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Transcript

The Work is the Reward with Bryan Cogman · Dos Amigos

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm Wilmer A bald Uramasriguez.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the dose Amigos. And today again we find
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: ourselves being three amigo Yes, and we have someone really special,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: someone fairly fascinating.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: You know you are beyond my friend or my brother.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: For years we've been in the trenches of the treacherous
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: trek that it.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: Is Hollywood.
• 0:34
  Speaker 5: Serious developments.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: But uh, you know, before I give you that epic introduction,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to say thank you for for believing
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: in me and believing in the things that we could
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: do together and and all the things.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: I'm incredibly proud.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: You're gonna start this making me cry.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna start there to it because I'm gonna bring
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: a full circle to to what I'm saying. I want
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: fans to be look looking forward to, you know, the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: connection we have.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: But Brian Cogman, you are a very.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Decorated actually more decorated than Freddie Rodrigue to.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Be honest, right the resort, it's actually on my special skills,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: my resume, more decorated.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Brian Cogman, Uh is a four time Amy winning writer.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Damn, He's a producer.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: He's a prolific playwright, but a lot of people are
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: gonna find out today that you are very classically.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Trained act act as well.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed, so I wanted to start by saying thank
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you for being on the show.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: You know, we're also going to dive into what a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: lot of the fans want to hear. It's like, what
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: is the secret sus of of being part of something
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: as massive as Game of Thrones? But also you know
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: how your mind works, how you develop and created those
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: things are not easy things to write and and so
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: that's exciting. But but diving in a little bit, I
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: know all three of us have become you know, dear
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: friends as well, and and uh, Brian, So let's start
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: from the beginning, man, Yeah, So where were you born?
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Where were you raised?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Oh? I was I was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: I was only there a year though, and I don't
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: really remember any of it. But I grew up mainly
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: in suburban Maryland outside d C. And then a little
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: bit in Connecticut and then New York for college.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Why did your Why did your folks make the move?
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: My dad was he was a lobbyist for an oil
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: company Oklahoma and then he sort of transitioned to public relations.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: And this was like you know, Reagan and then Clinton
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: era Bushing and Clinton era Washington, d C.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So you were there for that iconic decade of politics.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, not really being aware of any of it,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: a far from but but yeah, I mean it was,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: it was. It was a fun place to grow up.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: And uh, I was you know, I have a lot
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: of affection for DC and and I grew up going
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: i mean really to theater. I went to the Kennedy
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Center in the National Theater and the Shakespeare Theater there
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: and the Volger I sort of discovered my love of
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: theater there.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: How did you do this there? Like how did you
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: stumble upon that?
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  Speaker 2: Like coming from where your family was actively doing and
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: all that, and you're like, well, that's the family business.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: But well, I mean yeah, like my parents, my mom
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: was an artist, like a painter. That's what she sort
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: of trained for, and then she was and then she
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: was a homemaker when we were growing up. But the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: but art was a big part of our family. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: my my grandmother was a music teacher. My grandfather you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: to community theater, so the arts were important in the house,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: you know, and art history and musicals on your mother's side,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: both sides. Really yeah, yeah, my his his my father's
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  Speaker 3: mother was a music teacher, so music was a big
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  Speaker 3: part of the house and love of the arts was
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: a big part of growing up. So I was always
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: exposed to it. And then I don't remember not wanting
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: to do it. My mom tells me that I was
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: watching Star Wars when I was I guess in like
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I was like four or something.
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  Speaker 5: I have no memory of this, and I.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Asked, I asked something about I asked if Luke Skywalker
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: wrote the story. You know, I pointed at Luke Skywalker,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: he write the story, and my mom's well, no, actually,
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  Speaker 3: a man named George Lucas wrote that, and and and
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  Speaker 3: it's funny because I think I must have filed that
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  Speaker 3: away because I then, you know, pursued acting, but then ultimately,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: ultimately now I tell the story behind the scenes.
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  Speaker 5: But I told George Lucas that story on the set
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: of Game.
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  Speaker 3: Of Thrones and he just was like, oh, yeah, I've
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  Speaker 3: never heard that before.
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  Speaker 5: But that was a fun day though.
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  Speaker 3: He came to visit and I tore him around. But so, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: so I've never remembered not wanting to tell stories or
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: be a part of telling stories, you know in some way.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, and then you know, even though my my
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: my dad was in you know, sort of politics adjacent
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: PR and then once we moved up to uh, New
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: York area, it was it was sort of in general
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  Speaker 3: public relations.
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  Speaker 5: But he was always a huge.
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  Speaker 3: Supporter of me and and my artistic ambitions.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: And whenever he whenever he.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Could be helpful or influential there through his business, he was.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And so it was a very loving, supportive household for
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: me and my and my brothers and sisters. It was.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: It was great.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: But but you were a wee lad back then.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So like when did when did you actually start to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: show love and enthusiasm for it?
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Was it like elementary school or like, yeah, right.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: Away we did.
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  Speaker 3: We I went to like acting after school, sort of
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: acting class at this place, the Bethesda Academy Performing Arts Papa,
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  Speaker 3: and we did little plays. And and then when I
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: was in middle school, I started doing the school plays
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: and you know, forcing my my siblings to make little
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: movies at home and and uh and just and you know,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: when when and Wilman knows this about me, when I
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: when I decide I want to learn about something, I
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: just dive into it. So I sort of just tackled
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: certain playwrights or certain you know, like composers or filmmakers.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Were you seeing it kind of like all of a
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: sudden you realize, Oh, I'm like Neo and the Matrix.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing where the writer took the build up, where
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the act started or ended.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: Like, how did you started really seeing it?
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: How it moved?
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: I don't in terms of like in terms of the process, Yeah,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm still figuring this out.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I mean truly, I came to it first as a performer.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: That was really kind of what I what I wanted
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: to do. I I never really you know, I thought
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: I might be a writer director someday, but it never
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: I never really formally trained for that, you know. I
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: mean what I actually feel like I know how to
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: do is act, but no one ever really wanted me
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: to I want to pay me to do that, so
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: so so I you know, transitioned later. But but but yeah,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I just it was just I was very lucky in
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: that I grew up in two teens where our public
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: education system and our schools there just had really robust
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: arts programs, which you know, I discovered first day of
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: school at Julliard when I would hear kind of horror
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: stories about from some of my classmates about the fact
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: that they had no outlet in their in their towns.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I was just extremely lucky that both in Potomac and
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: then in New Canaan, Connectut where I lived, my public
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: schools had opportunities to do. You know how incredibly important that, right?
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  Speaker 3: Oh my god.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And we've had this conversation before because I started young,
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  Speaker 1: and it was because of the the It was actually
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  Speaker 1: because of the lack of the arts and the public
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: school system that led me towards an independent theater company.
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  Speaker 1: But how important is that? How important of an outlet
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is that in the public school system to have that, right?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's sometimes as life and death
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the the Oh sorry, I think the difference is like life.
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  Speaker 1: I know so many people who kind of went in
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  Speaker 1: the wrong direction if only they had something like that.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I don't know what I would have done.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I certainly I was terrible at sports. I was, you know,
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  Speaker 3: okay at school. I mean, this was what I want wanted,
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  Speaker 3: this was this was me and and and I really
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: just took for granted that you know, every kid had
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: these opportunities. I mean we did my high school, middle school.
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  Speaker 3: My middle school did Gilbert and Sullivan operettas because the
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: teacher there just happened to be a Gilbert and Sullivan expert.
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  Speaker 3: So I thought all seventh graders were doing you know,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Ruddigore a few you got that reference, you know, you
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  Speaker 3: know I was doing. And then my high schools, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we were doing you know, five six plays a year.
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  Speaker 3: We were doing student directed plays. You know, I directed
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  Speaker 3: mole Year comedy one acts in my high school.
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  Speaker 4: You know what was Brian Juilliard actor?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, what's that process?
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  Speaker 5: Like?
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  Speaker 1: So high school and then and then like you took
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  Speaker 1: it a step further and you decided to audition and
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  Speaker 1: you got into this in the Juilliard So like what
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  Speaker 1: what was that? Like?
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  Speaker 3: What was I mean it was it was crazy. Well,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: it's funny you auditioned at least then you auditioned pretty
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: early in your like senior year of high school.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: So I remember auditioning.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: I can't remember it was before Christmas or maybe it
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: was just after, but it was, you know, college applications
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: were just kind of starting for everybody. And I lived
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: at that point. I lived in Connecticut, so it was
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: a train ride in and you you just prepare, you
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: prepare your two monologues, your your comedic, your contrasting monologues.
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  Speaker 3: So a comedic thing and a dramatic thing, one classical,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: one contemporary.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: So I did.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I did Yago from Othello, Oh, just still the role
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: I I want to play someday. How do you know
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: that's that's the one that got away. I've never actually
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: played him.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Happen, it has.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: To happen, right, Yes, I love Yago because just tangent.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I love him because he's he's everybody's friend, like he's
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the greatest villain in the world.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: But it's because it's Yago.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: It's like he like Yago should look like me, like
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: this completely unassuming kind of he's not. He's harmless. We
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: can ignore him. He'll be fine, you know. So I
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: always wanted to play him. So I did he Iago,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: And then Sam Shepard monologue A Buried Child, and uh,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: and then I think I had a backup of importance
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: to being earnest by Oscar Wilde. And yeah, you go
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: in and you do your monologues, and you know, there
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: a thousand people there, and you do them for three
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: kind of stone faced you know, faculty members there, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: and then you they post the callback kind of list
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: mid day for for people who were going to stay
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: then for the second part of the day. And I
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: was convinced i'd bomb the audition. So I went and
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I went on.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, right. I was convinced I was terrible.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: So I because they didn't laugh, that there was I
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: just came to realize they don't they don't react. That's
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: what they do. They psychologically destroy you. And I find
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: that out the hard way over the next four years.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: But but uh, so I called my girlfriend, my girlfriend
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: in high school at the time, uh and called her
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: on a payphone and was.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Like, I'm coming home. I'm getting on the train.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I I was horrible. She said, oh, you didn't get
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: called back. I said, don't. I don't even need I
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: don't even need to check. Yeah, She's like, stay and
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: see if you're on the list.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: What if you are?
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: It's like, there's no way, but she convinced me to
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: stay and look at the I swear I would have
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: got if she hadn't answered the phone, I would have
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: gotten on that train because I was convinced it didn't happen,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: and then there I was. And it's only about you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: ten fifteen people for that second.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Wow wow, and you got chosen.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: So then yeah, and so then you're there the rest
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: of the day. You go back, you do everything again
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: for the entire faculty, and they have you do a
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: little improv and then you get then you get summoned
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: up to the head of the headmaster, the head of
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: the department's office and have sort of a little conference
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: there and they ask you who are your favorite actors
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and things like that, and then how do you answer
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: that question?
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: I think I answered.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: I think I was like, oh, Daniel d Lewis, because
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: you know, he's a chameleon.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: I yeah, which I.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Mean makes sense.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: It's a good answer, but it was you know, I
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: probably answered in a very pretentious way.
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: But I guess it worked.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Because I've got in. I got in pretty pretty quickly thereafter.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: They let me know. I didn't even have to. I
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: didn't audition for any of the programs. I was.
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: It was just wow.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: So was wild Yeah, Well, I guess I don't know.
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: It was it was.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: And then it was a very very intense, very wonderful
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: four years, you know, and and you know there's only
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: twenty of you in your class, and only by the end,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: generally about fourteen or fifteen of you were left because
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: there are there are people fall out of their cuts
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: or whatever. And so the best thing I got from that,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: from that, truly was my my class, my classmates. You know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: we're all still.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Was there anybody in your class or maybe a class
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: before or after?
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: That went on to oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: my class.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: Anthony mackews in my class.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Oh set out to Anthony, he's man, Yeah, one of
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: my still one of my dearest friends. We're working on
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: something together now. Lee Pace another great friend, great actor.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And then I mean, yeah, I was there with a
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: bunch of I mean just stay as a couple of
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: years behind me.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: Michael Ury was also, I think he was in Jessica's class.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Oscar Isaac Oscar.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: I think Oscar was right after I would have left.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I think Oscar and Adam Driver and those guys were
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: like right after I was there. But yeah, I mean
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: it was I it was amazing and you got to
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: see everything for free. I mean they papered the house,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: all the the Broadway houses, with students. So you saw
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: every Broadway show for free for four years, and it
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: was it was incredible.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: It was what did you discover by yourself in that process? Right,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: because it is like it is a lot of grinding
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: out of like what is your comfort? I was pushing
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: your you know, your limitations to kind of reach into
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: deeper understandings and things like that, like what what came
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: up for you during that time that you were there?
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: You know It's funny. I am such a people pleaser
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: and I definitely think I'll tell you this. I wouldn't
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. But if I
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: were to trade the experience, I would have gone later.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I would have gone. I would have gone to an
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: actual about half the classes right out of high school
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: and the other half were people who had done four
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: years of college.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: And this was essentially like a master's sort of thing.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: What I didn't have was any kind of life experience
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: that I think would have benefited me. I was so green,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: and I was so like, you know, eager to please
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: and sew in my head and as a result, like
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: my biggest issue were movement issues. I was just like,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: you know, stiff because I was so just wound up
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: and wanting to just wanting to wanting to please everybody,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and not just kind of letting go and being present
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: in the moment.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: That was the hardest thing for me.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: It's one of the things that I think when I
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: try to professionally do it, I never really shook because
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: I'm a very good actor, but I was not good
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: at being an actor. Nor do I miss being an actor.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And when I say, I mean, I don't. I never
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: got good at auditioning. I never got good.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: At We've had this conversations about this.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Auditioning is the most it's horrible. It's inhumane. Yeah, and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: it's like the most unnatural thing you could ever do
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: to try to get a job.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: It's the antithesis of what the actual work is.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'd.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Rather try to rather, I'd rather train to be in
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a football team. And like, actually, the audition to be
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: an actor.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's the necessary evil, right, Yeah, I'm terrible
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: at it. Man, I don't know.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: You guys are pretty good, and I don't.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Know how I've made it this far because I'm not.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I remember Christian Bale said that to me once too.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: He was like, man, I'm the freaking worst at auditions.
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean I was.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I mean I was just I put every every hope
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: and dream into each one, you know, and I think
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: the the people who can just sort of treat it
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: as part of the part of the craft and not
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: worry so much about it, and I just never could.
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: So uh and then I never really did in terms
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: of acting, I never really did anything on on film.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: I mean I I or TV.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Like, so, did you just do theater after or what?
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I did theater, you know, I did. I
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: did a wonderful uh rep company called the Acting Company
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: for a couple of years out of school. But you know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I signed with a kind of you know, small agency,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: but I wasn't signed by the big That's the other thing.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: You sort of you know, you're all there together, and
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: you're in the trenches and you're you're, you're, you're, you're
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: all in it together and you spend every waking moment together,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: and then you have your showings at the end where
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: you do like these little scenes for all the agents
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: and managers, the showcases, the showcase, yeah, which they now
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: do both in New York and LA. Back then, we
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: just did it in New York and uh and then
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: some of your class and the whole time, you know,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: the whole time you're there, there whisper you the future
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: of American theater, the future of entertainment.
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: But they don't really tell you it was only only
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: only two or three of you are.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: The future of America's so interesting you're saying that, because
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: there is always a wave, and then when the when
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the tie moves back, you see what like really stands,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you know, and it's in in in even that the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: recipe for those who stay, so it never makes sense,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: you know, think about.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: And for some people it's just that undefinable thing. I mean,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: like Anthony has. And I know this now being a
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: being a producer and being on the other side and
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: looking at at at at actors, you know, I have
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: so much more empathy and understanding for kind of what
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: they were going through when I was out there trying
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: to be an actor. There are certain performers who just
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: have that, who have the chops and the training and
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: also just have that thing. You know, Anthony's got that thing.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: You guys have that thing, Like there are people that
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: just have that thing, and I don't.
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: I don't think I do.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to be you know, falsely modest
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: or whatever I think I think I'm I. I guess I
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: think I'm a good actor. But in terms of kind
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: of when the as you say, when when the tide,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: when the tide went back in or I'm messing up,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: but when the water receded, like, yeah, you know a
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: few of us were being snapped up by the big
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: agencies and going out on the big auditions, and a
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: few of us were you know, not and and uh
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: it was it was humbling, you know. But what I
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: what I loved about our class though, was I even
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I never felt any jealousy because we just loved each
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: other so much, you know. And there were other things
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I think about.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, you think about the audacity of you guys
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: making it through all those calls and then all of
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a sudden ending it up in a class and supporting
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: one another to get deeper into the scenes, and and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: there's like, I mean, that's like that's probably a really
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: unique and very special experience to go through with somebody.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I remember I remember specific moments in class
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: with some of those people, you know, the way I
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: remember I don't know my children were born. I mean,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: like really just kind of seismic, beautiful, intimate pieces of
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: artistry that that that electricity that happened just in those
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: rehearsal rooms, you know, and that's informed everything I've done since.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, that informs the writing, that informs and producing that,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: you know. So it's funny. I really value the education
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and the time and the intensity of it and the
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: exposure to all of these things, and they've they've benefited
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: me in ways that I certainly didn't think I was.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I wasn't conscious of that, right, but it.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: Was meaning you as a writer, you as a producer.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: And even just and even just living in the world.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, like the Alexander technique was a huge thing
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: that we that we studied, which is a sort of
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: it's I don't know if it's I guess it's a
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: movement technique. It's a it's hard to kind of explain,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: but you know, the the one of the main mantras
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: is free the neck, let the torso lengthen and allow
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the torsa to lengthen and widen and in three dimensions.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: And you know, when I'm sitting trying to just rewrite
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: you know, so the neck, you know, allow the torsa,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the lengthen I mean it's it's sort of becomes a
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: kind of, uh, I don't know, kind of just a
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: state of being, you know. And that was something we
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: did to service our acting.
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: Technique, but it it now just that just keeps.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Me from you great teachers have a way of just
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: using certain trigger words. Like a teacher said to me once,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: like one of those acting coaches in my early years,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: because I had that same thing.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: I was so intense about.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Making sure that I deliver everything to somebody's eyeballs that
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I forget that I also had another instrument to use,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: which was your body, your arms, you know, the way
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: that you talk to people. And he said, just release
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: it and just like release it, release what you release
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it all. And then you had this mental like I
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: opened my hands and I let them go. And then
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my hands now are being used
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to say words, you know, and you know, as a
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: lat person, I used you know, as we use our
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: hands yep, quite extensively as like a comma, imperiods and
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: exclamation rights, you know.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: So it was it was really great to.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Remember just like release it, right, and then what's left
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: use it right, Like it was a very interesting thing
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: that a teacher can.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: Can use those words.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And I always describe artists artists and directors and and
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: showrunners and writers and the relationship with artists as the
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: catcher and picture.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So the catcher is the psychiatist is the is the
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: is a therapist, you know, and and they massage the
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: pitch out of the picture. And artists, uh need to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: have a certain level of finesse in order to guide
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: them to go to places that they themselves are never gone,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: you know, otherwise it becomes pretty transactional. And and so
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: so then at some point you decide, I think I'm
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: gonna write something.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: And where was that moment?
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Uh? And you're it's funny, I was, I we were
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: we were just I mean I always had ideas for stories.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: We were just we're kind of going back and forth.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: My wife Mandy and I. She's an actor as well,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: who's now also a wonderful writer. And and you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: like a lot of actors do, and they're in between jobs, they.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Think, well, I'll write.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Something for me and my friends to do. And around
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: this time, my dear friend Glenn, Howarton do you guys
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: know Glenn at all it's alway sunny in Philadelphia, Yes,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: And so he was a year ahead of me, and
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: he and Rob and Charlie had just gotten It's always sunny.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Remember that story where they they basically FX was brand
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: new and they somehow sold the show. They shot it
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: on like a DV camera and sold the It's the ultimate, Like,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: let's make a pilot in our apartment and they'll give
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: us a series thing, and they did, you know, and
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: then they're I think in their twenty third season now
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: or something insane. So I was like, well, I'll do
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: what Glenn did. I'll a'll write, I'll write a thing
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: and I'll shoot it with my digital camera with my friends.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: And I wrote it for my classmates and my wife.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: And it was just this.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Little script about you know, late twenty somethings living in
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Tennis Beach, California. And I think the premise of it was,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I think the premise of it was it was hardly
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: an original premise, but the theme was like, oh, when
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: our parents were pushing thirty, they were buying houses and
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: had two kids, and this whole generation is waiting another
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: ten fifteen years before they actually start to be adults,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: and so that was sort of an underlying thing. So
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I started writing that and uh, and around that time,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: my wife, Mandy was nanny ing for Amanda Pete, the actress,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the wonderful actor and also wonderful writer, and she was
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: sort of part time nanny. And I've always said, I
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I'm the I'm the luckiest nanny's husband in the history
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: of Hollywood, because Amanda was married is married to David Benioff,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and my wife was nannying their very little six month,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: six week old baby, like I think she was. She
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: was sitting up with the baby at night. Amanda was
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: finishing shooting Studio sixteen the Sunset Strop and had to sleep.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: So Mandy went in for like a two week gig
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: where she would sit up with the baby at night,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: bring her into, you know, feed and then Amanda, who right, Yeah,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: that's exactly what it was. And David at that time
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: was writing his second novel, and so Mandy and David
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: were like hanging out, you know, because he would he
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: would write a night anyway, she mentioned that, oh, my
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: husband's an actor, and he wrote a pilot. And I
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: think David, just to be nice, was like offered to
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: read it and probably immediately regretted it the minute he offered.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh no, I have to read this thing.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: And so i'd met him maybe once I gave him
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: the I gave him this pilot about you know, thirty
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: somethings in Venice Beach, and uh, he wrote me. He
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: wrote me the next day and said, I was just
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: being nice, but you you're a writer. Did you realize
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: did you realize you're a writer? This is great? Oh?
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Wo wow?
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, hands out.
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: I was sort of just gobsmacked by that. And he
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: gave me some feedback on it and kept checking in
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: with me and opened a few doors. At that point.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: You know, the acting gigs were not coming.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: We were out here.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: We came out here for pilot season. You know, I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: here for pilot Seasonah. Of course we had no representation,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: but we were here. Give us a pilot apartments. Well
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: basically yeah, I mean, you know, I remember we were
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: lucky enough where my my parents had a place out
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: here we could stay. But I mean, uh, yeah, we're
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: to advise young people.
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: Who are listening.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: In your first year of marriage, don't move your new
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: wife in with your two younger brothers and their girlfriends
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: into a house. It's a very bad idea for your
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: first first year of marriage or.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Mad because it seems like they're well yeah, actually yeah,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: but no.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: So he was opening a few doors for me in
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: terms of getting like some assistant gigs and things. And
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: then you know Game of Thrones pilot got picked up.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: So how you were you were assistant and that.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was an assistant.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I assisted Ben Silverman. Uh you know, I probably yeah,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: I mean I probably met you at some point because
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: everybody was coming through the.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: Offices, dude, I probably.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I remember I drove him to some of ugly Betty
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: event really yeah, you know Michael Hurry of course, yes,
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: my old Jilliard friend got it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: That's funny.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He I worked for him for for his his
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: brief tenures the president of NBC. Okay, and uh I
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: so that was after that was it was after yeah,
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I think was still on or maybe it was like
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: the last few seasons. I don't remember, but I was
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: his I was his third assistant, his driver and I
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: am not a very good driver, and uh certainly was
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: we just come from New York.
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: I had driven in years and He even said to
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: me like the third night, like.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: Man, I love hanging out with you. You're a terrible driver.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, does that mean I don't
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: have a job anymore. He's like no, but I love
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: that you would say that, Yeah, sure you still have
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: the job.
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: So he had be reading scripts for him and you know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: doing stuff.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And then, uh, I pretty much burned out after three
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: months working for Ben because he was he was I mean,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: he was great, very nice to me.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean he's he's a he's a miss
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: selling machine. Yeah, he was just in move it was
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: it was I produced something with.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, And he was great to me. He
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: was really encouraging, you know, like lovely guy. People would
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: get in the car and say, this is Brian. He
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: went to fucking Juliard. He's a great actor, great writer,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: you know, like which, you know, that's a nice thing
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: to do. You can you know, plenty of people just
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: ignore the driver, you know. So he was really nice.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: And then I got a job as a writer's assistant
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: on an NBC series called My Own Worst Enemy that
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: was a sort of a jecculin hyde Cia thing with
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Christian Slater, and uh, it did not go very I
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: mean it didn't. I think it was canceled after a
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: few episodes. All my best friends in Hollywood in terms
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: of like my my writer people I met on that show,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: my son's namesake, the number two on a show I'm
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: just about to do and show run.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: All my people.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: I met the other assistants and the staff writers on
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: that show. So uh. And then the day that was
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: canceled that show was the day that Came of Thrones
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: pilot was picked up, and Bettyoff calls me and asks
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: if I would be their assistant on the pilot that
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: was shooting that summer, and I walked in. Everyone else
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: was all sad because the show had been canceled, and I.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: Was like, well, I have a job.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna work on this show called Game of Thrones. Yeah,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: and they're like you but no, I mean it was.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: It was.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: And I'd read the books kind of because I knew
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: David was sort of working on it.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Were you aware of the franchise before it actually got
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: made by the No?
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: No, I mean Mandy mentioned that David had set up
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: David and Dan Weiss, his writing partner, had set up
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the the book at HBO. But I guess there was
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: a long kind of gestation period with I mean, merchandising,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: just stuff that they had to sort out, and they
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: weren't even sure if it was going to go, and
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: so out of curiosity, I was like, I'll read those books.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: But those books at those points, at that point, they
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: were they were successful, and they had a really loyal following,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: but they weren't you know, no no on a global
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: household word kind of thing. And of course I read
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: them like anybody else, absolutely loved them. I mean I
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: remember I was reading them when I was working for Ben.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I remember, I remember throw. I remember sitting in Ben's
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: car waiting for to come out like a shot to
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: a Marmaude or something at fucking one in the morning,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: and I read about spoiler alert. I read about Ned
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Stark's death and threw the paper back at the windshield
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: and sort of sat there in the car, like what
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: am I gonna do?
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Was was the series? Was that? Did Carolyn already set
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: that up? Or was that David?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Who?
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah? No, David.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: So David and Nan pitched it to Carolyn Strauss when
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: she was running HBO and then when she when she
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: left become an independent producer a producer. There was the
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: first thing. She she was like, well, I want to
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: produce it. So she was executive producer of the show.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Carolyn was fantastic and I know, you know, you knew
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: her well for for years from yeah, we're working five years.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: So so you end up all of a sudden on
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: the set of give a thrown S Witch. Yeah, absolutely launched.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: You know, you're like, you know, you're part of your
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: lif see your next chapter and all that. Yeah, And
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: so when at what point in the process where.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: You like, oh shit, I think this is gonna be something.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Because you're thinking, like, this is the first time that
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I think HBO had really like venture off to do
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: something this high concept.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Now, oh yeah, they'd never I think there was a
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: lot of internal nervousness about even doing it because no
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: one had done fantasy on the you know, quote unquote
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: premium level before you know, it's certainly not I mean
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: the HBO had never done anything like that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: I mean True Blood was maybe.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: The closest they'd come to it, you know, in terms
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: of genre, but it was they were all they were
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: a little I think I remember they were a little nervous,
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: like how much of the fantasy do we show And
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: if you watch the first season a Game of Thrones,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: the fantasy elements are very much on the peripheries and
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: sort of by design, you know, the sort of dragons, Yeah,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: like you know the dragons are they're not born till
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: the final episode of the first season and you see that,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: you see the why Walker's and the and the zombies,
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: but they're very because the all idea is that magic
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: has been gone for years and it's kind of coming back.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: So and I'm sure the only way they could even
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: really get it set up there was was pitching the
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: I mean of it, right, Yeah, I think David pitched
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: it as uh Sopranos in Middle Earth, you know, like
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: that was the like that was. It's funny where when
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: we were writing it, particularly in the early days, the
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: North Star shows that were references for us were like
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: the Sopranos and The Wire and like we weren't we
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: weren't talking about Lord of the Rings. We were modeling
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: ourselves on the great HBO shows, you know what I mean.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: So so when did I know it was good? It's
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: funny because we had those books, like we knew where
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: the story was going, so we knew like, if we
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: could just get to the red wedding, if we could
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: just get to the back, if we get there, like
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: this is gonna be the greatest thing ever. And even
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: if once, if we can even if we can get
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: the pilot good and get picked up when we when
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Ned Stark dies in episode nine, when when Sean the
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: guy in the poster dies, and I mean, we just
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: knew that the bones of the story that George you know,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: so beautifully told in the books, and that was a
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: great gift. Now, you know, book series are adapted all
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: the time for shows, but this was kind of novel
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: at the time. So when did I know it was good? Well,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: it's funny the original pilot, you know, did.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: You guys shoot the whole season?
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: No, we shot.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: We shot a pilot like old school, like, we went
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: and shot the pilot and and and it didn't go
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: so well like it I don't even know if they
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: tested it, but it was it was there were a
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: lot of problems, and it was it was.
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: It was a number of things.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: It was you know, script stuff, it was certain, some
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: casting choices, it was certain. You know, it's it was
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: a tricky.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: Thing to realize.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was a fantasy world that yeah. Yeah,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: so you know, we were sort of and they were
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: first time showrunners, you know, I mean I technically had
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: more TV experience than them.
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: From my few months on my astonomy. Well, David had
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: David written a few screams.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, he wrote twenty fifth Hour, which is based
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: on his novel, and then he'd written Troy and and uh,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I think one other movie called Stay, and then Dan
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: went fantastic writer. And I had a lot of things
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: going but hadn't I don't think anything you had been
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: produced yet. And they were old friends and David brought
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Dan on to partner with him on this, but in
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: terms of making a TV series, we were I mean,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: everybody you know it was it. It was just so uh,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there was any moment where I
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: knew it was.
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: I had no idea it was going to become as huge.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Because it's always a grind. You're always in it, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: you're like you're just trying to get to.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: The next day.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: It's like, let's get to the let's get the pilot made. Yeah,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: let's get the show greenlit. Let's see and and if
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: you if you don't do that, I think the danger
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: now is when everyone's trying to do the next Game
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: of Thrones is you're thinking, oh, this is let's make
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: the biggest show ever. You got to just make make
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: sure the scene works and then make sure the next
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: scene works.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you say that. I did a
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: movie with with Sean Bean. Oh yeah, and we were
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: in the Ukraine shooting this movie.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: What movie did you make a Sean Oh, there's really terrible.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Uh movie that probably people only saw in the Ukraine
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and Russia, Me, Sean Bean, a few of us.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Chris.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Later you said, oh my god, wow, James Cromwell the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: rains like really really big cast. But I remember we
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: were doing it and there was something else I was
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: doing that was in the TV space.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: And this was back when like actors.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Were like you're a film actor, you were a TV actor,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: and it was like only some of them were crossing over.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: And I was like, hey, Sean, would you ever consider
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: doing a TV show?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And he was like, well, I actually just kind of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: did one. I did a pilot for one. I was like, yeah,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: what is it?
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: He goes, ah, Man, I don't know, it's this thing.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And then there's like dragons in't it?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: And it's like, I don't know if it's gonna go.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: It's at HBO. I shot the pilot.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: We'll see, yeah, And then and then we got home
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and the show came out.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: I mean that was phenomenon.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: That's how it was. It was. It was very touch
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: and go and I think I think you know, gave
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: it and Dan, to their credit, I think saw it,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: saw what was wrong. We were able to articulate how
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: they were gonna shift and course correct and and and
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: uh and then we got some amazing, you know kind
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: of HBOS stalwart directors.
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: To do that.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: First, you probably worked with a few like Timmy Van
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Patten and Dan Menahan, Alan Taylor. I mean, like you know, yeah,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I mean the guys that did Six Feet Under and Deadwood,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: and I mean those were the people that you know,
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: did that first season a Game of Thrones with us,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: and and so you know, it was it was it
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: was a learning experience, but it was it was amazing.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: I mean it was we were in Belfast, which at
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: that point was you know, uh in its infancy is
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: a production hub. You know, the whole thing that was
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: that was that was our base of operations.
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: The whole time.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: We we would do other stuff in Croatia, Morocco, Malta, Iceland,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: but our base of operation was always Belfast. I lived
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: in Belfast, Northern Ireland for the better part of ten years.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: You know, my daughter was born there. I mean, it's
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: my second home. I would I miss it terribly. So
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: we kind of grew a production infrastructure while we were there,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: which is an incredibly gratifying thing. And and uh and
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: utilized all these locations that at that point had never
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: really been very rarely been shot on, you know. So
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: but you know, I just was Look, I think I
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: worked hard and I brought the goods when I got
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the opportunities. But I was very fortunate. I mean, I
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: you know, but you didn't start off as a writer.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: You started off as I was their assistant, but they
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: had but they gave me the fourth episode of the
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: of the show to write.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: So why did wait?
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: Because no one told them you don't do that?
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: But how did that transition happen?
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: So what happened was I was doing I was I
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: was an assistant. We went and shot the Before we
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: shot the pilot, HBO wanted a detailed season one outline
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: to sort of have an idea where it was going
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: because it was a big show, very expensive, lots of characters.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: As as we talked about, it was you know, sort
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: of uncharted territory for them, and I think they just
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: wanted a firmer foundation about what the thing was going
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to be. At that point. I believe the plan was
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: that David and Dan were going to write them all themselves.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: So the writers room for that first season was the
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: two of them and me, and we broke broke season one. Now,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: for season one, you know, we had the book, and
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: that first book kind of beautifully just every eighty pages
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: was an episode out. It was like, oh my god,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: this is you know. It became much more challenging in
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: terms of that later on with the future when the
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: books got bigger. But so we broke that whole first season.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: And during that time, I you know, at this point,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: house Lanister, house Stark, these were not household terms.
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Now, anyone with a sort of rough knowledge of pop culture,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: even if I haven't seen the show, they hear Winter
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: is coming and it's like the May the Force be
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: with you, it's a thing. Yeah, But that was not
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: the case then. I Mean I remember telling agents on
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: the phone. No, No, it's Game of Thrones, not Game
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: of Thorns like it was. You know, it was like
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: what is this thing? And a lot of the actors,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, like Sean, we're like, what is
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: this thing?
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: I'm doing?
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: What are we doing? Here?
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Is? Where's this going?
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: You know?
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I ended up writing family trees and historical
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: documents and timelines to sort of guide to the various
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: religions on the show. I sort of just wrote those
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: up and I handed them and said, hey, you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: If these could be useful. Maybe they'll be useful in
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: the meetings or.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: And that's something that you made up or was that
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: already in the book? No, I did it. I took
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: the book and wrote up all these diets for the designers,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: for actors who were maybe you know, Mulling doing the show.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: You know, we wanted to get Peter to play Tyrian.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: We wanted to give the information about Tyrian, so you
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: know that kind of I would drop all these specific documents.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I remember I wrote a whole thing about Jamie Lanister
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: to give to nickol like coster Waldo, so that he
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: could see where the character was going. And and it became,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: you know, everyone in the production going knew more and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: more and more, and then suddenly I was the in
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: house expert. I was in all the meetings, and I
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: was and and today and Dan's credit. You know, they
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: empowered me. They let everyone know he's the guy if
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: you have a question. He's the guys opposed to just
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: taking my work and you know, telling me to go
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: back to my corner.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: They brought me in and so.
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: I uh so we go to shoot the pilot and
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: I continue in that capacity in the pilot. And I
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: also wasn't a.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Very good assistant. I remember.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I remember on set Tom McCarthy directed the pilot, and
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: his assistant brought him this little bag of snacks and
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: and things in the tent. And I saw David David
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Benioff look at the bag of snacks, look at me,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: look at his chair where there, and he was It
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: was as if he just occurred to him like, wait
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: a minute, I have an assistant. I could I could
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: have him. He should be bringing me snacks and things.
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I should.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: So anyway, the best way to get promoted, I suppose,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: is to be not very good at being an assistant. But
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: uh no, so we come back, Uh we're doing posts
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: in La on the pilot, and and there's a lot
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: of you know, oh my gosh, is it gonna go?
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: What are we going to do?
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: And they want to HBO wants to see some scripts,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: and I think that I believe behind I'm come to
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: find out now that there were some conversations like, look,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: you guys are biting off more than you can chew.
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: You need to freelance at least a couple of these scripts.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: And what they said was, well, if we're going to
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: give someone else a script, it should be Ryan, which
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: is insane. The only thing I'd ever written was this
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: fucking pilot that's about thirty something actors and speech.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: But those family trees that you.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Run, all his family teese and that's all.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: That's all Shakespeare in histories, that's all Julliard man, that's
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: all me.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: But you know that anybody would have to do to
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: just consider write in an episode.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it was like he knows this world
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: and he let's give him a shot. And thankfully they
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: did not frame that. They did not tell me what
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: I was doing. David framed it to me as as
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: an exercise. He was like, hey, wanted you to take
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: a crack at episode four shows sort of a show
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: as you can do, kid, And I thought, oh great,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: you know thinking and at this point, at this point, honestly,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: I still think I'm an actor, just doing this. Until
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I an acting work, I don't even see the future.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: I think they saw this in me before I did.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: And so I went away for about a week wrote
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: episode four. We had we had it outlined, you know,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: from our from our room, but I wrote it and
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: again he calls me the next day and says, okay,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: just episode four, bro, I mean it's how did that feel?
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: So wait wait, this was after you handed it in. Yeah,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: they read it like they read it.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: They're like, ye know, you wrote episode four. This is it?
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: This is it. I mean, of course they re wrote
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: the ship out of it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: And but but I mean I was writing the fourth
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: episode of an HBO. I mean it was just it
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: was ridiculous. But but you know, I think they they
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: just saw something in me. And you know, I found
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: out that they had intentions for me to be producer
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: a producer one day on the show when they had
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: to write a letter to the UK Immigration Office to
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: show why I had to be a highre that was
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: you know, that came over overseas. You have to like say, well,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: this person's essential. Yeah, and so what I was given
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: the letter to proofree because I was their assistant and
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: it's our intention one day for him to be a
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: producer on the show.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: And I'm just reading that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, I just I'll never I'll never know.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: But they they they just saw that I loved it
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: and I loved I loved the story and I did
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: and I loved them and I.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: And it was it was and they were showing up. Man.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: That's the thing.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: That's the type of stuff that when you're telling stories
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and you're doing what single handed is the most complicated
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: ship to do, which is green Light show. Be on production,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: make sure that the quality is there and all that.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: And if you look to your left and right and
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: you see people showing up for it, those people should
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: be empowered.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: Those people should be pushed forward, and.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: They should be cultivated, you know, because because those are
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: the soldiers that carry it on, you know. And you
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: went you wrote about eleven or so in total. Yeah,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: you wrote eleven episodes and got four and.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Something yes, for my for as a producer for the
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: for the best drama series. You know, I was a
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: producer starting with season five.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: So I always tell everyone, you create a game, yeah, Christmas.
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: Party, and he is like, he's the executive producer creator.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Nobody, but no, but I was. You know, it was
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: the three of us there, you know, from the beginning,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: And it was and and I'll never be able to
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: repay that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was that way that I would wrapping
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: it up too quick.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you what was your favorite episode
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: of the ones you wrote that.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I wrote, Uh, there's a well, I think, oh that
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: is that Kingdoms. That's that One's a close second. That's
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: my last season episode, which is I do love that one.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: That's the one that's the sort of the episode before
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: the battle where they all, you know, where it's all
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: just people in rooms kind of taking stock of their
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: lives because they might die the next day. It's the
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: kind of thing that in most of our battle episodes
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: would be like the first ten minutes and it was
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: a whole episode And that was tremendously challenging to write.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: I remember that was the most marked up in red
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: first draft I had where I got that where I
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: got it back and was like, oh no, because I
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: had I just shot the bed on the first draft
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: because I realized I was just having the characters summarize
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: the show everyone had watched, and so it was about
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: finding scenes that didn't do that.
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: I'm very proud of that episode.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I think the one that I that turned out just
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: the closest to what my initial draft was was my
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: season three episode just called Kissed by Fire. I think
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: the most notable scene from that is Jamie Lanister in
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: the in the baths with Brian telling what really happened,
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Like why you know he's called the king Slayer and
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: a man without honor and he's known as a villain,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: but really he saved the city from from from the
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: mad king and and Nikola I just.
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: You know, destroyed that monologue.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: That was one of those electric days, you know what
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: It's like, Oh, I love him so much, and you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: you know how it is when you're on set on
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: a certain day and there's just you can hear a
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: pin drop and the two of them, you know, Gwen
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Gwen Christ who played Brienn, like, I love both of
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: them so much. Nine of the Seven Kingdoms was sort
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: of a balentine to the two of them too. Actually,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I really liked that episode. I like the
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: way it turned out. Alex Graves directed it, and it's
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: it's the closest to my first draft.
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: So I'm very proud of that, I suppose.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: But what was it like when you when that Emmy
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: he came home the first one?
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, because you know, because Freddy unfortunately wants to know.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Freddy really wants to I only got a certificate.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it is it was. It's very humbling.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, dude, you went from a freaking assistance,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, you and.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Me on your main it has to be it's crazy.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: It was humbling. I say humbling because and I'm not
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: trying to be like falsely modest or whatever, because I
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: worked hard and and and and you know, I was
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: afforded a really great opportunity to be on set producer
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: of that show time.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: It's very much not the way you were the on
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the ground guy, by the way, you know, Sophie Turner
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: sings your process too, you know, and and uh, and
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: the the idea you were on the grade. You were
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: the guy who jailed everyone together on set. And that's
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: what literally everyone on set to me.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Oh that's that's gratifying to hear. I miss all of
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: them so much. I mean it felt like theater. It
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: felt like play. I mean there was a real rep
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: company feel, and we had to we had two shooting
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: and it's going at all times, and David and Dan
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: would be on one and I would generally be on
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: the other, and and then uh, you know, Vanessa Taylor
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: and Dave Hill, who were other writers on the show,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: would be there with me. But but yeah, I mean
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: that was that was an amazing thing to just be
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: able to to play with those people and with those
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: artists and with those directors. I mean it was it
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: was essentially my film school. But but yeah, bringing home
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: the Emmy, I mean it was, it was. It was
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: humbling because you know, I had I had seen a
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: certain path for myself as an actor, and you know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: I went through some lean years. I mean I remember
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: looking up, looking up, I was selling Toner cartridges to
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: pay the bills, and I right outside my Toner cartridge
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: a little in the valley, like it was like Glengarry
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Glenn Ross, but even more corrupt, like selling like bad
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Toner cartridges to schools like, oh, dude, like it made
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: it made Glendo Glen Ross look like you know, fucking
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Amnesty International. And I went, I came out of that
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: shack one day and there was a big billboard for
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Lee Pace and pushing Daisies, you know, and and I
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Lee and I was happy for him. But I mean
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: I felt there was some like, oh my god, I've
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: failed kind of years and you sort of then have
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: to build yourself up and start over in another discipline,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: and so so yeah, having that recognition and having the
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: show recognized and all the amazing, you know, because we
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: were sort of the believe it or not at HBO
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: at the beginning, the sort of little show that could
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you know, there wasn't a whole I mean, we were supported,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: of course by the network, but I think I don't
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: think anybody thought we'd become their flagship show ever. I
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: think it was a weird experiment that suddenly was paying off.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: So I mean, it felt it felt amazing. But I'll
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: say I'll say this after you know, I've been developing
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: shows now since Game of Thrones.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: I've been developing shows now for seven years.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: I've had three shows get right up to the greenlit
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: point green light point.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: One of them was with this gentleman right here that
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: didn't go.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: I've got a show now that I can't talk about
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: what it is. But I'm just about to open my
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: first writer's room on this show and it's gonna be.
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: Great and I'm excited.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: But this is after seven years of being number two,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: seven seven years after ending the show where I was
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: number two on the biggest show in the world. And
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you this, and I it's the award is
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: having is doing the work. The award is having the show.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: It's wonderful to have the prizes, it's wonderful to have
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: them on the mantle, But.
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: The the the getting to just do it and get
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: paid for it, that's the thing that the gift because
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: I've had, you know, I've had three the last few years,
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: like three just work that I'm incredibly proud of that
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: I could see a future doing and you know, and
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: hopefully the thing that Wilmer and I where we have
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: plans for a new, a new.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: It's not it's never dead.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: It's never dead, my friends, it's all it's all gonna
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: that one's gonna happen in some way someday, I have
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: no doubt. But even those failures, I mean are failures,
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: that's the wrong word. But even those even those things
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: that don't go the way you want. I mean, I'm made,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: you know, one of my dearest friends in the world
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: making making that show. I uh, half my entire writing
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: staff of my first show that didn't go at Amazon.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: They are on my writing staff of the show I'm
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: starting in a couple of weeks, like the show in
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: the Middle there I made with Anthony Uh, my classmate,
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: and it didn't go but like it strengthened our working relationship.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Like you you learn from all of that stuff and
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: it and it shapes everything that you do.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: So and I'm great, you're I'm really happy you're saying that,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: because I think that the perception is what you just said, right.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I just came off of one of the biggest TV
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: shows in the world. I won four Emmys.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah you think, where's my Oyster? Yeah? And I drank
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: that kool aid.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: I'm I admit it. And I I was like, here
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: we go.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: It's smooth sailing from now on.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: You know, everything's coming up, Brian.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: And and look listen, I I've been very fortunate and
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: very lucky to even be paid to do those shows
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: that didn't go I'm not trying to you know, yeah,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: there's this is there's no woe is me here.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, I've been incredibly fortunate.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: But it also speaks to you, right, speaks to kind
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: of how you know, how miraculous it really is to
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: actually get something made in our industry. It's a common theme,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: you know, And and it doesn't matter how many Oscars
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: or Emmys or nominations.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: That is true, you.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Know, I have to Hey, no, no, By the way,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: he is one of my idols, and I only I
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: only fuck with him because he's.
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: One of my best friends in life.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: But look, man, it's a great it's a great way
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: to end on this on a note that you know,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: we alwaysly could talk, and we should do another episode
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: where we like, yeah, you know, really break down, you know,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: your artistry.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: I just see characters, you and all that stuff. More
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: time for that stuff.
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: I just wing it, man.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: It would be a pretty boring I don't know what
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: I'm doing. That would be a ten episode.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: I'm really just looking for acting work. This is a horrible.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: This is a terrible mistake.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: But Brian, thank you so much for being here, brother, truly, truly.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Your your your friendship, and then I got I've gotten
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: a Freddie and wonderful wife the last few years. It's
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: just I'm so pleased to know you guys, and and
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: so honored that you even would include me here.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: So it's nice to have, you know, a brotherhood that
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: believes in one another and the way it is.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: Need business, and thank you for being our third amigo.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Wilmer Balderama, Freddie Rodriguez anywhere you get your podcast