Take 19 - Writer Jeffrey Lieber, Lost, Charmed

SPEAKER_01 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 sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

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

SPEAKER_00 0:20

For every six days, there is sometimes even media. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

That's the path to be able to persevere.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Like everything in our business here has taken care of that does that work. 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 shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Welcome back to Streaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am here failing in my own non-entertainment way. Noah, how are you over there?

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Um we're doing great. I can't complain. Um, in an effort to change up my adjectives each week from excited, today I'm gonna open by saying that I am over the moon to introduce this next guest. Uh uh, Jeffrey Lieber to the podcast today. Uh, as a TV writer and producer, he's worked on over 20 shows. Uh, if I listed them all, they would take the whole podcast. Uh, so I just want to list the ones he's created andor developed. And it's worth pointing out that he's also co-wrote the movies Tangled and Tuck Everlasting, uh, as well as co-creating, creating andor developing the TV shows Lost, Miami Medical, Impulse, Don't Look Deeper. Most currently, you can find Jeffrey, Jeffrey running the little-known TV show Charmed. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Thank you very much. Uh, and by the way, it's um uh the tangled is not the tangled you think it is, it's the other tangled. If you go search it out, you'll find out it's not animated at all. So good to know.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

I was I was gonna I had some tangled specific questions. I'm gonna cross them right off my right off my list.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

So um we our listeners should know that this originally was scheduled to be recorded on a different day, and Jeffrey didn't turn up um and was very apologetic about it. So if you think we're being slightly meaner than usual in the questions, it's just because of that.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Well, I I felt as if you wanted to talk about failure. So my failure to actually attend was my first failure of this uh interview. So I feel as if that I just wanted to start out that way.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

But this is about overcoming failure, and you attended today, so you're already exhibiting the right traits. I can't not start with lost. So maybe a little bit like the episode where we spoke to Grant Pierce Myers of Maze Runner, where he found out that he was being fired from Maze Runner while being told that he was being green-lit for the maze runner. Lost is an amazing story of success in some ways, plus a whole load of controversy about how it ended, but your journey on it isn't linear. So let's talk about Lost and how it started for you, and then we'll start picking it all apart.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Um, it started, uh every great failure starts with the success, right? So it started with one of those things where you go into a room and you pitch and they buy it in the room, right? Um, and the the funny part about the way Lost started for me, and there really is what you need to know about Lost is there are two TV shows. Well, there are a bunch of them, but it's two. There's the one I was working on, and there's the one that you know of. And they are um uh tied together and they are completely separate. So when I went and pitched Lost, um, the instructions I had gotten from the network was we want to do castaway. We want to do a hyper, hyper real show about people lost on an island. And so when I sold the show in the room, they then immediately hooked me up with National Geographic so that I could call somebody and say, is this an isthmuth or an archipelago? Is this bug here? Does this bug, you know, will this will this exist? There was a there was a now uh uh meeting I've talked about a long time where I pitched a shark attack on the show and was told, oh no, no, how often do sharks actually attack? Does that feel real? And so on and so forth. And so that was the universe of lost that I lived in for the four months that I lived in it. Um, and I handed in a script and I got a call from the executives, uh, or I was told that the executive said, This is great, here are some notes. If you don't turn in blank pages, we're shooting the show. Um, and I did rewrites and I turned it in. And the next phone call I got essentially was there's a problem. And that was my last day sort of actively working on Lost. So that was between essentially um I'd say September and December of 2003, probably. That was my that was my experience there.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

So then ironically, given that they rejected shark attacks as unrealistic, but then put polar bears in and who knows what else, it it moves on to, as you say, it's effectively a different show, but based enough on the same premise that after arbitration you stay on as a credited creator, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

And and the thing to know that writers should know is that that um the arbitration kicks in automatically. Uh one does not have to fight for it. Um, and so that's that's one of the great things the guild does. Another thing, the great guild thing that the guild does is they favor early writers so that exactly what happened on this show didn't happen often, which is that um bigger writers don't just come on at the end and take over for smaller writers, and then you know, studios and networks just uh give the bigger writers the credit because they want to. So that these are two things that the guild does really well. Um, you will you can imagine my surprise upon reading the original draft of the of the script when I when there were polar bears and and shaking bushes and monsters, and I thought to myself, well, things have changed now, haven't they? Um uh my uh my oft-repeated response is that I was doing uh Lord of the Flies and they ended up doing Lord of the Rings. Um so that's so that you know that that was sort of between uh end of March when the show was greenlit and we had to start uh um arbitration and then the fall when the the show first aired.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

So this is where it gets interesting from a I guess from a it's not quite a rejection failure question, but a sort of pride in your work name associated with project. And we had a version of this Catwoman conversation with John Rogers previously on this podcast. So your name is on this thing, it starts doing really well, obviously. So I guess there's two parts to this question. So the first part is, and this is I guess comes down to are you a nice person or not? Um, you know, is there a part of you that thinks, well, I hope this does really well? Because, you know, I'm a good person, I want things to do well, but also I'm associated with it. But then the better it does, and people start texting you going, hey, great stuff, and then you have to text back, going, well, it's not quite that simple. How do you manage the sort of the more it succeeds, the further away it was from the thing that you did, and the more you have to tell people it wasn't you.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Uh um, it took a lot of therapy. I mean, honestly. Uh, and it took me two years to go from the following thing, hey Jeff, I saw a lost, it's great. And then what and then there'd be a three-minute monologue of mine. Well, it's not mine. And here's what I did, but three minutes of hemming and hawing and embarrassment and da-da-da to finally going to a point where I went, thank you. Right? Because they don't care about my inner turmoil, it doesn't matter to them. They just wanted to say something nice to me. And I appreciate that they wanted to say something nice to me, and my inner turmoil about it. Um, it took me a while to work through the fact that I really did um honor and treasure what I had done. The thing I did did was interesting. Um, I was so early in my process that I really totally didn't. I the first show I um staffed on, uh, which was my which was Miami Medical, which is the 13th show failure we can talk about next, was the first show I ever wrote on, right? I went from being a screenwriter to being a pilot writer, and then had two pilots made before I ever got one on the air, and then that third one was the one I ran. So I had no, I didn't know a lot, which is both beautiful and horrifying. And so this is my first experience. My first experience is I'm having a show being made, it's a huge hit, I'm not a part of it, and what do I do with my name? And it took me two good years to be able to realize that no one cared about my inner um struggle, nor should they have. And the best thing I could do is just say, hey, thanks, and let it go. It's also complicating because it affects the way your career goes, right? And so the part that was harder to wrestle with is what happens when people wanted me because I was associated with lost, only, and I was proud of the part of it that I was associated with, but not associated with the part of it that they thought I was. And so that piece of it was really more difficult for me to figure out.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I we were trying to parse this, Dan and I. We we were talking after another recording, another podcast, knowing you were coming up. And we were trying to figure out if this was the one of the greatest success stories in TV history, meaning you got your name on all of these episodes of TV. You didn't have to participate, you got a ton of money and all these other things that go on it. Or because you weren't on it, you weren't creatively involved, you had all these questions where you had to, you know, go to therapy to be able to ask. Was it in many ways the biggest failure? If not, not biggest failure in TV history, because it's a huge success by any mark, but like this emotional, the emotional turmoil and the split inside your soul of like, this is an amazing thing, this is a terrible thing. And I couldn't figure out which which where are you now with it all? It's I guess it's now.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

I mean, look now, because it has had um lovely financial windfall, it's like if you're gonna get fired off a show, get fired off something that makes money, right? Like go go that direction. Um, I have the weird, unfortunate um the again, the part that is the legacy piece of it is more is harder, which is I, you know, I spend my entire career trying to write something now that will define me for what I've done in the same way that I've been weirdly defined for what I haven't done. Um, you know, you said I've been on on 20 TV shows, which if yeah, actually true is more than I than I would have thought. Um, I mean, I know I've been a lot, but 20 is a lot. Um but none of those things um are my soul. I've yet to write something that is my soul. Um and I am so I am on this weird uh Don Quixote and quest tilting at windmills all the time, trying to figure out if there's a way that I can succeed from an inner standpoint in the same way that I am perceived to have succeeded from an outer standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

I I don't want to talk about lost the whole episode, but I don't want to stop talking about it yet. Okay. I've got two more questions on it. So first one with all of the I don't I don't know what the correct way to describe it is, I'm not sure it's controversy, but with all of the discussion around the ending, which of course has nothing to do with you, are you sort of are you secretly pleased that they it all ended badly? Or at least not badly, but some of the legacy of Lost was slightly ruined in some people's eyes by the ending, and uh that wasn't your bit.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Uh well, a couple things I that I have to admit. I've only seen about three or four episodes of Lost. Um uh I saw one which I loved incredibly, and then two others that I thought were okay, but then I was dropping in at weird points. So I really I don't know, right? Um and I have it's all ambivalence, right? Like had it been the world's greatest success, and then I was tied to it fully, you know, completely, because again, it is a huge success. Uh uh, I I I've joked with people, which is like as mad as I am about about the fact that they got rid of me because I was no one in favor of someone, JJ, who was someone, right? They made the right decision, right? In their minds. I mean, like they made the right decision. They got they got a thing that became a cultural icon, and I don't know that I had the balls or the understanding, and I certainly didn't have the gravitas in their mind to have fought them and done weird ass stuff, right? Because I was just a newbie. So they made the right decision for them. Uh now, many, many years later in my career, I feel badly because I see how misunderstood that ending was and how they were twisted in knots. They they they wrote checks that they couldn't possibly ever have paid. But but the fact that they wrote those checks was part of why that show was such a success. They did these outlandish things that couldn't possibly have been like properly landed. And so, in the moments early in that show when people were as thrilled as as they were, it was because they were taking these huge risks, right? But then eventually it was gonna come time where they couldn't possibly make it all make sense in one narrative. And so I felt, you know, being a TV writer now, late in my later in my career, I don't want to say late, later in my career, um, I feel badly because I feel like the the ending is likely misunderstood in some ways, that their attempt was to get as close as they could, um, but they didn't succeed.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

So do you have, I don't want to be mercenary about this, but obviously there was some financial success in Lost, I imagine. You know, do you have like a holiday home in Hawaii called the Smoke Monster? And that's your sort of lost money, or does it you were never quite so specific with it?

SPEAKER_03 14:09

No, there's uh actually there's a house in Ojai that's called the House That Lost built. So I would love to say I am not some kind of fucking stereotype, but apparently I am. Um so yes, um, and I've uh look up these. I I've done very well, otherwise, I've made it's not like you know, it's feast or famine. I know I I have a friend who who has a very different story, which is that they are tied to a very big financial success, and it was their one success, and that was that's very painful for them. So part of my part of my therapy was coming to realize that I was pretty good at this thing and and being okay with the fact that there's this thing that I have this weird relationship with. But there's also I take great pride in the work and I enjoy the work, and I put a lot more value into the work than I do the result of the work because sometimes you you lose control at some point.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

So this isn't again, this isn't really a lost question, but it's it's related to what you said about caching checks they couldn't possibly sorry, writing checks they couldn't possibly cash. And again, remember, I'm not in the industry, but is there a sort of part of what they did in Lost that is almost it's almost cheating in the sense of you're creating something that you can never finish? So the equivalent of you know people taking out credit card loans with no intention of paying them off. Like and as a writer who's now obviously working in lots of other projects, what have you learned from not being in that but being parallel to that?

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Well, look, I think again, and I give them great credit for this. Part of what they did was they tested the limits of how far ahead of yourself you can get and then spit it back. And I think a lot of us have learned that from that lesson, you know. Like I know I have. I know that there are times at which I say to myself, hang on, stop now. You're gonna have to pay this thing off, this thing that you're creating. And part of my showrunner rules has been codifying that for myself. And and the the rules are less rules and more just things I think about when I write. And you know, one of them is that you know, the um the big discovery on page 45 has to be set up on pages 9, 12, and 16, because any idiot could be like, oh my god, he's an alien, right? You have to so you have to do the work to get there. And and but they were they were testing the envelope, they were doing things on television that hadn't been done before in terms of being willing to just go out on a ledge and say, you know what it is now? It's the future, right? Um without having to think of what they might have to, how they might have to justify that later, or could they justify that later?

SPEAKER_02 16:53

I I will say that Lost, you know, was one of my inspirations, was one of the first shows that I realized someone was writing, that there was a name behind it, that I wanted to be a writer. And not surprisingly, when I moved to Hollywood, one of my first projects was very Lost, like one of my first projects that got any attention. So I'm meeting all over the town and I'm finding that Lost took up a lot of real estate in their in everyone's head. And because of the Lost effect, I'm calling it, when I came in with this idea that had a lot of mythology and a and a mystery, I had to answer every question that I set up all the way up to like eight seasons in. They wanted to know everything, including how it ended before I even had a chance to sit at that table, because of, you know, they didn't ever want them to get a situation where you were sort of placing bets that you couldn't pay for or whatever. But uh you you said something that has really kind of is created an earworm for me, which is um because it's personal and it's not in a personal in a way that you and I actually talked about on DM recently, because it's related to my grandfather. You said that you haven't written your soul yet. And you and I were talking about being a playwright and all these different things. And my grandfather, I've never spoken on the podcast about this, is a mythologist. He wrote 70 books of Greek mythology. He was also a Broadway playwright and a TV writer and movie writer. And he died in his mind a total failure uh because he never got to write the thing that he wanted to write, whatever that is. And his cousin, I think, was Howard Nemiroff, the poet laureate, he had Diane Arbit, he had all these sort of artists in his family, and he was the guy that was writing myths for coin, right? He wrote these myths to pay for the family. It wasn't what he wanted to do. And he wanted to write his version of the great American novel or his version of the great American play. And he never did, and he died miserable. And I'm wondering, is that a fear of yours? Is that a fear of any all of ours that we never get this chance?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Um, yes, yes, and no. Here's what I'll say I spent a lot of time. Um so I ran a very large franchise for a little bit, and I spent my time running that when I was running the franchise, kind of tortured inside of myself because I didn't care about the franchise. I loved the work, but the franchise itself had no meaning to me. And I was, I, I was torturing myself. I literally, I, you know, it was it was it made it hard at times to go to work because I in the back of my head I felt like you know, you fraud, you fraud, you fraud. One of the things I got from that failure, uh, failure in the sense of like, you know, I ran that show for 30 episodes and and then I got so exhausted I started seeing monkeys, um, literally, and um left that show um is that I realized I learned to have value again in the work. And and that I started to see every TV show as a box of toys. And sometimes you get all the toys, and sometimes you just get a few toys, but you can still make something out of it. And the joy for me is now figuring out what I can make with the toys I've been given, and not to necessarily spend my time worrying it about if it's if I would have chosen these toys under myself. Meanwhile, I'm always in the background like scratching off the lottery card for something else in the hopes that I will win the jackpot and get to tell my soul story. So my days are spent doing the work on one side and then scratching lottery tickets on the other. So I I'm always at least doing two things because um I can feel better about the work, even though the work is sometimes not exactly what my soul would like to do, because I'm at least engaged in the process of trying to find the soul of the other thing. But I I want to forgive your grandfather. I want to go find him and say to him it's okay, because um, or at least I came to a point of view where I was like, maybe I'll find that, maybe I'll get to write my soul thing, right? Or maybe I'll just write it and it's gonna be found on my laptop a hundred years later by somebody who said, Why you know didn't they make that thing? Because I've written things that are my soul. I just haven't figured out how to get them made yet.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Um that's my follow-up question. And saying on this, uh as you're speaking, you know, I'm wondering in the world that we're in, which is you know, whether you're at the top, middle, bottom of writing for television, you're writing for television, you're writing for this machine that needs to be fed all the time with whether you're writing for streaming as one animal, one beast, and network, which I'm in now, is another complete beast. And do you ever fully get to satisfy your soul in this medium? Or do you have to go to other mediums like, you know, writing a children's book or a play? Or, you know, is it possible? I guess my question is, is it possible, with some very rare exceptions, for any of us to write our soul's work in the in the medium that we're working in today?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Uh it's possible. It's just really hard. And that's I which is probably why it makes it so alluring, right? Like if it were easy, if if if 90% of TV writers were writing from their soul, it would be we find something else to obsess about because that that's how we are as humans, right? So it's definitely possible. I mean I I hope you'll get, you know, um breaking bad for me um and for lots of people. People is a touchstone, right? Because it's so simple, right? Because it's Walter Mitty turns into Pablo Escobar, right? That's the idea, right? And I know what the primal, I know what the primal flaw of my character is, which is his pride, which is over and over in that TV show, he had chances to stop doing what he was doing, but his pride with Lennon. And so I feel like that is a I want to think that that is a soul project. And then I want to go find those people and say to them, was it? Or were you tortured all the way? I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So this is fascinating for a couple of reasons. So, first of all, this is Noah's best question in 20 episodes of podcasting. But also, I think if touch on something fascinating about because we've had people here talk about quite rightly like worrying about the next paycheck and an element of you know, uh not taking any job, but the practicalities of family life in a non-linear career, they've got to worry about that stuff. So sort of Jeffrey Lieber today versus Jeffrey Lieber 10, 15 years ago, are you when opportunities come up what is the equation? Is it sort of soul-esque versus creative satisfaction versus money? Like what's going through your today? What what does what is decision based on?

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Um I uh I have a distinct advantage, which is that I um love to work. And so um working is important to me. Like I it it it brings me actual joy. So sometimes uh I tend to want to work with people I love or people I like. And so if if there's a project and there are people I like, that's pretty much the paramount, right? Because because I also know that when I I'm terrible in development. Like I'm if you if you pull me out of the system of making television and tell me that congratulations, Jeff, you have all the money in the world, you have nothing to worry about, all you can do is develop your ideas. I will not write a goddamn thing because I will find myself so obsessed with writing the right thing that I will just stop. But as long as I am primed and working and my days are about moving people around and figuring out story and so on and so forth, my mind will wander to something that I find interesting. And um so that's that so so uh I am not happy idle. I just I learned that. Um I was I was a terrible screenwriter. I mean, I wasn't a terrible screenwriter, but I was a terrible screenwriter because I had all this time, and so my mind would obsess about all the wrong roads I could be taking. And invariably I would end up three days before my deadline in a in a ratty uh uh red robe that smelled of flops sweat, you know, in this panic state because again, I what I just didn't it was too much possibility. So when I found TV and there was this engine, I knew that there were people who needed a script in two days. That made me happy. So the answer to your question is that um I'm looking for I'm looking for an environment where I can feel like I can be with people who I can care about and invest in and who are interesting and smart and so on and so forth. And then the project itself, I'll probably find a way to fall in love with.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

You mentioned um therapy a few times in this conversation, and it got me thinking about the amount of people that I know in the TV writing business who are in therapy and and need that therapy. I mean, need that therapy to make it through their weeks. And then I read a, you know, I I love this business. I love writing, I love, I love, you know, it's stressful, it's hard, we don't know where our next paycheck is often, but you're you're in this game and you're in it for life, and no one wants to leave the game if you're in the game. However, it also makes many, many people really, really miserable. And I had read a stat somewhere that TV writing came in number five as like top five jobs that make you miserable, like, which was somewhat shocking to me, but also totally believable on some levels. Um, what do you think is the connection between sort of therapy and writing and this industry and and and making it personal in you? Like, why are why do you need your therapist, do you think, sort of to make it through uh your day-to-day week because of this crazy job you have?

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Uh let me uh wait, go away. Uh let me um prefaces by the fact that I'm intermittently in therapy, which I would I say only because if it there's a possibility my wife will watch this and then will see this and then come down and say to me, wait, hang on a second, you haven't been in therapy since you know. Um the truth is the business is the part that sends people to therapy, not the work, or at least for me, right? Like I don't need to be in therapy when I'm working because I'm engaged and so and so forth. But the business can drive you completely crazy. And it the and it's because um we are so completely um defined by it. Um I have a weird career. I I don't do a thing specifically. Like I don't, I'm not like the the murder mystery guy, or I'm not the comedy guy, or I'm not, you know, um, and that has flummoxed me at times because I'm not the front on any list, right? I'm not the oh, he's done this, this, and this. We'll get him to do this. Um, so we're constantly in a state of being defined by our last success or failure or thing, or you know, so many times I, you know, I'll I'll be staffing a show and someone says, well, they're on blah, blah, blah. You know, we don't really want them. And I just bristle at that. I'm like, I don't know why they're on blah blah blah. I don't care why they're on blah blah blah. I want to know if they can do this thing, right? Because some of the crappiest shows out there are written by really smart, talented people, and they're being done in by the fact that the thing they're writing isn't of value, or the people, or the acting is terrible, or the exact, you know, like when you start to look at people's resume and decide that they are the sum of their resume, it's just a losing game, right? Because like your grandfather, right, who sounds like a really brilliant man, he was probably defined by the ways he cash, you know, paid for the mortgage. And that's not who he was. He was a guy, but he but I give him great value for figuring out a way to pay for the mortgage.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, and in many ways, he was like the sort of primal example of the person that I wanted to be, because I I because he in my mind he was so successful and he lived the life of a writer. I mean, truly a writer with a with the he had his office and he had his chair and all the books, and he was in it all day. You'd hear the old typewriter going, and I'm like, I want to be that. And you just said something else that kind of blew my mind, but it really is representative of almost every guest we've had on here, which has have said some version of we are defined by this, and therefore connecting it back to failure. A, we take it more personally, but B, there's almost no way out of this job because it's so much, it's the only thing any of us, most of us can do. And and B, um, it, you know, it sort of defines our persona and our soul. And so therefore, maybe the stakes are are way higher for everybody in this game because there is no other game that they could possibly even consider playing. Do you find some truth in that? Or do you think you could you could could you be a banker? Could you get out? Or are you in, you know, this is it?

SPEAKER_03 29:45

No, no, this is it. This is it. Um and and and I mean, I'm sure if I had to, I could figure out things. Um, but I've only I've only ever since I was 15 been in the world of story creation. I was an actor for many years, and then I became a playwright, and then I became a writer. And um the definition of me is sitting somewhere in a room and hearing somebody say, start to tell a story, and then hear them get stuck. Right? And then you can just feel the energy inside you walk over and say, Well, hang on. What if? Right? And that's it. That's it. My whole my whole artistic life is what if. What if? Right? And in that moment, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get bigger than any podcast is supposed to, but you know, I think there's a piece of something religious for me in that, right? Something that is about faith and and this that in the space after what if where now you're into creation, right? You're creating an idea, you're you're you're gonna seven days, um, you're building something that didn't exist before. Um, I don't know if you've had this experience, but so many times I've gone back and written read something I wrote 10 years ago. And it almost is unrecognizable to me. I know I wrote it, but I cannot summon the thoughts that made those things come clear. Like I wrote this play about um this painter who was being inspired by the ghost of Augusto Sandino. Um I can't tell you where those ideas came from. I can't tell you why those were the sets of ideas I put together way back when. But um, and so there's something otherworldly about this thing we do. Stupidly otherworldly.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Otherworldly is not a terrible segue into my next question, which is about charmed, yeah, which you're working on. Now I guess I I think my question is about sort of what you're trying to achieve with this project in the sense of so charmed is a show that lots of people watched, the very first version of. Um, and it on a very personal note, it was slightly odd for me because I loved it, and there was I was a big fan of Alyssa Milano, who then ended up being the mother of one of the kids at my kids' school when we moved to LA. This is a very LA thing that you you know, anyway. So there's this show that everyone knows about, and so to your point about sort of creating things and so on, there's a property there that that did very well in its time, and then there's a reboot and a reboot. Like when you go into this, what what do you think you can win from it and what is the risk of losing from it? Just specifically because of the way you've talked about your process and things you've learned from other shows. The fact you're on this seems a little bit of a contradiction.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Well, well, I mean, here's what I'll say. So again, I'm I'll I'll talk about all the contradictions. So the first contradiction is I wish there were less reboots, right? Because reboots are not the product of writers, they're the product of uh publicity departments, right? So that's the first problem, which is that the reason these things exist is because they know that they don't have to spend the marketing money to get you to understand, oh, charmed, okay, I know what that is. And so so it's somewhat fruit of a poison tree in some senses, right? So that's over there. And then um now you are in a world of story, right? And so to me, when we started to talk about how this show would work and so on and so forth, we got really interested in sort of the this idea of um these three women who were on top of the world, the magic world. They were the most powerful creatures in this magic world we were about to inhabit, right? And yet, as um three uh zillennial sort of women of color in the real world, they were not on top of the real world. And that contradiction was really interesting to us. And so we started to really lean into those two ideas, and so that became the touchstone for what we were doing, um, and is the touchstone for what we're doing, is the contradiction between being powerful in some senses and not powerful in other senses. And then there's just a lot of interesting, like, and then there's all the just making TV stuff that is always interesting to me, no matter what the show is, right? The the games of trying to make a budget work, the games of making a schedule work, all the sorts of things that are part of running a TV show that I find interesting from a from a weird uh artistic but non-artistic sense. And so I can always invest in those things. Like those things are always just fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Is there a I'm not sure if this is a technical term, but is there a reverse lost risk here in the sense that on lost you got credit for things that weren't you? On this, if you actually make this an enormous success, it will always still be a reboot of the original success that somebody has. So you won't get the credit you deserve, even if it is you.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Well, first of all, it'll all even out, right? Eventually, eventually I'll end up somewhere in the world I belong. But the other thing is again, I I'm trying as hard as possible to stay out of therapy, to reject the concept that that I should be my resume. Um, and I know that there's a part of the industry that won't let me do that. I'm sure that there are meetings to which somebody says, Hey, you should hire Jeff Lieber, and they look at my resume and go, What? I know that happens, right? And if I were more if I curated every job I took in a certain way, maybe I could avoid that. But maybe I can't. Um I've just come to a point where I'm okay with what I do. Like I'm really good at what I do. And I can say that and I can look in the green light and I can say that, and I cannot feel guilty about saying that because I I really think that that is true. Um and I'm just gonna hang my hat on that and hope that that eventually, like I I've got a project now that I'm in the process of um trying to take out with some really nice and fancy people. Um there are moments where I think to myself, I wonder if they these nice and fancy people will look at my my my resume and wonder and and wonder if I'm fancy enough to be with them. And yet, the reason I'm with these nice and fancy people is because I've written a thing that they really like. And so I'm gonna hang my hat on that.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Do you think as you get further in your career, and this has actually kind of been interesting to me as we had other guests on as well, you know, I think as we all start our career, we have some version of imposter syndrome because like I can't believe they picked my strip or I'm on this. There was a mistake, but I'm gonna work it anyways, and I'm gonna try to hide in, you know, on staff for as long as I can until they find me out. And it seems like that never goes away. And then you just shared a version of imposter syndrome where, I mean, you've written you've created what, three, four, five, like you've you've you've created TV shows. I mean, this is like the top of the top of our business. Even if you've just created one and you've created multiple of them and you're just looking around to this table of fancy people, not seeing yourself as a fancy person, going, they're gonna find me out, but I just got to be okay with that because I wrote something that you're you're just even in this podcast, in your head, you're kind of coming up with reasons why they should like you, despite the fact that you've created all these shows, written movies, blah, blah, blah. When do you think you're ever gonna get to the point when you're sitting at the table? Or is it impossible to be a writer and get to this point and being like, they're all here? I'm the fancy, shiny thing, and they are everyone that wants to be my friend.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Um, yes. Although um, let me just flip that on its head a little bit, which is to say, I think I've gotten over the part of the um the imposter syndrome that says I shouldn't be here. The part that I'm always fighting is the sense that um that someone's resume defines them in some way, and therefore they can look at me and not see what I can do, but see whatever, you know, like you know, I I I Miami Medical, which I did on CBS, which was 13 episodes now, right, was in some ways a huge success for me. In some ways, you know, it was one season and it was a and it it didn't go any further. Um there are people in this industry who who would see a one-season show on CBS and think like, oh, well, that's not premium cable material. I'm not hiring that guy, right? It's that part of it that that is the biggest, I think, struggle for people, which is that we get defined and we get told that that um that our resume is a is a roadmap to where we should be. And uh oftentimes it's isn't true. There are people who who write on very fancy shows who are no good, and there are people who write on not fancy shows who are really good, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

I I have one very simple question. At this point in your life, with all of this behind you, are you happy in this career? I'm not in your life. The question about are you are you ha are you is it does this work make you happy? Does this life make you happy right now?

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Incredibly, honestly, incredibly happy. I I'm happy every day I go to work, and I think you know, you can go find the people who I work with. I'm really thrilled to be there. It's there's there isn't a thing that I would rather be doing. Um that isn't that and there are horrible days, and there and I've made I've made every stupid mistake, and I've and I've written things that are bad, and you know, I mean, like, but um I get to do this thing that I really love, and and even in the bad days that it's better than a lot of things I did that I didn't like.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Okay. Look, I guess being asking a guest on a podcast about rejection and failure if they're happy, and then they saying them are feels like a good time to end the podcast. So the last question we ask every guest is if you could give a piece of advice to somebody entering the industry, what would it be? Now, given everything you've said, so you've sort of been giving advice all the way through, but we'd like you to very specifically give a piece of advice.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Um it's this um you're gonna come into the industry and you're gonna believe that your job is to figure out what they want. What they want is for you to know what you want and to tell them which direction you should be going. Um most everybody who hires in this industry um is in a job in which they have to justify spending money, and they're desperately, desperately looking for someone to take that responsibility off their shoulders and say, we are heading west, young woman, we are heading west. Um, and so the sooner you can come to a point where you can feel as if you can honestly and genuinely and from your soul say, I know which direction we should go, and without ego and with the ability to collaborate and with with kindness in my heart, tell you we are gonna head west, that's what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Fantastic advice. Look, uh, you know, after 20 odd episodes of this, even though we're sort of just focusing on rejection and failure, I've never felt like we nearly pushed a guest too far. And I feel like we nearly went a bit too far at the beginning of this. Your answers have been extraordinary. And so thank you for bearing with us as we around in the barrels of lost and so on. But um, this has been absolutely fascinating. So we're very pleased that you came back after rejecting us the day before. So, Jeff Lieber, thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

I really appreciate your time and and uh I appreciate you letting me blow you off once and come back again. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

All right, that does it for us today. I want to thank you for tuning in to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. If you have any questions or comments, you can reach out to me on Twitter. I am at NEBSlin.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Wait, are we are we not bothering to talk about the other Twitter account given we have this great social engagement that people never bother to actually include me, whose idea it was to do this podcast in the first place. Do you have a Twitter account? I do have a Twitter account. It's at NRUTST. Not only now I have another Twitter account. I also have two other podcasts. And if some of our listeners have been saying, please tell us about your other podcasts. What about other podcasts? Oh yes, United States of Dramerica, where I share a glass of whiskey and have a fascinating conversation. And America the Beautiful Game, where I talk about soccer in America and what we can learn from Europe.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

From our repeat listeners, uh, you can probably stop listening when Dan starts talking about his second and third podcast. Um that brings us to the end of another great episode. We, as always, want to thank our wives for putting up with our nonsense.