Take 15 - Show creator Mickey Fisher, Extant, Reverie

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for shore, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

For every success, there is sometimes even years of failure.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the deal to be able to perservate.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Like everything in our business here has you.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

That box is taking it. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I do my one-big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big job. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about adversity failure and rejection in the entertainment industry. I am Dan Rutstein, now nearly one year in quarantine, like everybody else, um, and delighted about that. And we have in Hawaii the survivor of some flash floods, Noah Egelin.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I'm still soaking wet from my journey from my house to this new location, which might be a teeny bit echoey, but we were literally running away from the flood waters, but did not want to cancel this podcast. Because we are uh again, I'm super excited, always amazingly excited, but very, very, super excited to introduce our next guest, who really just exploded onto the Hollywood scene, which is very rare, um, with the having created the TV show uh Extant. He then worked uh and developed a TV show called Mars before more recently creating another TV show called Reverie. He's also worked on a few other shows as consulting producer. Welcome to the podcast, Mickey Fisher.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Hey, thanks for having me. Nice to be here. I'm totally dry. And and yeah, so it's all good here in Glendale.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

So I was talking to a neighbor of mine who is an actor who appeared on Extant, Brad Bayer, who was has actually been on my other podcast, the Whiskey Podcast, and uh I was hoping to get some gossip from him. I said, look, you know, we got Mickey Fisher on, you know, this is about rejection, failure, and adversity. So I want to hear some stories about you know things he did wrong, bullying in the room, any of this sort of stuff. And he's like, no, he was a great guy, which is a shame in a way. But if that's where we are, as a show creator, you know, you're running rooms. There are obviously plenty of stories about toxic rooms and so on. When you run your room, what tell me your process? Do you try and be nice or are you just nice?

SPEAKER_03 2:57

I mean, I would I would like to think that I am nice. I I mean I I was you know, one of the things I came to realize, realize about myself in my 30s, sort of throughout my 30s, is that I was very fortunate with how my brain is wired. It's it's wired to be uh fairly glass half full all the time and sort of optimistic and very easygoing. Like my my uh dad's mom, my granny Belden was very much like that. She was sort of like very easy going. Uh my dad is very much like that too. It's very, very little phases him. And um, you know, like when I was, you know, when I was younger, I might have thought that it was more of a choice. Now I realize I was just sort of like got very lucky with my brain chemistry. And so it's sort of easy to be nice and easy to be uh to sort of go with the flow. But I do think uh, and I think that helps a ton in the uh in sort of people people management part of the job and and dealing with people and certainly like being in a writer's room. Um and I also think that I genuinely grew up and and managed to somehow in in moving through into adulthood to hold on to a spirit of play and to really enjoy being with other people in a room and talking about cool ideas and things, and that and that it's genuinely fun. And so anything that makes it not fun, you know, or toxic or miserable for me or other people is just something I you know, like that, that just seems like that. It's there are way easier ways to make money. And so like it should, it should, it doesn't have to and shouldn't be like that. Um, but but yeah, I also will say that I got very lucky because my very first job in television, uh, again, very fortunate, came in as a creator of a show. And and I had spent 20 years outside of the industry doing things, you know, making my own things, micro budget features and short films and music videos, and writing and directing plays for for small theaters, regional theaters. Uh, by the time I got in, I you know, I kind of took this long circuitous route to break in, uh, broke in when I was 40. So by that point, I kind of knew who I was as a person. I'd kind of I kind of dealt with all my insecurities that come through early adulthood. Um, and then I had really good people to learn from. Like I had a my the showrunner of season one, uh Greg Walker, is is just a really great guy and a really uh again, it's a pretty easy-going guy, and uh I think approached the room in a way that uh that made people feel respected and heard. And and I just learned from that and took it in and took it with me as well. So um, so yeah, I think I and I and I hope that people that I've worked with and you know in my shows would would say that and and and would hope that most people have had a positive experience.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Uh coming in uh uh the way you did, having not gone through the rungs and sort of like you know been at the bottom, maybe in the in the old days where obviously things were different and uh uh uh bullying was tolerated in a different way, as was like if diversity and all that sort of stuff, because you skipped all of that, did that make obviously that gave you some advantages in some sense because you came in you know with fresh ideas of how to do things. But were there that were there things that you sort of didn't know you didn't know, and you got caught out on things because you didn't know the rules and what the processes were and the hierarchies?

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Sure, yeah, and I think uh again again because it was my first job, I I kind of realized, you know, on the very first day in the writer's room of X and we sat down with the showrunner and all the writers, and you know, we and he basically turned to me and said, you know, why don't you talk to them about all the stuff that you've been thinking about and where this came from? And so so the ball was handed to me five minutes into the room, and and it was my, you know, like I was just got very comfortable talking to you know to everybody. And then I kind of realized that, you know, a big part of my job in the room was to synthesize things. Like, you know, as people were pitching stuff and as you know, Greg was working through ideas, you know, he would turn to me and say, like, does that feel like the show? Does that feel like the thing that you created? And so um, so I got used to to doing that part of the of the job. And what I didn't realize is, you know, I also realized as the creator of the show, um, that I was in a pretty, you know, I was in a pretty lucky position and that I could just like, if there was a log jam, if we were stuck, I could just say the worst ideas without shame, without fear, I would just throw things on the table. I could just, I could just talk and get the ball rolling again uh without the fear of being fired, you know, without the fear that somebody who's you know, like on a lower level might be like, uh I have this idea, it's like a wild swing. It it's either gonna get me like uh you know ridiculed or people are gonna be buying me drinks later. Uh I just didn't have that fear because it was my show. And so I just felt like anytime I got stuck, like I just throw it out there. Um, but it was really important to me after Extant was canceled, after the second season, you know, I went to my agents and said, you know, I really wanted the chance to be in somebody else's room. Like I want to go work for other people. I want to have that experience, uh, to be, you know, on somebody else's team, to be the kind of player that I wanted to have on my team and do that for other people and to see what it feels like from the other side as well. Um, and so I did this thing on Mars, which is a really uh sort of special uh special situation because it was part narrative and part documentary, and there were different people from sort of different backgrounds and things in there. But then I went on the strain and uh worked on the final season of that. And that's where I really got my first taste of like, oh, this is what it felt like for other people in my room, because I was scared. I every day I drove home thinking, like, okay, this is the day I get fired, because it took me a while to triangulate, you know, kind of on the voice of the show and to start pitching things that landed. And um, and yeah, and so I I kind of had to had to relearn that. And it gave me like a much more empathy for people going into the next room, uh, seeing it for from that side.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I want to I want to add a little bit of color to all of this because I was in the industry when you broke into the industry. I had been toiling away in the ranks for about, I don't know, eight years by then or seven years. And I was, you know, you're always very well and well aware and tuned in to what's going on. And I heard about this sort of spec sale or straight to series from an outsider. Extant was happening in Amblin. And I'm like, what is that? Sometimes people will sell something, you know, sell a feature from the outside and it'll get made and the career will start. And that happens very rarely, to almost never, does somebody write from the outside of Hollywood a spec script that actually becomes a show that is a good show that gets a lot of buzz, not only gets a lot of buzz, but completely recalibrated in a way what CBS was doing for their summer lineup. It was there's now a summer event series. We want to shows like this one. And it was like, you know, that asshole, who is this guy who is coming in and just like, this is and I'm like, I'm like, well, maybe the show is not very good. I don't know. And then I'm sorry, watching the show, and it was just the kind of show that I like to write or like think about. I'm like, oh, this is all so really good. This guy, like, like pulled off literally a miracle. Now I know you've been on other, you know, you've talked about this before. So this isn't a podcast where we talk about the successes. That was a massive success. So let's put let's put a pin in that. We know that was a massive success. I was super surprised year two when the show was canceled and went away because I thought it was this bohemist. I thought the show was really good. I think you were one of the first shows to have a legitimate movie star sort of come in and be like, I'm gonna do TV. This was, you know, True Detective had done it, but like it was still pretty rare. And then CVS is like, nah, we're done. What did it feel like at that moment when your your dreams come true two years, and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled out from beneath you?

SPEAKER_03 10:46

It's such a mixture of uh feelings because on the one hand, it's that you can't feel anything but gratitude for the fact that it happened, that you got there once. You know, there were a lot of moments in uh even I would joke around in the first season in the writer's room, uh, you know, that when things were coming up sort of like, you know, major roadblocks or something, or it looked like we were gonna get canceled or things are, you know, like not that we're gonna get canceled, but like things are taking a bad turn. I would, and you know, one day I was just like, well, hey, you know, I bought a Ford Edge, so at least I got a car out of it. You know, it's like, so I haven't like I've met some of my heroes. If I have to go back to Ohio after this, like it's I like I grabbed the flag and I'm and I'm good. Um after the second season, you know, we put a lot of time and effort into it. And and I'm, you know, I come one of those people that you know, the characters genuinely become real people to me. They're people that I think about all day, every day, and and I wonder about them, and I, you know, um, and then you form relationships with all the people who are working on the show, and and you know, certainly with Hallie, because she's she's an amazing artist. Um, but it also became really good friends with uh the kid, with Pierce Gagnon and his family, um, and the producers with Amblin. So the moment that that happened when the cancellation came, and our season two showrunners, uh uh Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro, like who came in and you know, sort of did it did a great job. It like you know, came in and we we we allowed the show to evolve and grow and and and change a bit into something new in season two and brought a new characters and new energy. And um and you know, everybody really put everything into it. And so when it got canceled, I was heartbroken for everybody else too, and felt like I couldn't help but feel like I let everybody down. You know, that somehow it's just like uh, you know, you wonder like what else could we have done? And and and you're you know, sort of going back and just thinking, like, ah, if we'd only like, you know, there's so many ways for it to go off the rails along the way. And you're like, ah, if we'd only done this, you know, like at this point or only done this. Um, so it's tough. But I mean, I have to say, that like the way that I got the cancellation was almost like the greatest thing that could have happened to me because I had uh driven to uh St. Louis to pick up my girlfriend, who was in a show there at the time, doing a musical there. And we were driving back cross-country, and we spent the night in Denver, Colorado. We uh were just we got a hotel downtown, we're like kind of walking around. And then the next morning we woke up and I woke up to my phone ringing, uh, and it was Glenn Geller from CBS, and he was like, Listen, we, you know, we really like the show, it's you know, which was like financially the numbers, et cetera, et cetera. You know, like and and he's like, so we're gonna, you know, we're not gonna renew the show. And uh and I just like you know, totally understand. And I said, like, I just want to thank you for this experience. Like, you guys changed my life. You know, I have a I have a career and I've had this experience. Uh, and then Julie and I got in the car, and and a half hour later, we were in the Rocky Mountains and I had no service, and we were driving through the mountains for the whole day. So occasionally I'd come back into service, I would get calls, I would make calls to the cast. Um, but it kind of allowed me to process it and greet, you know, like kind of like grieve that loss in the in the most beautiful, you know, one of the most beautiful places in the country. And so by the time, you know, I got out of it by the next day, I was like, okay, I kind of realized like uh you you gotta try again. Like you just got to, you know, you gotta get back, you gotta write something else, and you gotta get back in line. And uh, so that was very quickly my mindset after that.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I I do want to say that it's you know, we've had a lot of people on this podcast, a lot of really successful creators and showwinners. And you you did, I mean, you not only came in from the outside, but you've created two, if not two and a half, depending on how you count Mars, you know, shows, which is like not only did you hit the lottery once, you hit it 2.5 times. So whatever sustaining power was needed was there. So, how did you so you pick yourself up, your your stand is over? I know that you wanted to staff and you did that, but what became the process of creating your new show uh, you know, to kind of get you out of that funk and and get you back on your feet?

SPEAKER_03 14:47

My brass was always sort of thinking like, uh what can I take from the last thing? What what are the lessons that I can can learn from that experience? Well, you know, what are some of the the aspects that maybe didn't work or I can prove upon the next time and start thinking about it? And so I went into Mars and uh it was a very intense process over a few months where um, like I said, it was sort of narrative and documentary. So there were documentary makers in the room and and uh people who came in from uh from the like making documentaries about space and other writers and things like that. And so it was a very intense experience. But then when it was over, that was a moment I was like, okay, I'm sort of back to I'm I've got this free time back to square one. Um I'm I I my sort of process is I'm always sort of reading things. I'm into tech blogs and stuff like that. I'm always looking for like the next big thing. And uh I'd been reading a ton about virtual reality, realized I'd never really played with it at all. So I ordered Google cardboard uh to just like, what's this? What's this like? And I, you know, it's this piece of cardboard, you fold it up, you put your phone inside. Uh, and I was in my living room having this like genuinely magical experience of standing at the base of the Eiffel Tower. And uh, and this was part of my pitch. I was telling some people this the other day, too, like, but like this is all 100% true, which is that I'm in my living room and I'm looking around, and then I'm in the jungle and I look over and there is like a chimpanzee to my right. And I just started laughing because it was, and I had this like rush of like, oh, oh, this is super fun. And then the next thought in my head was like, oh, we're doomed as a species, because when this gets so good and so immersive that you can design and build the world of your dreams, when you can resurrect people that you've lost, you know, with their social media footprint and all this kind of stuff, like that's gonna be a problem. People are not gonna want to come back from that. And so, you know, what happens if somebody gets stuck in this virtual reality world that they've created? Who do you get to bring them out? You know, you need somebody who is empathetic and who's trained to make connections. Well, that's a hostage negotiator. And those two things click together, and I was like, oh, that's the new show. And and I got again sort of got very lucky, which is I pitched the show as this is an emotional procedural. Uh, you know, it's about this hostage negotiator who has to go into these virtual worlds and solve a mystery, figure out why this person got stuck and bring them back to the real world. Um, and it just happened to be something that people were looking for at the time. You know, again, with the same thing with accent, it was like grounded science fiction, uh, you know, it had a heart and some big ideas and things. And I just I, you know, I got very lucky that to keep keep pushing on that, keep mining that zone for stories.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

So we've talked about the fact that you sort of didn't do the career journey the proper way. So I guess this cuts both ways. So, in some ways, obviously there's everyone else doing it the traditional way, and you've sort of walked in out of nowhere, and even if it wasn't quite out of nowhere, it looks like it to the people who are writers' assistants and all this sort of stuff. Do you feel do you bear some responsibility that you're now creating false hope for the people who aren't actually that good who and who are gonna spend like an extra five years Uber driving because they want to be like you and they know that they can skip it all and come in sort of at the top?

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Yeah, I mean, I I do feel like a little there, I feel like a little twinge that I always tell people because I I'm fully aware that it's like a one in a million shot. You know, I have a friend who talks about it, it's like the end of Tim Cup, you know, that Kevin Costner movie, like the miracle shot. Uh, and I'm fully aware that that's what happened, but I always tell people like, look, you know, it's not it's not impossible. Like I did it. I truly feel like, you know, if one person can do it, then another person can do it. It's not going to happen for everybody, uh, you know, and and so um, but it but when it happened, it it validated two things, which I've always believed, which I believed when I was 25 and I started doing this. I believed it when I was 37, you know, a year before I started riding accident and was sort of struggling and and you know, living working odd jobs and doing anything, everything I could to to you know pay off the bills from my last project, which is that if you have the right piece of material at the right time, it will open doors for you. Um, and then the second thing I always believe was, but it does take a little bit of luck. And so, you know, like it took every person in that chain reading X and passing it on to the next person and and saying, uh, hey, I think you should check this out, and it being something that that next person up the chain was interested in. Um, you know, that that was the thing that kept me up a lot of nights afterwards, because like, what if one part of that chain doesn't happen? Then I'm I'm still in a corner in Starbucks in Orange County, riding another pilot, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Well, 37-year-old Mickey Fisher. So you haven't yet done the big thing, and you're saying you're doing all jobs. Talk us through sort of what sorts of jobs you were doing, what sort of things you were paying off before it all happened, just to get a sense of the before.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Oh man, I mean, there are literally dozens of them. I think that I got very lucky uh coming out of college in that um I I have no other skills. Like I'm not joking when I say this, uh, I have no other skills. So this was something that I mean, I started as an actor. I went to school to be an actor. So uh that was something that I could do, you know, and and and uh and I started directing theater and doing things like that. And and uh I wasn't a great director, but I was a decent director. Um, but the other thing was like nothing brought me as much joy. And so, and then the third thing that happened was like I never landed in a day job that paid me enough money and I enjoyed enough that it was ever going to be a danger that I would quit doing this to do that. Um, which I had a lot of friends along the way. After 20 some years in the business, I have a lot of friends who moved on because, you know, like I said, there there are user ways to make money and to have more stability. Um, and so I was doing everything. I mean, I I when I first moved to New York, my job was handing out flyers for Broadway shows, a TKTS in Times Square. And I would literally be handing out flyers for Broadway shows that my friends were in, you know, from college. You know, and I would be like standing under billboards that had my, you know, my my friends' pictures on them that I had graduated with from school. Uh that's like a really humbling experience to have. Um, and then so same thing when I was in my early 30s, I had made a low-budget film and my girlfriend got cast on the tour of Annie, the musical Annie. Uh, I went out with the tour for a year and a half and sold merchandise in the lobby. And every week I would, you know, spend a few hundred dollars of what I made to pay off the bills. And while the show was going on, I would be editing my movie and so and writing. Uh, I did that for a year and a half so I could travel with her and sell t-shirts in the in the lobby of Annie. So there are all kinds of things like that. The thing that I was doing, the best job I ever had before television, I was doing right before I sold X Nit, uh, which is uh I got in, I'd won a contest to be an ambassador for this company called uh the Can Am that was making this motorcycle called the Spider. It was two wheels in the front, one in the back. Um, actually won a contest where I won the motorcycle and I won uh A stipend to drive around, ride it around the country to these events and um write articles and shoot videos and take pictures and things. Um, and that lasted for about a year and a half. And at Christmas, like in 2012, I was we were on our way back to Ohio and it was like Christmas Eve, and the head of the marketing called and said, Hey, sorry, we have to let you go. We're gonna end this program. And so uh that was Christmas Eve, and I turned to Julie. We were in a hotel at the time, and my girlfriend and I said, I was like, I have two choices. I can either when we go back to Orange County, I can get a regular job, or I can sell the motorcycle that I won and put that money to buy me a few more months to write. And so that's what I did. I sold the motorcycle when we got back to Orange County at the beginning of the year. Uh, I reinvested that money, I put some scripts in the blacklist, and uh and I paid to enter the contest that Extant placed in that got me as a manager and agent and everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

You you seem to get a lot of bad news in hotel rooms. So you maybe you should be careful about the staying in a hotel room like that. I'm really glad that you brought something up, which was a second ago, but you talked about that that you that this wasn't just one yes, that even though it was sort of this meteoric rise to the top with the show, it had to pass a lot of it had to go through a lot of yeses. And I know a little bit about that story where you won a contest, that's probably like two or three or four yeses. Then the people at William Morris, the coordinators, they picked up your script, that's more yeses, and the higher level agents signed you, that's more yeses. Then Amblin found the script and liked it. That's more yeses. So at each point in this, you're getting yeses, and then you have to take it out on the town, and you need probably four more yeses. So what people have said, like, oh, one yes can change your life, maybe it can, but to get to your show to the air was probably what, like 10, 15, 20, 30 yeses, each yes harder than the next. Yeah or harder than the next.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Yeah, it's like building up to the building up to the final boss in a video game, right? It's like it's it is, it's it's such a gauntlet. Um, but but yeah, and I think that uh the interesting thing about that process is this is a little bit of a chain reaction because as the energy and the heat around your script builds, uh then I think you know, then people like when they open it up, is I'm sure some people will have like, okay, like how good could this be or whatever? But I think there are some people who are like, hey, this is getting a lot of buzz. So they're already sort of you know maybe predisposed to like it, or they've been or they've been primed for the things that they might enjoy. And so yeah, it's a that's an interesting, it's so it's such uh like an alchemical process, and it is so much of it is like chance. It's not like the Olympics where, you know, on one day of every four years, like somebody is the fastest person on earth, you know, like this process is not like that, and uh, and that's it's one of the joys and uh one of the heartbreaking things as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

So when you when you were in that going back to that sort of when you were in the room the first time and you get introduced and you sort of start telling the story of you know what the show is, were there any uh people I guess they're all sort of beneath you, who at any stage, uh either to your face or you found out that behind your back were sort of uh questioning uh your right to be there, whether that's writers in the room or maybe execs around it, or even maybe the the actors or actresses you were working with who are like, come on, mate, you know, you don't really know what you're doing, you shouldn't be here. Was there any of that?

SPEAKER_03 25:28

I'm sure there, I'm sure there was. And I have heard the stories. It's funny when I've heard my story from other people, you know, like from you know, people who were assistants at the time, or um, you know, I there were a couple writers in the excellent room who were like the staff writer or the you know, assistants and things, and they're like, So, okay, so tell us the parts that are true, because here's what we heard. And there were things that would be like, you know, I and I think some people did think that I was just like came, you know, totally out of nowhere and you know, wrote this was my first script that I'd ever written. You know, they're like, dude, like, oh no, there was a 20-year journey of, you know, I was writing plays and making my own movies and editing my own movies and and and sending out query letters and and entering contests. Like I had, you know, I'd I had been a semifinalist uh in Project Greenlight too, and I had been in the uh in the top 100 scripts or so of the nickel fellowship, and I just sort of like kept chipping away at it, chipping away at it and trying everything. Um, and you know, years and years and years of rejections. I sent out hundreds of query letters over the years that never got a single reply. Um, and so I knew all that stuff. I knew what I did to get in. Other other people didn't. Um, but I also will say that like there's nothing that anybody could have said to me or any vibe that somebody could have given me about like maybe you shouldn't be here that was stronger than the one I was carrying inside. You know, like not exactly like, and not even like imposter syndrome, which is just like, can I pull this off? You know, like how am I gonna do this? And I was, you know, like I I spent months when this was going, uh, worried that the other shoe was gonna drop and that someday people somebody was gonna call me and be like, okay, so into the road, uh here, you know, here's your you it was a nice run, you did great. And until I until we started shooting, I think I felt like that.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Imposter syndrome is a funny one. And I think a lot of people suffer versions of it. I mean, I remember you know, a completely parallel career, but I remember standing up in front of my new team of 70 odd people when I started a job in government, thinking at some point they're gonna realize, you know, five years ago I was a sports journalist and I shouldn't really be here. But I, you know, I I sort of was meant to be there, but you just always wonder whether it's a sort of it's a joke and someone's gonna tap you on the shoulder and go, right, off you go, mate, we're gonna get a real person in here. Um, but when you uh particularly, I mean, I I don't want to make this about sort of star power, but there's something, as Noah said, sort of having Halle Berry, who obviously is a huge movie star in a TV show, is a little bit different from even just a normal TV show. So for you to have your overnight success and then sort of her wander on to set, did it feel like you know, the first thing she was gonna do is come up to you and go, right, on your bike, mate. You're you know, you're not allowed to be with somebody like me. Did it just was it all too unreal to believe?

SPEAKER_03 28:20

It was so I mean there were so many moments where it was just like unreal to believe. Like I, you know, the first uh the first day that I ever actually met Mr. Spielberg in person, we were in his conference room doing um doing uh interviewing directors for the pilot. And uh and I was you know super nervous, of course. And I look on the wall, and there is Rosebud, the sled from Citizen Kane, is in the office. You know, like you're like, okay, you know, so there's like that's like an out-of-body experience there. Um and then, but the thing with Hallie that was so great is uh from the moment that I met her, uh we we went to pitch for the show. We we'd sold the show to CBS, and then we'd heard that she, you know, that she was interested in it, and I think she'd already been talking to uh to CBS about doing something together. And so, you know, from the moment we heard this, it's just like, how do we not screw this up? Like this, she would be absolutely perfect. So Greg and I went over to her place with um, I one of the, I'm not sure if it was, I'm not sure if it was uh a number of people from Mamblin or if it was just, I feel like it was just Justin and Falvey, maybe it was just the three of us. And we went over to pitch her the show, and she was basically like three days away from giving birth to this her her baby that she had. So we were pitching her this crazy story about like, you know, this astronaut comes home and she's pregnant, and then all these things happen with this baby, and she's like eight months and 28 days pregnant. So that was very strange. But uh, but we did have a but the great thing about Hallie is we started talking right away, we had a very similar track, which is we're both from Ohio. We both moved to Chicago for a bit, we both moved to New York, and then we both moved to LA. Like we followed the exact same path, and we just had that bond from the, you know, like that. I'm right to my left right now, there is a card from her up on my desk that says, uh, you know, so here's to two kids from Ohio making their dreams come true. And so I uh I never felt that from her. Like I felt like she was just like that, she empowered me, you know, in a way. And you know, like it always happens. I think, you know, at a certain point, we I think we all realized that we were just moving, diverging uh the stories that we were telling and and and the things that we were interested in. And um, but from but at the beginning, it wasn't like that at all.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

So it's great. So you have this, you know, it's a huge, even though it was two seasons, which is still an incredible accomplishment with this movie star, and then you go through this sort of the rest, the next two years of your career, right? Which is also, by the way, all really big successes. It's you staff on a really on a hit show, you work on Mars and develop and get a development credit by it. And then you have this sort of virtual reality idea, you pitch it, you sell it, you have a new show. Are you at this point feeling super confident that you you know what to do at this point? As your is it a whole different vibe as you're starting uh on Reverie, as the create, you know, having created that show, and now you have your C Leg, so to speak, and you're you know thinking that this is gonna go on for as long as you want it to?

SPEAKER_03 31:21

I I mean, I think now I do. When I when we were making the pilot for Reverie, um, you know, like the difference between X and Reverie was I went out and sold it with Amblin, um, but there was no showrunner. It was just me at the time. I'd written it on spec again. Um, I'd written the pitch, had worked with it with Amblin, and then we went through that whole gauntlet. Um, and and the final stages of that gauntlet, I was in Toronto doing prep for two episodes of The Strain, going home at night to rewrite my pages for NBC, uh, you know, to try to get the script to to the point where they were gonna pick it up. And and then um, so the moment that we're like, hey, the NBC is actually gonna make this pilot, um, we started talking about showrunners to pair me with because it was it was gonna be a new network. We didn't know how many episodes they would order when they did, and it was a procedural, it's a different type of story, something I hadn't had experience in. So we started talking to this, uh, to this guy named Thompson Jergy, who became a really great friend of mine, became the showrunner. Um, and he was there as kind of like a conciliere during the the pilot making process. But I went through that process without a showrunner, and and and there were a lot, there were a lot of things that I realized I just still didn't know. And even there was one night coming out of the pilot, uh coming in we were up in Vancouver shooting the pilot, and we had done a presentation of the um you know costumes and and hair and makeup and things. And the Amblin producers, the guy, uh they're all so smart. And uh it was Justin that was up there at the time, and they had made all these, you know, had these questions and made these changes to the presentation. And I walked out and I was just like, I still just don't like you've asked questions that I wouldn't even know what to ask yet. Like, I'm still not good at this part of it. And he was like, nobody's expecting you to be great at that right now. He's like, focus on the things that you are good at, on the story, the script, talking to the actors. Um, and you'll learn those things along the way, but that's why we're here with you. And so, you know, I kind of realized that by the end of the Reverie Pilot, like, and and you know, even the end of the season of Reverie and going through you know another season of post and doing all the spotting sessions and and going to every mix and and all that stuff is you know, I just felt like I knew probably, you know, 60 or 70 percent of the job, but still there were all kinds of things. It's like, you know, Tom would ask for something, and I would be like, I didn't even know he could ask for that yet. So now I feel much more confident. Now I've taken I've taken out a couple more things, sold them on my own, um, developed worked with some some other really great people. Um, and and so I feel I feel a lot more confident now. I certainly feel a lot more confident in like the direction of the story and the material, the scripts, working with writers, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

And you you you told me uh once a long time ago that there was an uh interesting slash tragic story about the end of Reverie. Is there was it did that how did that get taken away from you or canceled or what there? I I have a feeling there's a story there somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Yeah, well, I mean, the yeah, Reverie was it was a that was a huge bummer. We uh I mean it was again, it's one of those things where you're just like super grateful that it happened. I love the people I was working with. I had a really great relationship with Sarah Shahi, where it's just like from day one, we just said, look, here, you know, we both had experiences that have, you know, have have, you know, had had challenges, but like how do we make it so that we work together day-to-day basis really well? And and let's just be open and honest with each other and communicate. And we and we did that from the beginning to the end. Um, but we wrapped in December of 2017, and the show wasn't going to air until summertime. Uh, so we wrapped, I went away for the holidays, came back for post, and uh the first day I came back, I realized like my parking spot was already gone. And so that was like, okay, so I had to call around to get some parking at the post. The next day I came back, my gate pass had been revoked. So it was like I went from you know, December 20th, uh, a guy who had a show that was shooting on the lot to a guy who couldn't get on the lot and my show hadn't even aired yet. Uh, so that was again humbling. Um, and then, you know, like the launch, I think, you know, just I don't know at what point they lost faith in it, but it was just kind of buried, it wasn't promoted. Um, and then they canceled it officially on the day of the midterms in 2018. So on the busiest newsday of the year when the Democrats took back the house. Uh, at some point along the way, five o'clock or so, the news dropped that they'd officially canceled it. So it was just like uh that one really felt like that. Was pretty painful. That was honestly like a little more painful than the excellent one, just because it felt like I felt like it just deserved more.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

How much lead how much lead time did you get for that? The cancellation did you didn't? I mean, I'm certainly you didn't find out in the trades. So when did they tell you before they announced that they weren't?

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Oh, I found out in the I I mean, we kind of knew the writing was on the wall. Like we Tom and I had we'd been meeting and we had been talking about ideas for season two, and we sent them a letter and and and everybody was kind of like, you know, we're you know, we're we're we're still thinking things over, but we kind of knew. Um, but no, I I saw it on the trades. And I uh like uh that day I saw it, and then I got a call. You know, they were like, hey, we're sorry you had to find out that way. We we it it just got away from us, and and I get that, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Were you in a were you in a hotel room? I was not.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

I was actually I was in the coffee commissary up the street, which is you know, it's probably always good to be in a public place when that happens.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Yeah, I guess, but you didn't get the the chance to drive through the mountains.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

I should have said, hey, hold on, can I can I just go check into a hotel real quick? I'll call you right back.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I I I I know that Dan's about to ask a final question, but I want to point out just I want to sit on something for one second about how brutal this business is. You you lost your parking spot, you lost your gate pass before your show was canceled. They began to take things away from you, and then you found out in our paper and our trade magazine and our online trade magazine that your show was canceled before anybody even told you. This, I mean, again, CPS, they called you, they gave you some prep. This is, and this happens all the time. So I was hoping that wasn't the way it happened. But this this town, even when you're at the top, can just rip your heart out.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Well, listen, man, I one of the things I learned, I mean, I think about this all the time. And I and I thought about it. I uh my first lesson in this was the news for Xnint that we sold it, uh, I think hit on like a Wednesday. It was my 40th birthday. My phone went crazy all day that day, you know, friends and family uh and people and and people from the team, and there was just like this flurry of activity. And then Thursday, it was like 50% of that. And then Friday, like my phone didn't ring until like noon. And and like by noon on Friday, I was like, I've already been fired. You're like, so it's already happened. But then I realized, and I think I told the show writer that, Greg, and he was like, he's like, no, the reality is like every all these other all these people, they have a dozen, 20 other shows, you know, like Amblin, they have a bunch of other shows in there right now. Your agents, the producers, and that's true from the beginning. Like, you know, once your show launches, it becomes your life. But your producers, they have all kinds of other things going on, and your execs. Um, and that's true when your show gets canceled too. I mean, I I have no ill will towards NBC because somebody else needed that parking spot. Jennifer Lopez needed that parking spot, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

So look, we ask a standard final question. Although your answer may be more different because you didn't have the standard journey. So the question we ask is uh what single piece of advice would you give to somebody entering the industry?

SPEAKER_03 38:59

Oh boy, I mean, that's great. That's a great question. It's I'll tell you the two things. I I'm gonna give you two because I because I this is these are the two questions I asked. When I first started meeting people, uh when these doors started opening, the first few people that I met, I would ask them at the end of the meeting, how have you seen what have what have you seen somebody like who in my position who got to this point? They're on the three yard line. Where have you seen them fumble the ball? Like, what am I what am I looking out for? And my the the man who eventually became my lawyer said to me two things. He said, trust your instincts, you know, they're going to steer you right more often than not. And this is like about who you work with and for and all that stuff, the jobs you take. And he said, Second of all, don't spread yourself too thin. He was like, you know, you're gonna get a lot of opportunities, people are gonna come to you with things, and uh, and you're gonna want to say yes to all of them because you've been a fan of these people and you and you just want to work. Um, but if you spread yourself too thin and you start turning in bad work, that's the thing that's gonna follow you around. So um, so I always tell those two those two things to people. And uh I I mean the other thing, uh the other thing I would just say is like I I kind of want to say before, like it should still be fun. And I think like if you genuinely don't love the process of writing, if you genuinely don't love uh to be in the trenches figuring this stuff out, then that there are easier ways to make money.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Very good, very good. I like the the answer about not spreading yourself too thing and saying, Yeah, I can see how you know, because obviously I'm not in the industry, but when I hear sort of Noah telling me about jobs he nearly gets, which is obviously a lot more than ones he actually gets, um, but he you know he is naming all these interesting people with interesting shows, and I can see why obviously if you're in an industry where you you you know you're you're in it because you love it and you love watching other people's shows. And if people ask you to do stuff, I can see why you'd want to basically be in everyone else's room and co-create with people and team up with everybody. Um, and also I can see how that would be a massive problem if you actually did it.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Yeah, like I I mean some of it's just survival because you kind of what Noah's saying before, too, with it where like you need so many people to say yes, and a lot of really successful people keep a lot of projects up in the air and keep things moving forward because at any moment one of them can fall apart. Um, and I'm just not really wired that way. Like, I I if I have two things going, maybe three at the most, that's about all I can handle. And it's part of just the way I'm I'm wired to it. Uh so it means that if like things don't work out, then it's a long stretch where I'm sort of like back at the you know, back at the drawing board.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

My my reps once told me that they use this phrase we have an air traffic control problem with all your projects. We can't navigate it, they're all coming down right now, and we need to start picking and choosing and and focusing your fire because there's just too much circling right now. And of course, that's always a good thing, but of course, probably 95% of those went away. But um thank you, Mickey. It was it was it's been really enlightening. It's been uh thank you for coming on and sharing all these stories.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

Hey, thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it, it's been fun.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Thank you. All right, that's a wrap on this episode. If you want to leave us any feedback, go to hollywoodabyss.com.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

And if you'd like to subscribe, we won't stop you. And if you want to leave a review, we certainly won't stop you. In fact, we'll be incredibly grateful.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

And we have a couple of thank yous before we go completely. We want to thank Games Launch for the intro and outro music. We want to thank both our wives who allowed us to hide in our respective basements while we record all of these interviews.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

If you want to find us on Twitter and join in the conversation, I'm at Dan Rutstein, and Noah is at N. Ebslin. Please come and find us, please say hello, and if you really want to, please give Noah a job.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Yes, I am looking for a job of any sort. I can polish shoes, I can write copy, I can even be in a writer's room. So if that's the case, feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

But you definitely can't podcast.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

I definitely this is not the thing that I do well.