"Right now on "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter'", we'll hear from the showrunners behind the year's most intriguing dramas." "She's never gonna go to the strip club." "And that got pitched a lot." "(laughter)" "Like, "Yeah, we're still not gonna go to a strip club."" "And you guys dropped the biggest, one of my favorite F-bombs of all time." "The MF-bomb." "(laughter)" "My career was a lot of failures until the point I started to embrace the fact that most people aren't interested in what I'm doing." "(laughter)" "You cannot live, hoping that you're not gonna offend people." "You should live hoping you aregonnaoffendpeople 'cause then you're doing something." "And causing conversation and debate and inspiring all of that." "I had it, at the end." "I had "If Edith Crawley isn't happy" ""on the last night of 'Downton,'" ""Julian Fellowes had better sleep with one eye open!"" "(laughter)" "(Lacey Rose)" "Sam Esmail, "Mr. Robot."" "Marti Noxon, "unreal,"" ""Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce."" "John Ridley, "American Crime."" "Melissa Rosenberg," ""Jessica Jones."" "Julian Fellowes," ""Downton Abbey."" "Nina Jacobson, "The People v. OJ" "Simpson:" "American Crime Story"." "♪♪" "Welcome to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "I'm Lacey Rose," "Television Editor." "Let's jump right in." "So a lot of you guys are often drawing from personal experience, whether you are doing it sort of consciously or subconsciously." "What were those sort of moments where you realized" ""Wow, this is hitting really close to home."" "I mean, my show, because" "I grew up with that community, like, most of my friends were coders." "Some, some were hackers and" "I even tried to dabble in it." "I just ripped a lot of their characteristics off and put 'em in my characters, and it got eerie, uh, a lot of times." "And also, there's a fine line there because there are real hackers out there and if you don't do that respectfully, they could retaliate." "Are you afraid of that?" "Absolutely!" "That would scare me almost more than anything else." "Oh my God, yeah, every day." "And, but so far, knock on wood, they've, they've actually liked the show." "I'm not saying anything new." "We all know why we do this." "Not because "Hunger Games"" "books makes us happy." "But because we wanna be sedated." "Because it's painful not to pretend." "Because we're cowards." "(Bleep) society." "Sam, in many ways, you were drawing from personal experiences for this show." "In what ways did it make that an easier or harder storytelling process?" "The thing that" "I'm scared about is are we showing it in an authentic way?" "Are people going to" " Is it going to land with people?" "Or is it gonna feel exploitive?" "But I think it's always important to bring a" "I mean, if you're not saying something, then what's the point, you know what I mean?" "If you're not gonna do that every-- so I was basically scared every episode because I think every episode we tried to say somethingaboutsomething." "But it," "I was just nervous that people were gonna take it the wrong way or wasn't, or we didn't do our jobs in articulating our point well enough." "But I always loved taking the risk anyway." "I had a friend who once said to me," ""You should run toward the things that scare you," and" "So, what were they?" "I mean, in the case of your series." "Well, I'd, I'd say there's been sort of a sea change in my work in general in that the more personal, the more universal it's become." "Mmm." "So, unless I feel a certain level of anxiety about, like, this is a little close to the bone," "I kinda feel like" "I'm not doing it right anymore." "Or like, and, and, my work narrows in that way." "No matter whether it's genre, or you know, in, in "unreal," for me, just being so openly feminist." "Just being so overtly, like, this show is about women who are not necessarily likeable, doing a job that is despicable and we are not gonna be afraid of that." "Like, we were terrified, but we're not going to pull our punches, and we're not gonna treat these characters any differently than they, we would their male counterparts." "Without further ado, your suitor..." "Adam Cromwell!" "(cheering and applause)" "(woman)" "Okay, come on, let's go, people!" "Protect the wifeys Anna and Grace, and starve our villain Britney until she is mean like a pit-bull!" "I want to pickle the rest of them, okay?" "You get cash bonuses for nudity," "9-1-1 calls, catfights, all right?" "Have a good show, everybody." "Sarah wrote this incredible line, I always" " When I read it," "I thought, I never would have thought of that." "It's when Shiri's character says to Constance, you know," ""I love you,"" "in the finale." "And uh, boy, did I" " I was like," ""That is, that's genius"" "'cause it is all kinds of love." "It's every kind of love." "It's the love that wants to kill you. (laughs) You know?" "(Lacey)" "Uh-huh." "And I, and I think that, if you're not saying something," "I've really grown tired of something that is clever, and signifies nothing." "Surprisingly, I mean, with, with "OJ,"" "we got notes to... push it from, from FX, to go for it, to make sure, uh" "They were very supportive of us taking risks in a way that was remarkable." "(subdued chatter)" "Good morning, Ms. Clark." "I think." "(crowd coughing, snickering)" "I was scared of taking on OJ overall as a white person, knowing that this is a polarizing case and that we made every effort to have a, an inclusive team, but ultimately, the people who began the project," "we started with a bunch of white people and we know that the case means different things to different people." "And so, that was much scarier to me than say, the" ""Marcia Marcia Marcia" episode." "Taking on issues of feminism and sexism in the workplace, like, when you know it, it's much, it feels easier and safer." "And you can go for it." "It's actually more scary," "I think, when you know that you're a bit outside of your own experience and how do you get that right and how do you make sure that you're addressing complicated subjects that you know are divisive," "in a way that feels provocative, honest, but also self-aware." "Sure." "John, you've said, you know, your first season obviously dealt more with racial politics, which hit closer to home for you personally." "How did that sort of impact your storytelling process?" "Well, we" " Michael McDonald, the other producer and myself-- we kinda engineered it backwards." "We, we really wanted to look at the things that we didn't talk about in the first season, which was a lot more about orientation, about socio-economic issues, about education, about family." "Our first year, you know, all the families are just imploding and this year, we really wanted to have strong family units." "And then it was more about sexual assault on campuses, and that's where we started to go." "And quite literally, I mean, truly in the 11th hour," "Michael and I had a conversation and we felt like what we were doing was strong, sort of similar to what you're saying, that we're gonna go into something and have maybe a little bit of a predisposition about things" "or even a distance about things because we are two guys." "And you could just feel our heads sort of turning and we delayed our, our, our pitch to ABC by a couple of days and we went in, and the studio, you could kinda feel 'em" "go like this." "And there was a moment where everybody was" "They couldn't wrap their heads around it." "Mmm." "And that-- you know, honestly, not like this was an epiphany, all of a sudden we were these really great people doing this, but this moment of "If we're having trouble getting it," ""but it's happening." ""Maybe this is something that we should be talking about."" "There are pictures of your son engaged in lewd behavior" "No." "What he was doing" "What he was doing?" "In public." "What he was doing?" "You asked us to look into this" "You mean what was done to him!" "And we did" "No, what was done to him!" "My son was raped!" "You need to be careful with that" "If somebody messed him up, they touched him, that is rape!" "You need to be very careful with that word." "Now ABC was amazingly supportive in a subject matter that we certainly wanna be sensitive to, but if you're not provocative, if you're not really provoking thought and conversation, debate, then you're not servicing in some way," "and they were very encouraging to be provocative." "It was very nerve-wracking because, uh, you wanna be honorific, you don't wanna be delicate." "Uh, you want people to think, you want people to talk, but you also want them coming away realizing that if we can't solve the issue on a show, then we're certainly, none of us" "are doing enough to solve it in real life." "Right." "♪♪" "♪♪" "Welcome back to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "We're getting the inside scoop from the most talented drama showrunners." "As storytellers, when was the last time you guys were genuinely scared to tell a story?" "I do get scared to tell" "I mean, I think you work within a kind of world." "Every show operates within a world that is established, and within that world, things are done in a certain way, just as in a musical comedy, people sing." "And you have a sort of style." "I mean, in the "Downton" style, was that terrible things happened to them but you never saw anything." "You never saw people being raped or murdered or any of the other terrible things that happened, but we were interested in going into the results in their emotional well-being and all of that stuff." "But, but there was nothing graphic." "On the other hand," "I'd be perfectly happy to write a completely different show that had a different language, and everyone was cutting each other up, you know, throughout." "I think it's just" "Follow up" "It's the style of the show, and then you take the story into that style really." "I don't think you would be nervous unless the story was completely incompatible with the show." "But you've, you've had people, you know, die on the show, and then, I imagine there is a panic of "Oh gosh, how is the audience going to respond to this?"" "Well, of course, the death of Matthew" "Yes!" "Goes down as one of the great television crimes of our day!" "Uh-huh!" "(Melissa)" "I'll never forgive you for that." "And the letters I got!" "I mean, you can't" "Oh, did you get my letter?" ""I will never watch anything ever again with your name on it!"" "Well, it was a double death season too!" "(all talking at once)" "If actors want to leave, there's nothing you can do." "You can't get someone-- have a facsimile of his head and wear it, you know." "(Lacey)" "Fair enough." "So you just have to tough it through." "Should I ring for more tea?" "Are you always so cool and collected?" "I do hope so." "I'm not sure what you mean." "Well, only that your words have made my heart pound at such a rate," "I'm surprised you can't hear it." "I'm hot, I'm cold, I can barely breathe, and it's all because of you." "I must say, you carry it off rather well." "Thanks." "Every single story has happened to an enormous number of people." "They don't have to know you that you ripped it off." "There's a limited number of human experiences." "Yeah." "And I think you do worry, particularly with serious stuff, that you are handling it with sufficient reverence." "When Sybil died in childbirth, in "Downton,"" "I had some letters after that that really made me cry," "I mean, people writing about their own daughters dying and" "God, blimey." "And you, you just think" "I hope somehow this has been useful, and not hurtful" "Yeah." "in the way you've, you've depicted it, really." "For, for me, what was, uh, made me nervous, was what, how the audience is going to accept it, whether they will or not." "Mm-hmm." "And I was dealing with a lot of different issues of rape, uh, abortion, interracial relationships, feminism" "Easy topics." "All of this stuff, I mean..." "The one I thought was really gonna get the most flak was the abortion, uh, story." "Mm-hmm." "Uh, the one that actually got the most, much to my, uh, horror and disappointment was the interracial relationship." "Huh." "Uh, yeah." "I got put on a, a hate site, actually, a little Nazi hate site and it was like, it was terrifying." "You know, they had a picture of me taken from something and, and Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the comic book, with a Jewish star on it" "Oh!" "Huh!" "And I was like, of all the things, that really didn't occur to me that that was gonna be the thing." "So that was scary." "Can you punch through a wall?" "Can you stop a moving car?" "A slow-moving car." "Can you fly?" "It's more like... jumping." "And then falling." "(laughing)" "Okay." "There's you, me, the big green dude and his crew." "You think there's more of our kind out there?" "Melissa, with "Jessica Jones"" "you got to craft a female superhero." "What were the tropes that you wanted to avoid in doing so?" "We had several, several rules going in, uh, that I was," "I felt very strongly about." "One, she was never gonna play the honey pot." "Mm-hmm." "Meaning she was never gonna put on the tight bandage dress and heels and go and seduce the guy she needs information." "I was just, never gonna happen." "It's never gonna happen because it's not in her character to do that and it's never gonna happen because every single female cop on the air, ever been on TV or the air, has, has" "That's the first thing, that's the go-to." "Yup, yup." "And uh, she was, there was never gonna be, she's never gonna go to the strip club." "And that got pitched a lot, you know." "(laughter)" "Like, yeah, no, we're still not going to the strip club." "Still not doing that." "Um, so..." "Maybe he should put on the heels." "Yeah!" "(laughter)" "I've got a show, but" "Very contemporary." "Very." "So there's just, those sort of things." "I also, um, was not" "I didn't feel like I needed to hear the word "bitch"." "Mm-hm." "You know?" "'Cause that's just a, "Oh, you bitch," it's all I get called." "Uh, you know, it's just sort of go-to." "And I just, I just didn't feel a need to hear it, so." "I didn't use it, but a couple of times." "What are the things you guys hear "no" to, the things that you just can't do on these shows?" "(Melissa)" "The beauty of working at, at Netflix is you don't have those limits." "And I also work with Marvel, and Marvel has a brand and their brand is generally PG-13." "Yes." "Uh, they've kind of to let us go to PG-16." "So what are the things that, that you wanted to" "It's a three-year deferential, that I wanna" "But also they just did" ""Deadpool"." "Isn't that like...?" "And it's a different, it's also Fox vs., uh" "Oh, got it." "Marvel had a, has" "So what are the things" "So, we know no F-bombs." "And if anyone was gonna say" ""(Bleep) you,"" "it would be" "Jessica Jones." "And I mean, sometimes I'm just" ""Please let me put just one!"" "And, uh, never." "But, what was funny is that people have said," ""She didn't say (bleep) then." "I could have sworn she did."" "'Cause Ritter can deliver" "(Julian)" "Because she's (bleep) and they hear it." "With her face!" "She can, just like there are looks that she could be saying" ""potato"." "And the other thing is, um, there's sex to some degree, there's not really any nudity." "Yep." "But then people go, "You're saying there was no nudity?" ""Wait a minute, that was really graphic sex!" "It's like, "No, not-- never any--"" "So, it was very-- it's all about the attitude and about how it's shot and how it's acted with raw lust versus you know," ""Oh, there's a side boob."" "Or you know, whatever." "Again, it's acting." "I mean, it's, it's truly great acting." "(laughter)" "Filmmaking." "It's amazing." "One thing we can't do" " I'll just say this, like on ABC, one thing I discovered is you can't say "ass(bleep)"." "But you can say "ass" and any other combination of words." "So we've, on this other thing we're doing, we have this litany of "ass-fill-in-the-blank."" "Ass-poodle." "(laughter)" "Anything at all: ass-can, ass-hat, ass-, you know, just anything, and it's just fun because we're, they can't really, it's like they can't stop you now." "It's like this rush towards the exit." "You guys dropped the biggest, one of my favorite" "F-bombs of all time." "Yeah, we got the MF-bomb in there!" "Yeah, the MF-bomb." "We would get our letter" "(Lacey)" "In which one?" "We would get-- in, when Johnnie comes onto the case." "And Marcia's sitting outside and it's this big long" "She sees it in the paper at the end of an episode and drops an MF-bomb." "Yeah." "(Lacey)" "You get the letters." "We get the, we got the emails from Standards/Practices about language, about the N-word obviously." "Okay, now that's something" "I can do without." "It's essential to our show." "It's an essential part of the show." "It's not gratuitous." "It's, it's not..." "It's got to be there." "And ultimately-- you know," "FX was very supportive of it and never-- and they helped, they sort of stood behind us," "I mean, we, it's" "If we said that we had stuff that didn't matter, well, then, fine." "It doesn't matter, let's just get rid of it." "But the ones that mattered, we" "You fought for." "We fought for, and, you know, and FX backed us on it." "But we did get quite a few, very entertaining" "(laughter)" "You know what" "I would do?" "I would just" " If Standards and Practices came to me" "Again, we have F-bombs everywhere, all sorts of things." "They would say, "You can't say this on air."" "I'll say, "Okay, we'll drop the audio out."" "'Cause I knew online we would, on iTunes or whatever, we'll have it" "And eventually, they caught on that" "I was just like, "Okay fine, we'll drop the audio out."" "In fact, this happened last week." "And they were like, "Oh,"" "and then they wound up just starting to be more lenient because they knew" "I would just drop the audio" "Do it anyway." "And then, throughout the episode, they'd have all these audio dropouts." "(laughter)" "♪♪" "♪♪" "Welcome back to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "We're with the creative minds behind TV's stand-out dramas." "Nina and Melissa, you've both worked on these blockbuster film franchises, an area where there are very few women in prominent roles." "I'm curious, what challenges did you face that you perhaps wouldn't have, if you were men?" "Men can and frequently do fail up," "(laughter)" "And women can and do frequently succeed down, and you're just aware of the fact that as a girl, you can't screw up." "Like, one screw-up and you're in jail, whereas there are countless male executives who get so many chances, and the ability to fail is like an essential part of creativity." "All of the most successful people have countless failures." "That's not held against you." "And yet, that is," "I think as a woman, you make that one mistake, and you're done." "Or maybe you don't even make that mistake, and suddenly, you're done anyway." "There's a power to receptivity that I think sometimes comes more readily to women, that is an enormous strength." "And that sometimes almost makes it easier." "And there's just so many women who-- there's so many men who you'll say" ""There is not a female equivalent of that guy anywhere."" "The, like, the person you're like," ""How does this person have that job?" "Still?"" "(laughter)" "Or how does that person get hired over and over and over again" "We want names!" "(laughter) when there are so many women directors that I know who, for whom those opportunities are just not there." "(Lacey)" "There is a question of are you better at writing what you know?" "I mean, we've cited" "Lee Daniel's comment about how" "(chuckling)" "I haven't even said it yet!" "(all talking at once)" "I love Lee Daniels, 'cause if there's anybody who's gonna comment, he's the, he's a vocal individual." "And his point was that it made him uncomfortable and he found it almost insulting when white people tried to write for black people, and that extends beyond that, that that's, you know, men writing for women," "women writing for men." "Do you feel like you are better writing for what you know and is it, in fact, offensive?" "Because you're not getting as authentic an experience when somebody else is writing for" "I think you, you" "Welcome to being a woman" " Sorry." "(laughter)" "Yeah." "Well, I mean, I think you write what you know, but you can" "I, I think you write what you really want to know." "Like, if you have that genuine curiosity to know that culture, whatever it is, that race, that orientation, you have that real genuine curiosity about that," "I think that could, you know, that could create something amazing." "I don't think writers can be held back by the fact that "I can't deal with rape 'cause I'm not a woman."" ""I can't deal with anti-Semitism because I'm not Jewish."" ""I can't deal with racism because I'm not black."" "None of us would be able to write anything." "We all have to write stuff." "We write characters who are not our own sex, we" " We must!" "Because that's what we're doing." "And I think, of course, in a way, you think," "I hope I'm being faithful to this," "I hope I'm not being offensive," "I hope I've got the right elements of this." "But to some extent, it's an act of faith when you write." "You just" "Yeah." "You just have to jump in." "I think we're writing about people, about the human experience, so it's like people have asked, you know," ""What's the trick to writing a female superhero?"" "And it's "Well, you don't write a female superhero."" "You write a superhero." "But you write a character, you know." "Um, now certainly she's informed by her, her gender." "And, and, as other characters are informed by their religion or race, but they are not defined by it, and, uh, I think that's the" "(Julian)" "And the primordial stuff" "We all know what it is to be heartbroken." "We all know it is to be grief stricken." "We all know what it is to be incredibly happy, I hope." "Um, of course you draw on that." "Yes." "But I think you, you have to believe that if you're fascinated by a circumstance, by a particular view, you are entitled to tell a story about them." "I mean, otherwise, none of us would get anywhere." "I think when, when you get into problems when it's" "You don't have a curiosity and you're doing it for" "It's like homework to you." "Oh, we need to have a diverse cast?" "So let's just make that person black or that person a woman and" "Yeah." "And if you're just kind of, if that's-- if that's the way you're treating it." "If you're, if you don't really have that curiosity about getting into that world, then I, then I think that's" "(Lacey)" "Sure." "What those comments" "You also can't, can't write worrying what the Internet's gonna think, you know?" "And there's too much now," "I think" "Yeah." "You know what I mean?" "Though I think there's so much, you know, people are already second-guessing, you know, the, the results before they're even into the process, and you're right." "It's like, if you have a curiosity and you're genuinely drawn to something" "I had this sort of like moment" "I don't know how long ago-- when I realized that none of the showrunners that I respect the most are well-liked by everybody." "Ha ha ha!" "They're just not well-liked by everybody." "They will, everybody will say trash, talk trash about every showrunner and every filmmaker that I have the most respect for, because they're not afraid to, to put stuff out there and, and make people angry." "And when I was finally at the place where I was like" ""Maybe I can pretend" "I don't care?"" "You know, um, things, you know," "I-I found my output changed dramatically." "You cannot live, hoping that you're not going to offend people." "You should live hoping you are gonna offend people 'cause then you're doing something." "(Lacey)" "And causing conversation and debate and inspiring all of that." "I had that at the end." "I had, "If Edith Crawley isn't happy" ""on the last night of 'Downton,'" ""Julian Fellowes had better sleep with one eye open!"" "(laughter)" "♪♪" "♪♪" "Welcome back to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "We're getting the inside scoop from the most talented drama showrunners." "I love to talk about the casting process." "What are the stories you guys have about trying to convince actors and find actors to take on roles that aren't necessarily likeable characters?" "For one, casting with" "Ryan Murphy as your partner is unlike anything I've ever experienced because so many actors really want to work with him and know that he does right by them, but then also, he's able to get the studio, the network" "to pay for all  of them." "Like you usually, you get" ""Ooh, you got that one great person." "You're good."" "Yep." "Now you just cast the rest of the show." "Like, John Travolta." "We're done." "Right." "We were able to have a level of ambition, honestly-- it certainly took a lot of convincing of Travolta to come back to TV." "Yup." "After 30 years, and so, I'd had a long relationship with him and that helped, so he trusted me." "But it was a long courtship." "It was a long process of him finding peace with coming back to television, and doing so in, on, with subject matter that we knew was provocative and could be controversial." "What about Cuba?" "I mean, convincing someone to take on the role of OJ Simpson." "That is loaded beyond belief." "It was, and I think Cuba was very game because there's a, there are qualities about Cuba that just made him so right, in that likeability and that, the feeling of that charisma and unknowability." "All of those qualities." "I think he was really raring to go." "The, the, the character was interesting and hard to cast, actually, was Darden." "I was gonna say." "Because there were a lot of black dudes who were just like "No way."" ""I won't play that guy."" ""Like," "I hate him."" ""I'm not gonna play him."" "And you had to get somebody who could be, on the one hand, charismatic and sexy enough that you were rooting for him." "Overall, that you really cared about him." "But on the other hand, somebody who could let himself be bowled over." "Mm-hm." "And a lot of actors would walk in and they just couldn't do it." "They were so charismatic and alpha, that they couldn't be the guy who got overwhelmed." "Or they were so sort of beta, that they couldn't be the guy that you rooted for." "And so with Sterling, when we finally started to watch his audition over and over again it actually took me a while." "I had to go and look at his other work because I was like" ""God, he's so great." "But is he, is he sexy enough?"" "Oh my God, that look in the hallway in the hotel!" "That was withering!" "No, he's a, he's a hottie!" "Who is that guy?" "!" "And I'd no idea, based on his audition, that he was that guy until we went and looked at all the other work and we were like" ""Okay, we have him."" "Did anyone" " I mean, is any-- were there any other characters that you found particularly hard to cast?" "In Britain, you come up against a lot of snobbery about actors, and if they've been in a soap opera, if they've been in this, been in that," ""Oh no, we don't want to have any of that--"" "And they're perfect." "And then you have to go to war, because I've been an actor and I know." "You take the best of what's on offer." "You don't-- you know, rather than stay home." "You take what you, what you're offered." "And I really have had to, had to fight to that." "On one story that's actually-- we were talking about before, which gave me a tremendous insight, was I was doing a contemporary story and there was one character, a policeman, and I wanted to cast" "an actor who was black." "Mm-hmm." "And I got all" "I was just a fan of his, there was no other reason." "And I got all these people saying" ""Why does that character have to be black?" ""What's the point?" "Why are you making him black?"" "I said, "He doesn't have to be black!" "I was just" "I like this guy's work!" "And I, I mean," "I won in the end, but you get such a window on what people are up against." "For me, in casting" "Jessica Jones, you gotta believe that she can kick ass." "Mm-hmm." "So, you know, some teeny little thing with, you know, arms this thin are just not, you know, it's just not gonna do it." "But she also has to be a great dramatic actress." "Mm-hmm." "But the hardest thing was she also has to be able to deliver a dry line." "Mm-hmm." "And that's why Ritter was always very close to the top of the list 'cause I knew she could at least dry, deliver a dry line." "And then I saw her run in "Breaking Bad"." "I'm like, "Oh--"" "She's a dramatic actress, she's phenomenal and uh, so, there really are very, very few people who could have played that role." "(Lacey)" "Yeah." "Right." "I think other than for" "And for leading players, you need that kind of layered performer who can be very funny now, and two minutes later, break your heart." "And there're just-- you know, a lot of them can't do that." "But there are actors, I assume, who are nervous about playing the heinous and I imagine there are actors who sort of sit there and think," ""Eh, I don't know, this" "A) "I don't want to live in this space,"" "or B) "I don't want to be hated by an audience."" "It's, it's weird because you try and just not ever have that be part of the conversation." "And honestly, one of the things that I do is we, I, you know-- and I think everybody here probably does when you cast in person at least-- you, you ask them questions." "You start to get to know them a little bit." "What did you ask Rami?" "I mean, Rami was a relative unknown." "(Sam)" "I mean, he was, he was shaking." "I mean, he literally said the script breeds anxiety." "It was nerve-racking and" "I was like, I don't know" "Is he gonna get through this audition?" "(laughter)" "I-I-I, and then, he did the-- and by that point, we had seen maybe a hundred guys." "(Lacey)" "Uh-huh." "And it was not right, and it was the" "(Bleep) Society speech." "And it felt didactic, and I was like, "This is terrible, I've written" ""We gotta call USA and cancel this."" "(laughter)" "'Cause it's not good." "But then he just did it." "And I don't know if that was part of the character." "He probably psyched me out!" "It was acting!" "(all talking at once)" "That's the lesson learned from everybody here." "Actors can act." "Actors who are acting." "But the thing that" "Rami told, told me is like he loved all the jagged edges of this character." "And you know, the other thing is, especially with TV-- in particular  with TV, you don't wanna cast an ass(bleep)." "As good as they might be" "Yeah." "If they're an ass(bleep)," "I really do not want to work with that person." "And every single person at this table has cast an ass(bleep) at one point." "(groaning)" "Oh yeah..." "And then you have to live with that!" "More than once." "You might not cast an ass(bleep), but some of them turn into ass(bleep)!" "(laughter)" "♪♪" "♪♪" "Welcome back to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "We're talking to six of TV's top drama showrunners." "Are there doors that you guys feel are still not open to you?" "Types of projects that you believe you sort of wouldn't be entrusted with?" "John, you've sort of talked about it, that you've even" "Everything?" "(laughter)" "I got a litany of things that people aren't trusting me with!" "(laughter)" "But the middle-of-the-road blockbuster is something you" "(Marti) That's 'cause you never call back." "(laughter)" "I know!" ""Spielberg, what does he want?"" ""God, why is he calling me?"" "You've sort of mentioned that you wouldn't be sort of handed a middle-of-the-road blockbuster as, as willingly and as easily as you would have been as a white dude." "No, and I believe that." "I mean, look, I don't wanna expand this conversation too far beyond showrunners, but honestly," "I really believe" "If someone were to ask me what is the" "I won't say the one thing, that's sort of an absolute, but among the things that infuriate me and very seriously, is seeing-- with respect to white dudes" "(laughter)" "A white dude coming out of like, Sundance, and getting handed a multi-tens-of- million-dollar franchise, and you don't see it with women." "You don't see it with people of color." "You don't, I mean" "Part of it obviously is a, is a personal color" "That's my focus." "But as a showrunner, just to bring it back around to television," "I mean, you look at the numbers of women who are, are not directing." "Based on the conversation about ability, you know, by demographic, women should be just tripping into jobs." "In TV, if there are 400-some scripted shows and how many hours" "Yeah?" "And quality out there." "So there, there's those levels of things that infuriate" "I mean, look." "With respect to talking 'bout people who fail upward, my career, without being self-effacing, it was a lot of failures until the point I sort of embraced the fact that most people aren't interested in what I'm doing." "(laughter)" "But there was!" "There was a point in, in, you know, the mid-2000s where it was like "Well, nobody likes this stuff anyway,"" "So let me just do a bunch of stuff that really entertains me, and that I feel really-- as you say-- amazingly passionate about and it was very" " I don't," "I don't think, ironic, because it's sort of a, a, a truth," "I-I can't say I planned this last third of my career, but there were a lot of things where it was like," "I'm just doin' this 'cause I love it." "And then people are like," ""Oh my God, that's really really interesting."" "But yeah, it's the same crap" "I've been doing." "It's just that I'm doing it with maybe a little bit more passion." "But I think also, to take it away from the injustice of the whole thing, in fact, inevitably, if you get anywhere in this game, it's usually because you've got one thing that you're known for" "and you do maybe quite well." "Sure." "And then you become the go-to person for that particular kind of job." "And then you do more and more of it, and of course, you start to think," "Why can't I do a superhero movie?" "!" "But, but, you know" "Yes!" "that's just the way up the ladder, and then you have to work about, spreading it." "It is very thrilling when you're asked to do something different." "I mean, I was asked to do "School of Rock"" "which seemed about as unlikely as anything you could imagine." "And then of course, it was thrilling when they, when the offer came through." "I loved the movie anyway, but, but it's partly because you just think who in the world would think" "I would be the guy to go to for "School of Rock"?" "But I think that's a battle for any screenwriter, any actor who has got anywhere, is you get there by being kind of known for one sort of thing." "And then you and your agent and everyone else has to try and stretch it out." "Well, you do, but, you know," "I don't know that you can separate all this from the injustice of it all." "I-I can say personally, there are people, yes, who will look at me now and say" ""We'd love you to do something."" "And there are days where, but you're not-- it's not-- and I'm not trying to pick on any particular franch" "Pick a franchise." "And it's not that, and it's not this and there's certainly mornings where I wake up and go," ""Hey, you know what?" ""I'm doing" "'American Crime,'" "I'm doing these small things," "I'm doing things that I love and have an immense amount of control over." "Why walk into the $200 million franchise where you know that you're gonna have to put up with things, whether you agree or disagree, that are gonna be very hard?" "But there are other days where I wake up and go," "I got kids who are 12 and 16." "They deserve to see-- even if it's a little bit of my perspective injected in here, in some mild, uh, indoctrination, you know," "I wanna do that." "So I vacillate, but I, I do, you know, I would disagree." "I think there is a level where there are people who are not looking at some folks at this table and sayin', you know," ""We wanna give you" "'Star Trek'"" "(laughter)" "Well, Jesus, why would-- you know, but she does these small-  'Cause they know I just do a thing about all-female tribbles." "It would just be" "(laughter)" "I gotta tell you, the little bits that begin" "(Melissa)" "I could see that." "Yeah!" "I mean, there is an audience for all of these things." "Everybody here with their shows, everybody has an opportunity to just-- yeah, broad audiences come to it, but there're little spaces where we can inject and I think that" "Yeah." "(John)" "They're not there, and people aren't looking." "No." "And they're not thinking necessarily," ""Well, if you can do that, you can do that."" "But there's also the attitude, that I think is very corporate, which is, "Well, we have  a woman directing a film..." ""of our slate of 30." ""And we have, you know, John Ridley." ""He's doing this show that's very topical, so we're covered."" "You know, how many times have I heard, like," ""Oh, you're doing that, that, that lady movie." ""You know, we've got that one,"" "you know?" "That one." "Or have you gotten the one where your agent goes to put you up for a job and they say," ""We already have a woman."" "Oh, yeah, yeah." "And that's the problem with bringing up" "I mean, it starts to go into this token culture and it" "Yeah." "Starts to..." "See, the thing that I think is cool about going into" "Like, I think that's the advantage, that "Wow, we're gonna" "Like, you know what?" "We" " It is" "We have been telling the same story seven times, but not from these different perspectives." "Not from these different points of views." "That's where it's going to be really exciting." "That's where it's going to be really original, to tell those same stories but with that whole different spin that people don't even know about yet." "And if you go into it with that kind of energy" "Yeah." "One of the great things too, about what I love about working in television, and well, why I never leave is I, you know, it's such a collaborative medium." "And the writing room is essential, and that's where you're getting, uh, your different perspectives." "So, I bring to the room a certain experience in life" "Sure." "But I make sure my staff is, is very diverse in terms of gender and race and background." "That's my first question, as I'm sure it is with you all as well, when you meet a writer" "There's no one else in my writing room." "(laughter)" "But you're worldly, you're worldly." "It's me and a cup of coffee." "(laughter)" "♪♪" "♪♪" "Welcome back to "Close Up With" "'The Hollywood Reporter.'"" "We're here with the drama showrunners who keep us tuning in." "So what are the, what are the shows that, that inspired you as storytellers?" "Whether it was as children, whether it was sort of later, more recently?" "I mean" "I mean, "Hill Street"-- oh, sorry." "No, go ahead, go ahead." "I was, I was just talking about Bochco, like I went back and watched "Hill Street," um, for a project that I was doing and um, God, that pilot is incredible." "I was thinking about just some of the shows that I watched when" "I was younger, you know, those were the unicorns, those were the exceptions, the shows that were really remarkable, and they" "When you go back and watch some of those, they really" "But the whole Bochco camp, you know" ""NYPD Blue"" "was so, you know, um, you know, progressive for its time and envelope-pushing and you know, just" "I-I also want to do a police drama at some point (laughs) in my spare time." "(laughter)" "You can get a lot of that." "(John)" "In that half-hour you get." "Every seventh show to your, uh, yeah!" "David Kelley, uh, was in those early years, with "Picket Fences"" "and "LA Law" certainly." "That was when I think I sort of became aware that TV was actually written, that that was a job, you know." "And, and Winnie Holzman," ""My So-Called Life"." "Mmmm!" "That is 18 hours of" "Perfection." "Yeah." "Yeah." ""Mad Men" was pretty perfect for me, actually." "Yeah?" "I just loved it." "It wasn't" " It didn't inspire me to do it, because I didn't start watching it until late." "I'd sort of missed it and a friend of mine said," ""You're completely mad and I'm giving you the first series for your birthday."" "And then I was absolutely hooked." "I thought it was a brill" "Stylistically, it was so sort of chic at the same as everything else, and I loved "West Wing" and" "I loved "The Good Wife"." "I mean, I think" "American television has been fantastically strong over the last decade, really." "Yeah, yeah." "I, I have to say" ""Twin Peaks"" "(women gasping)" "Oh..." "Because, because it was, it was like, the, it was a mystery." "It wasn't the same episode every week." "It was definitely a continuation and I don't" "I-I mean, as a kid, I don't remember having that feeling with any other show where" "I was like, Wait a minute," "I'm essentially just watching a really, really long movie by" "Right." "A feature filmmaker, you know, who I happen to really love, and the mystery about it." "Like, there was just something about drawing out this mystery." "On that note, it's" ""Twilight Zone" was also" "Yeah." "It just made you like kinda lean into the TV." "Sure." "You know, as you're watching it." "It's the very definition of" ""I wanna know what happens next."" "Uh-huh!" "That part of it excited me." "Well, I would say" ""The West Wing"" "and, and most" "I'm gonna say most of Sorkin's gender politics are pretty retrograde." "I-I-I have a real hard" "I have a real problem with his gender stuff (laughing)." "Really?" "But other than that, the shows were terrific." "(laughter)" "(Marti)" "No, he's brilliant." "By the way, I went on a rant about this, um, to a friend." "Just I have a whole thing about (stuttering)... (Lacey)" ""Newsroom"!" ""Newsroom."" "I mean, a whole thing." "I did impressions and everything, and I did this for my friend 'cause she had mentioned that she knows him and, and, and maybe, uh, you know, we could go to dinner, and-- but" "Hi, um... (laughter)" "And I went through this whole thing and at the end, she went," ""Oh my God, he'd love you."" "(laughter)" "Which is a scene out of "Newsroom"." "Yep." "But what you were saying about "Twin Peaks", the great thing about that show is it was both." "Those characters were so fascinating" "That's, that's the thing:" "I want both." "There are sometimes, there are shows where I do," "I do like the characters, but man, after like, 40 times of seeing them do the same thing, and I'm like, but maybe they're like breaking up with the person instead of dating them" "It's not so much "like"" "actually, for me." "It's kind of being involved with the ongoing narrative, wanting to know how it turns out." "I mean, my favorite character can be the villain." "I don't need to like them." "Right." "But I, I need to want to know what happens to them next." "(Sam) Right." "(Lacey) Yes." "Right, right." "All right, we're gonna end with a, what I hope is a fun last question." "If each of you were to turn the cameras on yourselves and do an autobiographical series, what would be the working title?" "I'm already doing it:" ""Mr. Robot"." "(laughter)" "You got it." "I'd call mine "Uphill"." "(laughter)" "I was 50 before anything happened." "(laughter)" "The theme "burying failure" is part of every successful career." "I mean, you make it look as if it's all-- you know, there's" "Screen biographies when everyone was adorable and every film you made was so happy." "But in fact, you just bury the dark stuff, which I think can be rather misleading actually." "Sure." "Sure." "Possibly a musical." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "Like a dance movie or" "(laughter)" "Pardon me?" "A musical?" "Oh, a musical!" "The content would be about failure." "Like, I'm fired more than all of you put together, I've no doubt." "And just, you know, I think, if I were a white dude," "I'd probably have failed a fraction as many times." "You wouldn't be as good" "You wouldn't be as tested by those failures." "Oh, I, I have been seriously tested, so, uh, but you know, it's also," "I'm grateful for it, 'cause it's shaped, uh, everything about my life and I'm pretty happy." "All right, Marti, what's your, what's your show about?" "I mean, I'm a little bit like Sam." "It's on TV." "It's called "Girlfriends'" "Guide to Divorce"." "I mean, that's, that's pretty ripped from the headlines." "(laughter)" "That's your world." "Well, thank you, guys." "Oh, we got away without doing this, Nina!" "Yeah!" "I'd probably go with" ""There's Gotta Be" "A Pony In Here Somewhere."" "(laughter)" "I love it" "I would put that on the air." "(all talking at once)" "Done, sold." "Absolutely." "On that note, thank you, guys, all for being part of this great conversation." "Really great pleasure."