three and like any of that I know we talk we try to think about where the story's going but until it's carted we use three by five cards and we spend a lot of time writing them and making sure they look right and that everyone understands what the scene is because the idea is everyone in the room participates in the breaking of each episode but then then the individual writer goes off and writes it and we don't we don't punch up the eye or Vince I know a couple of people will and that will get will just right well yeah well go work on we'll work on the script with individually with a writer but it is that writers episode it is that writers script and and usually we that writer goes to in our case Albuquerque and is on the set every single day and is there for some of the prep is that Madeline is enforce um because interview from it really Albuquerque New Mexico Albuquerque New Mexico hey don't don't this Albuquerque I'm not break down radio hello man well I don't know my sister Anto and maybe almost is nice to run who knows well that sounds pretty similar to what we do that doesn't sound very radical except for the addition of the punch up but and I remember a lot of it it's just everyone is talking and you know myself and Alan kind of eventually make the big decision of okay this seems right or whatever now do you guys if one of you isn't there does the other person run though I mean do you have a designated person to run the room usually both there if we leave my brother runs the romance how about what's the importance I mean we were time out this earlier the importance of taking a break like master of none it's been what a little bit over a year between seasons the first season came out November 2015 and this season is may 2017 so whenever we finish net like all right so what do you guys you guys ready to get back in the room no yeah and it was a little bit of a you know the first they were a little bit resistant I was like look man I like dump my head into this first season I need to like live life and be a person we got how about why that's important to experience life so video right yeah so I told them it was really important to me to do this break and you know I think you know you guys did similar thing on curb well yeah we were talking a little bit about that before which was you know you get to the end of a curb season and it's sort of like and I'm dating it now because the last curb season was a little bit a couple years ago already which was you know now be your iPhone but basically your little notebook is empty you know you could have used up more I'm so glad you guys do that because it's great for me when I'm on the phone calls like hey man look at curb look what they do got to give you a wall break thing were you kind of and by the way when uh back in the Seinfeld days which I was I remember it happening and going wow which was we all went to New York like over Christmas and it was like why are we doing this and whatever but it was sort of like well we're kinda together but we're in New York and like but like oh we're on the streets of New York and oh I bump we bumped into a guy and all of a sudden it's like that became a story and I was like what is that in the middle of your season yeah sometimes was the milk that was the middle of the season of just have to have I mean especially I mean I you know back in the day on time field when people were submitting ideas I tell we would hire writers was just we weren't reading specs as much as let's have some idea pitches you go through the idea pitches especially on Seinfeld is true on kerbin whatever which is you look at these ideas and you go no no no no and get to the one on the bottom and you'd be like the this weird argument you had in the electronic stores is that real that happened to you right and the guy be like yeah how did you know it's like these are all really this is really interesting because it's this is the real thing and that's what Seinfeld was it was I mean in every episode I ever wrote a Seinfeld and then into curve it's all stuff that happened to me or someone I knew that I stole yeah and then I extrapolated from it the things that then didn't happen to make the episode but that's where the ideas what butt beep has to be different cuz there's a journal one is obviously there's the political side to it but a lot of the personal stuff can be things that you can pull from those same life experiences and then turn into sort of the political equivalent but it is a little harder because of that exact reason and in that case obviously we're doing a lot of talking to real DC people whatever and trying to find interesting anecdotes that lead to story so I'm constantly like you know New York Post by the way is great at it especially like a four or five pages in they'll have these little articles so like there was one a couple of days ago about a I think it was a state senator but got a new cell phone but I guess the number had been like a like a porn star cell phone or something like that and I'm not saying we're going to do that but it's like you sort of definitely write that down and get a lot of time doing those interviews every season or yeah I mean cuz as the story has shifted and whatnot and you know we're into new areas you know we we meet new people so for example this year with her out of office we did a lot of talking to presidents that lost so we talked a lot to a lot of people that worked for Bush because they didn't think they were going to lose to Clinton so they were shocked and they had no plans and no jobs and a lot of them were blamed and we had Mitt Romney come in and talk to him and you know you sort of kind of her like Mitt Romney did a few days on that one I lose a lot of nice cream he does like I serve s to remember as well but uh you know so stuff like that and as the stories have shifted you pay for in production on election night weren't you yeah it was about the worst night ever what was that like well ironically we were shooting Selina overseas in the Republic of Georgia supervising a democratic election over there you know where they like get their finger in the colors and whatnot and so we were doing all of these jokes about democracy and how horrible it is and all of this stuff as like every five minutes like the the website updated and her numbers just went lower and lower and lower and we're a pretty happy-go-lucky set but it was just quiet and dreadful and seemed cut together actually quite well but nevertheless it was weird yeah yeah well I think one of the things you said that's really interesting is it you know the comedy we're bringing in your own personal stories in our room we have the same thing but the the show the hen which tells the stories that people bring in you have to have created a safe space over a really long time so people feel comfortable because a lot of it is is a lot of it is a group of women are roomed primarily women you know explaining to men how certain very intimate things feel or work that you just wouldn't know any other way I mean it's no matter how much you talk to how how much you've read how many sisters you have you just don't know so I think that that's if you're asking what we're trying to do in the room what I try to do in the rooms make people feel like you can have conversations that go in really personal deep dark places and they can be comfortable talking yeah we do that on one day at a time too because it's a family story so obviously a lot is pulled from my relationship with my mother because we are sort of the new what does she think of the show she loves she's there every week Debray know like yes my parents are at every episode okay that's dead on the show he's a little upset by that feeling live in real life I think but no they they love it what the hell wasn't I know believe me I have like a ghost version of him for years but no we have a lot of really personal stuff and the characters are Cuban because my family's Cuban and at one point we had to do an episode about the Pedro Pan movement which is my mother's store my parents story of how they came here and I've never heard that story oh so the room was like can we have them come in I'm like you know ask them and there's also a veteran component to the story so we've been having a lot of veterans come in and have a go-go bar is just incredible the best I mean it helps create that intimate space because they're being so open with their stories and their personal experiences I feel like it'll not have the major group the best no they were come in one by one so honey are what they used to do nurses night so they'd bring in like 10 nurses and 20 bottles of wine and we get storage for the whole season Wow great that personal touch so yeah a lot of crimes a lot of crimes are one big there's an episode of master nun when it does come out I mean like many bless mid-may like end of May okay so I did want to spoil something we do be pleased about that after there's an episode where I'm not in the episode yeah and it's about just three different groups of just random New Yorkers and you know one group is like these group there's a one stories about like a doorman and another one is about cab driver another one is about this deaf woman and we interviewed the interviewer just so many like doormen and deaf people in southern every you just realize like oh everyone could have like one of these match verdun types like their own show and it'd be filled with so much interesting we know that that in the Seinfeld monks cafe and the diner basically at every table were for people who thought everybody else in the diner were a bunch of Canadia yeah and they were going on their own adventures whatever and in some weird way they had their own to come yeah yeah well to that like talk about the the way you sort of push the limits of what you could do on TV like I mean we had an episode where it's like there was a whole storyline with silent basically yeah you know so what we really you guys did it the thing that silent well we did we do sequences that are that without without dialogue and not other things I find so much I love when we can dispose a dialogue and it just do pure filmmaking I think for a lot of us this is you know we're getting to it's like going back to film school you know or getting to go to film school and get to experiment with with the medium and how we can tell a story and we have some characters like like Mike played by Jonathan banks who doesn't say oh yeah and they play a lot and when he does talk he's not telling you what he's thinking and it's I think we're we're just fascinated I think I'm fascinated by the idea that when people are talking the real story is happening underneath the dialog or in parallel with a dialogue a lot of our characters find it very hard to speak their minds and that's why it's so interesting to try to look and try to find a way to use you know use use them to get under the under their skin and so we have and there's there's a there's some sequences this we actually have an episode this season which probably is more dialog than we've ever done before so we have we went in the other direction too we had this is a show where our premise initially was that this is a lawyer who does not want to go into court that he's almost like he's scared of actually going into a courtroom and so that was in and part of that was because Vince and I really felt like where things been done a lot doctors lawyers that's been done a lot how are we going to do better than all the great law shows that are out there and so we and also we were intimidated because neither one of us know there's no lawyers in the writers room you know you guys are bringing in people talk about their personal experience we're bringing in lawyers you talk about you talk about public that what public defender work is ly I like our better yes Pacific because well you know but the thing is I think the truth is if you look at anything enough you find sides to it that people haven't seen before and in that in there that are kind of unique and we actually spent a day right across the street there in the courthouse and one of the things that we realize is the court courtroom is a really funny place it's very dull it's it's it's a very it's very formal and there's all kinds of things to do there that you don't see usually in in courtroom scenes and so we actually have a.m. we have an episode coming up midseason which has more dialogue than any episode that we've ever done it is a it is we finally did a courtroom a courtroom episode and it's it was very scary for all of us because we like doing the things without the dialogue and our cast had they flipped through the script which we got to them early because there was so much it was like putting on a play and I don't want to give anything away because it's a few weeks out but it was it was extraordinary to see how they rehearsed it ahead of time and and how they worked on the material and it was it was fun to see to go the other way so at the beginning of this and then later on anyway that's it's it's it's the great thing is we get to with a medium to me and to try to find different ways to get into the heads of these characters so what do you there's this debate about calling television cinematic and saying things are 10 hour movies or six hour movies that were sort of denigrating the medium but like I don't know what are your thoughts on this debate like you see any problem with that or I just don't know what the cinematic really means you know weak as compared to to TV I mean you know it's like you don't want to shoot something on TV that look good a movie that looks bad on TV and and you know we're shooting things I mean I don't know about you guys but every time I ask okay are we shooting for a phone or a 40 inch television they say yes so you know you know are you shooting something where you're really up close to people or you kind of painting these big nights tableaus it's you know there's no way to know anymore what people are going to be watching on but you know I think it's cinematic means not like TV it's probably an insult but I don't I don't take it that way I mean it well I feel like it's two different questions because cinematic to me means like it's visually interesting and so I'm doing a multi-camera sitcom it's like for camera there's not we're not doing maybe we're going to start on a coffee cup but you're going to you're going to be Honda on the character so I think like what what was interesting is just hearing how people are treating people know the tropes so because we have such sophisticated audiences we have to try to fight that so there I've grown up on a million sitcoms that I loved and so how do i but kind of mouse it comes have a bad rap I feel like so it's how do you make a sitcom and make it something that doesn't feel like it's bad but like it's good and the beauty of Netflix is we have time so you know our episodes are 28 minutes 26 to 28 minutes some are 30 that time gives us more meaty Norman Lear moments because we have the time to get into those characters and still have all the funny stuff that feels familiar but then give a little broccoli with the with the meal and so it is looking at that in that way and because we're just filming a play and these actors are getting the material and then shooting it a week later in front of a live audience it's it's this throwback and yet it's new for these actors who are so used to kind of looking at the lines right before shooting the scene in them having time in the makeup trailer to learn their lines for the next scene it's it's a new muscle to see them look designs I mean we were talking about it before that kids my daughter is 12 is watch consumed so much narrative so much more than I ever did this as a kid that you know did the level of she can predict everything that's going to happen in a narrative just in from the music cue from anything and so you know and do you you know double it up and do exactly what you were you they think you're not going to do and you play all those expectation games and on handmaids we just decide okay what would really happen and don't go beyond that because surprising people you know pulling it pulling a surprise out at the end is not really the point it's it's not whether you guess what's going to happen it's how it happens it's I love what you say because there's a problem with twists yeah with twists with hiding things from the audience yeah and it's a great delight for a moment you know and this is where the movie the movie versus television thing comes because usual suspects how great is that there's this great twist at the end but if you have a usual suspect every week and every oh sorry and I wrote it for you now it's okay I'm sorry what it's a great thing to have a twist if you have a twist every week then as a not when you're watching it's loose you're amazed is all you're doing is saying look what's the twist going to be what's the twist which was sake I think certainly can get exhausting but at the same time and especially in comedy I personally think because there is such a long tradition of comedy and there are these sort of lines that have just become like bad cliches unto themselves that you know I'm shocked when I see shows still using them and that's their choice but you know when I see a comedy what I guess what I respond to is when and I'm not saying everybody watches like this but when the joke makes me laugh but also the joke is surprising unto itself which is very different than a twist per se but just sort of like oh wow like like that's really enjoyable and in terms of story when a store me again doesn't have to be a twist but certainly just goes in a pose in the direction hopefully because that's the you know as you say that's part of the internal truth of it but goes in a way where it is something I haven't seen not necessarily that like it I'm throwing away five years of the show to whatever that which I think fills more into the twist but it's still surprising so I think there's a difference in those thoughts I love what you're saying because the the thing that I'm looking for that I'm hoping for in the writers room more than anything is that the characters are going to surprise us yeah the characters are going to do things that we didn't expect that we were to believe that we still believe that we can that would go truly enough character we go quickly what's funny right again it's new yeah and that was for me I was a great reward of the way Michael McKee and his character were developed on better call Saul because when we started the show we thought oh he's kind of really be honest he started just a way to humanize this character to have somebody who was sort of he had to take care of who was sort of a boat anchor for him and Michael came in and I remember because I wrote the first scene that introduced the character and he played it differently from what I was expecting he had a pride and a he was imposing in a way that was not expecting one of the great things about TV though that yes you know it's like you're building you're painting the race card during the race yes so so you know you see what someone does and you go I thought that was going to be funny and it isn't funny or those do people have no chemistry I mean you were saying you write all the episodes before but then you rewrite the whole way through and we like write a lot to the actors and I spent a lot of time rehearsing with them and you know we changed a lot of things as we're going in no rehearsals do you do rehearsal uh well it's kind of it I don't know if it's bad call it rehearsals but I I in the first season I would do this I was really like the dialogue in the before sunrise before sunset those films and I read wants that what Linklater would do is he would have the characters improvise and recorded and I read Kubrick did something like that to Larry he would have actors just kind of improvise and then use those recordings to help craft the script and so I would basically kind of do that kind of process so like and if there's a scene where okay me and this character having sex in the condom breaks I would have the actress and we would be like all right so the condom breaks lets us treat this very real let's not go for any gentle treat this very naturally and we would just improvise a scene you know five six times and then I have all those recordings and then I kind of be like okay well this moment is good this moment is good this direction feels good or all right let's try one where you're not worried about it all but I'm worried about okay let's try one are I'm worried and you're you know like try different versions and use that to kind of help make the dialogue feel more natural so that that's what that's technically what I call Wurzels I don't know if it's millander and we do that we do that with a lot of our bigger scenes it's kind of something that was started before me it was came out of you know I am on doughy energy created the show and ran the first four years of it and that was something that they did a lot in Baltimore I think a lot of times too sometimes they were doing it because scripts weren't ready also which I think they would admit to yeah but at something that sort of the cast was very used to it's not something I had done a lot of on anything that I had really worked on but kind of have taken to it you know it's within reason I think you know sometimes you know endless improv can be infuriating obviously yeah yeah yeah I don't yeah Rob where it's like relman just saying goofy like that time we're good right no more nagging yes set this is the setting this is the point as opposed to be anything can happen but we will will often do our table read and then you know with you know and and let and then kind of let everybody go except a couple of people and kind of in a perfect world we have the sets it's one of our main sets but if it's not we'll kind of fake it in an office and some of its just to sort of be thinking about the a little bit just the physicality of the blocking like what are we looking for but also it will be sort of like okay let's just read it we're holding scripts we're reading it we're doing the excuse me that a couple of times now let's just throw those scripts away and whatever and sort of see where it goes and you know really good stuff has come out of that and also just you know again that's sort of like well what would happen and so you know there were big scenes last season where like we had a big show which was the Congressional ball where she finds out that Tom James who played by Hugh Laurie has sort of been secretly plotting against her but at the same time they're dancing basically and so just letting sort of you know Julia Louie Dreyfus and Hugh Laurie just sort of play with something you know you sort of just almost want to sit back and watch it and just make sure somebody's writing down all the notes yeah but also you know to go like no no what if you're not angry what if you're cooler there and be able to sort of play with it that way and good stuff comes out of that definitely and so do you do that in rehearsal yeah I guess I call it the rehearsal basically yeah yeah yeah absolutely and new ideas have coming I mean completely new I mean most of the time it's in a perfect world it's making something better sort of you know it existed like it's like a an off-the-rack like suitor dress or something that you're then kind of really going like that but there have been times last year we had sort of a scene where it was a Tim as Jonah and he was sort of doing a campaign event and Reid Scott who plays Danny Egan who wasn't even in the scene but was just there hanging out just sort of pitched an idea and we just changed the entire scene off of an actor not in the scene sort of throwing in an idea and I mean I'll take any I'll take an idea from craft services out date you know best joke wins best idea wins but you know so the good stuff comes out of it that way yeah well Peter and the Breaking Bad universe deals with a lot of quote-unquote real Americans are not like from the coast or not elite and cultural division everyone's a real American well the way thank you well the cultural divide sort of came up a lot during the election and are we missing like the pulse of Middle America how much did political talk come out how much does it come up in the writers room if at all you know I know it's not that not but noting that the answer that anybody wants to hear but the truth is we try not to talk about politics in the room not in terms of magnitudes of the news you know we it's I don't know if it's ever been a specific effort but I feel like we spend as writers we spend all our time so much of our time you know the paper or reading the news on the internet or and we it kind of our interest is really in human behavior and and what what what the store where the story takes us and what these who these characters are and weirdly enough I think if there's if there's if there's politics in the show or if there's politics it's we we kind of build it from the bottom up rather than rather than coming from the top down and I real interest is how do we experience things how to you know what are our relationships like it's not so much not so much a broader a broader canvas of the nation as a whole or the world as a whole so it is if there's a journalistic side to the show which I don't know that there is but sometimes we learn things about the legal system that surprised us and interest us for it you know for instance the whole idea of public the way public defender work works the way the courtroom is essentially an assembly line where everybody is getting paid except for the defendant those those things fascinate us because they're not that's not what we're used to seeing but that's in terms of direct politics what's going on today the other thing is that the show takes place it's a prequel to a show that started in and whatever was 2008 so it's just it just it's sort of I think are the beautiful thing for us as if it can be sort of timeless in its own way now it's not really meant to be topical in that and then I love things that are topical and I love love veep and I love all the shows that are out there or a topical like I'm a great consumer of those things but that's not really exactly that's not really what we're what we're doing for whatever weather for better or for worse we're kind of we're playing our game with these characters and trying to understand as best we can what part of the process you guys were in the writers room during the election and how it played into your our show is we were done writing we were shooting and we the same as we were shooting the day before and we are in Canada which was a little different but our show is very political I mean it's about a big political change in in the US you know a takeover by a fundamentalist you know theocratic totalitarian system so documentary yeah documentaries I guess you imagine if you will but it was uh you know it's interesting because I think it affected everybody personally you know we strangely I think we do a very happy-go-lucky set as well it seems when you when you watch the show that it would be a misery but it is but it isn't there's a lot of you know giggling but it I think it was a much more personal reaction than a change in I mean we were already doing something that was we were already trying to be gutsy and you know straightforward and political so it didn't really change that I think it just made us more comfortable with that choice but you know the day we were doing it we did the scene where that has a quote from the book about you know better never means better for everyone it always means worse for some I mean we're doing that scene that day so that was creepy how about for you Laurie I mean the Fidel Castro death you guys had already wrapped my head wrapped by the time that happened I mean that's the one thing about being on Netflix that Norman's really not used to because he and his de something would happen he would comment on it the next week so that's one thing we can't do we can sort of be relevant while not being exactly topical so we would have loved to do something about the election but we we could but we were able to I mean we're going to talk about Fidel's death variously and unfortunately issues with Latinos in this country haven't changed a lot to that so exactly it's not going to be that said Ramiro all the speaking to talk about are kind of the same well to that effect I mean you guys all have different release schedules some are week to week some are you know is it chilling clip we get we they're putting up three three today actually three the first day and then what are we through uh-huh I I was told there'd be no math and then if some all at once how do you think about how people will watch your show how much does that come into play in the writers room thinking if they'll watch like three or four at a time if they'll stock them up or if they will piece it out I think about it a lot more this season than I did last season because we premiere January 6 and the evening of January 6 people were tweeting us once one season two so once you realize that there are some people that are consuming it that way I mean I can't help but think well how will this I mean we are kit that we do 13 episodes which is a lovely number and we do our kit and have some version of serialization in there to sort of keep people you know we're telling us story about this family that has obviously individual episodes but we are building to something every year and it's going to hopefully pay off in some way so we think about it a lot it's it's a big issue and it was my first question when when who greenlit the show and we're going to do 10 is is it going to be ten in one day is there going to be ten over week and they said we are we sure and I was like okay you should you have to tell me because it's a completely different kind of storytelling you know but ten episodes in a row is a big chunk in these these could this the visible elements and that's it makes them really bendable you guys must think about it very carefully the way they weave together it's hard though because you don't know how people are going to watch it some people are gonna watch all ten and some people are going to spread it out so yeah I don't think about it too much but you know like you said we have a season arc but yeah I mean we look to me the each season is kind of a singular piece so like I've I read a review of the show or someone just watched like four episodes I'm like well you didn't really watch the thing we made like that's like watching you know 40% of a movie that was made it's not really reviewing the entire arc of the season but in in season two it was you know I know what you mean like after the first season came out kind of you really realize how many people watch the whole thing so fast and it's really frustrating because you know we spent a year to make a season of the show and then it finishes like that that's it where's the rest it's like well man remarks if you were to because sometimes I will watch like especially if it's a comedy and I can just go through it oh yeah but then when the new season comes out I'm like I don't really remember watch I kind of like working on a bad movie where you work on it for two years and then like on Friday morning the marketing people just tell you yeah it's not opening and you're done and you just like it was like like but it's Friday like the weekend isn't even over it just came out this morning yeah I know it's over appointment is a success I think one of the changes though is that you can the audience pay such close attention it's not so much for me anyway it's not so much are they watching it all at once are they watching it in pieces but it's that they people are paying such close attention and they have the ability to go back and refresh refresh themselves on what happened and what that gives us the opportunity to be very subtle and to set something up at the beginning of a season and have it pay off at the end or have have details that develop as the season goes our characters who come back we have we have characters who come back after see after a couple of seasons and the fact I think I think that some of this is just that people have access so quick such quick access to these to the episodes and it gives us the ability to to you know to not be too redundant with the information I mean I can imagine a world I never worked in any other kind of television really but I can imagine where you know if you when I was a kid you know you would turn on the TV and if you missed if you missed that episode Thursday night then you'd have to hope that there was a rerun later and so of course nobody wanted to do anything serialized because how you miss something I'm not at episode I can't watch that show now we have the ability to you know to pepper things in to and also for us it I don't wanna make it sound like we have like a master plan we can pepper things it's it's also we can look at the episodes that we've already written or broken or shot and say wait a minute what happened with that can look really smart if we laid this inner yes yeah there's a moment in all orders there's a character there's a year we had a we had a sometimes we had a local Albuquerque actor who played a assistant district attorney and he had he had one line in the second episode and we loved him and Bob loved him and so we brought him back once and then we brought him back again and then we brought him back again and it's it's each time we learned more about that character we learned more about more about what that actor Peter - Seth was able to do with that character and he just adds his wonderful little note but if we had to reintroduce who he was each time he came on it would just slow the slow the story down to a grinding halt and we wouldn't be able to do this so I had clarity clarity becomes much less of a chore yeah because I completely agree with and I love doing all of those things I guess I never I never credited it to the any of the notion of like the streaming or any of that stuff to me it just was part of like as television sort of started moving in a better direction which was just sort of like basically going you know they're not idiots we don't have to every time explain things and they'll figure it out or they'll catch up which I think you sort of there was a definite sort of moment when TV made some of those decisions both in drama and comedy but it's interesting that you connecting it to that are sort of yes well how does it influence pacing like knowing how to pace your show out how much is too much too soon well I'm still learning them I'm not sure did and in it the book it's from a book by Margaret Atwood it's very intense stuff and I'm really curious about I mean I think I need a week between episodes I saw very curious to see I think you just have to feel it out and I don't think there's an easy answer I know when I sat down when I was taking the job if you and they were I guess sort of you know I sort of sat down with HBO and with Julia and at that point they had sort of told me that our mondo had left it with this tie this big the election night tie witnesses going back two years which meant that it was the vote would go to based on the Constitution the vote would be in the House of Representatives is sort of a dismissive thing and I was like oh that's fascinating and as I started to sort of think about and read it you know and watch the episodes read the scripts that they had at that point and kind of came back to them I came back to them sort of and this is like I said two years ago so nothing to do with Trent nothing to do with Hilary sort of this plan of okay I think what's going to happen I'm interested in this and this is what I'm thinking which is we will resolve that episode I think maybe there's a chance to do sort of our take maybe unlike a Florida sort of recount situation and ultimately it will go to the House of Representatives and these things will happen and she will lose that to me is the most important thing if she will lose she will not be present United States and I think the worst thing in the world that could happen to her she will lose to another woman and we will figure out how to make that happen because that is her worst nightmare she is the war you know she she wants to be present more than itself but more than that the idea of another woman's art of eating her lunch would drive her crazy and then the show will transition into being the show about the former president United States that was sort of the plan but I definitely said to them I don't know if this is one season and maybe six episodes in she is no longer president and we're here or it's a season and I'll you know I'll start getting into it but you know sort of big overall arcs and then starting to think about like how what do we need and what can we find and whatever one of the big things there was the idea of making Jonah congressman so that one of our actual people would have skin in the game of the actual election and could actually then influence the vote that would affect her one way or another and then all of a sudden is like okay this is a season unto itself so we're sort of just playing out this sort of larger plan but your concerts are feeling it out and when you got into the room or in that conversation with them know that was all that was sort of what I I guess came after I'm a very big believer in big arcs I like when I started season I like to go into the season knowing in some ways it sounds a little weird like I like knowing what the first scene is and I kind of like having an idea of the last scene of the season might be and then ultimately just sort of beverage well that's that there's going to be a bridge between yeah I mean I always know how the bridge but I I that but I just knowing that that's the journey is very important to me does stay the same does that last scene snow lion has still stayed the same it changed locations on this current seemed like but the gist of it isn't the same last season was very much like the whole to do yeah so when you come in at the beginning of a new season guys do you bring in I mean I I always have an idea in my head of what we're going to do but but the minute I say if they're all so polite and respectful that no one says we're not going to do that so I tend to hold on to it and let them you know work through ideas and stuff because either they'll end up where I was and but they'll have gotten there through their own process and and and you know stress tested themselves and be much more invested in or they'll come up with something else and I won't have to look dumb by saying awful go do what I but do you guys go in I mean this is your second season did you go in with ideas or did you have ideas and let them yeah well we came in with the the this is the first the first episode is the last episode these are the last two episodes and then we'll kind of see what journey they take to get there but that's where we're ending and then we would hear from that and we had a bunch of ideas to that it's funny there were a couple things where we swore we would do them and we didn't oh yeah absolutely you know that always happens because somebody else also brings in great stuff great personal stuff from their own life and we talked about that you're in it in a unique position because as a writers room opened up already yeah and so what is the mood like right now considering a possible strike is in the air we're just keeping our head down and working until they tell us the camp yeah because you know we love it so we're going to keep on going until yeah where we are we started yesterday the same thing what's the mood like like what are people talking about does it feel like they're talking about the show I mean I that no one even mentioned I mean there's there's nothing we can do about it I mean really really I mean everybody has to one vote but I mean I think it doesn't change what you're doing in terms of figuring out the story we go as quickly as we can anyway they don't want to go too quickly because then you just do crappy stuff even though it's faster so this really doesn't change anything what do you guys remember about the 2008 one have a t-shirt I think I was pregnant so I was walking right I remember walking pregnant and meeting a lot of great people I'm a lot a writer yeah and actors used to bring us yeah the cancel shows yeah I loved it yeah I thought it was very weird thing which was our daughter had just been born and we had just moved into a new house what were you writing on then I guess we I don't even know I mean it was sort of like not anything specific and we had of like in between curbs seasons and stuff so it wasn't like I had a regular job that should I guess abstention at that point we were still being a little more regular with curb wear what it was kind of like what you're doing like one season every two years or so yeah exactly so we'd sort of do it take a little time up and do it so up since I was working on curb and actually I ended up using like the curb production designer and a lot of curb crew that helped me like furnish my house because the baby was born and like and you know in that so that it was nice but obviously yeah not this time I I am hoping by the time this airs we are all working in there is a deal I voted yes but boy I just really don't want there to be a strikes yeah yeah it's it's the same one don't want to strike if we have to strike that's what we're going to do and it's it's a just from my point of view it's not it's not really up to us it's updates up to it's up to the companies to do what's right so that's that's that's really that's that's I don't know what there's not a lot more to say than that I might might my strike memory is actually of having to leave Albuquerque because my Epping Bad's first season was cut show work by the strike and so I actually might my episode was in prep it was in prep and I still working with those characters and I had you know and then right possible strike seven years ten years later ten years later and I was I was on the picket line and people say so what show Rihanna this thing called Breaking Bad it's they're shooting my episode right now I've been holding a picket sign that's what I was I was trying to mine there so these yet so there was a but I also remember being on picket line and being very entertained by Dana Gould who is not a relation but one of the funniest people around I got to I got Dana kept a whole group of us on Lankershim entertained for for days on end and so all I can say is I hope if if it comes to that and then I'm then I'm stationed wherever he is because he's very lot of fun I do remember are where I was marching outside of Universal I hadn't watched Battlestar Battlestar Galactica the the new series and they and they turned out the people who are on Battlestar we're walking so what I would do is I'd go home at night and watch one episode and then I'd find the writer and you get like DVD commentary all day long and there's nothing you know every writer if you walk up to them on a picket line say he could we talk about your episode for four hours they were in heaven and it was great I mean so every day I've just watched episode of my heavy roads and it was so much fun for for me because you get to ask him a million questions animated the time go by so how do you have any memories from that I think I was doing that sketch show human giant at that time I was a little bit we watch I was telling you before we watched human giant sketches all the time in the writers room how much time so I feel like in our writers room and I remember when I visit the Parks and Rec writers room it was just a matter of like how long till we just start wasting time on the internet and go watch the dumbest stuff on you have the differences I think when I was on ER we John Wells was running also running West Wing and probably nine other shows and so you know we had writers meetings three days a week between you know 2:00 and 5:00 and most of the shows I've ever been you know when I'm running the show it's like all basically all the time it just but so do you guys all have kind of you know you know basically the room is the office in where everybody sits or is it specific times that you guys have laid down for these you've got you know a lot of other things to do well when we're writing we're just writing I don't want that we do all on writing before we start shooting so you know we're just there from canvas five six whatever and we're just in the room just chatting and figuring out stuff and you know if we're writing a script I'll go off and write or Alan I'll go off writing and then maybe we'll kind of break up into groups spending on tasks that need to be done but yeah I mean when we're writing we're kinda just writing towards the end it starts getting into like pre-production but generally it's you know the writing separated that's why it takes so long because there's no overlap you know on Parks and Rec it's like the writing is happening simultaneously that's right now it's all you know ya know waiting out the test yeah so it takes a little longer yeah we we like to break it all and then like break eight so that everyone has something to write and then we all take a week off to write so that everyone stays in the room we like to be together but yeah it's like ten to five ten that we have good hours to I know that's a rarity oh my god when I hear about the bad our shows I like what's going on do ya I don't know how this is making anything better without naming names or with the latest - am was common and five am of the latest at like 500 - I know ladies love getting the writers room so you guys are talking about story till 5:00 in the morning it seems like you can't possibly coming up with your best self at your rated game yeah that's a lot of people like trying to escape their homes no but that I run this show and I hate my family we're staying right what can our show be harsh ooh yes what we all write together what would that look like happy one weird ass show yeah I watch it I would just come up with one or two characters to just send everybody off for a script I think that might be the best way that probably get us the best show and we could eat ice cream Hey hey Don Geiss crew you guys never have two rooms going rarely sometimes is it you know it's like hey can you guys work on this thing and try to walk around figure out this thing you guys figure out you know what happens in this story I only have people thinking about the hardest thing on art for me is I'm on the set for everything Wow I don't we you guys overlap their writing into some a little bit I mean what we you know we get together when we start which is usually the beginning of the summer or some point in the summer we spend a lot of the summer just talking about ideas and then ultimately putting them into sort of piles similar piles and then those piles like writers go off to turn those into outlines and then hopefully eventually into scripts but invariably the scripts aren't fully done they just never are no matter how much time you have and obviously things change and things develop and so once we're actually shooting like I said I'm on I'm on the stage or the location for the whole thing and so definitely then I have like you know especially if they're they'll be like they'll you know I'll try and read stuff and give notes and whatever but then I there'll be like like my number two will run uh sort of a punch up room whatever that I'm not there for and things of that nature but that's when it gets harder is when we're actually shooting and it just always does and no matter how much you tell yourself we're going to have all 10 scripts done there never is always writing any day and that's why we do like it oh I was just going to save it that you know I don't that I've been on shows where they have all the scripts done ahead of time and as you were saying you you end up it doesn't work I mean it does but it's not the effective use of the process because the whole point of it is that you can see and change things as they go along and see how things are so if you have them all ahead of time you just say okay we're just going to shoot that no matter what we're going to put our head down and shoot that you don't take advantage of the fact that you are doing individual chapters and you get to revise and and go back I mean we I bus with scripts all the way up to the last minute we have you know last season we had most of our scripts done but we still mess around with them for a long time well thank you guys so much for joining us and thanks for all the hours of TV it was a pleasure thank you

Channel: Los Angeles Times

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Id: IkE3TLzlcJQ

Length: 61min 33sec (3693 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2017