Take 20 - Showrunner Joe Henderson, White Collar, Lucifer

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 sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_04 0:13

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

SPEAKER_01 0:20

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

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the norm. You have to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business, your hands get out. It all bounces off you. That process takes place. That doesn't matter overnight.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

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_01 0:58

Welcome back to Streaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. As ever, I am Dan Rotstein, poised to ask lots of difficult questions. Uh Noah, how are you doing in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_04 1:12

I'm doing great. Another day in paradise, ticking thought coming to an end for us. I think we're about to make a move back to Los Angeles, uh, but we're here for a little bit longer. Uh, I have been getting mocked a little bit by Dan for overusing the word excited when I introduced my guest. So this time I'm gonna pivot to a new word. Uh uh, it's equally momentous because I am not excited, but I am thrilled to have Joe Henderson uh on the podcast today. On top of being a veteran TV writer, Joe is the co-creator and co-showrunner of both the cult and commercial Smash Lucifer, which I think, if I'm not mistaken, the sixth and final season is about to drop on Netflix. He's also written two graphic novels, Skyward and Shadecraft from Image Comics, uh, and has been on a staff of a ton of TV shows. Welcome, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Thank you. I am a fan of the podcast. I look forward to being uh almost nearly as good as John Rogers, but not quite. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

John John Rogers has been mentioned, I think, in every episode since his appearance.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Uh because it was an amazing interview, and it I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

So it's great because I think that means all the people after him failed because they haven't been mentioned in subsequent.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Oh man, Mark Renardin's thing was terrible. That guy's the worst.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So this is it's slightly difficult now because we've reached a stage where everyone knows now. There's no sort of I'm gonna ask you a failure question, it's a surprise. And in in the in the warm-ups, if we call them that, Joe said, you know, one thing I like, Dan, about your side of questions is that you ask really blunt questions. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do a blunt question because that would be too obvious. So how about this? Joe, what is the hardest question that I could ask you about failure, which would make you feel uncomfortable?

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Oh, um uh why did well I don't know if I don't know if any question about failure would make me uncomfortable, because honestly, I think failure, especially in our industry, is the path of success. That is why I love this podcast. That's why I think the people who figure that out either, either uh whether they're aware of it or not, like those are the people who uh succeed in our industry because like every bad script is the path to a good one, every bad meeting is the path to learning how to do a good one. Like I very much believe in failure as part of the DNA of our industry. So I guess if you wanted to be mean, uh not that you are, you would ask me why it took me uh eight years of assistant work to get my first writing gig out here and why I couldn't figure it out sooner. Because that is a big part of my path, is I was an assistant for eight years uh starting out here. And so I guess the question is why didn't I get smarter faster? Why didn't you? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

I want to hear what happened.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Um yeah, I mean, I moved out here uh, you know, uh like a lot of people did uh at 21. And I figured I'd sell my million-dollar movie in the first year. And when I didn't, I was very confused. And I just did assistant work, uh actually nine years, I guess, because I did it until I was 30. And uh I just I just kept grinding it out. I just tried to learn, I tried to meet people, and I always tell people when they're frustrated because they're five years in or six years in, and they're like, when is it gonna happen for me? I feel like it's never gonna happen for me. And I always tell them, I'm like, listen, this isn't what you want to hear. But every year that passes that you are not a writer is a good thing. And the reason that is, is because it is a year that you have spent getting more prepared. Because when you finally get in that writer's room, when you finally get that shot, like that that opportunity does not come along very often. And you need to be ready. You need to be ready to wow them. If you get that shot and you are not ready, you might never get that shot again. It might take you years and years to get that shot again. If you get that shot though, and you have prepared and you know, you've you've written so many scripts that you can write so many different voices, you've worked with writers' uh groups so that you've learned how to take notes constructively and done all these things. Like the best thing that can happen to you is it taking a little bit longer than you'd like to get there because once you're in that room, like when I finally got into my first uh TV show, which was White Collar, I hit the ground running. Like I was like, I was like uh one of those wind-up cars that's being like held, held, held, held. And then the second I could, I I was able to go. I would have liked a job five years in, six years in, four years in. I wouldn't have been as good at the job if it hadn't taken me that long.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

So, Joe, I that's right, and I think a lot of people reflect on failure in that way. But it's very easy to say now, just after you've just had a great run on Lucifer. So if we go back to 29 and a half year old, Joe, so you've done many years in this and you haven't yet done the big success. Yep. Was there a point where you know you're looking at your clock and you're saying to your friends, look, if I don't do this by the time I'm 30, I'm gonna go an Uber drive for two years and then move back to wherever I'm from? Like, how did it feel if you can remember as a 29-year-old?

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah, I can remember because uh I had gotten into the Warner Brothers Writers Workshop, which is a great program that uh helps sort of apprentice you and also it makes you free to a show. And so in these programs, you're basically a show is incentivized to hire you. And I finally got in, I finally made it, and then the writer's strike happened. And no one hired anybody because they were just keep everyone was just keeping their jobs, no one moved, and so I went from uh having the golden ticket to realizing, and this is especially when staffing seasons were very much you staffed in May, and then you had to wait another year. Cable was like starting to make it more year-round, but barely. And so I realized I had to wait a whole nother year for another staffing season, and then that next year I wouldn't be free anymore. And so I had this real like, oh god, like I had my shot to be free, uh, and I've lost it. What am I gonna do now? And one of the things I did is I wrote five pilots over the year uh in between. I tried to write one of every single genre so that I would have, or every single genre that I felt I could write, so that I would be ready to go for any opportunity uh that came. But I also like I couldn't even get an assistant job anymore. Like I my uh assistant job at the time had been force majured. And even those jobs, like you just like everyone stayed where they were because the industry just uh condensed. And so I just went into a whole lot of debt and I it was starting to get really bleak because I was like, if I don't get a job this year, I don't know how much longer I can survive. Um, and then I happened to meet on uh White Collar, and I had a great meeting. Uh and they're like, they love you, but why you? And I'm like, well, what do you what do you mean by me? Like, and they're like, listen, there's a whole lot of people that they like that are of a similar caliber to you. Um, so what's the incentive? How do you make yourself a little shinier, a little better? Is there, you know, like like there was a uh a staff writer who was willing to stay at Staff Writer to be hired? And they're like, like, that's a year's extra experience. We might they might hire him. And I had found out that a friend of mine had also met on the show, also had a great meeting, also gotten a very same speech. So on that call, I said, I'll give you two for one. And they're like, What do you mean? I'm like, Jim Campalango, who was the other writer and I, we'll team up. We'll become what was called a paper team, which didn't really exist at the time. I may have been uh at the forefront of a what became a rather bad trend, but at the time was a rather desperate and exciting thing, which was I have a friend who's a great writer who's also for the show. We'll pay per team to get the job. We got the job the next day, um, and we were uh we were off running. But that's how I got in is I was desperate, I was hungry, and I was lucky because I happened to know how to create the incentive to get me in the door.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

So I just want to explore it. So you were your first opportunity, you were free to the show, and then your way of moving up was to offer yourself at basically half price.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

So the the half price concept is literally pay one salary and the two of us will split it and do the work of two people or do the work of one person.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Do the work of well, and it's supposed to be the work of one person. It's you have a lot of writing teams out there, and it's people who, you know, it's like there's but it's really it is a two for the price of one, because in in theory, you're getting two great writers who can do the same amount of work. It's it's a weird part of our industry where you have these writing teams where at times um you're you're basically getting a bargain, but at the same time, it's an incentive model. Like maybe they work best together. Maybe that's where they get the best work out of themselves, maybe they complement each other in certain ways. One's better socially, one's better on the page. Um, but in my case, it was just I needed to get my foot in the door. And and the other trick too is you also got to make sure the person that you're partnered with uh is going to reflect well on you. Because I've known a lot of uh writing teams where it's like one of them's kind of an a-hole, and you know, the all their half of their work is keeping this not so nice person who is a great writer from just making people angry. Um, and Jim is an amazing writer, uh, an amazing dude. And so I was like, I honestly at that point I was thinking Jim and I will be writing partners for the rest of our careers, and I'd be good with that. Um, because I just wanted that job and I knew how good of a writer he was.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

I I have a follow-up question about White Collar, which I found really interesting and very, very rare. Is I noticed as I was looking through your credits that you went from co-producer to co-executive producer in a single year. And for people who are not in our industry or even people who are entering our industry, that's a double credit jump. That is a very rare, in fact, it's a triple credit jump. And it's triple boom. That and and I've I've heard of double jumps, I've heard of single jumps. I have never heard of a triple jump that what didn't wasn't created when someone created a show. That does happen, but not inside a show. You don't jump, rarely jump, if ever, from co-producer to co-executive producer. I know we're a podcast about failure, but I want to hear the answer to this.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

I want to make this a podcast about success and my success and how great I am. Uh by the way, I have plenty of plenty of failure stories. Uh no, I mean, what happened was two things. One, um uh season one of uh White Collar, Jim and I were very fortunate to end up on a show that we really matched voices with. And so when we were brought back season two, we were two of the we were the only two writers brought back. Um, and so we split at the story editor level then. And uh so I finished out the rest of my contract uh on White Collar. And then when it came to renegotiating, uh Jeff Feaston, the show creator, also was doing a show called Graceland. And so in the hiatus between White Collar like four and five, I think, I also went over and worked uh on Graceland. And so I I mean I did, I think it did 26 episodes that season because or that year because of the insane schedule. And so that was basically how I made that triple jump, which is uh because I had that season one of Graceland in between the seasons, that's what lifted me up. And I I used it to my advantage. They wanted me on both shows, and it was I was basically like, well, that might kill me, but I'm willing to do it if if we can make it worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

So this is actually not I wish you hadn't said to me before about ask me a difficult question. Because I'm feeling I'm feeling under pressure. But this isn't meant to be mean, but this is a genuine question. This is actually not a normal failure question. It's a weird sort of ego stroke adversity question. So obviously, you are successful, right? Um Noah has probably watched all of your shows. Um when you go for meetings, you know, obviously the people who are about to hire you have watched your shows. In terms of the sort of I've made it in Hollywood thing, you know, if you uh if you go to a party and you meet someone and they say, What do you do? And you say, I'm a writer. Um, and I can I can say this because if you if you and I met at a party and you said I'm a writer, I said, What have you written? And you said White Collar, Lucifer, uh, Graceland, I genuinely would say, I haven't seen any of those shows. Uh, and you know, not being mean, I actually haven't seen any of those.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah. Most people haven't.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So does it bother you when normal people don't know your work in a in a sort of you are successful in this world, but there are quite a lot of people like me who actually have never seen any of your stuff.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

There is a crazy number of people that haven't seen my stuff. And it's funny because by the way, like it's my Lucifer right now is a hit. But for the first three seasons, and when I told people I was on Lucifer, I'd get one of two reactions. Oh, I love Luther, uh, which is an amazing show, and I also love. Or is that is that the show about the son of the devil? I'd be like, no, that's Damien, which is also a great show. Uh like, and then they'd be like, oh, wait, is that the one where the devil solves crimes? And I would be like, Yes, that's the one. You should check it out, give it a try. And I would get a sort of, you know, noddy sort of reaction, which was, I am never going to watch that show. So uh it's it's funny because I am used, I am unused to people actually watching my shows. Like White Collar was successful, but it was, you know, it was uh it was it was on USA, which was a at the time a pretty big cable network, but it was a cable network. Um, it wasn't until Lucifer went on a Netflix that I was actually on a show where if I mentioned it, people would like perk up, uh, or at least a a uh a majority of people would perk up and be like, oh, I know what that is, and they'd either seen it or at least heard of it.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

I I I first off I want to apologize for my partner who must be living under a rock because Lucifer is a giant show on on Fox and then on Netflix. But I I do it does create a good segue into that question about I was wondering your state of mind where you you you you spent 10 years, you as you say, nine years as an assistant, then you kind of speed through the ranks um the moment you get your shot. You like you took your shot, you're like you're gonna, you're not gonna, you're not gonna screw this up, right? You're gonna run, you're gonna, you're gonna hit things out of the park, you're gonna work as hard as you need to to succeed. You create a network show, Fox.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Well, by the way, to be clear, I didn't create Lucifer, I came on after the pilot. So there's another part of it too, which was I uh I came off of White Collar and Graceland, and I had done a lot of because Jeff was doing two shows, I had done a lot of sort of pseudo showrunning. I had been really uh I had been operating at a high level, and then I wanted to run a show. And uh a lot of people wouldn't look at me as a showrunner because they'd be like, well, you did it, but did you do it? Did you really do it? And I got very fortunate that uh David Madden, who had been at the company that did White Collar, went over to Fox and he vouched for me. And so when Lucifer came up and when Tom Capanot stepped off of it, um, they called me up about it. And I also got very lucky because it's a show that is, it's like they created it for me. It's a show that is a mixture of all these different things, but it was also kind of terrifying because it's sort of, hey, your first show is not yours. It is um a show that has possibly the most absurd premise that anyone has ever come up with. The pilot is incredibly well executed, but can you keep it up? Can you maintain it? Can you both make it your own, but also uh find a way to maintain the voice of the pilot? Len Weissman directed the pilot, it's amazing. Tom Ellis was like I had nothing to do with the casting, but any of that. I came on as the adoptive father.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

So so what happens? I mean, this show, and and I remember Lucifer. I mean, I granted there people, if you go and go read the history of Lucifer, it'll say there was mixed reviews and all these different things. But I remember, you know, being in the industry, mixed reviews, by the way, is kind. It was splashy, though. It was splashy, and and people liked it, and the and your lead was so was so charismatic, and the show was fun. And three seasons in, Fox cancels your show. And you're not the first uh, you know, showrunner, show creator, you know, et cetera, to come on here and have a show get a second life on on Netflix or on Amazon. We had Sean Simmons come on, talk about Wayne, which had the same, you know, it was on YouTube and then it went to Amazon. So it got kind of a second life over there, and hopefully we'll have a third life if they continue going with it. So, what's the feeling when your show is, you know, people are like, well, our show, my show's canceled, but it's being shopped. But you you kind of know when a show is being shopped, it's rarely if ever it's gonna end up somewhere else. And is there, are you already creating new shows? Are you are you just hoping it's gonna find a home? Because the second life of Lucifer was it's where it really reached, you know, massed acceleration or whatever you want to call it, right? Um, so what was it?

SPEAKER_02 19:02

It was crazy. We we um so we went in and we gave the full court press to uh Fox on uh what season four would be. And I mean, like like Warner Brothers just like had our back, like Peter Roth is in the meeting, Tom Ellis came to the meeting, like we like we gave the passion pitch. And by the way, we had this pitch for season four, which is the season that aired, which we loved. And the room was like, this is amazing, what a great pitch! We love this. Like, I like I've never walked out of that positive of a room. So the week later, when they're like, Oh, you're canceled, I mean, it was just I I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach multiple times. And listen, I get it. We weren't a huge hit for Fox, we weren't doing that well for them. We were doing very well internationally, and Fox didn't have a piece of that, and so uh it was just but it, oh yeah, it was like the it was it was devastating. I think I think I posted that I was like, uh, can I can I swear? I don't know what the okay please do. I was like, I'm fucking devastated, and then I see all of the deadline Lucifer Co-Showrunner, I'm fucking devastated. I'm like, okay, uh, didn't expect that to get picked up by the trades. Uh be more careful when you tweet. But uh no, it was it was devastating. And then the fan outcry and rallying, uh, it felt like a nice goodbye. It was like, oh wow, people did notice us. And it was, it was this just incredibly heartening um like funeral. It was like people coming to your funeral and saying, Hey, you were actually you did a good job and we loved you. And we figured that would be it because, like you said, it's so rare that it happens. And then it happened to uh Brooklyn 99, and I was like, ah, that's the one. Like, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen to one show. There's no way multiple shows will get it. And and then by the way, from cancellation to actually getting the the pickup from Netflix was a month. There was a month in between where we were being told there's no way this is gonna happen. Okay, there's a small chance it'll happen. There's no way it's gonna happen. And like we had been told, like the night before, we're pretty sure this is not working. This is this is a dead deal. And then the next morning we get a call in five minutes, season four is getting announced. Like that was we knew literally five minutes before it happened because that's how down to the wire the whole thing was. But but to the question, I mean, I was meeting on new shows, I was meeting on pilots, I was pitching my heart out because you know, I I I never count on uh a success, I assume failure and am excited to be proven wrong.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So um, and so I should say I'm gonna I I I don't not know about Lucifer, I just haven't seen it. And I wish it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

I am hurt, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

But you know, British people, as we know, are very charismatic and very funny and very nice, so it's probably worth watching. Watching to see how the Welsh actor gets on. So the we've talked to people about their shows being canceled, but Lucifer has now come to a natural It has, though.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

We were canceled twice. I don't know if you know that, but we were canceled uh in season three, and then we were told by Netflix that season five would be our final season, until we were told that it was no longer our final season, if if we wanted to come back, which was interesting. So I always like to say that we were canceled more times than we were renewed, which isn't exactly true, but it feels like it because we've grieved the show multiple times. Like season three, the Fox season, the final fox season, we ended on this gigantic cliffhanger. We literally created a cliffhanger that meant that there was no way you could possibly cancel us. And then they just did it anyways. Um, and then on season four, it was a success, and we're like, all right, we're doing great. And then Netflix reached out and they're like, we want one more season from you, and that'll be the last one. And we were like, Oh, oh, oh, yeah, I mean, okay. And then more we thought about it, we're like, you know what? We're just happy to know that we're gonna end it. We're happy to know that that this is the end, and so we can wrap things up. And then they went, oh, sorry, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_01 23:16

I was gonna say, so creatively, it's an interesting one because there are shows that I've enjoyed watching which got cancelled after one season, and you can tell that it was not expected. So they just cram a whole load of wrapping up stories into episodes, and it's all slightly ridiculous, but that's the game. When it happens the other way around, because of what's happened when you were doing season five, creatively, do you always sort of leave yourself a little bit of breathing room? Because also, if you can't trust networks anymore anymore, you could probably never trust them, but you definitely can't with your show. Even when they said like you've got one more and you've got to end at season six, is there a part of you when you're writing six that gotta leave five percent room for a seventh?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

It's it's funny because we were in season five. We we were three weeks into the room when they uh they said, Hey, instead of 10 episodes, can it be 16? And we were like, No. And then, of course, the day later, we're like, Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, no, we can do this, we can do this, we can do this. Oh my god, it's gonna be better. How can we have ever done this in 10? But then as we started getting the end of the season, we kept saying, Is this the final season? And it kept coming back, yes. Are you sure? Yes, are you absolutely sure? So we were literally breaking the finale when we got the call, and and they were like, It's in your hands. Do you guys want to do this? Which was awesome because the last time we were just told it. And this time it was like, Do you have that story? And our first answer was no, we love this ending, we didn't give ourselves any way out. And then, of course, the day passes, and and you start talking about it, and you're like, Well, there is one, there is one story, and actually, if we do that, then that gives this and this, and then the next thing you know, you're like, Oh, and it's one of those things that if you'd asked me at the top of season five, I wouldn't have gotten there. But because we went on the journey of season five, and the characters, you know, the characters come to life, they'd make their own decisions. And by the time we got to the end of season five, new story opportunities had opened up that I never would have anticipated, and I and we never would have gone towards if we hadn't thought it was the final season.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

So uh an honesty question, yeah, which is the balance between uh financial self-interest, and also frankly, financial self-interest on behalf of your team, given you're the you know you're in charge, and creativity. Given the world you're all in, which is shows get cancelled, people don't know when they're going to get their next job. When somebody says, Do you want another season? Obviously, as you say, you know, creatively it's an original no, but then you think about it for a day. How much of the actually we'll do one more is my staff may not work for a couple of years and all that, and how much of it is really you want to creatively finish the story?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

It's a great question because it is always that push and pull. Like, the one thing you don't want to do is have your like your cast and your writers be like, wait, we could have done this for another year, but but you assholes just decided not to for reasons, and that's definitely a factor where you're like, you're like, I'm saying no because I don't have that story. Let me try to find the story. And I think the the balancing act of it is going, okay, I don't have it right now, but I need to try. Because if I can find a story worthy of telling, then it is my duty for the crew, for the cast, for the writers to bring the show back, to keep that going, to keep everyone gainfully employed. But at the same time, I think so much to me, what the there's such a pressure on you gotta end it right. Like you have these shows that that peter out or just don't stick the landing. And then you have the shows that that end so well that there's a rewatchability to them. There's a sense of, I'll start season one because everyone tells me that it's worth it. And that is to me, there's a value to that that you really need to focus on when you're doing that math. And honestly, that was the biggest question is can we make sure that we have an ending that is as good or as or better than what we were going to do?

SPEAKER_04 27:18

That's that's so crazy. I've never actually fully thought about that or thought about it to the extent that you just brought it up, where if a show does not stick the landing, no matter how good that show is, you do, you you you don't re-watch it as much. Even if you love the show all, and I I'm not gonna say any names of shows because but there's a few in my head where I'm not watching them again because it didn't stick the landing. And I love those shows. Um, so I I have a I noticed that you tweeted um a few days ago, uh, Lucifer is wrapped. And um, I want to talk about that, but I also want to add that the way you've been telling the story, now I'm giving it 50-50 that Netflix's not gonna come back to you and say, you know, can you take that tweet back? Because we want a season, you know, seven, eight, and nine. But so this is my question to you. You, you, you, you wrote, you got to tell your story and then some, right? You got to tell a little extra. And it's all consuming, right? I mean, I don't I don't think people fully understand for everyone else, writers on staff, we're all working really hard. Everyone's working hard, the crew, the showrunners. This is your life from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, and you're not getting that much sleep. So this has been your life for so long.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

I disagree. I totally agree. I'm just saying that right now. Um, it does not need to be all consuming. Like, I it's funny because uh uh John Rogers was posting about this earlier, where like you can work normal hours, you can live a normal life. Like, I the the key is uh delegation, the key is trust. Like, one of the things I'm very proud of that uh on our show, what we did is we uh delegated to our writers, we trusted our writers, and every passing year our writers got better at handling things to the point where like I don't do tone meetings anymore unless it's a new writer that I want to teach how to do a tone meeting. I don't I pop into concept meetings to be helpful, and then I get the fuck out because the writers who've been on the show for five years know how to do it, they know how to run it. And it's like one, it's great for them because it prepares them to eventually do the job, and it's good for me because it isn't all consuming. Like the show knows what it is, hire good people, and it there's this fear versus strength that I really discovered in season one of Lucifer, where I had an opportunity to delegate something, and in doing so, know that I was no longer uh invaluable, that I was no longer necessary. And it was scary because I was like, if I delegate this, they can replace me. But at the same time, if I don't delegate this, my life is gonna be just gonna be all consuming and it's I'm not gonna have a life, I'm not gonna be able to see my family. And what I realized is so much of what we do in as an industry is we we need to embrace making ourselves unnecessary and and then force ourselves to make ourselves necessary via our writing, our craft, our leadership, our ability to get the best out of people, as opposed to being like the the bottleneck that everything must go through, um, especially in a show that's been around this long, that knows what it is, and you can delegate that out. And also the fun is you have other writers put their mark on episodes and the characters that I always like to say, like someone might write a line of dialogue that loose that I would not have Lucifer say, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't say it. And that's an interesting difference because there have been so many people who have written Lucifer in ways that I would not have written him. And then a season later, I am writing him that way because they have taught me a side of him that I never would have found otherwise.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

I I guess my question though is I want to probe your emotional state in this. And when you wrote It's a Rap, I actually realized I'm not sure if you meant shooting was a rap or the whole series was a rap and post is done and you're in the can. But I my question to you, and and it wasn't clear in the tweet, but my question to you is is there a sense of loss? I mean, it's only been two days. So you're you're in this like period where this thing that was your whether or not you were working from six to midnight on it, it's your it's your thing and it's gone and it's it's now out in the world, and you're you can do things that you haven't done for a long time, presumably your mind is freeing up in ways that it never is there sadness?

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Oh, yeah. I mean, the biggest sadness was in December when we were afraid to the writer's room. Um, that's hard. Like, and especially this year, because we can't be on set as much, or it's just if you're on set, everyone's six feet away. This is I I've I've seen two shows through the entirety. Uh, and that's this and white collar. And obviously have a different level of ownership on this, but um, this has been a weird final season because you know, like normally everyone's we would have had a rap party. We we were at production on Monday. That's the it's a rap. And we would have had a rap party. We would have all been celebrated, we'll all have hugged and had these incredible times. Instead, you don't you can't do that. Uh, we'll have one eventually. We'll throw some party in like October or something, hopefully. But um, but what when we really had our catharsis was in the writer's room when we finished the story and cried our eyes out. Then we had our goodbye when we wrapped the um the production office, uh, you know, everyone who works in there. And then we had our final cry onset. So I have cried a lot in the last four months.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

So I'm I this isn't a leadership podcast. This is a failure podcast. But I do Yeah, let's get back to it. Let's get back to me being bad. Come on. No, no, no. I want to, but I want to do the sort of a little bit about the leadership stuff because it's it's a really interesting, and this isn't unique to your industry and being a showrunner. This is this is a leadership question that is always a question in leadership is at what point do you be such a good leader that they don't need you anymore? Um, and that's a good thing in some ways, yeah. But in your industry, it's a bit different because of the weirdness, like if I'm a CEO of a company and I'm doing a really good job and I'm leading in a way where people are doing things that I would have asked them to do without me asking them, which is the sign you've transitioned from manager to leader. They're not going to get rid of me because that's not how it works. But in your world, they can get rid of you because maybe, you know, if they renew you, you're particularly expensive. Um or actually it's just, you know, the studio exec doesn't like you and all the mean weird things that happen in your industry. So do you ever consciously think, oh, I'm getting a bit, am I getting a bit expendable here? Or is that you can't think like that?

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I always think like that. I I I live in, and I I fear is not the right word because I try not to live in fear, but I live in constant self-awareness. I try to check myself all the time. Um, I'm constantly to asking, well, there's that that whole saying that like the figure out I'm a fraud eventually. So I just need to make as much money as possible and tell as many stories as possible before they do it. But there is a truth to that. There is, I think there is a power to constantly reminding yourself that you are only as good as your next project, you're only as good as your next script, you're only as good as your next meeting. Like, I I like that challenge and that sense of self-proving because I guess and I guess self-proving is almost the positive way of putting it. Like, I am only as good as um my next success. And so I am always striving towards that success and always pushing myself. Like, there is nothing better than when I hire a writer who is better than me. Because one, they're gonna make me look good because that script's gonna be great. And two, I'm gonna write a little bit better. I'm gonna push myself. I read a page and it's better than something I'd written. I am mad in the cool in the good way, in the like, ooh, oh, I gotta beat that. I gotta like I love a good rivalry. If it's fun, if it's positive, if it's that sense of like, you are a really good writer. I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to get meet up. I'm gonna try to catch up to you.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, look, I think that's how Noah feels every time we co-host a podcast together. So you've just finished you've just finished Lucifer, unless of course you get a surprise email saying We uh we have we have uh torn down our sets.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

So uh if so, it'll be a little too late.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So you've you've you've done it and now you've stopped doing it. How much of you is thinking, I wonder if I'm ever gonna be able to do you know six seasons of a show successfully from start to finish again?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

I mean, I I don't have a worry about that. I don't know if I ever want to do 22 episodes of a season ever again, because that is hard. That is a grind. It it though I will say I'm very proud of the fact we were 10 to 6, even season one. We went past seven, I'd say maybe three nights, and we tried to turn it and make it fun. And by the way, we went to like 9:30. Like it's you can do it. Like, I go late, I will work till 11, I will you know wake up at six and be working, especially in a season one where it does become much more all-consuming. But um, but the 22-episode grind is really, really hard. But also, like, so season one, I I ran uh Lucifer on my own, and season two, I co-ran it with Ildi Modrovic, who was an EP on season one and who had actually worked on the on the pilot. Uh, and that was uh uh a scary thing in as much as sort of giving up a bit of power, and then a very exciting thing because Ildi's an amazing writer, she knows the character so well, and for 22 episodes, by co-showrunning, you can actually live, you can live a life, and you can uh and we what we did is we actually we alternated episodes, and it was the best decision that both of us ever made, not to speak for her, she might regret it, but uh because it like allowed us to both run a show but also have a life.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Do you think this movement away from 22 episodes that you're talking about, and everyone's talking about the whole industry is moving away from 20. I mean, I got lucky that I happen to be on one right now, and it's the rare, it's a rare beast uh that the the that that this happens. And and and yes, you know, it it can be financially better for the writers or whatever, but the people that are but it can be also exhausting. The people that are getting really hurt right now are the assistants, right? And you see them talking about it because they can't get promoted in six to eight episodes. Are you sort of feeling the change in this industry? Is there a way to save these poor assistants who who don't have as easy a way forward anymore? And and speaking, it's always been hard. It was hard for me, it was hard for you, it's hard for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

And I think there's there's two two actual uh two two things that are being hurt. One is the assistance, and the other is there is a lack of apprenticeship that is a little scary to me because it used to be, well, in 22 episodes, your your room is going while production's going, which means if you have a good show runner, you're being sent a set, you're going to prep, you're going to post. Like all of my writers have multiple years of post experience. Like they're in every cut with me. Um there, but like if you're on a streaming show, one of the challenges is a lot of these writers, they're they're being paid for a period of time. And then when you get into production, they're not being paid. So they can't do those things. And you can't get the money to get them paid. And I haven't worked on any of these shows, so I can't, I'm only speaking anecdotally, but that's one of the things that I look at too, which is we what I want to make sure we don't do is train an entire generation of writers who only know how to write and who don't know how to showrun or just to produce episodes. And listen, as the guy who likes to delegate, because to be honest, it makes my life easier. Like it blows my mind when showrunners won't let writers into the process, because worst case, you're making things easier on you by teaching them these things. In theory, you might not need to do those things. But the system itself, uh, removing that step, that's something that I'm really cognizant of, and trying to figure out ways that if I end up on a streaming show where the room and production are segmented, I want to try to figure out ways to maintain that apprenticeship. And then support staff similarly, I it's it's so tricky because you do have these uh shorter runs. And uh I I hope that we can figure out ways to like, like, for example, when we had a season four of Lucifer with 10 episodes, I tried to find a sister show for a bunch of my assistants, and I was able to place a number of them on another show that had a bunch of time. And I think there's uh it would be great if there was a uh uh a sort of more standardized way for us to figure out who's available when so that we can keep people working, keep people steady, also give people opportunities to prove their worth.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

So, penultimate question, uh still on the 22-episode thing, slightly different question. So, on my other podcast, one of my old podcasts, I do a soccer podcast, and I was talking to a former professional soccer player, and we were comparing American and Britain sports, and he was saying, in American soccer, in sorry, in British soccer, every game matters, every game. But in the NBA, some players have said it doesn't get exciting until the playoffs, uh, and they don't try as hard and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, in your world, when there's 22 episodes, is there a bit of sort of you start big, you know, the season opener, you've obviously got the playoffs. Is there a bit in the middle where everyone's like, well, it's episode 14 and a half, doesn't matter as much, our standards can slip, maybe someone can have a holiday here and there. Like, is there a bit of that?

SPEAKER_02 40:43

You know, it's funny because there is a very prevalent uh show runner uh uh theory that like you actually have to let some episodes go. Uh, if you want the season to be good, you basically have to have three or four duds. And I went into season two saying, no, no way. Uh, my first 22 episode season ever, and I'm like, I'm not gonna let that happen. And I have to say, I think we I think we succeeded in season two. Uh, season three, we started to burn out of it. It like, and I still think our episodes of season three are are great, but there's a little bit more wobble in there because like after doing 22 episodes, taking a short break and coming back, like, and just you start running, you start burning through story really quick. Uh, and so it there it just depends on the philosophy. Like, I'm not the kind of guy who wants to let an episode go. Uh, I am the and also like if you've got writers who are who care, and I hired all writers who care, even if I wanted to phone in their episode, they wouldn't let me. You know, like they they fight for their episode with their name on it with a fervent passion. And if they don't, they shouldn't be on your show. So I think part of it is it's it's the mentality of the showrunner and it's the mentality of the people you hire. And if you hire the people who will ride or die for your show, and then you also make sure you take care of them so that you don't burn them out, that's that's the happy medium.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

And there's there's also a financial reason, right? To sit down the same question, which is people don't often realize sometimes there'll be like episode 14 and a half that everyone didn't like, and they're like, well, why did why was this episode so weak and the other ones were strong? Some of it has to do with money, is you just you've burned through your budget. People don't realize that you can actually, your if your show is X million dollars an episode, you can take money from 14 to pay for 13, but you got to pay it back at some point. And so you can't have those big set pieces. You can't we would go into episodes going like, you can't have any action sequences, we just can't afford it. And then, and you know the audience is gonna feel it in this show, especially if it's an action show, but you have no choice. You really just do not have the budget to make any of this thing work.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

So uh And to that point, by the way, really quick, I think I think the challenge for the showrunner is all right, I'm gonna need these the smaller episodes. Like we always bake into the dough uh that there's gonna be a couple smaller episodes. So, how do we then make sure that they have enough emotional resonance to balance it out? Like some of uh the fans' favorite Lucifer episodes are the episodes that we saved a couple hundred grand on. Because we were like, okay, this episode, like there was an episode season four that was basically diehard in the club that Lucifer owns. And we saved a bunch of money on that episode, and everyone loves it because it's all of our characters, all of their emotional arcs are coming to a head. We knew we were gonna save money on it, so we also knew let's if we can't have um financial uh the uh toys, let's bring the emotional toys, let's balance it out. And it it's so funny because it is like half the time people are like, Oh, I don't get these big toys to play with. You're like, sure, people are gonna love this episode if we find a different shiny object.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Okay, fine. I'll watch Lucifer. You've last question, and you know what it is because you've listened to the podcast. So we ask everyone this if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody entering the industry, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Failure is the path to success. Not only is it okay to fail, you must fail. It is you must fail and fail and fail again, and even after you succeed, you will fail again. I'm constantly failing. Failing is good. Um, the fear of failure, I think, is the thing that that really just limits so many people because if their their fear of failure forces them to avoid trying or avoid sticking their neck out. Like, the more you fail, the better off you will be in our industry. I mean, I failed for eight years in a row. Uh so you know, take it from me.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Very good. So, Joe Henderson, a man who's written shows that I've never watched and spent a long time as an assistant, longer than he should have done. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

You know how some coasts do prep for an episode. Uh, Dan clearly is not one of those shows. Thank you, Joe, for coming on. Uh, it's been a great time, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, guys. 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_01 45:24

Wait, are we are we not bothering to talk about the other Twitter account given we have this great social engagement and people never bother to actually include me, whose idea it was to do this podcast in the first place.

SPEAKER_04 45:35

You have a Twitter account?

SPEAKER_01 45:37

I do have a Twitter account. It's at Dan Rutstein. And not only know I have another Twitter account, I also have two other podcasts. And I've some of our listeners have been saying, please tell us about your other podcasts. So our other podcasts are what are my 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 it can learn from Europe.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

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

SPEAKER_01 46:22

That's good. I'll do