Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / How Josh Schwartz, Showunner & Producer of The OC and Gossip Girl, Stays Creative

Transcript

How Josh Schwartz, Showunner & Producer of The OC and Gossip Girl, Stays Creative · Get Real with Jim Weiss

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, Jim, Hey Kate, what a combo? Oh wow? Too good? Now?
0:04
Speaker 1: That was so good. As I mentioned in the episode,
0:07
Speaker 1: so many people grew up on the OC and Gossip Girl.
0:11
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you could speak to that more than
0:14
Speaker 1: I could.
0:14
Speaker 2: Even I would have been a freshman in high school
0:17
Speaker 2: when those kids were seniors and so rewatching Gossip Girl.
0:21
Speaker 2: I've already rewatched the OC, the Gossip Girl cast. I'm
0:24
Speaker 2: like seeing what it was like for me to be
0:26
Speaker 2: a kid. It's not that long ago, you know, And
0:28
Speaker 2: to think how different it is to be a kid
0:30
Speaker 2: now and how attached beard of these things that didn't exist.
0:34
Speaker 1: It's almost unbelievable.
0:36
Speaker 2: It really is unbelievable. Like there was no social media.
0:39
Speaker 2: We just experienced life in the moment.
0:42
Speaker 1: But it was just great to do it. It's so personal
0:44
Speaker 1: in so many ways. I mean, I've known Josh for
0:48
Speaker 1: a damn long time, and his whole family of course,
0:51
Speaker 1: always been proud of what he's done. But I think
0:53
Speaker 1: even now you really see that big cultural impact. You
0:57
Speaker 1: know how much the industry has changed. It will it
1:00
Speaker 1: It'll be fun to watch what else he does from here,
1:02
Speaker 1: and I think that's also exciting. He's fifty, I'm sixty.
1:07
Speaker 1: These milestone moments in your life, can you keep going
1:12
Speaker 1: and creating something new. I think that is something I'm
1:16
Speaker 1: going to take away from this episode is that he
1:19
Speaker 1: just kept going and inventing new, great content that new audience,
1:25
Speaker 1: different types of audience is connected to. And I think
1:28
Speaker 1: that's a rare, somewhat unprecedented talent.
1:32
Speaker 2: And it's a reminder that in hard times, art really
1:34
Speaker 2: brings us through. Storytelling is something we've been doing since
1:37
Speaker 2: the time.
1:38
Speaker 1: Unites people, right, It's something we all, you know, the
1:40
Speaker 1: water cool or whatever you want to call it. We
1:42
Speaker 1: don't really have a water cooler anymore, but these things
1:46
Speaker 1: that do unite us. You got to always keep embracing
1:49
Speaker 1: the new. And if you embrace the new, it can
1:52
Speaker 1: come and be great. I think it's that resistance to it.
1:55
Speaker 1: I mean he talked about selling out. Given what we
1:57
Speaker 1: do in my realm, the commercial realm, I love seeing
2:01
Speaker 1: these two things get married every once in a while
2:03
Speaker 1: and sometimes the great effects. So it's why I do
2:06
Speaker 1: what I do.
2:07
Speaker 2: And you keep moving forward, You're following the tides. You're
2:09
Speaker 2: not resisting, you know, So no, I gotta go.
2:14
Speaker 3: I mean, Jim looks incredible.
2:16
Speaker 1: I look incredible. This was all in honor of Chrismaka.
2:18
Speaker 1: I will take it off for the duration, but I
2:21
Speaker 1: just had to have it on for the beginning because
2:23
Speaker 1: Josh coined this amazing phrase, Chris Maka, that everybody talks
2:27
Speaker 1: about and they don't know where it came from.
2:30
Speaker 3: But we should have trademarked it.
2:32
Speaker 1: I know you really should have. So thanks for doing
2:35
Speaker 1: to get real podcast with me. I appreciate it. We're
2:38
Speaker 1: going to talk about your wildly successful career with hits
2:42
Speaker 1: like Gossip Girl and The OC and Chuck and I
2:45
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear about what the big new hit
2:47
Speaker 1: will be next. I'm a reality TV guy. I have
2:51
Speaker 1: a hunch The OC is why Laguna Beach in the
2:54
Speaker 1: Hills and Real Housewives of Orange County came to be.
2:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can take some credit for that.
3:00
Speaker 3: I would hope hundred percent. I mean they would admit it.
3:02
Speaker 3: Mar Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives, he said desper Housewives
3:06
Speaker 3: would never gotten on the air if it had, you know,
3:08
Speaker 3: been for the OC. So it was definitely a show
3:10
Speaker 3: that its first year made a big impact.
3:12
Speaker 1: It did. It was really there hadn't been anything really
3:15
Speaker 1: quite like it. It notched a lot of things. But
3:17
Speaker 1: why do you think audiences like to watch wealthy people misbehave?
3:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people like to be taken somewhere they
3:24
Speaker 3: can ordinarily go. Right, So you're offering this escapism, You're
3:28
Speaker 3: offering this opportunity to see these incredible homes, beaches, just
3:33
Speaker 3: this part of the world. And it's amazing to me
3:35
Speaker 3: how many people I have met around the world who
3:38
Speaker 3: the OC really kind of became their idea of the
3:41
Speaker 3: California dream. I've been stopped by people who said, I
3:44
Speaker 3: learned English because of the OC, I moved to California
3:48
Speaker 3: because of the OC. It's pretty wild. But I think
3:50
Speaker 3: people answer your question, love to go so you have
3:53
Speaker 3: access to a world they wouldn't ordinarily have access to.
3:56
Speaker 3: But then they also like to know that as rich
3:59
Speaker 3: and beautiful as these Peo people are, they still have problems,
4:02
Speaker 3: their lives are still fucked up, and to know that
4:05
Speaker 3: even though it appears they have everything, you watching at
4:08
Speaker 3: home are probably happier and have less issues than these
4:12
Speaker 3: people whose lives you think you want.
4:14
Speaker 1: I know, well, you know, that's I think why all
4:17
Speaker 1: those shows continue today. But you also were kind of
4:21
Speaker 1: a groundbreaker and it was novel like. The music was
4:24
Speaker 1: a big part of the show. I remember talking to
4:26
Speaker 1: you about that because you thought mine and Nodra's taste
4:29
Speaker 1: in late nineties music was kind of funny. Had we
4:32
Speaker 1: seen that before. I don't think we ever saw music
4:35
Speaker 1: in a show till your show.
4:37
Speaker 3: Maybe not to the degree that we did. I mean,
4:39
Speaker 3: certainly nine O two and zero would have their moments.
4:42
Speaker 3: I think it was an interesting confluence. MTV was still happening,
4:46
Speaker 3: but definitely kind of very much and it's like Y
4:50
Speaker 3: two K boy band era and was pretty consolidated in
4:53
Speaker 3: terms of what it would play. Radio was incredible. You
4:56
Speaker 3: get like ten songs on the radio. It was pre Spotify,
5:00
Speaker 3: pre Apple Music, post Napster. So it was this weird
5:03
Speaker 3: moment where there wasn't really an opportunity to discover new
5:07
Speaker 3: music if you lived in the middle of the country,
5:09
Speaker 3: you know, if you lived somewhere where you didn't have access.
5:12
Speaker 3: And I was writing music into the show that I
5:16
Speaker 3: just loved, you know. I was in my mid twenties
5:19
Speaker 3: and shopping at Amiba Records and going to a lot
5:21
Speaker 3: of concerts, and this was stuff that wasn't Orange County music.
5:25
Speaker 3: It wasn't part of that scene. It was music that
5:27
Speaker 3: was really there to kind of illuminate the emotional lives
5:30
Speaker 3: of the characters. And what we found was there was
5:32
Speaker 3: a huge audience out there of people who were desperate
5:36
Speaker 3: to discover new music, and the show became really one
5:39
Speaker 3: of the only avenues that you could do. So we
5:42
Speaker 3: would talk about Deaf Caab on the show, which, by
5:45
Speaker 3: the way, I was hanging out with Adam Brody and
5:47
Speaker 3: he was a huge Death Cab and Bright Eyes fan,
5:49
Speaker 3: and I just wrote that into the show and immediately
5:52
Speaker 3: people would respond to that, or you'd see their sales
5:54
Speaker 3: go off. We did an episode where the kids go
5:57
Speaker 3: see the band Rooney and everyone says Rooney a lot
6:00
Speaker 3: in the course of the episode, and there was some
6:02
Speaker 3: huge spike in their sales after. So it started. Also,
6:06
Speaker 3: we didn't have a lot of money, we were a
6:07
Speaker 3: new show. A lot of these bands were a little wary.
6:10
Speaker 3: It was still the era where you could sell out,
6:12
Speaker 3: you know, that was still a concept. Obviously, now we
6:15
Speaker 3: are in a post selling out world. That's the goal now,
6:18
Speaker 3: but we still had a little bit of that gen
6:19
Speaker 3: x mentality about don't sell out. And I think for
6:22
Speaker 3: these bands, they were wary at first of like licensing
6:26
Speaker 3: their music to a teen soap on Fox, but then
6:29
Speaker 3: they saw that we really were fans and how we
6:31
Speaker 3: used the music. It was cheaper because they were indie
6:33
Speaker 3: rock band, so we could afford it. They needed the
6:36
Speaker 3: additional income, so they said yes, and then we're pleased
6:39
Speaker 3: with the results. So it started that way, and then
6:42
Speaker 3: we would get calls. Alex Patsavas, our music supervisor, would
6:45
Speaker 3: call and say, hey, how do you feel about premiering
6:48
Speaker 3: the new Beastie Boys song on the show because their
6:51
Speaker 3: management just reached out and you're like, what, you too
6:54
Speaker 3: has reached out to see would you premiere their new
6:57
Speaker 3: album on the show? Beck I remember Alex and I
6:59
Speaker 3: went to Capitol Records because Coldplay had a new album
7:02
Speaker 3: coming out, and they said, sit on the couch, listen
7:05
Speaker 3: to the album. Pick a song and we'll save it
7:08
Speaker 3: for you. And so we listened to the album Fix
7:11
Speaker 3: You Came on and I just said, I don't know
7:14
Speaker 3: where it's going, but that feels like the show. So
7:17
Speaker 3: they held onto that song and we premiered it on
7:19
Speaker 3: the show. And so there's lots of crazy music things
7:21
Speaker 3: started to happen.
7:23
Speaker 1: Any scenes that were almost cut but ended up becoming iconic.
7:27
Speaker 1: I don't know how they finalized these shows, you know
7:29
Speaker 1: a better than I do. But anything we might have missed.
7:32
Speaker 3: Anything you might have missed, I remember there were things
7:34
Speaker 3: that we We've talked a lot about this around the
7:37
Speaker 3: twentieth anniversary of the show about like what is your
7:39
Speaker 3: biggest regret on the show, And I have a lot
7:41
Speaker 3: of regret. It was my first time doing it. There
7:43
Speaker 3: was mistakes made creatively that if I could do it
7:46
Speaker 3: over again, I would, but you can't. You can only
7:48
Speaker 3: learn and grow, and we were moving fast. But obviously
7:50
Speaker 3: the biggest thing we get asked about is the death
7:53
Speaker 3: of Marissa Cooper. That is something we've been pretty open
7:56
Speaker 3: about having regrets about creatively, and that there was definitely
7:59
Speaker 3: a better creative solution to what felt like for us
8:03
Speaker 3: had become a bit of a storyline that we were
8:05
Speaker 3: having a hard time kind of coming up with the
8:06
Speaker 3: new ground. So Marisa's character took it hard on television
8:10
Speaker 3: without pity, and she was just a little bit of
8:14
Speaker 3: the no fault of Nisch's just that character became kind
8:17
Speaker 3: of the the one that they would complain about, and
8:20
Speaker 3: so we thought, oh, we're gonna do this crazy shocking thing.
8:23
Speaker 3: There was a lot of kind of practical reasons behind
8:26
Speaker 3: it as well, in terms of the ratings. In an event,
8:28
Speaker 3: the night the episode aired on Tumbler, which was big
8:32
Speaker 3: on whatever your forms were that existed, there was like
8:36
Speaker 3: almost like a primal scream, like a like this reaction
8:39
Speaker 3: from the internet I kind of and I had not
8:42
Speaker 3: heard from before. And most people watch television. They don't
8:45
Speaker 3: feel the need to immediately go online and write up
8:48
Speaker 3: everything they feel about it, positively or negatively as fans.
8:52
Speaker 3: They're just watching the show and enjoying it. These are
8:54
Speaker 3: their friends. They like having them in their living room.
8:56
Speaker 3: They aspire to dress like them or listen to their music,
8:59
Speaker 3: and you know, it's fantasy and it's escapism, and it's
9:02
Speaker 3: why we watched television. They were so upset and it
9:05
Speaker 3: was like in this anguished way where I remember that
9:09
Speaker 3: night saying to Stephanie, what have we done? We have
9:13
Speaker 3: completely miscalculated who's watching the show and why. And it
9:16
Speaker 3: was a really good lesson that the internet is really
9:20
Speaker 3: a one to one ratio, meaning one person on the
9:22
Speaker 3: Internet complaining is only representative of that one person, it
9:27
Speaker 3: doesn't mean one person in the Internet equals ten thousand people,
9:30
Speaker 3: and there's many, many more people who are watching your show,
9:33
Speaker 3: enjoying your show, and then going home with their lives.
9:36
Speaker 3: And that was really really valuable to learn. Unfortunately, learned
9:40
Speaker 3: it a bit too late.
9:41
Speaker 1: In that case, you survived it, Can you share some
9:44
Speaker 1: of the wish you could have done it different?
9:46
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I mean, I think one of the biggest things
9:48
Speaker 3: is we had a cast in that first season that
9:50
Speaker 3: people really gravitated towards. There was like all of our
9:53
Speaker 3: main cast, but then Luke and Anna. Part of the
9:56
Speaker 3: appeal of the first season the show is how quickly
9:58
Speaker 3: it was moving. Were like, what they're doing this now,
10:01
Speaker 3: that's crazy. This show is insane. But we were moving
10:03
Speaker 3: so quickly, and we wrote some characters off of the show,
10:07
Speaker 3: and we really had a lot more to mind with
10:10
Speaker 3: those characters, with those actors, and you try to bring
10:14
Speaker 3: in new characters in future seasons, it's very hard to
10:17
Speaker 3: get people to gravitate towards to new characters in the
10:20
Speaker 3: same way that they do to those original characters. Maybe
10:23
Speaker 3: over time, and we learned this. You can bring in
10:26
Speaker 3: one or two characters per season that can kind of
10:28
Speaker 3: have that traction, but to try to like wholesale, it's
10:31
Speaker 3: very hard. It's a tall order for an audience who's
10:34
Speaker 3: trying to learn your show and was attached to those characters.
10:37
Speaker 1: And got invested in these characters exactly. It's amazing it
10:40
Speaker 1: was only on for four seasons because I think it's
10:43
Speaker 1: cultural and social impact was much.
10:45
Speaker 3: Bigger for those first couple of years, really.
10:47
Speaker 1: Massive, right, Yeah.
10:48
Speaker 3: And it was on Fox, so it was on a
10:50
Speaker 3: major broadcaster. It was on with American Idol. The amount
10:54
Speaker 3: of eyeballs you know, that would watch a showback then
10:57
Speaker 3: versus now is so different. We were really kind of
11:00
Speaker 3: one of the test shows of this new Internet era,
11:04
Speaker 3: not just in terms of the fan interaction, also just
11:08
Speaker 3: how people consume culture back then.
11:11
Speaker 1: So lightning rarely strikes twice in this business. But on
11:15
Speaker 1: the heels of the OC was Gossip Girl, which arguably
11:20
Speaker 1: had a bigger cultural impact and artistic impact, adapted from
11:24
Speaker 1: a series of novels. How'd you find that ip? Were
11:28
Speaker 1: you out looking for it for a new show or we.
11:31
Speaker 3: Knew the four season of the OC was going to
11:33
Speaker 3: most likely be the end. Hope Springs Eternal but we
11:36
Speaker 3: had a feeling. And I was down the road actually
11:38
Speaker 3: working on Chuck with Chris Fiedak, who was this really
11:42
Speaker 3: brilliant guy I went to USC Film School with and
11:44
Speaker 3: we could talk about that in a second. And was
11:46
Speaker 3: sent by the people at Alloy Publishing through my agents
11:50
Speaker 3: the Gossip Girl books. And as I said, Stephanie and
11:53
Speaker 3: I Savage and I had become We met working on
11:56
Speaker 3: the OC. She eventually became a writer and producer on
11:59
Speaker 3: the show full time time, and we had just forged
12:01
Speaker 3: this really close creative partnership. And when I got sent
12:05
Speaker 3: the Gossip Girl Books, I read it the first book,
12:07
Speaker 3: and I immediately sent it to her and I was like,
12:10
Speaker 3: I got sent this book. I really feel like it
12:12
Speaker 3: needs a female point of view. No one I'd rather
12:15
Speaker 3: work with than you. I think you would crush this
12:18
Speaker 3: if you dig it, let me know. And she read
12:20
Speaker 3: it and immediately responded to it and was an absolutely
12:24
Speaker 3: perfect person to do that show with. She was the
12:27
Speaker 3: day to day showrunner of that show when we launched,
12:30
Speaker 3: and her ability to not just with story and character
12:34
Speaker 3: but fashion in that New York world was just you know,
12:36
Speaker 3: sometimes who you partner with can be just as important
12:39
Speaker 3: as the great idea that you have or that is
12:41
Speaker 3: your great idea.
12:42
Speaker 1: I mean, I would argue this one is up there
12:45
Speaker 1: in the all time most important shows ever on television.
12:49
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot. But I mean from a
12:51
Speaker 1: cultural standpoint and the careers you launched, these people all
12:55
Speaker 1: work today, but that was their start. How do you
12:59
Speaker 1: find these people? I guess casting agents, right, I mean
13:02
Speaker 1: some directors.
13:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, we you know Patrick rush On the OC and
13:05
Speaker 3: Chuck David RAPPAPORTI did the Gossip prol pilot. When you're
13:09
Speaker 3: making shows with young characters in them, they're gonna be discoveries.
13:13
Speaker 3: I mean I remember on Gossip Girl when we set
13:15
Speaker 3: it up, the internet was like, you must cast Blake
13:18
Speaker 3: Lively as Serena Vanerwoodson. And I did not know who
13:20
Speaker 3: she was at the time, and I looked her up,
13:23
Speaker 3: you know, it was like, Okay, she seems Serena esque.
13:25
Speaker 3: So that wasn't actually a moment where the Internet was
13:27
Speaker 3: telling me go look over here. But by and Laura.
13:30
Speaker 1: So you played an active role, right, I mean it's
13:32
Speaker 1: not like you were just handed these people.
13:34
Speaker 3: No, no, no, you sit through. I mean you're the
13:36
Speaker 3: casting director obviously, screening hundreds of people that you don't see.
13:39
Speaker 3: Apparently Jennifer Lawrence auditioned for the role of Serena.
13:42
Speaker 1: Wow.
13:43
Speaker 3: We never even saw her audition. You just hear about
13:45
Speaker 3: it years later when she's giving some interview. When we
13:47
Speaker 3: were casting for Marissa on the OC, came down to
13:50
Speaker 3: Misha and this other young Angeniu who had just moved
13:53
Speaker 3: to la was nineteen years old, had no credits. Her
13:56
Speaker 3: name was Olivia Wilde. Wow. Thing wasn't quite the Marissa character.
14:00
Speaker 3: But we were like, this girl is like a phenomenal talent.
14:03
Speaker 3: It just like feels like a star, and so we
14:05
Speaker 3: wrote that role for her in season two, you know,
14:07
Speaker 3: the first opportunity we had to work with her. And
14:10
Speaker 3: these are all people, yeah, at the beginning of their careers.
14:12
Speaker 3: When you are casting these kind of roles, they're not
14:15
Speaker 3: really stars. Some shows you got to go land to
14:18
Speaker 3: star in order to get greenlit. And these shows are
14:20
Speaker 3: all about discovery, and you know, it's not just somebody
14:23
Speaker 3: who's great for the role but also fits into this
14:26
Speaker 3: larger puzzle that you're you know, I remember we were
14:29
Speaker 3: casting the Gospel Girl pilot. Ed Westwick was Chuck Bass.
14:33
Speaker 3: He just brought something to it that my.
14:35
Speaker 1: Daughter's favorite character on a television show ever.
14:39
Speaker 3: But you know he was British. I didn't know that,
14:41
Speaker 3: and we didn't think his immigration papers approved in time
14:44
Speaker 3: to shoot the show. And they were literally like, you
14:47
Speaker 3: need to find another Chuck Bass and we were like,
14:50
Speaker 3: we can't. And the second we had said okay, probably
14:53
Speaker 3: his papers wouldn't have come through. But because we were
14:56
Speaker 3: like we can't, there is nobody else who can play
14:57
Speaker 3: this part the way he can. Suddenly it was a
15:00
Speaker 3: rush and he got, you know, the paperwork done just
15:02
Speaker 3: kind of happens.
15:03
Speaker 1: That's stuff we almost miss. Do you stay in touch
15:06
Speaker 1: with these guys? Do you still see some of them
15:08
Speaker 1: around and hang out.
15:09
Speaker 3: Or Rachel Bilson obviously was well that I know. Yeah,
15:13
Speaker 3: God mother, my kids, Brody and I are in touch.
15:15
Speaker 3: Zach just had a baby. Ben mackenzie is fighting the
15:18
Speaker 3: good fight against Crypto. He was out here for his
15:21
Speaker 3: documentary was premiering here. Yes, keep in touch with a
15:24
Speaker 3: lot of people. You feel a great sense of pride
15:26
Speaker 3: when you see someone you've cast go on and do
15:29
Speaker 3: great work, you know, and other things.
15:30
Speaker 1: So you exec produced Gossip Girl and Chalk Right, two
15:34
Speaker 1: big hits at the time. You did a lot early
15:37
Speaker 1: on like you were a kid essentially, I mean, how
15:41
Speaker 1: did you do all this?
15:42
Speaker 3: Well, not having kids, you can get a lot more done,
15:45
Speaker 3: That's one part. I don't know. I just I was
15:48
Speaker 3: always just extremely motivated. I'm very, very lucky in that.
15:53
Speaker 3: From when I was a little kid, I would fill
15:55
Speaker 3: up my composition books with James Bond stories in Indiana
15:59
Speaker 3: Jones always writing. Always I wanted to be a writer,
16:03
Speaker 3: knew where I wanted to go to school, I knew
16:05
Speaker 3: what I wanted to study. I was actually frustrated when
16:09
Speaker 3: I was twenty two, you know, and that first pilot
16:12
Speaker 3: didn't go for ABC. I was like, Ah, what's taking
16:15
Speaker 3: me so long?
16:16
Speaker 1: What was that pilot?
16:17
Speaker 3: It was called Brookfield, it was for ABC, and it
16:19
Speaker 3: was in a lot of ways a dry run for
16:22
Speaker 3: the OC. It was set at a prestigious boarding school.
16:24
Speaker 3: It had a blue collar kid who came into that world,
16:26
Speaker 3: so there was definitely some stuff there that was clearly
16:30
Speaker 3: just Christopher the Mill.
16:31
Speaker 1: Did you relate as a blue collar kid.
16:33
Speaker 3: I didn't, not as a blue collar kid per se,
16:36
Speaker 3: but certainly as someone who feels like an outsider in
16:38
Speaker 3: a lot of situations and definitely in that really tony,
16:44
Speaker 3: next level kind of generational wealth environment. I just read
16:47
Speaker 3: Cameron Crowe's book The Uncool, and that feeling of even
16:51
Speaker 3: with the access, there's still a part of you that
16:53
Speaker 3: just feels like, well, I'm not really one of them,
16:56
Speaker 3: part of the uncool. I think that's why I relate
16:59
Speaker 3: so much to his work, and I think that's why
17:01
Speaker 3: the themes in his stuff are so resonant because a
17:03
Speaker 3: lot of people we found out even with the OC
17:06
Speaker 3: everybody feels like an outsider.
17:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's true. That's true. It does drive
17:11
Speaker 1: you so clearly. Influence Mentorship is key. You've mentioned Stephanie
17:16
Speaker 1: a few times. I have a few Stephanie's in my
17:19
Speaker 1: life who helped me get to where I got, Jhen
17:22
Speaker 1: Gottlie being you know, the most notable. But tell us
17:25
Speaker 1: a little bit about that relationship. As your wing person
17:29
Speaker 1: in all this work.
17:30
Speaker 3: She really wants us to do a masterclass on partnerships
17:32
Speaker 3: because we've been partners now for almost twenty years and
17:35
Speaker 3: she's just brilliant person, super creative and puts my work
17:39
Speaker 3: ethic to shame. So definitely he keeps me motivated. I
17:43
Speaker 3: think we just have a lot of respect for each other.
17:45
Speaker 3: I think because the way the relationship started was she
17:49
Speaker 3: was the producer on the OC and you know, she
17:51
Speaker 3: was partner with McGee, and I was this young writer
17:55
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to turn it. When I finished
17:57
Speaker 3: the OC pilot, I did not want to turn it in.
17:59
Speaker 3: I was like, it's not good, it doesn't work. And
18:01
Speaker 3: she was like, if you don't send it to me,
18:03
Speaker 3: I'm driving to your house and taking it out of
18:05
Speaker 3: your hands. And then when the show went there was
18:07
Speaker 3: so much work, and obviously we had some great people
18:10
Speaker 3: working with us, but it's still it's so much work
18:12
Speaker 3: and so many episodes, and it's eight days per episode,
18:15
Speaker 3: and you've just finished writing something and then you blink
18:18
Speaker 3: and they've already shot it, and what's the next episode?
18:20
Speaker 3: And you're prepping, you're breaking stories, you're writing, you're rewriting,
18:25
Speaker 3: you're prepping, you're shooting, and you're editing all at the
18:28
Speaker 3: same time while other episodes are airing and you're getting
18:31
Speaker 3: feedback on television without pity. I mean, it's like a
18:33
Speaker 3: full immersion in the show. And very early on in
18:37
Speaker 3: working together, I was like I worked with a lot
18:39
Speaker 3: of producers you feel like you have more of the
18:43
Speaker 3: soul of a writer. And she had done writing, but
18:46
Speaker 3: a lot of it was uncredited, you know. At certain
18:48
Speaker 3: point was like, you should write an episode of the show,
18:50
Speaker 3: and because she didn't have any credited work, the network
18:53
Speaker 3: was like, well, the only way we can allow this
18:55
Speaker 3: is if you will guarantee the script. So I said,
18:58
Speaker 3: of course, I'll guarantee the script. And so then we
19:00
Speaker 3: switch roles and she talks about it is like, all
19:02
Speaker 3: of a sudden, she was the baby writer having to
19:04
Speaker 3: turn in the script to the showrunner. And so I
19:08
Speaker 3: think because we had that dynamic where I was the
19:10
Speaker 3: baby writer and she was the producer and then she
19:11
Speaker 3: was the baby writer articier, we were very comfortable being
19:15
Speaker 3: vulnerable creatively around each other, which is so key because
19:19
Speaker 3: you're going to pitch a lot of bad ideas, and
19:22
Speaker 3: you're going to go down a lot of creative dead ends,
19:24
Speaker 3: and you're going to iterate. But the only way you
19:26
Speaker 3: get there is through being like, Okay, this is really bad,
19:29
Speaker 3: but I just got to say it to get the
19:30
Speaker 3: conversation started, and having somebody there who's not going to
19:33
Speaker 3: like judge you, but go yes, and you know, and
19:36
Speaker 3: kind of build off that creatively. So I think that
19:38
Speaker 3: vulnerability and transparency with each other creatively really helped us,
19:42
Speaker 3: you know, build this long lasting creative partnership.
19:44
Speaker 1: Writing about teens is tricky, and you didn't have kids then, right,
19:49
Speaker 1: And to make a show entertaining kids have to do
19:52
Speaker 1: things you wouldn't want your kids or your young audiences
19:55
Speaker 1: to do. Are there any storylines that were especially tough
20:00
Speaker 1: to write or storylines you got heat for airing?
20:04
Speaker 3: We certainly got heat for a lot of things. The
20:06
Speaker 3: Gossip Girl season two marketing campaign was basically just things
20:12
Speaker 3: that critics had said about the show and why parents
20:14
Speaker 3: shouldn't let their kids watch it. Three parents' nightmare was
20:18
Speaker 3: one of the I forget who said it, but like
20:20
Speaker 3: the parent, teacher, counsel or whatever. So that became like
20:24
Speaker 3: our marketing slogan was how this shows out for teens. Yeah,
20:27
Speaker 3: my oldest who just turned fourteen, I just let her
20:30
Speaker 3: watch the OC for the first time. She has not
20:32
Speaker 3: yet watched Gossip Girl, though I'm allowing it. Certainly, not
20:35
Speaker 3: having kids, I didn't think about some of that stuff
20:37
Speaker 3: as much now knowing that she's watching it. We just
20:40
Speaker 3: produced a show this summer called Stirling Point that'll be
20:43
Speaker 3: on Amazon in August. And I definitely was the prude
20:48
Speaker 3: on this show. Was I'm now seeing things through the
20:50
Speaker 3: filter of imagining kids watching it, which does change your
20:53
Speaker 3: point of view. Maybe not, maybe it's better and you're
20:56
Speaker 3: more willing to take more risks. And because kids always
20:59
Speaker 3: want to you up right, they always want to view
21:01
Speaker 3: something that feels like they're getting away with something. They
21:04
Speaker 3: don't want to feel like, oh, this feels a little
21:06
Speaker 3: young and safe.
21:07
Speaker 1: But I do think it's different today a little bit.
21:09
Speaker 1: They don't tend to drink as much or you know,
21:12
Speaker 1: they seem to be a little bit you know, well
21:14
Speaker 1: they know more than we knew right when we were
21:17
Speaker 1: coming up because we didn't have all this exposure. And
21:21
Speaker 1: I do think, like you said, when we were I
21:22
Speaker 1: think we were almost more naive. I mean we I
21:24
Speaker 1: just had a holiday party with all the kids and
21:26
Speaker 1: they were like, I think they were rolling their eyes
21:28
Speaker 1: at the parents.
21:29
Speaker 3: You guys were raging.
21:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a different it's a different thing
21:34
Speaker 1: because you know, really smartphone social media have changed teens'
21:38
Speaker 1: lives and I always talk about a health issue and
21:43
Speaker 1: impacted their mental health. Your characters on earlier shows use
21:47
Speaker 1: flip phones taxis, the way they interacted was different. Would
21:52
Speaker 1: you write the dynamics differently today?
21:54
Speaker 3: I mean, you see the pilot Ryan uses a payphone.
21:56
Speaker 3: I mean that's how quickly the world changed from you know,
22:00
Speaker 3: for years. And it's hard because it's more interesting and
22:03
Speaker 3: you have to kind of work a little harder to
22:05
Speaker 3: have people show up at your door for a face
22:08
Speaker 3: to face conversation when everything can be on text. But
22:12
Speaker 3: if everything's on text, it's not that interesting. As a viewer,
22:15
Speaker 3: you kind of go, well, do you put an overlay
22:17
Speaker 3: on the screen and come up with some graphics things
22:19
Speaker 3: something we kind of have done differently on different shows.
22:22
Speaker 3: The thing I'll say is again, I grew up loving
22:26
Speaker 3: John Hughes and Cameron Crow. Hopefully our shows were that
22:31
Speaker 3: equivalent for certain audiences. You know, if there were fewer
22:34
Speaker 3: teen movies to go see. And it will continue on,
22:37
Speaker 3: you know, you continue to make stuff for that audience.
22:39
Speaker 3: There will always be new teenagers and they will always
22:41
Speaker 3: be looking.
22:41
Speaker 1: For some right that seems to be your focus. How
22:44
Speaker 1: do we account or do you account for the shrinking
22:46
Speaker 1: attention span? Twenty seven episodes now are on eight or
22:51
Speaker 1: ten at the most when you're writing or pitching TV nowadays.
22:55
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because part of the legacy I think
22:59
Speaker 3: of why Gossip Girls in order why it feels like
23:01
Speaker 3: the legacy of the show is as big as as
23:03
Speaker 3: it is is because of Netflix. It is because of
23:05
Speaker 3: the second life it got it's on HBO Max. Because
23:08
Speaker 3: it kind of goes on Netflix and then it goes
23:10
Speaker 3: on he goes back on and when it hit Netflix again,
23:13
Speaker 3: like two years ago or a year, yeah, maybe a
23:15
Speaker 3: year or two yearo, it was almost like it was
23:17
Speaker 3: a new show comes on Netflix. And I know, for
23:20
Speaker 3: my daughter was in seventh grade, all of her friends
23:22
Speaker 3: started binging the show as if it was a brand
23:24
Speaker 3: new show. And that is six seasons, and that's one
23:27
Speaker 3: hundred and whatever. It is, eighteen episodes of everything, exact number.
23:30
Speaker 3: And those kids are consuming it in like a matter
23:34
Speaker 3: of a week or two, depending on what their schedules are.
23:36
Speaker 1: Right, there's the binging phenomenon.
23:38
Speaker 3: The binging because I watched the OC in a weekend,
23:40
Speaker 3: I'm like, what that seems unhealthy. Yeah. I feel like
23:44
Speaker 3: the shorter episodes have less to do with attention spans
23:48
Speaker 3: and more to do with the economics and schedule of
23:50
Speaker 3: television and streaming and all that, because clearly these kids
23:55
Speaker 3: can sit for one hundred and eighteen forty four minute episodes,
24:00
Speaker 3: whether they're on a second screen while they're watching is
24:03
Speaker 3: probably they are we are as grown adults. That being said,
24:07
Speaker 3: I also see like my ten year old and she
24:11
Speaker 3: wants to just watch YouTube. She's less interested in watching
24:15
Speaker 3: even episodes of Disney Channel sitcoms, the Hanamonta, the Nickelodeon sitcoms,
24:21
Speaker 3: which were kind of like where this younger audience would
24:24
Speaker 3: first get their education, and now they want to watch YouTube.
24:27
Speaker 3: There's a lot of someone's saying, like, have you noticed
24:29
Speaker 3: that the Rookie on ABC, which is like in year
24:32
Speaker 3: eight is suddenly a massive show with gen Z And
24:35
Speaker 3: you're like, that's really interesting. It's about a forty year
24:38
Speaker 3: old cop. Like why? And it's because the shows get
24:42
Speaker 3: chopped up and put on TikTok. That's how Suits became
24:45
Speaker 3: the phenomenon that it did. People were watching it chopped
24:47
Speaker 3: up on TikTok. It actually drove them to discover the
24:50
Speaker 3: show when it hit Netflix. So these interesting way people
24:53
Speaker 3: watch Gray's Anatomy chopped up on or certain storylines only
24:57
Speaker 3: through TikTok.
24:58
Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned the economics, so when that stuff airs again,
25:02
Speaker 1: do you guys get royalties and residuals from those reairings
25:06
Speaker 1: or not?
25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, where it errs. Obviously, if somebody's chopping you up
25:09
Speaker 3: on TikTok, you're not seeing that. That's kind of like
25:12
Speaker 3: marketing money. I guess you could view it as if
25:14
Speaker 3: it's driving them back to the show. But if the
25:16
Speaker 3: show gets licensed, that's good, right.
25:18
Speaker 1: So obviously a lot of changes in the industry, and
25:22
Speaker 1: how does this change how you work? I mean massively.
25:24
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about it.
25:26
Speaker 3: I mean the amount of change in the last five
25:28
Speaker 3: years I think would be like twenty years of a
25:30
Speaker 3: normal of a different business, a different industry. And the
25:34
Speaker 3: business is always in flux. I mean even when I
25:35
Speaker 3: came in, there was a little bit of a sense
25:38
Speaker 3: of I mean, obviously now we look back and we
25:39
Speaker 3: didn't realize how good we had it. And all the
25:41
Speaker 3: things that we complained about, too many episodes, too short
25:44
Speaker 3: of a hiatus, whatever you would kill for now because
25:48
Speaker 3: it was the sign of a healthy business. Everything shot
25:50
Speaker 3: in LA We had to convince the studio to let
25:54
Speaker 3: us shoot Gossip Girl in New York because they wanted
25:56
Speaker 3: to shoot it in LA. The first instinct was always
25:59
Speaker 3: shoot it because it was cheaper, and now that is
26:02
Speaker 3: just a bygone era. So it's a lot of flocks.
26:06
Speaker 3: It's a lot of change, and the way that you
26:07
Speaker 3: conceive of a season of a story that it has
26:10
Speaker 3: to last eight or ten episodes, you're building it differently
26:14
Speaker 3: than if it was supposed to run twenty two or
26:16
Speaker 3: twenty five episodes. But because there's been so much change
26:19
Speaker 3: and it's so much of it is out of your control.
26:21
Speaker 3: You're used to, I was used to you would turn
26:24
Speaker 3: something in to the network and the head of the
26:26
Speaker 3: network would get fired just as you're turning a script
26:29
Speaker 3: in and you're starting over again. In the last few years,
26:32
Speaker 3: it's the network itself that's getting fired, you know what
26:35
Speaker 3: I mean, Like the networks are disappearing or being sold.
26:39
Speaker 3: So it's just the sense of like you just you
26:41
Speaker 3: can't take it any for granted, you have no idea
26:44
Speaker 3: even if they were like it's great and it's going
26:46
Speaker 3: to go if that place is going to exist in
26:48
Speaker 3: six months, And at a certain point you have to
26:51
Speaker 3: just accept that these things are totally out of your control.
26:55
Speaker 3: You can't predict it. You can't predict the market, and
26:58
Speaker 3: you just have to kind of go back to doing
27:01
Speaker 3: the way you used to do it, which is head down,
27:03
Speaker 3: ignore the noise, and follow the creative and hope it
27:05
Speaker 3: works out.
27:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, good content, right, people will follow that. Let's talk
27:09
Speaker 1: about that because we worked on what was an online
27:12
Speaker 1: mini series, right with the Guys from Diagio in twenty
27:16
Speaker 1: one seeds with Summer with Rachel. So how do you
27:20
Speaker 1: work with commercial entities and is there some model that
27:23
Speaker 1: evolves that's a little bit more like self book publishing
27:27
Speaker 1: something like that could be the next step. I don't know,
27:31
Speaker 1: maybe not.
27:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that was a really fun opportunity. I
27:34
Speaker 3: would say that presented itself during the writer's strike. You're
27:37
Speaker 3: suddenly sitting around you can't work, And I think we
27:41
Speaker 3: all have a sense that our businesses, obviously we know
27:43
Speaker 3: what's going through change. We'd like to believe that there
27:46
Speaker 3: will still be a content business, that film and TV
27:49
Speaker 3: will endure. But joke, sometimes it's like the movie where
27:53
Speaker 3: you're running across the bridge and the bridge is blowing
27:55
Speaker 3: up behind you and you're just trying to get to
27:57
Speaker 3: the other side. Before the bridge blows up, what are
28:00
Speaker 3: those next opportunities. Obviously, audiences are always going to want stories,
28:05
Speaker 3: Audiences are always going to want to connect with storytellers.
28:07
Speaker 3: We don't know what AI is going to mean for
28:10
Speaker 3: our business. It is something people are very worried about,
28:14
Speaker 3: concerned about, rightfully so in a lot of different industries,
28:17
Speaker 3: not just our industry. Can it get all the way there?
28:20
Speaker 3: They can't yet replace a human being. Rick Rubin said
28:23
Speaker 3: something really interesting in an interview, which is all these
28:26
Speaker 3: different whether it's rock or chat, GPT, they're all basically
28:30
Speaker 3: trained to arrive at the same answer. That they're all
28:33
Speaker 3: being trained on the same amount of information, and that
28:36
Speaker 3: if you ask any one of them a question across
28:38
Speaker 3: any field, it's all modeled to get to the same answer.
28:43
Speaker 3: And that if you gave the same screenplay to five
28:47
Speaker 3: different directors, you would get five very different movies because
28:51
Speaker 3: it's going through the prism of each person's individual human experience.
28:55
Speaker 3: And that is something that AI for now cannot replicate.
29:00
Speaker 3: A movie like one Battle after another that could only
29:02
Speaker 3: come from the mind of Paul Thomas Anderson. Nothing like
29:05
Speaker 3: it has existed before. And AI again is giving you
29:08
Speaker 3: whatever insight. It is based on things that have already existed,
29:11
Speaker 3: so the ability for it to pitch you something that
29:14
Speaker 3: has never existed before in the same way that Paul
29:17
Speaker 3: Thomas Anderson can dream up one battle after another that
29:20
Speaker 3: is not here yet. So while there's a lot of
29:22
Speaker 3: concern around AI, there's also reasons to be hopeful that
29:25
Speaker 3: its reach will only go so far.
29:27
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you might leverage it right to help you.
29:29
Speaker 1: I would think you are or will.
29:31
Speaker 3: It seems inevitable. Certain people in the industry is from
29:34
Speaker 3: the guilds. They have a very like don't even mention AI.
29:38
Speaker 3: It's like, don't look.
29:39
Speaker 1: Up, what are your guilds?
29:40
Speaker 3: I'm in the writer's guild, the producer's guild, and the
29:42
Speaker 3: director's guild, and I think everybody has a slightly different approach,
29:45
Speaker 3: and we'll see how it all shakes out. I'm certainly
29:47
Speaker 3: not here to go to war with my guild. But
29:49
Speaker 3: change is coming and you can either pretend it's not
29:52
Speaker 3: or you can figure out ways to at least understand
29:55
Speaker 3: it and see how you could leverage or utilize it.
29:57
Speaker 3: So the Diagio opportunity, how can we take But we
30:00
Speaker 3: know about storytelling and production and try to apply that
30:03
Speaker 3: towards commercials or short form content. Now there's a new
30:07
Speaker 3: business in verticals, which is like forty five second to
30:09
Speaker 3: ninety second episodes. A lot of people making those right now.
30:13
Speaker 3: Is at the future we'll see. They certainly are hugely
30:16
Speaker 3: popular in Asia, in Latin America. The race is on
30:19
Speaker 3: in North America to see if that is a viable
30:22
Speaker 3: new form that kind of lines up with how people
30:25
Speaker 3: are consuming things. None of these things will replace film
30:27
Speaker 3: or TV, but certainly we never would have thought ten
30:30
Speaker 3: years ago that YouTube influencers would become bigger than movie stars,
30:35
Speaker 3: and they have. You can have someone that you or
30:37
Speaker 3: I have never heard of walk into a mall and
30:40
Speaker 3: cause a complete lion among kids eighteen and under.
30:43
Speaker 1: Totally. I see it a lot, and I have no
30:46
Speaker 1: idea half the time. But tell me in your next project,
30:49
Speaker 1: so is fake IMPI are going to try out the verticals?
30:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're definitely looking at opportunities and seeing what those
30:55
Speaker 3: opportunities are. If it makes sense, when you start out
30:57
Speaker 3: as a young person in the business, you kind of
30:58
Speaker 3: always view yourself like the young person in the business,
31:01
Speaker 3: and then enough young actors ask you what the two
31:03
Speaker 3: thousands were like and you're you're like, oh wait, I'm
31:06
Speaker 3: the oldest guy in the room now. But with that
31:09
Speaker 3: comes the sense of like, oh, I actually have learned
31:12
Speaker 3: quite a bit and I have some wisdom and experience
31:15
Speaker 3: that I can kind of I can pass along, passed down.
31:18
Speaker 1: Sweet, I mean, hard to go further than that, drop
31:21
Speaker 1: the mic. We like to ask three questions when we Okay,
31:24
Speaker 1: music's been crucial to your shows. Phantom Planets California, hallelujah.
31:30
Speaker 1: You know we're put back on the map obviously because
31:34
Speaker 1: of your shows. If you had a soundtrack for your life,
31:37
Speaker 1: what would that be?
31:38
Speaker 3: I mean, my number one guy is Bob Dylan, Ryan
31:41
Speaker 3: like and blood on the tracks and you know, just
31:45
Speaker 3: that that entire album. Don't think twice STI all right.
31:47
Speaker 3: I did have the opportunity two weeks ago to see
31:50
Speaker 3: David Byrne live in concert.
31:52
Speaker 1: Oh, I've heard such great things about that.
31:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. And actually Audro was the one who turned me
31:56
Speaker 3: onto the Talking Heads.
31:58
Speaker 1: Talking Heads. Yeah.
31:59
Speaker 3: I remember she had the cassette for Little Creatures and
32:01
Speaker 3: was playing and she was and I'm like what is this?
32:04
Speaker 3: And it just you know, you get that spark and
32:06
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're buying all the tapes and
32:08
Speaker 3: learning everything about them. And I had the opportunity to
32:11
Speaker 3: see his Broadway show right after COVID. His music has
32:14
Speaker 3: meant so much to me for so long, and he's
32:17
Speaker 3: so joyful and idiosyncratic and just himself that you watch
32:23
Speaker 3: the show with like tears in your eyes. You just
32:25
Speaker 3: it's so joyous and emotional at the same time. So
32:28
Speaker 3: I feel like his music has just been incredibly important.
32:31
Speaker 1: Man, we got a lot of people on the dance
32:33
Speaker 1: floor at this party, but that this weekend, I mean,
32:35
Speaker 1: it was pretty remarkable. What's the best vacation you've ever taken?
32:40
Speaker 3: Oh? Wow, I just I should prepare for this. That's
32:44
Speaker 3: a really good question. It has to be the first
32:46
Speaker 3: time I took my kids to Hawaii. I would say,
32:48
Speaker 3: I'm about to go again. And now I have a
32:50
Speaker 3: ten month old to join the other two.
32:52
Speaker 1: Hey you got another one?
32:54
Speaker 3: Another one back to diapers, And so I think that
32:56
Speaker 3: opportunity of just having everybody together in this new edition
32:59
Speaker 3: or family, I'm really excited about that. It's like that
33:02
Speaker 3: could be the best vacation yet.
33:04
Speaker 1: And then finally, what's something you're getting real honest about?
33:09
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm turning fifty next year.
33:13
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. That just that hit hard.
33:15
Speaker 3: That's real. That's some real shit.
33:17
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, what do you think about it?
33:19
Speaker 3: How did this happen? It kind of gives you a
33:22
Speaker 3: little more more empathy.
33:24
Speaker 1: I hear you, man. Thanks for doing this. This was
33:26
Speaker 1: so good. I mean, it's so meaningful this week for me.
33:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to get choked up. Thanks. This was You've
33:34
Speaker 1: made a lot of people happy through the shows that
33:37
Speaker 1: you created. I hope you're proud of yourself, because we're
33:40
Speaker 1: very proud of you.
33:42
Speaker 3: You love you.
33:43
Speaker 1: I love you. Hey, everyone, thanks for joining me on
33:47
Speaker 1: the Get Real podcast. You know, I hope you feel
33:50
Speaker 1: a little healthier hanging out with me. You know, it's
33:53
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of fun passing this along others.
33:56
Speaker 1: Please subscribe below, Please share. I'm excited not just to
34:01
Speaker 1: talk about healthcare, but a lot of other fun topics.
34:04
Speaker 1: It's about making healthy talk about healthcare. It's not a lecture.
34:09
Speaker 1: This is supposed to be fun. And look forward to
34:12
Speaker 1: spending more time with you in the future.