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John Stephens Solemnly Swears by Khakis · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Five, six, seven, eight.
0:01
[SPEAKER_01]: John, let's talk to John.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: John Stevens.
0:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo, woo, woo, all right, here we go.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everybody, welcome back to Gilmour to say with Tara and Haley.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Tara, this is Haley.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Haley.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Tara.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here to talk to John Stevens, finally.
0:24
[SPEAKER_00]: What a delightful man.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what a gem.
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Could have talked to him for probably a solid five hours.
0:30
[SPEAKER_00]: What a damn delight that man is.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: He is so much fun.
0:33
[SPEAKER_00]: He's so funny and he's so authentic.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And he has so many fun stories.
0:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't wait to have him back because spoiler alert, we're going to have him back.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We had so many conversations about Gilmour girls and everything he remembered.
0:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Primarily season one because he's rewatching season one.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's different like how.
0:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We should introduce John Stevens if you don't know who he is.
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't remember us talking about him all of Gilmour revisited, he is one of the original writers from the writer room in season one of Gilmour roles.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the first writers that was hired in the writer's room.
1:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Really he was there from the beginning very very beginning, which we've never talked to someone who is there from like inception or I guess shortly after inception after like the uneared pilot was filmed and through to the end of season four and after that he went on to write on some of your favorite shows including the O.C.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I was kind of bummed that I didn't ask him anything about Adam Brody which I totally should have.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, we didn't even talk about that.
1:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
1:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't even talk about that.
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We answered your just questions.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of questions.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It becomes back.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But he also worked for Gossip Girl, of course.
1:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the showrunner on Gotham, which takes place in my life.
1:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Which blew my life.
1:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I find a lot.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I find out live live.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
1:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he brings up Bruce Wayne and Tara was like, what?
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he saw my Gotham and I was like, Gotham.
1:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, yeah, it was the showrunner on Gotham and I was like, what?
2:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I felt like such a boy was like, okay, no, it wasn't because it was like, we really focused on his like teen dramas.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's Wayne's not necessarily giving teen drama.
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he is giving drama though, isn't he?
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he of course wrote on every year after the prime video adaptation of Carly Fortune's novel every summer after and he told us that he is going to be writing on season two, which is the one golden summer book with Charlie.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So very excited for more on that.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But honestly, just such a delightful person to talk to if you love Gilmour Rolls, which of course you are probably here because you love Gilmour Rolls.
2:43
[SPEAKER_01]: he explains a lot of things that if you are looking to go into the television industry just like some key thoughts and processes, but also if you're just writing in general I feel like a lot of the things that he says a lot of the takeaways that he had really great and he's just so funny.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, of course, he's writing for Gilmour Girls, and like we've noticed like I pulled out of him.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote, yes, yes, I wanted to give a rundown of the Gilmour Girls episodes that he wrote on me, because he wrote on well, he wrote on 88 of them between season one and season four.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He just might be credited as a writer on season one episode 10 forgiveness and stuff, which is the episode after worries dance, where Richard gets in.
3:28
[SPEAKER_01]: In our revisited conversation with John Stevens, I feel like there's a lot of questions that we can ask him that he wouldn't be looking into.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he is rewatching it on his Instagram and I think that there's some things that he just doesn't quite remember.
3:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we talk about star cross lovers because he wrote on that one.
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other one.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: play, yeah, for Star Wars lovers and other strangers.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You wanted him to answer to some things, but he didn't quite remember what the thought process was, but even as we were talking, he was remembering things from 20 plus years ago, 25 years ago, which was just very impressive.
3:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think him rewatching his 88 episodes when he comes back.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's going to have a lot more to say, to say, and maybe more to say, be well.
4:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe one of those things will be about your dinner.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope so.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Hurry, we're meeting to go.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
4:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but as Haley mentioned, season one episode 16, Star cross lovers and other strangers.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote the teleplay.
4:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Season one episode 19, Emily and Wonderland.
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: With, that was a collab with Linda Loiselle Gooseck.
4:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What a name.
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And they collabed on Emily and Wonderland.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: One, of course, Emily goes to the independence in for seemingly the first time.
4:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in season two he wrote season two episode nine run away little boy.
4:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a little conversation about Shakespeare in our conversation later And the season two finale with Amy Sherman Paladino season two episode 22.
4:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't get started Can't wait for him to rewatch that that's the one I wanted to revisit because I was like, okay, any questions I have about this any thoughts I have about this.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna have to say it for next time because like I need to talk about that kiss Yeah, we got to talk about it, but next time
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in season 3, he wrote season 3 episode 11, I solemnly swear, and season 3 episode 15 at face-off, which was directed by Kenny Ortega, and that's the hockey episode.
5:13
[SPEAKER_00]: With Teva Calsky running!
5:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Teva Calsky was running!
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I actually, I mean, he sprinted for Lane Kim.
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love being such a glad.
5:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love being such a glad.
5:46
[UNKNOWN]: I just love
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, it's been couple to be about it, oh God, okay, but John, if you're listening, please come back.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We have more questions.
5:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about power coming out of your gang.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to have color coming out of my gang.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't wait.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was so wonderful to talk to him.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We found out about some lines that he wrote that are so iconic, specifically in runaway, a little boy.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We really told that out of him though.
6:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, let's have a conversation with John Stephen's.
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Here he is.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: John Stephen's.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Gilmore to Say.
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so happy to have you.
6:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you guys.
6:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm happy to be here.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Your name is quite iconic.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I would feel amongst Gilmore to say, Gilmore revisited.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: We bring you up a lot.
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very excited to talk to you.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I know a lot of people have probably seen
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: your Instagram series that you've been doing recently of rewatching Gilmore Girls and diving back into old stories, which we absolutely loved, so we had to have you on the podcast to talk about it.
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Haley.
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a lot of fun.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Diving back a little bit before Gilmore Girls, tell us how you got started writing and especially writing for television.
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I always wanted to be a writer from the time I was like a little kid, you know, like, in our family mythology, my mom will tell the story, like, when I was in kindergarten, I asked her, how do you become a writer?
7:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So, is that is there?
7:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But for a long time, I thought I was going to be, and I turned out to be writing just books, you know, novels.
7:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
7:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, John Irving up in the main words with my all of Eddie.
7:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was getting a name
7:24
[SPEAKER_00]: back in like 90 billion something whatever it was.
7:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember you're in these like writers workshops, you know, and you're reading these stories and not to cast shade and any, unlike writers' groups and stuff like that.
7:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But all the stories are about like people having these like Clyde epithinies like where they're like looking at the sun and like realizing their other numbers on big.
7:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would go home and I would just watch TV.
7:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'd be watching, like, it was the first season I want to say, you have, like, ER homicide life on the street was on there.
7:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It was right at the beginning of a television Renaissance, you know?
7:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember thinking at the time, got these stories are so much more engaging and they feel more visceral, and I've connected them in a way I wasn't connecting to.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: the pros I was running at the time.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I also wanted to make a living.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm glad to hear you from my mother for a program I drew about the L.A. with the intention of being a TV writer.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And how did that land you respond on Gilmore girls?
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I remember you saying in one of your videos that you put on Instagram, I think it was when you were talking about love and war and snow and the snow machine that they used.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That you were fresh off the bus from Virginia.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So was that your first writing job?
8:32
[SPEAKER_02]: That was like,
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first job, oh, that's amazing.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.
8:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It went from college, and then I was like, then I spent a year as a bum, obviously, because when I had to, after college, we got it.
8:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I went to grad school, and then I came out, and you know, I spent a year or so, I drove out to LA with my girlfriend at the time.
8:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I spent a year doing coverage, and I don't think if coverage is, I don't know if coverage is even still a thing anymore.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm unfamiliar.
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: What is coverage?
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Having a way, you know, people would send up scripts to all these production companies and it's you as whatever.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And exactly to be so many scripts, they wouldn't want to read them.
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So you would just basically say, this is the plot.
9:14
[SPEAKER_02]: These are the characters.
9:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Recommend.
9:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't recommend pass.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: These are the good parts.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm sure they still do something along those lines.
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: There has to be some sort of screening process for it, but very cool.
9:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, almost every ripe television and featurewriter of my generation did cover it at some point another.
9:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Like John August to Walton script notes, we'll talk about learning to write by doing coverage.
9:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And like everybody else.
9:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
9:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did that for like a year, almost a year.
9:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I wrote a couple of spec scripts because that was how you got television work at the times.
9:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the first season of the sopranos and the first season of the West Wings, I wrote specs of both of those, which are obviously natural compliments to Gilmour Girls.
9:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
9:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he'd be surprised because that's a time.
9:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
9:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
9:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, the Aaron Storken Amy.
9:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, definitely.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a dozen soprano references a season, so it really does.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And Aaron Storken does a lot of pop culture references as well, so it would there was some crossover.
10:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the time when I moved to L.A.
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I only I knew one person and he was again exactly like a junior executive at a production company, which of course no longer exists.
10:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I sent in my scripts.
10:21
[SPEAKER_02]: He goes, I know an agent, so he sent him to an agent, they didn't sign me.
10:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got two meetings.
10:26
[SPEAKER_02]: One was on this show called The Street, which lasted like six episodes and never went.
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the other was on Gilmore Girls, which I think they had maybe shot the presentation at that point.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think she's amazing, but they were picking it up.
10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, I met with Amy.
10:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a lot of time that we can decide in what I was going to wear.
10:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing a pairing.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you remember?
10:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Dude, it was so embarrassing.
10:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I was wearing, and this is not the cash shade about it upon the set of whatsoever, but I was wearing khaki.
10:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, I need a really nice pair of khaki.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I came from Virginia, right?
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you go up in Virginia, like, no, we're going to wear khaki.
11:00
[SPEAKER_00]: He's obviously a khaki.
11:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, khaki isn't a navy blazer.
11:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I show up in Amy's wearing like you know a crazy top hat and yes of course.
11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And we bonded and I'd read the pilot and we bonded over our love for Buffy.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah and I love Buffy.
11:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we bonded over Buffy, and we bonded over Northern Exposure, which I had really loved when it was on the air, I'm which was a big influence upon Star's Hollow and Amy's writing, and then I got a job, which was so good.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You got a picture?
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really taken by your cackies.
11:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really taken by me.
11:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember this, so I got this as so awful, but I see it.
11:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's funny when you talk about these things, the stories like that, because I say it was my first job, you know?
11:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
11:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I do not have health insurance, obviously, since I have with a student, and so I had a, I don't know.
11:51
[SPEAKER_02]: The last time I had actually gone to the dentist, you know, so it was like week two.
11:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say, I'm in the writer's room, and I'm waiting for my health insurance to kick in so I can go to the dentist, because I
12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: that would be a good thing.
12:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're talking there and I'm pitching away.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, Michelle does this and I'm like, nobody's talking.
12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all just looking at me.
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's finally one of the writers is like, John, I think your mouth is bleeding.
12:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like a pearly eye.
12:17
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so disgusting.
12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why I'm sharing it.
12:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't judge the digits in so long.
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm repeating.
12:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So that job came along at the right time.
12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Breyerley, right in time.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone needed to look inside your mouth.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted the inside of your brain.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But somebody did.
12:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, my god, I got that job.
12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was really interesting.
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fun.
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So you were really there.
12:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that you said that they had shot the... Have you seen the unearned pilot?
12:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but the first thing I saw was like what 27 minutes long.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, yeah, sure.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: There are definitely a few scenes missing.
12:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll explore scenes playing sukey.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
12:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That was what I watched when he first came on.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that makes sense.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So you were really there.
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I hadn't cast Jared yet.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We hadn't recast because Alex had to go do Matt TV.
13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, there's a bunch that really remained to be done when I came on.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's so cool, because I don't think we've met anyone yet who was on from the very beginning.
13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Because even Neil Lawrence, she came on, I think, what did she feel like?
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, did she come on season two?
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: That is true.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're beginning's feel so dream-like.
13:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone now who wants to be a TV writer, that would be the absolute ideal.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You just kind of stumbled upon the right people.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, not at all.
13:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Even when I get old, even back then it didn't really
13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: because most of my friends can embrace what have you who have jobs they came out and they worked as assistants or they worked as writers assistants or PA's what have you and they got to know people and they got their jobs that way and or they did good work but then the show gets cancelled and they get anything to new job and that's your gets cancelled.
13:56
[SPEAKER_02]: and a lot of people have to end up going year to year to year to year in different shows.
14:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got super lucky that I fell away with the right people and it turned out to be a long runny, but also an awesome show.
14:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, yeah, it could not have, it could not have happened in like a better way.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it was truly a kiss met.
14:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Those khakis, they were kissmen.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: As we mentioned, we've had Sheila Lawrence on the show.
14:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had Stan Zimmerman, you're laughing at my cat.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm laughing at my cat.
14:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you're trying to kiss none of them.
14:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I should go buy some more.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Some luckies.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: A lucky pair.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Lucky one.
14:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mentioned that we've had Sheila Lawrence on.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had Stan Zimmerman on a lot of our listeners are like, they're kind of familiar with the process of the writer's room.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But you were really in it from the beginning.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So what was it like being in that writer's room, especially?
14:45
[SPEAKER_00]: for the pilot and beyond like season one you guys were shaping so much of the story establishing so much of who these characters are and really like team everything off for the subsequent seasons.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: What was that like on a day-to-day?
14:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to like preface all this by saying when we say the we have it all this is really all coming from Amy, you know, and I mean that in a real way because we were all really She had the vision she knew what the wound is this show to be so we were trying to kind of make that an actual fan But that first year in that first season.
15:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're like five of us.
15:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say plus Amy and then Dan was, you know, moving back and forth between family guy and go more girls at the time.
15:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It was interesting, right?
15:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remember having the biggest discussions about early on in a really clarifying way for me.
15:35
[SPEAKER_02]: The Roy's first kiss, you know, the kiss and tell episode, where there are different ways that story could have gone, and Amy's had a very clear point of view that know that the crux of the drama is the fact that Roy hasn't told Borely that she had this kiss.
15:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And in any other normal show, we would be about the fact of this 16-year-old girl having her first kiss, and that's so exciting.
15:55
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, this story is about Laura Lyon, Rory, having that dynamic.
16:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a lot of discussion in the room about that fact, and realizing, though, that's where the story is, and once, and for me, at least, once I realized that became clear in that, it really became very much of a north star for all of the episodes going forward saying,
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you can tell a lot of, like, in a very, sort of, like, iconic way what some of these stories are going to be, like, you know, the turning 16 or losing your job or falling in love, but have you, but they should all resolve revolve around that their best friends as well as mother and daughter, and that's what makes the show special.
16:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really, like, it, for me, the moment where I realized, that's what the show, I mean, I am already new it, but that's where I was, that's what the show is and that became our way.
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We've been forward.
16:45
[SPEAKER_02]: should begin, preface all this by saying my memory is not the best, that there was not a, oh, this is a full road map of the season.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where we're going at the very end, where we know that I we don't know that we knew that at the time.
16:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I think once the core romantic relationships became clearer earlier on, like the maximum and the lower lie and the drawing, the dean, we know those, those were going to arc out in a certain way and come to some sort of resolution by the end of season one, but there wasn't like, oh, this is where season one ends,
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when you're telling your show as well where one of the characters is in high school, there's also going to be a natural progression based upon age and school year that's going to give some shape to your year as well.
17:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there was also a big component.
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so interesting.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm remembering the stuff as I'm talking about.
17:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was gonna say.
17:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm writing my memoirs or something.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but I love it because I feel like I feel like this, for anybody who hasn't come across it yet, you've been doing these Instagram videos on your Instagram.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And famously, that's where they go.
17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I started 60.
17:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, by the way, I know, but I love it.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been referring to it as 88 hours in Star's Hollow, because you said you were going to spend 88 hours in Star's Hollow having watched all of the episodes that you were in the writers room for.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that with every single episode you watch, like something new, I feel kind of sparks in your brain where you're just like, oh, right.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you're like, I remember nothing about this episode.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, watch it.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, oh, actually, I do.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Make myself perfectly back into the scenario.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's perfect.
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great.
18:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
18:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes you back in a really kind of interesting way when you do those things.
18:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
18:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you're like, right back there at the moment.
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a really grateful that you're taking the time to remember something from 25 years ago at this point here.
18:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that crazy, Haley?
18:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You've had your thing.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's wild.
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Another thing that became really a part of the show as well was the New England of it all, you know, and realizing, and again, if Amy had this inner mind, but it also then became part of season one and then kind of the traditional fabric of the show.
18:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Was playing the seasons in a way, you know, so you're playing autumn, you're playing winter, you're playing spring, especially autumn and winter.
18:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Personally, I think part of it was the fact that Amy having grown up in Southern California probably had a affection for seasons, which probably never got to experience here.
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And knowing those are going to be specific episodes as well gave some more shape to the season as well.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've talked a lot on our podcast about how we love the Amy leaned harder into seasons than she did into holidays.
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like the occasional Christmas episode, but like every show at the time, especially sitcoms, you know, they all had a Christmas episode.
19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Thanksgiving episode, I don't think was as common, and that's why I love that she leaned into that with the four things,
19:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's, it's one of those things where I think that that's what made the show so totally aesthetically pleasing and also made you want to live there was because they really, you guys really captured the entire production, captured what it felt like to be in stars hollow in a small town in the middle of autumn and have the autumn festival and it's like, I want to go to that autumn festival.
19:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to go to that bit of basket.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I want it to be there in all the action.
19:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it's so such a small and minute thing to the naked eye, you know?
19:56
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I agree.
19:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the, one of the really attractions of the show is a lot of times there's like, oh, I just want to spend 45 minutes in start hello.
20:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to like lean there for a little while, which is completely a new sand.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you spend like an average day?
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like if you could take a sound like a day in the life of a writer on Gilmore Girls at the time, what was it like from the time you got there until the time you, I guess we're supposed to leave and then when you actually left.
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, yeah.
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I want to set up preface all this by saying, to some of your listeners, this might sound like incredibly easy, so I apologize.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It really wasn't.
20:29
[SPEAKER_02]: He would start at 10 a.m.
20:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Which as soon as he was a very civilized time to get up.
20:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always a writer's room.
20:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's year one, we were in these kind of gnarly trailers.
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And the writer's room was tiny, man.
20:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It was super, so we like crammed in this tiny little room with whiteboards on it, you know, where we would map out the episodes.
20:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And typically there would be one episode on the board, you know, that we would be mapping out in the early stages.
20:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It would just be kind of ideas, like the general large shape of the idea, like, oh, it's going to be the episode of the Royce birthday parties.
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What have you?
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we would start to...
21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: see the episode in terms of like all these are the major scenes the shape is going to have.
21:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway in terms of a normal day we would chill up at 10, we typically work to one clock or 1230 you know we would break the ledge and then you have a lunch break fucking hour and then you the great thing there about Gilmore girls was that we actually shot right next to our writer's room.
21:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never done different shows where you're shooting one click, I mean, you know, I've had the right as your mirror and we've been shooting in England or shooting in New York, you know, and it's like you're not right there.
21:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So you could actually walk over to stage or to set and see what was happening and stay really kind of in touch with it, which was great or you could take a nap, which I also didn't think of.
21:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we would come back at like two-ish and we'd work till six every day.
21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of rooms.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: There are actually sitcoms which will work super late You know like what are dinner all the time?
21:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You're there a 10 o'clock later, etc.
21:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Our longs tended to have much more bankers hours and Gilmore girls definitely held to that in many ways.
22:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We we really work on a bit in the section I think we ordered lunch dinner like one time and all the years that I was there
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, if we had an episode going, you know, it would be up on the board and it progressed from large ideas and a few scenes there until we would have to start breaking it down, could there's like this scene, this scene, this scene, this scene, until finally every scene is written out and going, Gilmer Girls, the scenes were actually written out in far more detail on the board than on mini shows that I had worked on the past.
22:32
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the interesting things on the show too,
22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in television writing, people talk a lot about actouts, like that big moment at the end of an act to be like, done, done, done, and like ramps up, what's going to happen?
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to come back after this soap commercial, and Amy and Dan really had no concern about actouts, whatsoever.
22:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like you were, I think their point of view is like you're watching the show, you're watching the show, you know, you're in a stand.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
22:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You're the threw it and let's not build an artificial drama.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there were actouts that happened and there was drama times, but sometimes it would be like, you'd have three scenes and it would be like, okay, that's enough for an act.
23:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's move on to like the next act.
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember going to the next show that I went to.
23:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't even, by that point, it was like my fifth year as a television writer.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And someone mentioned, so what's the aft out here?
23:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, what's an aft out?
23:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I had never even heard of that concept before.
23:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because it was just not even on our radar at the time.
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so interesting that you say that because I feel like so much of what you're talking about the process of their show is, didn't ever account for how popular it would be now, and how bingeable it would be because there's no ad breaks.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there was no ad breaks when it was on Netflix as of last month.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: that you just watch it all the way through.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's no breaks there.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's only like I guess like the process that you had no idea to anticipate now really just lends to the ease of watching.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We saw it.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew you knew.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You knew.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew John.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You absolutely.
24:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You know all the know what 24 is you'll look like I can tell you right now.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh amazing.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm nervous.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say I don't know if I want to know.
24:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You're right in a weird way, it actually did lend itself to like a sort of like this dreaming format where there are no commercial breaks.
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned the show that you ended up writing on after Gilmore Girls was at the OC.
24:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the OC.
24:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a different temperature.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually, we talked about the OC and we talked about gossip girl, which I know you also wrote on.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We compared Gilmore Girls often to the shows like that that we're hit shows at the same time.
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: have that kind of, like you said that act out that Gilmour Girls just lacked.
24:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So whenever we talk about the show and we get like so kind of wrapped up in the drama, we're like, we also have to remember, well, one that this is a TV show, but two that like, this is not the O.C.
24:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not Gossip Girl, like they were really trying to hone in on family dynamics that felt super realistic.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas like I would watch shows when I was in high school, like the O.C.
24:57
[SPEAKER_00]: and Gossip Girl and I'd be like, is that really how people live?
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and then I'm watching Gilmore Girls, and I'm like, yeah, I think that's more how people live because it is like the stakes are just so much higher and the stakes are so low on Gilmore Girls, and that's what makes it Continuously palatable and Bingeable because no one you don't feel like you're in any danger when you're watching a show like Gilmore Girls, you know
25:20
[SPEAKER_02]: that you are an emotional day into something.
25:22
[SPEAKER_00]: A little bit.
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I was actually going to say thematically, your show's feel like the show's that you've worked on, being Gilmore Girls, the OC, Gossip Girl, even every year after which recently came out.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: They all have that very thematic coming of age, but even Laurel, I and her career.
25:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't Gossip?
25:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You watch Bruce Wayne become bad, man.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, and I we did you write a Gotham?
25:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he did.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved that show.
25:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the show My gosh, you were We worked on Gotham.
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, John.
25:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
25:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved that show.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I never finished it But I'm like begging my fiancee to watch it with me because we love you know super hero Orgen's name.
26:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're a professor of pagan my on my wall back.
26:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god
26:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, that's amazing.
26:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I really need to go back and watch that show.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Ben McKenzie.
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
26:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Ben McKenzie.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: He was in the OC and he wasn't got the dots are connecting.
26:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't mean to cut it.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mean to cut it.
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I love it.
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just love it thematically.
26:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like you go in so many different directions, but they're really as a strong through line of that like.
26:30
[SPEAKER_01]: who you're becoming and like all of the high stakes that come up against that, whether that's in Star's Hollow, whether that's in Gotham.
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But draws you to a story like that.
26:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think I naturally love coming of age stories, you know, they are, they, and perhaps I'm just lazy, but a coming of age story, it has an inherent dramatic structure as someone who is a teenager or a young person, they are in the process of becoming the person that they are going to be, the choices that they are making are going to basically create who they will be in the future, and I do also kind of believe that when you watch
27:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It can serve as a little bit of a primer too, like, oh, that's how I could live my life in a way.
27:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I can watch someone do that, so I could watch Rory and say, oh, she's deeply invested in her schoolwork, she loves, you know, to travel, she loves to read and follow those choices forward.
27:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I actually kind of believe that we're all doing that sooner or later anyway.
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I think at a certain point, people kind of like,
27:28
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe think they can no longer do that or they stop making those choices or that they are calcified and set and who they are when they're 35 or 45 or 55.
27:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I should don't think that's true, you know?
27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, but I do think a young person and that cost of like high school and college and just after college is in that crucible of change that is so conducive to like drama that it's like, yeah, I could do not want to tell
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: and also young people keep changing like they they change now like you watch you for you if you can if you can watch you for you it's like don't if it's no different it's quite different making changes and they're ending up summer different than they were at the beginning absolutely that's so interesting that you say that because I feel like as a writer for young adults which Gilmore girls gossip girl the O.C.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: whether or not I should have been watching gossip grow when I was young adult remains to be seen but it really did shape a lot of what I do like do I like to read because we're like to read or did I like for me because I like to read like exactly it's there's like it's really a circle there the same thing with their world or like I was wearing headbands all throughout middle school and high school for one reason and one reason only
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like a responsibility that you have in the writer's room to kind of that realizing that you are shaping these people who watch a show.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even adults, like it's not just like the younger people that you're saying, like you try to feel like you are beyond being changed by a TV show, but it's just not true.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, like even now, like I watch like the pit and I just love their professionalism and I'm afraid of hair.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I watch your hands.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You came to the right place, John.
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Haley loves the pit.
29:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen that.
29:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You haven't seen the pit?
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I know.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so bombarded for it.
29:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes.
29:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so well done.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard it's really good.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I gotta get on it.
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I was going to ask you earlier is you wrote on or you're credited as writing eight episodes on Gilmore Girls, but you were in one of them, which is one of the things that we spent our fix.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's always our favorite fun fact.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, did you know?
29:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, whatever we watched concert interrupt us were like, and that man over there, that's John Stevens.
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And he got his SEGA after card today.
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You tell us a little bit more about how that happened.
29:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What led to your on-screen cameo on Gilmore Girls.
29:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we always did table reads, you know, for all the episodes.
29:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Usually only about half the roles were cast before the table reads.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So writers or other people would just take roles, you know, so I took that concert person's role for his one line, because they're not cast him yet.
29:55
[SPEAKER_02]: and for somehow some way my reading got a laugh in the room and then they went on and they cast an actual actor which was this right move but then like the day before or two days before the actor that they cast got super sick and he was like in Florida or whatever so Amy was like screw it let John do it so they tapped Harley to me you know because you can do one performance
30:22
[SPEAKER_02]: If you do two jobs, you need to set a card so they can have, it tapped hardly me, and I went in there, and I think I told the story of my Instagram stuff too.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You sitting next to Lauren and Milton, Melissa's on the other side of her.
30:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was so stressful.
30:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so quiet because the camera is right there and it's so enormous and as I told in that post like I just kept I just look over Lauren and deliver my one line and I just looked into the camera lens every single time again and again and again and again and finally I didn't Lauren just like grabbed me she's like look over here because she was talking about this
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so funny.
31:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That must be so hard on the camera.
31:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not come back.
31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: That was well.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It must be so hard on both ends because you're like, Oh my gosh, I can't get this wrong.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to be so focused because I'm with professionals who have come ready.
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: They know not to look in the camera.
31:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's really interesting you know because I do feel like if you're a writer, especially.
31:25
[SPEAKER_02]: you really should make an effort to do, at least see what every other job is going on.
31:30
[SPEAKER_02]: If I see the actors and the directors, you know, like, yeah.
31:33
[SPEAKER_02]: In the years after that, I took, like, I directed a whole bunch and then I took acting classes as well, just because not because everyone'd be an actor, please.
31:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would be awful.
31:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And everyone, you have to see myself or make anybody listen to me.
31:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Apologize to everybody out there.
31:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You actually understand, you understand the script and the dialogue in a very, very different way than when you're just like, typing it on the page and imagining it, you know, especially in the way of justifying every line that you're going to say.
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when you're actually out there and you're saying the words, so you're like,
32:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Why am I saying this?
32:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Why am I moving here?
32:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And whereas if you were never actually having to do that, it's very easy just to like keep writing and make these things happen.
32:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know if concert interrupts us was the impetus for me going out and doing all those other things, but it was different the first time I did it.
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like so such a commitment to your craft to make sure that like everything happens the way that it needs to, especially that coming from like novel writing, where you are the director and the writer and the actor and the cinematographer, like everything comes down to you.
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So like getting to see all that come together on, and your other writing job, I think is
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Excellent.
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But stepping back into the script and like as talking about justifying lines, what was it like when you took a script off the board and like you broke the script and you went away and wrote it on your own because there's I think you wrote seven full episodes and then did the teleplay for one.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your process like when you get the script and it's your turn to put it all
33:08
[SPEAKER_02]: we have it on the board and then you take that in the go and you're at an outline and I feel like the Gilmer goes outlines or around like 14, 15 pages long you know and they're pretty dense so there's a lot of dialogue in the outline so they really feel what the scenes were from that you would get notes on the outline and studio and network and from Amy first of Amy that's what to say and then the studio and network and then
33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Typically, the outline, I think you would have a week and a half or so to write it.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, then you go after write your script.
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And typically, you had to, it's dependent upon the schedule, because the schedule would continue to get crunch towards into the season.
33:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You would have almost two weeks to write the episode, usually.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The episode, then Gilmour Gross for a long, you know?
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we, Gilmour Girls and Pre, West Wing, I would say.
33:54
[SPEAKER_02]: The average script was 52 pages for a, um,
34:00
[SPEAKER_02]: which is kind of like still the case in most shows.
34:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Sorkin scripts were long, they were like 60's pages and the nameys scripts started coming in and they were like high 60's like low 70's sometimes, you know.
34:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So the scripts are super long.
34:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So you do your draft and then you get notes back from Amy.
34:15
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's deep in the season and like oh we're shooting this tomorrow, the namey would just take it and do her pass rather than giving you notes.
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But typically if she had time, if you had time before to production you would do a second pass.
34:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Based upon her or her
34:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there ever a time when you got notes back and you disagreed with any changes that were being made?
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Never!
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Not at all.
34:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm probably, but I can't remember any.
34:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know there was anything that stuck out and you were like, no more off.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a case of like reading Amy's past afterwards and going, oh, such a better joke than I had.
34:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, that's really funny.
34:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But then like, well, your names on this clip So you get credit for it.
34:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, that's true.
34:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's the thing is that we'll, We'll sometimes, we're also covering the Marvelous Missed Missed Missed, we'll write now on our Patreon.
35:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's one of those things We're like, we've been covering the show for so long And obviously watching it for much longer That we can kind of sense that even when an episode Has been written by anyone else, We are like, oh, but that was a damn Paladino joke right there.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: can feel it and like the everything that this line had, it's dripping and Dan or it's dripping and Amy because they do have such a process, yeah, they're very specific sense of humor.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a game that we like to do before, like who do I never know for right it.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Usually there's like a there's a couple of tells in either structure or in joke frequency and type that we can like kind of identify.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really interesting.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That idea.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Feel like that would be fun for, I mean, unfortunately at the beginning of a Gilmore Girls episode, they list who the writer is, which is fortunate for the credit, of course, but for the game, it's not quite as fun because it means they'll they put them at the end.
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that that would be something interesting for you to to feel as you go on.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You might remember who wrote one episode, but to to try to figure out who who is the official writer for an episode.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yes.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm feeling of it.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But something that I think is a little more difficult to discern is what personal moments make their way into an episode that are like, you know, rooted in personal stories and one that you've shared on Instagram is about
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And that being kind of based on an origin story of yours and something that Sheila had shared with us when she was on our podcast was about, uh, there's the rub, the spot episode, Laura Lye and Emily in a season two and how she wrote that episode in a lot of her relationship with her mom did find its way into that episode.
36:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Aside from the night terrors, is there anything else personal that stands out and maybe this is a question that will be better answered once you've completed your watch of Gilmore Girls, but is there anything you can think of off the top of your head?
36:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very personal to you and your history that made it into the show.
37:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I could enter this lab better later on.
37:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The only thing that popped into my head right now is really not really anything was, was it season two or season three rare, they were doing a production of Romeo and Juliet.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and season two, right away.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so.
37:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's true.
37:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's right.
37:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was really happy.
37:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And because I did, you know, Shakespeare in the high school, obviously.
37:24
[SPEAKER_02]: doing theater in high school is a very specific thing, you know?
37:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like as we all know.
37:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So that definitely fed into that performance a little bit.
37:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't remember.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the episodes I'm really looking forward to seeing again when it comes up.
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's I can tell you it's a good one.
37:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good one.
37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Season two season two is just in general, such a banger.
37:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So getting into more of the specifics of writing for Gilmour Rolls was their character that you really loved writing for, and there's voice.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I loved writing Laura Lye because she was super funny and she was super, it was really fast and she was very bright.
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just like, she's like, she's, her frequency was really high and up here.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It was super like, you put her in a scene and she just drove the scene.
38:11
[SPEAKER_02]: If that makes sense.
38:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
38:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And not really so much on Gilmore Girls, but other times you have a character who's very low key and getting them to like, push the scene can be very difficult, you know?
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas when you would put Laura when Laura would be in a scene like the scene where just go and I love Dredding Paris.
38:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of course.
38:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
38:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is that just killed everything?
38:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, talk about driving the scene in a very different way.
38:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Like she would take a line and just like, oh, the sharpness, the bite.
38:41
[SPEAKER_00]: She's fun.
38:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And then more and more like weirdly like Luke, where that being Luke, Scott really grew in me, you know, I feel like as like he really grew into that character, I mean, he had it from the very beginning, but he got funnier and funnier.
38:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as show went on in a way that or maybe just learned to write for him better.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
38:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's softened.
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's it's a combo.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I think softened as a character.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we got to know more.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys got to learn more about who he was.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I also wonder how and maybe this is something you can answer to like, I wonder how seriously they were considering him in, you know, the pilot and even those first three episodes of actually having him be end game for Lorelie, you know.
39:20
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't know.
39:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember like the old story, you know, which I'm sure you guys know, was that in the original conceptions of Gilmore Girls Luke was a woman.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: A woman.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And Daisy.
39:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was really like in every in a doubt.
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: It was in a might of a name is my, but I doubt it was that it was to be the end game for a lower life.
39:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so he was just kind of this like cram-muginy like dinosaur owner who just had these little quips about how read me concilia enjoy you know and then he gets so much deeper as the show goes on.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think because they were like let's invest in this relationship even though in retrospect seeing that first scene in the pilot you're like oh they're meant for each other.
39:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's that's what's so funny you look at the pilot you're like oh The seed is pointed right there.
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It really feels perfect
40:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I totally agree with what you were saying about in one of your videos about the pilot on Instagram You learn so much in the first three minutes of the show.
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still there.
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in the first like five lines It's perfect.
40:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I really I love that you spoke to that because I Yeah, efficiency of it is so compressed like and doing that in a way that doesn't call attention to itself is really difficult
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking though to you were talking aboutlorolized character would really drive the scene or other characters felt too low key and like really had to work for it.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Something we talk about a lot on the podcast is kind of the interiority of characters and how we learned about people's feelings or motivations or just kind of how things are affecting them.
40:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like withlorolized, there's no secrets.
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We always know how she's feeling.
40:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always on Lauren Graham's face or it's in how she's talking to her friends.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: First is with Vory, she almost has no internal monologue that's externalized for the audience.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot more left to wonder.
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that something that was intentional from in the writer's room?
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Or did we just not see as much as Vory was feeling?
41:07
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think that what it was intentional, I think it was intentional for me and he's pointed to you without us ever really having discussed it, you know?
41:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that was just key to her conception of the character.
41:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It was tied to the fact of casting Alexis who just plays so much on her face and on her eyes, you know, where it is all right there and you don't need to have her vocalize as much.
41:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And they felt as well, and this is me guessing, because this is just my own read from
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: where when you have a mom who is as vocal as Laurel I is, it naturally makes you perhaps vocal, so then you're not having to compete, compete, compete, compete all the time, you know, because Laurel I's talking.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so interesting.
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we talk a lot about the kind of like difference between all of lower life feelings come out and not so not so much of worries.
41:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's often times because people get so invested in worries.
42:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We friends in a way they don't get invested in lower lives because I think that by the end of season one, everyone's like, well, of course, she has to end up with Luke.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas, Bory has a few more suitors that we get to contend with, and you got to write for two of them.
42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of interesting that you brought up the idea of like on a bus from Virginia.
42:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You showed up in California because like, is that not just Mariano just rolling up on a bus to Star's Hollow?
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You were always just taking Milo and me, you know?
42:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
42:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They're always confusing the two of you.
42:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that you were just at the record straight.
42:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think I'm using Logan too.
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it Logan season four?
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: He came in season four, dude.
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: She did go to Yale in season four, but there's no Indian in season five episode three.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's right.
42:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're mirroring this all now because remember going to Amy's Christmas party the year after and meeting Matt and I'd never never.
42:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's right.
42:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, cool.
42:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all in my brain.
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: All coming back.
42:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: As it relates to Dean and Jess who you were there for, there's kind of two conversations we
43:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We, can you have a preference?
43:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us.
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us not, John.
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, don't.
43:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
43:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll shake it out of you.
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe by the end of this conversation, you'll have a preference.
43:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe.
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the conversations that happens online a lot and is definitely a part of our podcast because our first ever episode was called Star Cross Lovers and other reasons to hate Dean Forster.
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We have sold Dean Sex Merch in the past.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we have a few didn't notice we have strong feelings.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We have softened it.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we've definitely softened to Dean and his teenagerness as the years have gone on as the podcast has gone on.
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But were you at all aware that that was kind of a conversation that was happening now?
43:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: This is actually news to me.
43:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't aware that the Dean hating out there.
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, there's a lot of Dean hate out there.
43:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think as you start moving through like the true Rory and Dean eras on your rewatch, I wonder how many people will talk about it in the comments.
44:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, what would the good things start to shift with Dean and Rory?
44:04
[SPEAKER_02]: That they sort of see.
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it's already lovers.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually quite interesting because it's an episode that you were done.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote the teleplay for Star Cross Lovers, and we'll see actually other strangers.
44:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Other strangers.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Not other reasons to hate you.
44:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I always say our version of it, because all of our episode titles were.
44:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's why you say this is my fault.
44:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
44:27
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
44:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not done.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
44:30
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because I'm not done.
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Amy was the official writer on that.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote the tell play.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can push it off.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's more so I want to know what the thought process was in the writer's room at the time with Dean breaking up with Roy like that.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: What you wanted the audience to feel as a result of that encounter between the two of them.
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: for anyone who doesn't remember this is where they go on their third month anniversary date and Dean Biltzer, Scott is going to build her a car and he breaks up with her because he says, I love you and shouldn't say about what was our...
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, remember the episode so vividly.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I thought I could say like, what were you thinking?
45:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But like I just genuinely mean like, what were you thinking?
45:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember we were trying to convey something about the roaring and deen relationship and partially had to do part of it as obviously the insecurity of a 16 year old boy that's set that off on one thing by itself of course yeah and then the other stuff which is I I feel like again I need to read off the episode but I think is in the episode
45:31
[SPEAKER_02]: that so much of Roy's personality in the way she goes through life is informed by her mom's situation with Christopher of it all and feeling when things get very serious and very real in that way and wanting to protect herself in a fashion, you know, and I do think there's adding a little bit of inherited trauma in Roy's psyche because of all that stuff that's going on,
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I think was part of her thinking too, that her life, though it can seem as fairy tale ish, as you want it to be, is not that much, because there is all these emotions that are going on under the service, which can get triggered by the boy of her dream, saying, I love you.
46:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I love you.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was something like that, but
46:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to rewatch the episodes.
46:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And also the meanest thing you can say to anybody is I love you as we all know, right?
46:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
46:24
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst penis thing.
46:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
46:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm really, I'm really curious and not to preemptively paint him in this light.
46:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm very, very curious as you watch the series.
46:36
[SPEAKER_00]: How you feel about Dean?
46:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But I also think, and I'm sure you guys have picked up on this.
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that there was, and I know there was, like inside there are all the writers on the show, and Amy and Dan's, especially as well, because it is a romantic show, and there's a lot of emotions going on, but there's also a deep inclination not to go to anything we should multise, in the show.
46:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
46:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Like were you really on some other shows?
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We were like, you could be like, I love you.
47:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The only one blah, blah, blah, blah.
47:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll find you when you get taken by the British Calvary, or whatever, the case when you eat.
47:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember that episode.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that.
47:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but there was really a sense on Gilmore Girls of like, if somebody goes to a original place, go the other way.
47:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's emotion is there.
47:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody knows the emotion is there, but you actually get a stronger reaction sometimes out of not playing it or like someone denying that emotion.
47:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, totally.
47:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it is set up that way.
47:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's set up in this very romantic way.
47:32
[SPEAKER_00]: They just had this beautiful
47:33
[SPEAKER_00]: date, he's going to build her a car yard.
47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're looking at the stars.
47:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's so romantic.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
47:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he drops the L bomb and she cannot say it back.
47:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what makes it interesting.
47:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what keeps you on your toes.
47:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So I totally agree with you.
47:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But it did it didn't end up, I think.
47:51
[SPEAKER_00]: For me, not as a 16-year-old girl as a 30-year-old woman.
47:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I watched that and I was like, hey, wait a minute, this guy kind of sucks.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It also comes from the fact that it was there three-month anniversary on Friday, and he wanted her to move her Friday night dinner to go, even though he was busy the next step.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Or no, it was on a Saturday, and he was busy, so he wanted her to do it on Friday, even though she had plans.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So he wasn't going to change his plans, but he wanted her to change her plans.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds and we get real in the weeds
48:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we get into season two, we meet someone named Mr. Jasmyriano.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: He rolls up on a bus, much like Mr. Jad Stevens did.
48:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And telling you those cackles, we, it's for the lower it works better.
48:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: If you did, those, those are rewrite.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are notes from the studio.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to leave the bus.
49:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we get into having Jess and Dean, what was that like shift in the writer's room that now we kind of have a little bit of a tug of war over, Ms. Wriga Moore.
49:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We wanted somebody who was going to be a contrast to Dean.
49:18
[SPEAKER_02]: There was also that element of I think when Dean was initially written and he was cast, I mean, the character he had of leather jacket, the pilot, and his name was Dean.
49:26
[SPEAKER_02]: There's clearly like a James Dean, like head of the type in.
49:29
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is then Jared came in and Jared is not James Dean.
49:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's a string.
49:34
[SPEAKER_00]: He's kind of like, kind of a, he's too tall.
49:36
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a nice looking floppy hair kid, you know?
49:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think when the idea of Jess came along, it was very much, let's actually try to get a James Dini type, rebel without a cause.
49:50
[SPEAKER_02]: The kid who is having trouble not fitting in, but like, you know, is causing trouble in a way, finding his way.
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: as a character.
49:58
[SPEAKER_02]: For the longest time, too, it was like, we couldn't name that character.
50:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I forget what Navy was and Dan finally put his foot down because he had some ridiculous name for the longest time.
50:08
[SPEAKER_02]: He needs an actual name.
50:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, we're going to keep calling him like, you know, whatever do the hours of the name.
50:14
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a point.
50:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the desire to was really to give an actual James Dean character, who had some of the holding coffee illness that Dean was lacking in a way, but also still had that intellectual beat poet sort of like interest that we sprinkled on Dean for a little bit at the top, but then kind of like kind of went away, you know?
50:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's kind of took that over.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a nice confirmation because you can kind of see that with Dean early in season one where he feels he feels smart.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he reads a lot of the same books that she does and he feels invested in her and then it became some feels like it's more he's more so invested in being her boyfriend as we go along.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: he actually just got their last season, but I think that the shift to making just that person, the right choice, the right choice.
51:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think also Jared just has an actor as like it has a inherent kind of like a likability, like he's just seems like a nice kid.
51:20
[SPEAKER_02]: He will not going to play that dark that dark troubled kid that I think could be the the conception of that just came king to be at the end of the day.
51:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So
51:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of heat going on in Dina.
51:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I was going to say he definitely has some moments where he can be dark like when he at the end of when we're in Jess eventually get together and then they have the four things giving us after the day of marathon.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
51:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And Dean is like, you know, he meets Jess in the street and he's like, this is my town.
51:49
[SPEAKER_00]: We always talk about that.
51:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like, like, you've been here for two seasons, my friend.
51:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, honey, you just moved here from Chicago.
51:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
51:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's, he gets a little, like, don't eat it.
52:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I forgot all about that.
52:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I forgot.
52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to say it to that.
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait until you get there.
52:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It does feel a little bit in that scene.
52:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We always talk about, like, I think in my case.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, it's going to happen here, okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
52:31
[SPEAKER_01]: that backdoor pilot that exists with Windward Circle because we have, of course, as you notice, we like to think a little bit too deeply about the show.
52:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We have lots of theories about maybe what was going on at the time and what the thought process was with the Jess exit into his own backdoor pilot.
52:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember any of that like thought process of going into that in the writer's room?
52:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to remember that one of our brothers wanted Amy to do a spin-off, and I think she had legitimate reservations about doing a spin-off, you know, just because historically that doesn't work always work out.
53:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, you know.
53:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So she finally, I think, just came along, which she finally felt like, oh, I have a character here who I cannot use to carry the show.
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: A new show, it can be an entry into a new show.
53:16
[SPEAKER_02]: and then doing it as a backdoor pilot was a way of kind of testing the waters, you know, without going whole hog on as I recall.
53:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know, but I remember completely doing that.
53:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember being in the room for when what's when what's circle.
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that light?
53:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You're teaching on that.
53:32
[SPEAKER_01]: What was this going to be call of was this show going to be called?
53:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Dan came up with when we were at Circle at the end of the day.
53:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Now do you remember, because this is the burning question that is truly like if we ever have an opportunity to sit down with Amy and Dan.
53:48
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the top three questions I'd ask them, because a lot of people in the fandom want to know, do you recall if the story trajectory for Jess Mariano to like not show up as a great boyfriend, basically abandon worry at the end of season three and move out to California?
54:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that always the plan or was it truly just to service the back door pilot?
54:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think there was any sense of like, no, there's no plan on the back door pilot when just Kate came in.
54:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more like we could bring on a new love interest Ferrari, someone who can allow us to tell stories that we couldn't tell with the Dean character.
54:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And then waiting to see how that developed, we knew it was going to give us good stories in the Luke side of it as well as well in the song with Laura Live because she was not going to approve him.
54:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And then things develop and then you kind of see where it went.
54:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think one of the strengths of this show was that it was not that kind of always that top-down story telling of like this is what's going to happen.
54:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, we'll start off and then we'll see how things develop and we'll write to the emerging stories, the story lines that come out of the characters.
54:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
54:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it breaks all of the team Jess Garley's who are out there like breaks our hearts a little bit because we're like damn We could have had more of him on the show if the back door pilot didn't happen and so, but like I mean you just never know You never know what would have happened otherwise so it's hard to say But it's always been one of those burning questions for me and I'm sure other people in the fandom who really
55:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Rooded for him, we were like, oh my gosh, you know, he and Roy finally got together, it's going to be great.
55:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And not that we expected him to be a good boyfriend, because how would he know how to be one?
55:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He's probably never been one before.
55:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, most 16, 17-year-old people don't know how to be partners.
55:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, you know, I have always wondered that, like, did they plan for them to maybe be together through college?
55:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was maybe a little bit of a, like a side-swept storyline to service the pilot that they were building on behalf of the WB, but we'll never know.
55:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like most of the answers are always going to be like, hey, we didn't think about it that deeply.
55:43
[SPEAKER_01]: As says you are 25 years later, though, unlike the thinking scope of it all, stands in amendment to that, the way that they kind of structured season five is like, they got to episode 13, they've plotted that out, and then they plotted the back half.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that.
55:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you guys do that, too?
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That was always a case.
56:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You kind of, because I mean, doing 22 episodes is just a lot of episodes.
56:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So once you get to the mid-season break, you kind of can see your way to the mid-season break, and then from that you could see forward to the end of the season.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, did you have a preference of writing the first or back-off?
56:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was writing the first half stuff.
56:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was a mixed bag.
56:19
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're writing the back-off, you get to do a lot of payoffs, which are great, and you get to come together and heating up.
56:24
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're writing the first half, there's this more freedom, like, yeah, you want to go do an episode at the Dinosaur Museum?
56:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure.
56:29
[SPEAKER_02]: What the fuck?
56:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
56:34
[SPEAKER_02]: The both had their, you know.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: A plus is in their mind.
56:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
56:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking to characters that you liked right, you liked right, Laura Lyle.
56:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there a type of scene that you didn't like to write?
56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Stan Zimmerman brought up the heap did not like town meetings or like when everyone was together together.
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh really?
56:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have like a one that you just like or even a character like I can't get their voice?
56:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like this setting.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just so happy to have a job.
57:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Your health insurance, he had a dentist, you had a dentist, none of it mattered.
57:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a memory from set that when you think of Gilmore Girls, you're like, the first thing that comes to mind is a moment that you were on set?
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there one specifically in the writer's room that like you like a story that you broke or something that like when you talked about night terrors that you contributed or someone else contributed something that like felt really like, you're like, wow, this is great.
57:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We're making great TV here.
57:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I have ever in the last 28, 26 years I've been a television writer, Haley.
57:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Thought, wow, what do we make?
57:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
57:35
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not been, okay, I'm gonna call you out.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even on golf though.
57:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna call you out on that because there is no way.
57:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that works.
57:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
57:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that works.
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not a good one.
57:46
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way.
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna completely decline this on your behalf because there's no way that any writer who when they're writing a script or the breaking
57:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that was kind of good.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: That is true.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: There is, but those things always happen, like they've never happened in the writer's room.
58:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
58:05
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll say they happen to, they've always happened for me in script when you get into like a run of something and you're writing it.
58:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're going, oh, this is actually really funny.
58:13
[SPEAKER_02]: This actually works really, really well.
58:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know?
58:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now I'm remembering something.
58:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But what episode was it?
58:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was forgiveness and stuff.
58:22
[SPEAKER_02]: That one.
58:22
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it was um, Stork Oslovers and other strange.
58:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
58:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Rory was getting ready to go to an adate.
58:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it that episode?
58:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Where?
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's down.
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: She's practicing things with Dean with her mom, her conversation.
58:33
[SPEAKER_02]: She's going to have a movie.
58:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's another episode.
58:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that might be, is it, is it when she's going to talk to, oh, she's going to tell him that she's going to twist it.
58:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
58:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
58:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
58:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember writing that scene where she and Laura, like, are practicing conversation.
58:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they have it, and it Laura, like, keeps doing the dean voice and like,
58:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the other side, right?
58:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, cool, left side, not so cool.
58:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was like, in my room, like four in the morning whenever I was writing.
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And like laughing so hard.
59:05
[SPEAKER_02]: They thought, whoa, I was gonna, I mean, Lauren's gonna kill this.
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And then watching her in the table read, and she just crushed.
59:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, I felt so validated because like I thought it was so funny and then it turned out to be so funny.
59:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
59:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Shit that you think it's funny, it doesn't get it doesn't work.
59:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I was I remember that that was so funny.
59:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh That's amazing.
59:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not know that you were you were responsible for redside cool Lipside not so cool.
59:32
[SPEAKER_02]: We say that all the time so like when you were like oh, it was from the scene Where they were having this conversation now like I think of was like left side not so cool No, there are times you can now I was like once every three or four years I'll be walking around like randomly in LA and I would just say that to myself
59:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I look at the easy person.
59:52
[SPEAKER_01]: See, I knew you had a little.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew you had something in you that you were like something.
59:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That was good.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I was okay.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, another, this is like, so random.
59:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember, as you talk about, like, memories that come back to you now.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember, it was one night was super late.
1:00:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It was probably like 10 or 11, like at night, we were shooting something.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was a tense, tense scene between Lauren and Scott and Luke.
1:00:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And Luke was being like, very stoic and quiet and Lauren was just like,
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_02]: talking about Rory and how upset she was and her mom and she was crying and she was like you know she really went there you know and those are super intense and we all want and Scott just had to stand there and take it you know we all walks in they called cut and Scott came over to the monitor and he's like wow he's like out it's amazing he's like and she was good too
1:00:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so funny.
1:00:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, he's delivery was like a lot.
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I completely leave forgot in there for like 25 years.
1:00:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my God.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love that.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That feels like so like what we would call an Amy button where it's something very dramatic happens in a scene.
1:00:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can't on a scene without a joke.
1:00:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Very thematic to the show itself.
1:01:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It had infected all of us.
1:01:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's also, it's really funny, healing as you brought up the question of like, is there any time that you had that you were just like, yeah, that was so great.
1:01:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I got it like we got the show.
1:01:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It reminded me of the video you posted on Instagram where the WB told you that you had found the show in Roy's birthday parties and you were like,
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, I think what they meant was like, you have a great episode.
1:01:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Like all the, it was a great episode that had been there before really came together in that episode.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I will say we've said something similar to that.
1:01:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Where it's like, the show hits that it's like, up until this point, it's been a mother daughter show, but then when you introduce the other mother as the third Gilmore girl, as she is still lovingly named, it's really, really good.
1:01:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also think it's about introducing and folding in the town because cinnamon's wake where they finally, like, you start to meet everybody, but bet more you've met Miss Patty, but like you're starting to understand like what the town does and how they like rally around someone when they're going through something as and
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_00]: losing a pet is very hard.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But something that to Emily feels as benign as a cat passing away.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But this was a very beloved cat in town because the town rallies together for a bit that her cats hernomes everything.
1:02:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also think that the heart of the show is really found there.
1:02:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you meld all of those things together, worries birthday parties being the next episode,
1:02:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got the family.
1:02:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got the town.
1:02:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got the girls.
1:02:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a really perfect combination.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It just made me laugh that the reaction from you guys when they said that to you was like, oh, yeah, we know the show.
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We thought we had.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We're there.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that when you watch television now like more and more you watch a trip trying to produce the episode four or five of any show is the episode you know and they talk about it when you're pitching and doing stuff making shows now like that fourth episode typically is the episode where you have to like pay off everything of everything that's coming up to that point and that's where the audience really hooks in you know I mean every show I've worked on has always been that case and it's the same one Gilbark rose because you've basically you're setting the table so much
1:03:07
[SPEAKER_00]: get to sit down for the meal.
1:03:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
1:03:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Well on that note, you've written a lot since Gilmore Girls.
1:03:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So what did you feel like you took from your experience writing on the first four seasons of the show that you brought into the O.C.
1:03:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Gossip Girl Gotham, etc.
1:03:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe maybe something to do and maybe not to do.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, that's the idea of the big, small, the small big, it would seem insane to say, how are you doing that on a show like Gotham where we were just making the big bigger?
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But the idea that their story, even on a show like Gotham is going to exist at two levels in a level of spectacle, but the emotional level of someone making choices, a character changing because of that in relationship to the people who are close to him or her, that's key, that I think I took definitely from Gilmore Girls.
1:03:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, to try to keep the true travel of the story as short as possible, because inside that, you're going to find all the moments that you're going to want.
1:04:04
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean by travel of the story, physical travel or... Just like how far the story is going to have to go, whether it's...
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at 40, how are you going to fail 45 minutes of time?
1:04:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, Roy is going to have her first kiss in the supermarket.
1:04:22
[SPEAKER_02]: that's a really, really kind of moment.
1:04:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a very short trajectory in most shows where like a mini shows like so much stuff might happen in terms of the incident, but you actually need very little incident as long as the incident is impactful for the character's lives, you know?
1:04:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say as well, it's the double edge sort of what we talked about earlier of planning or not planning.
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, on the one hand, not planning allows you to really see where things are going and like develop things organically and pay them off.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you plan, you can really, you know, just we didn't a long time ago, I think, said, and that television is not about turns.
1:04:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not about moments and I do believe that, you know?
1:05:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like, and the end of the season should be about a moment, you know, like, what is that key moment at the end of the season, you know?
1:05:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And the sooner you can know that the better, so I think if I took one, not do a, even though we did it at a certain point, we would start to think about the end of the season well before the end of the season.
1:05:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The sooner you can know what your end of point is going to be, the more you can build toward.
1:05:26
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why it's so.
1:05:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about that all the time.
1:05:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
1:05:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything that you're talking about really just feels like Gilmore Girls was perfectly primed to be a show that people like was beloved now.
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like not only with like the lack of like ad, part of they call it the act outs act outs.
1:05:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to say add outs, but I was like add in.
1:05:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But also with the moments because like having like a moment in a show makes it so clipable for social media, like having such an identifiable moment from from fanalities or like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:00
[SPEAKER_01]: To season six, I'm sure you know of like, why did you drop out of jail?
1:06:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like having these like big moments that feel monumental is so easy to clip it, put it online and like someone's like, what's this show?
1:06:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see that.
1:06:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
1:06:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really true.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you guys were just way ahead of your time and you knew it.
1:06:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You knew Gilmour also was going to be as big as it was.
1:06:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know you.
1:06:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say, I still don't want to know about 2040, but I know your ways.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the other thing I took from this show, what I think was super important of what I mentioned earlier too, is the fact that I do think people want to show it to large degree because they want to just be and start hollow a little bit.
1:06:36
[SPEAKER_02]: and I think whatever show you're doing, creating an environment inside which you just want to live inside like even imagine the show like Game of Thrones which is violent, awful and people are getting butcher left and right and yet there's something dangerous and seductive and sexy about that world too like oh I kind of want to go to Westridge or wild at the same time.
1:06:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So being really conscious about
1:07:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever the show is you're doing, whether it's Star's Hollow or Westeros, or even just like a, you know, like Alicia's law practice on the good wife actually looks really cool.
1:07:11
[SPEAKER_02]: The same kind of level.
1:07:12
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to go to that place too.
1:07:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't believe it.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so that I think is really important, you know.
1:07:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:07:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you'd have really thought about it.
1:07:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I always think about it.
1:07:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Going back to like even like when you were working on Gotham like 20, 20, 20, 20, 15, like back to like 2010, did you see Gilmore Girls being as big as it was?
1:07:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like after you left, like knowing that you enjoyed working on it, you like appreciated the story and you felt like it was really effective storytelling.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you ever see it being as big as it is now?
1:07:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I always thought it was going to last, you know, like there are shows that they're out there like they're just going to be like a femurother going to vanish.
1:07:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But I always felt that Gomeros was always going to be a constant.
1:07:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I thought it was a classic.
1:07:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I saw it becoming quite as I feel like in Pandemic era.
1:07:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it became even even bigger, you know?
1:08:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:08:01
[SPEAKER_02]: They won't think I ever saw it becoming quite as big as his now.
1:08:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I always saw it was going to be a show.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_02]: People were continually going to watch, you know.
1:08:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It holds up.
1:08:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It continually holds out.
1:08:11
[SPEAKER_01]: How does it feel to be a part of that?
1:08:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like to have written these stories to have made these jokes that we literally say at least once a month on the podcast.
1:08:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so I can't live besides that.
1:08:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool.
1:08:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's really fun.
1:08:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, my mind is blown that you wrote that because like, we'd say that quite simply all the time.
1:08:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until like a couple months ago that I started doing that when I started doing those Instagram posts with it.
1:08:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time I say those words, I feel so like, shame it.
1:08:35
[SPEAKER_02]: No, you're cool.
1:08:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I really didn't even think about it, because I mean, my world, you walk around your world and you're surrounded by television writers and other writers and people are doing the business and nobody really talks about it.
1:08:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even think about it very much, you know?
1:08:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time then, it would kind of like hit you in the face every now and then, like, we'll be traveling, like I've been here a few years ago, I used to be my family we were traveling in,
1:08:58
[SPEAKER_02]: New Zealand and we were like on a hike at the southern tip of New Zealand and someone's saying what are you doing?
1:09:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And my wife was talking to some group of people there and I hear this, ah, that's what he screams.
1:09:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And like she's like, my wife's like, I'm sorry, I told him you write for Gilmour Girls.
1:09:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and I, and those kinds of things would happen, you know, periodically again and again in very strange situations.
1:09:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Dad made me realize, oh it has a level of
1:09:25
[SPEAKER_02]: cultural and global penetration that is like I'm really not even aware of that said again only in the last like six weeks when I've been like interacting with people online who are fans of shows and as I've been rewatching it I think I've been feeling it a lot more in terms of like oh that was really cool that I mean I did that
1:09:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's our shoulder.
1:09:46
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's true.
1:09:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like the the fandom is so tapped in especially on social media and because it was on Netflix, it also opened it up to an entirely new generation of people who didn't get to experience it in its hate.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally total.
1:09:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's that kind of goes back to the roots that we were telling you about before we started recording of Haley and I meeting and our TikTok days, which also feels so far away and I'm like,
1:10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I got it.
1:10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe that like in 2021, I was in like my grandma's bedroom and Connecticut, up still like her guest room upstairs talking about Dean and Rory and that's how I met my podcast during that.
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I'm still doing that.
1:10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just just sort of more professional looking.
1:10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is one of those things where it's not until you really get to interact with the community that loves this show so much that you understand the gravity of how many people this show has touched.
1:10:33
[SPEAKER_02]: That is totally true, Tara.
1:10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can play the egregate, you know?
1:10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Because otherwise, you're just like in your own little bubble.
1:10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: But once we start to get in a feel for it, it's very, very different.
1:10:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's how we kind of felt as fans of the show.
1:10:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh wait, there are people out there who love this show as much as I do.
1:10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize that.
1:10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like you, you know, we can handle this at all.
1:10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just like we do.
1:10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess in like running in the writer circles that you do, writers or students, do you ever run across younger writers
1:11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: multiple times I've worked with people, younger writers, who like three or four months into working, they will confess to being huge, come across, and he's gonna bear it to tell you when we first met, but it's a lot of younger writers if I have found it was a very influential show on that which you fully understand.
1:11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: because that's actually something that I talk about a lot on Gilmour Tread, which you mentioned before, is like me talking to authors and stories that really align thematically.
1:11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Me trying to get people to read more by introducing books through the lens of the world.
1:11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's my goal, especially romance getting more people into romance and
1:11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We had Carly Fortune on Gilmour To Read, guess it was last year, huge Gilmour Girls fan.
1:11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: She grew up on it.
1:11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: She's had a ton of opinions and feelings about it because we had her book won Golden Summer as one of our book club picks because we felt like the grandmother relationship with Alice and with Charlie, you felt like he was a little bit like a Logan.
1:12:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, coming back to that, you wrote on a very popular show.
1:12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that is quite different than Gilmore Girls, but it evokes some of the same feelings, and that is every year after, which is based on the book, every summer after by Carly Fortune.
1:12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it like writing on a show like that, which feels similar in theme to a lot of Gilmore Girls, while not being a true romance, but to have a episode series versus a 22.
1:12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been totally different, you know, if you go back to the idea of planning, there's no room in that for just like random episodes you're going to, you can't there's no going to the dinosaur museum.
1:12:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We call them no plot just five episodes.
1:12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no bog.
1:12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: We are not doing that.
1:12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to be super planned out about what you're going to be doing, you know.
1:12:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, you have source material, you're, you know, you're basing it on the book.
1:12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know that what you're doing, you're fitting inside the framework inside the book.
1:12:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And the character trajectories are also going to back to.
1:12:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's an entirely different animal, you're both working in eight episodes, but also adapting a piece of IP.
1:13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What about that writer's room felt really different from Gilmore Girls, or that you really appreciated about being in that space?
1:13:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was, I mean, I, you know, the, you know, the book, it's far more of a romance.
1:13:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
1:13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was, it's not a small town comedy in, in that sense.
1:13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And it focuses far more on the choices of the young person can make rather than that mother-daughter relationship.
1:13:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so it was very different becomes of that, but also because it was a romance it had a far it did not have that Sometimes slightly cynical point of view that I mentioned to that Gilmore girls He has like going there and even when someone says something I love you you immediately go the other way every year after Or like you kind of win there you win.
1:13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have to say with a romance
1:13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say nobody's stopping someone from saying, I love you.
1:13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like Oregon.
1:13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they might.
1:13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You haven't seen it yet, Tara.
1:13:55
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
1:13:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And even more than starts all of it, it was about creating, I think, almost a fantasy of that lake town.
1:14:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we'll have one in to go there.
1:14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you approach that because like Barry's Bay is, of course, a real place every summer after is a story that's written and it has like a fan base like how did you I guess in almost in the opposite way of Gilmore girls where you have no idea what the impact is going to be on the other end you just kind of end up with the show, which is like a classic and one of the most popular shows full time, whereas with every summer after you have this huge reader base that you feel responsibility to and a town that actually exists that you're not just
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: making up world building that's actually real.
1:14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that like responsibility of writing right, like different from going on?
1:14:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You're aware of it.
1:14:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you're definitely aware of it.
1:14:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of, it's multi-level.
1:14:45
[SPEAKER_02]: On the one hand, you're going through the book and saying, okay, first off, what is the key driving element of the book?
1:14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the, the kernel of the book that you have to be true to?
1:14:55
[SPEAKER_02]: The theme of the book?
1:14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Then one of the key moments, make sure you, basically, either convey those key moments or like the key element of those moments, so it still feels true.
1:15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Then what are the key lines and scenes that have become iconic in the book that you want to make sure you can
1:15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's cool.
1:15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize how involved she was in that process.
1:15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it is that kind of case where like you run things past them and the the author.
1:15:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm working on a I mean, that thing is series now called truly devious, which is like a some murder mystery set at the board in school and I'm working with more in a Johnson who wrote the books and it's very much more in as like, you know, this is super important.
1:15:47
[SPEAKER_02]: this is not important at all.
1:15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, make please convey this, forget about that, do whatever you want with that.
1:15:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, because it is a different format and she understands that, you know, things change in the format, so from television, from books to television, so.
1:16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:16:01
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it different, I guess, because you wrote way pre-social media, which we connected with UVA social media, which we can't help but love,
1:16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But being very distant from a response to a show where in Gilmour Girls you didn't really interact with viewers unless they came up to you on the street and why would they know you versus now you get in.
1:16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You got a concert in a ruptus right.
1:16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You had that starring role on Kilmera.
1:16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you get more work?
1:16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're just so cool.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_02]: There he goes.
1:16:33
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but with this, it's like you see immediately.
1:16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You see fan edits of the work that you're doing and get the response.
1:16:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what is that like as a writer?
1:16:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes a bag to be really honest with you.
1:16:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because on the one hand, it can be like super gratifying to like they have people really like what you're doing, you know, and on the other hand, as everybody knows, like sometimes the internet can give rise to less impositive emotions that are sometimes not there.
1:17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the first time when message before of social media, they were message boards as we all know,
1:17:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's first really started to come out on when I was on the O.C.
1:17:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that was the first year.
1:17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was like season two of the O.C.
1:17:16
[SPEAKER_02]: or three.
1:17:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it felt a little bit like the goal, the message board was to tear the shit out of shit.
1:17:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no one's coming there to rave about it.
1:17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it can be really, I mean, one of the, besides the fact of, like, oh, it's great emotional validation.
1:17:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, people like what you're doing, that's really nice.
1:17:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can get really helpful feedback online.
1:17:39
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes you have to sort through so much noise.
1:17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The noise to signal ratio is sometimes so high that it can also get, you can also take things in the wrong direction.
1:17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'm grateful admittedly that social media wasn't predominantly our zeitgeist when Gilmore Girls was airing because I mean, I'm sure that the reactions honestly just as time has gone on and like we've changed as a society and our temperature for or our temperament for things has also shifted.
1:18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I am glad that Amy didn't have any feedback
1:18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: for and not that she would have necessarily listened to it anyway.
1:18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: She's very, she's a very strong world woman, but I just think about like the finale of season four when Rory and Dean's sleep together and it's like if there was a visceral reaction to that, I'm glad she didn't know because it does disrupt the process and I'm glad that she just took the story in the direction that she was going to regardless of how people were feeling about it.
1:18:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you have to be willing to do things that a people are not going to like in order to tell compelling stories.
1:18:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, unfortunately.
1:18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: In the same way, on Gilmore Girls, was there anything in every year after from your own life that made its way into Barry's Bay?
1:18:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to write the dialogue in episode like three of Gilmour Girls I want to say we're Rory and and her grandfather played golf, you know, because nobody knows nobody met a play golf and you mentioned you knew how to play golf.
1:19:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a very cool fucking golf scene in college.
1:19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Shining through.
1:19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Terrible.
1:19:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but I also had to write the golf scene in every year after I guess that's my thing.
1:19:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your thing.
1:19:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your thing or the golf guy.
1:19:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, it's so embarrassing.
1:19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: No, John, it really just comes back to the khakis, doesn't it?
1:19:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just going to say, you're origin story is getting off a bus in those khakis.
1:19:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:19:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love that.
1:19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly how you were.
1:19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: In the rewrite of this and the rewrite, if you felt like you mentioned at the beginning, this felt like you're memoir.
1:19:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really just a workshop for me.
1:19:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll be wearing a cameo shanter.
1:19:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll be.
1:19:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
1:19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
1:19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad we worked that out, I'm so glad we worked that out, I'm so glad we worked that out.
1:19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to be on season two of every year after with Charlie's story?
1:20:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, I think so.
1:20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Exciting.
1:20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that one.
1:20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That one's my favorite Carly Ford turn book if I'm being honest.
1:20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's Charlie.
1:20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty cool.
1:20:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:20:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Such a, with Alice, I feel like she has like just very Rory, Lorelie instincts in her.
1:20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, then I, that was one of the reasons why I chose it for the book club, with Charlie feeling very Logan Hansberger-esque and his.
1:20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so funny.
1:20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And as convertible.
1:20:23
[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.
1:20:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's a lot a little bit of Logan and Charlie.
1:20:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so if you'd like, maybe it's your, your chance to get your Logan season that you missed out on and get more roles with Charlie.
1:20:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
1:20:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.
1:20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to wrap this up by mentioning that you have a book coming out in October.
1:20:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Age of Fury.
1:20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, our audience who are book lovers and get more roles lovers, what will they like about this story?
1:20:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a historical romantic thriller.
1:20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you, John, you look love, I love his historical romance.
1:20:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that in New York in 1907 when this 17-year-old Irish girl comes to find her sister.
1:21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Her sister turns out to have been murdered.
1:21:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So she joins horses with a young gangster and the two of them to track down her sister's killer goes through like the underworld of a man had and up through like the ballrooms of a gilded age.
1:21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, John, I, I think this is my new favorite book.
1:21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think it might be a list.
1:21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I, well, I, that, oh, John, please say last, I want to read this right now.
1:21:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love historical romance.
1:21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I love mafia romance.
1:21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I love gangsters.
1:21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I love especially like New York, 19, like 1900 gangs, like,
1:21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Aily, this book is for you, chocolate.
1:21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote a book for me, thank you so much.
1:21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you go right now?
1:21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It was one of those things where I gave it a bit in my, I wrote the first pages of it, like in 2015, you know, because it's a dual narration.
1:21:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So half of it is written in the voice of this Irish girl in half of it is written in the voice of the young gangster.
1:22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wrote the first part, the first chapter in the voice of the 17-year-old Irish girl in the 1907, and I'm like, am I really going to write an entire book in the voice of, you know, like, a young Irish girl turns out I was.
1:22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's prized me.
1:22:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But she's great.
1:22:16
[SPEAKER_02]: She's a real force than Caitlyn, the main character, the real force of the nature.
1:22:21
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't take any shit.
1:22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you'll like it.
1:22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
1:22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I think more like more.
1:22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
1:22:31
[SPEAKER_00]: More like Hillmore at 17.
1:22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
1:22:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We do some of that there.
1:22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go.
1:22:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You can preorder a copy right now.
1:22:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't miss it.
1:22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go right now.
1:22:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It also makes a great gift.
1:22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I will, I will gift it to myself.
1:22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited.
1:22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know a lot of our listeners also really love historical romance because a lot of people, they really align with my book taste, stir-like take recommendations from me.
1:22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I know that that is going to excite a lot of people.
1:22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Because his historical romance is actually, there's one called the Unselected Journals of Emma and Lion.
1:23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have heard of that one, you're right.
1:23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: it's historical stars hollow basically because it's really what it feels like because she's it's set in London and she lives in this quirky town where things show up and disappear and there's this cousin of hers that lives in her house that feels very much like Taylor Docey and it just really feels like British stars hollow so
1:23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: If you, uh, I'll begin the unsight journals.
1:23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the unslected journals of MMI and it's entirely diary entries, but they are written with dialogue and it feels like very, very much aligned with that historical romance of like who will she choose, but it's very popular right now.
1:23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like people will very much gravitate towards another historical romance set.
1:23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's at like 1880s in London, so it's just before 1907 in New York, which, oh my gosh, I really feel like this was written for me.
1:24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, it's Friday.
1:24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna go and try and find this book.
1:24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna email some people because I need this book now.
1:24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited, John.
1:24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot wait, and especially loving so much of your work that you've done in Gilmore, Rose.
1:24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know that I will love this one as well.
1:24:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I hope so.
1:24:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, so.
1:24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll tell Tara all about it.
1:24:20
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'll read it as fair.
1:24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I will read it.
1:24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I think too.
1:24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise I will read it.
1:24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very excited.
1:24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds very fascinating and I'm not just saying that because you're sitting here.
1:24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm excited.
1:24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: John, thank you so much for being here with us today.
1:24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So you say, I mean, we could talk to you for four more hours about this.
1:24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really think we should have you back for when you're done with your watch.
1:24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think you're going to watch beyond season four?
1:24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: TBD.
1:24:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, no no, that's a lot of TV we'll see we'll see we'll see and all things are how things stand then
1:24:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say like speaking of actouts like season four really leaves you on a cliffhanger you're like what's going to happen and I know you kind of know what happens but it's um it's if if there's anything that you're going to end on that makes you go I have to watch the next episode I do think it's the end of season four so yeah thank you right posted but either way we would love to have you back to talk a little bit more about kind of how you're feeling post watch let's do that let's plan on that.
1:25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was just such a treat to talk to you today.
1:25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: This was super fun, you guys.
1:25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad.