Take 71 - Showrunner and Creator Anthony Q. Farrell, The Office, Secret Life of Boys

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 shore, dozens of unproduced scripts literature.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

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

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Sometimes even years.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the moment we have to be able to persevere.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

And I probably lost it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as ever, your non-industry co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

And I am your industry co-host, Noah Epslin. Today I'm excited to have on writer, director, showrunner, and show creator Anthony Q. Farrell on the podcast. Anthony started his career on The Office before moving on to such shows as Originals, In Gale We Trust, Dwelling and the Thundermans. More recently, he created Secret Life of Boys, The Parker Andersons, and Overlord and the Underwoods. He was also recently named Showrunner of the Year by the Writers Guild of Canada. Welcome, Anthony.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So very excited to have you on. We have a rich tradition of having very successful and interesting Canadians on this podcast. I think you're probably, I think, the sixth fascinating person we've made north of the border. But I don't think we've ever had a showrunner of the year before. I didn't, I'm not sure I even knew that was a thing. What does one need to do to win showrunner of the year, given that apparently being a showrunner is eight different jobs? So how do they uh how do they score you?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

It's I'm very lucky to have great writers that I work with that they were the way it works is you get nominated by the writers you work with. And so they send letters to the writers' skilled of candidate, and every year they they select a showrunner of the year based on um how the industry knows you and just letters from the writers that you work with, and then also talking to producers you work with and people around town. So it just kind of like gets to a place where they they choose um someone who's considered the showrunner of the year um based on those things. So that's kind of how it works here. You get nominated by the people you work. And I I've the my writers are very, very sweet to write some very, very touching and nice letters about me before that that got to the writers' guild and they chose me, which was very, very nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Fantastic. So when we were doing our our pre-match, as we call it, um you half jokingly said so many failures when we were telling you when we were discussing how it worked. Let's start with one. Give us your give us your your top failure story, because um you probably have a few to choose from, because the more successful you are, the more of these people seem to collect.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel like I'm trying to figure out the top failure story. You can't the way I see it is you can't learn how to become good at things unless you you you do things badly first, and you kind of like make mistakes and you you learn from them. Hopefully you learn from them and you get you get better. Uh I think in terms of like top failures, you know what was one of those, I'm trying to think of a good story. Oh, here's a good story. After I had already been on the office, I had already been um working in television, and you work so hard to get a job on TV. Uh I had even gotten a development deal where I write working on a pilot, all these things. And then things went dry. It just dried up to the point where I didn't work in a room for like maybe another couple years. And during that time, it was uh I just there was just nowhere to go. So I I ended up going back to back to day jobs. I had obviously a lot of day jobs before I was working off. I literally went from working in an office to working to writing on the office. Uh so that I was like, oh, I'm free from day jobs forever and ever. And then all of a sudden I was working back at Macy's at Northridge Mall. And I remember talking to people being like, didn't you write on the office? And it's just kind of like, yeah, you know, now I'm I'm selling shirts now, though. So that's what it is. And had to kind of like, you know, figure out a way to uh keep writing and keep working on things and keep moving until uh I got another gig a little bit later and then uh haven't stopped working since, thankfully. Well, hopefully I don't have to go back to Macy's anytime soon. But the I remember thinking to myself, like, okay, you know, you're you're here now, you got a choice to make. You can kind of like fold up or you can kind of like, you know, zone in and figure out how to get back in those rooms.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

I I love that you bring this up because this is you have such a good career, you have many good credits, but the office is a prestige credit. And a lot of people think that when they get staffed for the first time, that's it. They're on the roller coaster. That's their career is going and they're going to keep going until you know it ends 20, 30, 40 years later. But often there are these gaps. We've talked about my own gaps. You know, we've all had these couple of months to years or more where you're not working. And, you know, there's nothing, you know, getting getting another job is part of this sometimes. But talk about the emotions of that. I mean, it's one thing to be working at Macy's before you get your big break, but then to have to go back. And we've all faced that, where it's like, are we going to go back to our day job, to retail? How long can we continue this? And what made you keep going and say, hey, you know what? I am going to get out of the slump and I'm going to get back in a room, or in your case, you know, eventually create a show.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, I think it's one of those. I've always been one of those people that I work hard. Like I'm just, I'm always hustling, I'm always trying to do what I can. And I just I grew up in a and I grew up in one of those houses where you would regularly see letters that say past due. You know what I mean? Like you would just kind of like you'd see those, those things would pop up and you'd be like, oh, okay, I gotta try and figure out a way to help my mom and do those good. So I was always been like a hard worker that way. And I think um for me, what was uh well, I would what I kept on thinking about was like we had, I had a daughter, my wife and I were my wife, thankfully, my wife was working, so that was very helpful. But we had just bought a house, had a daughter who at the time was uh three or four when this was happening, and it's just one of those things where it was like, okay, I mean, I gotta put, I gotta take care of my side of things. I can't just have, you know, my wife be going on working. I wanted to kind of make sure that we were, you know, paying mortgage and taking care of things and money started, you know, started dipping into the credit cards. And when that starts happening, it's kind of the stress of that. So all of that makes it harder to create, as you know, when you're you're stressing about life and about world things. And I'm one of those people that I honestly feel like a lot of the times the work that I do doubles as therapy. A lot of times people feel like, oh, well, I need to deal with this and deal with that. I'm like, I write things that help me deal with the things that I'm dealing with. So that's kind of how I pour those emotions and those things I'm dealing with into the art. And I found when I do that, it actually makes things more appealing to the producers I work with. And they're kind of it's coming from a real place, it's coming from a place that of authenticity. And then that's what gets me over the hump so I can get to those next heaps because it's like, oh, you're taking your hardships, you're taking your the difficulties, you're turning it into the art that we now want to consume and pay for and all those things. So it's kind of like this weird cyclical, sick, cyclical, sick, cyclical journey is what it is, what it really is. Um, so that for me, it's always been one of those things where I was like, I just love telling stories, I love doing that, I love doing that sort of stuff. So I knew that I was going to get back to it. I wasn't sure how. Um, one of the things that I always tell writers, like when you in a place where you're stuck waiting for someone to do something for you, figure out a way to do it for yourself. So that's when I started getting into like, well, I was working at Macy's. And I was also working, I was also uh I initially wanted to be a teacher before I just got into acting and writing and those kinds of things. So I started teaching with um Kaplan. I was teaching SAT prep at the same time. So I was getting, I was taking, I was like, you know, I'm gonna use some of this money to kind of like go back. I finished up my grounding stuff. I worked on my web series dwelling. We did another episode. So I always feel like if you put work out there and you start working on your own things, hopefully that's a magnet for other people that they'll come, they'll come check you out. And that's kind of what happened. I started, I redid another episode of Dwelling with my friends. Um I was writing more whenever I could and in the pockets of time that I had. And I was just trying to create, create, create. And that led to to meeting more people and getting to a place where I was uh back in the rooms.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

What we with can we get a little bit more specific than that? Because that's actually super interesting and super relevant. And I can definitely empathize. I remember when I wasn't working, I had to decide how do I get back on this horse? What do I do? What's my plan? And my plan was to write certain samples that fit like the next time I have this opportunity, I'm gonna make sure I'm ready with this type of sample, with this thing, so that I can get into this type of room. We had Z-chun on who talked about when he was trying to, you know, switch into TV, he wrote a hundred episodes, he wanted to staff on a hundred episodes of TV before he took his next showrunner, you know, shot. So people are like, was there was there like a real systematic plan where you talk to your wife, like, it's a three-year plan, it's a two-year plan, this is what we're gonna do, or was it just I'm gonna keep creating and hopefully one of those things catches the attention of somebody?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah, it's nice when you have a supportive partner because my wife was very supportive. And it was one of those things where it was like, um, I had I had a representation. I was already in a better place than I was when I started, right? I had representation, I had credits, I had people who wanted to meet with me, and it just was one of those things where jobs just get on slipping through my fingers. It's just like, oh, I had this meeting, I didn't get it for these reasons. I had this meeting, someone else got that job. It's just all these little gigs kept slipping through my fingers, and it just gets disheartening because you're kind of like, oh, I might am I never gonna get another job? Like, what's what's it gonna be? Um specifically, what we did was I was like, I'm gonna write something that's fun, that makes me feel good, something that's in my voice. And that's the one I hand it to someone, I go, if you want to meet Anthony Q Farrell, this is who he is. So I I focused on basically like um projects that I would love to create and make when if I ever had a chance to make them on my own. I had at that point I had enough samples and other things that I'd written that would cover me because if you want a multi-cam, if you want a single cam, if you want like um something that's a little bit more of a dramedy, like I had a lot of those samples already, and they were kind of, you know, they they'd worked around the town a little bit and people kind of knew of them. And I was trying to find new things, fun things that were just kind of like take me to uh to new spaces that I had not been with before, been in before. And one of the things that I wrote was um uh an animated, an animated um series called This Shit Again, which has gotten me a lot of work since then. No every everyone's afraid to make it, but but it's one of those scripts when you read it, you're like, Oh, I gotta meet this guy. So it it's those things that that you do in those times to try and figure out a way out of it. Another thing I did was I had, like I said, I had friends who the dwelling series was something that I had put together with my sketch group that I had I had worked with in like the mid 2000s. And you know, we love working together, we're friends, and so I was like, we have another episode, let's let's shoot it, let's take a weekend and and make some art and just kind of like bring that good energy to to the house, right? So we did that too, and just then it's a lot of calling in favors and thinking, hey, I got pizza, you want to come and hold a boom? Like it's just that kind, that kind of stuff that you kind of have to, you you know, you you you kind of put a bunch of goodwill out to the world, and thankfully, you know, it it comes back in the in the form of good people sometimes. So that's kind of specifically what what we did. Those those few things. Wrote a script, more dwelling, and then it led to um it led to me working with a friend of mine on uh Nickelodeon series that she Laura House, she asked me to come and help her with her Nickelodeon series, a sketch show. That sketch show, um that sketch show they shot the they were shooting the pilot. It didn't go, but it did introduce me to a bunch of people Nickelodeon, like you know, that eventually got me a gig on uh the Thundermans, which did go for four seasons, and I we did a hundred and four, hundred and hundred and something episodes of that show. So it's kind of like those little connections led to to getting back in the game.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Fantastic. So before I ask what I guess what we would call a traditional question, I don't know how much you can say, but what is this shit again? Because it sounds like an amazing uh title. Uh it's got me hooked already. Um give us the give us the the short elevator pitch on what this shitty again is, because it sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

This shit again, it's an animated series um set in the not too distant future where aliens come, they destroy the planet, they kill most of everyone that's around. They kill most of everyone that's around, and um they enslave any of the humans they don't kill. Uh and it's told from the point of view of a black man and his family who can't believe they're slaves in the year 2024. So it's called this shit again because they can't believe they're dealing with this shit again. So instead of like picking cotton, they're picking microchips out of like electronic equipment, and it's it's told from the point of view it's not just black people, it's everyone's a slave. So it's kind of like and it's animated, so everyone kind of connect in a way that was like, oh, because you had that the white character who's like, slavery's wrong. Like, who would do this to a people? Just like, are you listening to yourself? Like, so you can kind of you have a lot of commentary like that, and it's it's a very funny and dark, dark script, but it's it's one of those things, it's it's been in development a couple of different times with different people, and it's always one of those things where it's like, are we allowed to get away with this? And people are generally speaking, just been like, I don't think we can. So I haven't, I think it's one of those things where it'll be like, one day it'll one day it'll become a real thing, and then we'll I'll have that great story of like, oh, I wrote it 12 years ago and it just took time and just needed to wait for it, and the world finally caught up. Whatever with one of those stories, I think. But it's it's uh it's one of those fun scripts that I love, I love sharing with people.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Amazing. I'm glad I asked. So we don't normally ask sort of, we don't normally care about things people are doing. That's not sort of what this podcast is about. That was I love that. Um good. Um, so I'm gonna go back because you said something, you said you were sort of trying to decide, well, sorry, trying to define who you were as a writer and make sure people understood it to find you. So actually, a question I asked the other day of a showrunner, which I quite liked, I'm gonna ask again, is who is Anthony Q Farrell when it comes to as a show runner? Like what sort of leader are you that you're what are you good at? And obviously you won show run of the year in Canada, so you must be quite good at some things. But also, if you don't mind, what are you not very good at, or what could you be better at?

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yeah, I think the things I'm the things I'm great at, I'm collaborative and I'm a good mentor. And I think it helps when someone what I found is a lot of people want to keep working with me because they're like, I they have experiences where they they are creatively engaged in the project because I like I like finding like you know, when I hire a costume designer, I want them to tell me what what do you think? I want to engage with them and figure out like you know what their expertise has given them. Because I'm not a costume designer. I mean, I I know what I like, but I I want to hear what you have. So I think I'm very good at the collaborative side and also the mentorship in terms of like bringing up writers uh to get to a place where they can be showrunners themselves. Like I think I'm very, very I'm a big advocate of that and a big uh I'm a big, I'm just big on making sure that people they can get to the place where they they want to get to. So uh though those are the kinds of things I think I'm getting at. I think that's why people were happy to write letters for them because they're they feel they feel good when they think you know when you come to an Anthony Q Farrell set, you're gonna feel you should feel like you had a good time because we're you know, I'm a big I just believe that if you're making TV, you should have fun doing this job. And if you're not having fun, then something's broken. Maybe you shouldn't be you shouldn't be doing this. Um one of the uh one of the things that I can see, one of the things I need to get better at. Um I'm so good at showrunning, is maybe more humility. No, I think um I do think, I mean, for me, like one of the things I'm always trying to um figure out. I'm collaborative, but I'm also one of those people that like I oftentimes will take on too much. So like for instance, like um when I have writers or or other heads of departments that are that should be doing things that I want to like I want to do, like, or I want to take work off of their shoulders. Like I feel sometimes I'm taking too much work off of other people's shoulders when they're like, no, I got this, I can do this. I'm kind of like, no, I feel bad. Sometimes I still feel bad about taking up space. And I keep on telling other writers, no, don't feel bad about taking space. You've earned the right to be there, you've earned your uh thing. So maybe I'm a little too Canadian sometimes, if if that makes a lot of sense. You're just kind of like a little too afraid to step on people's toes and just those kinds of things. I think that that's one of those um that's one of the things I gotta I gotta get better at. It's funny because I'm actually I'm actually good when it comes to dealing with production companies and and broadcasters. Like, I'm okay taking space with them, but with people who are working for me, I'm bad about that. That's a weird, that's a weird, that's a weird one.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, it's funny you said it. We we one of the Canadians we had on who had a reputation for being very nice, and I said, Do you worry sometimes that you're too you're too Canadian? And he was very keen to tell me that actually he can be quite mean sometimes when he needs to be. Um well I I'm glad I I remain right that Canadians are fundamentally nice people. That's probably why you're so successful.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

We have Canadian arguments all the time in the room where it's like it's like especially the Zoom now, it's just kind of like, oh, I'm sorry, did you were you going to? I'm sorry, would you like half of the room, half of the day in a zoom room is just like, were you going to? I just why don't you go ahead? Like I feel like I'm sorry, no, just go ahead. Like I think that's that's most of my day now.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

I was gonna I I am going to still ask you about the psychology of taking on too much, but because we're talking about Canada, I I want to talk about something. We've had as as Dan mentioned, we've had a number of Canadians on here. And the a handful of them went from Canada to Hollywood and they're still in Hollywood. A handful of them stayed in Canada and said, you know what, forget Hollywood. I'm gonna have a good career here and make my shows for this marketplace. You were in Hollywood, but then at some point you said, hey, you know, in this Macy's era, or maybe a little bit later, I'm going back, I'm gonna stay in Canada and I'm gonna make TV shows in Canada. And you made a lot of TV shows in Canada. Was that like just to be closer to your home base? What was the the the when did when was the decision made to go back to Toronto or did you never leave Toronto in the first place? I actually don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah, well, yeah, we left and my wife. It's funny because my career really started in America, right? So I my wife and I we got married in 2001 and we moved, she had a green card, so we had to she had to use it or lose it basically. So we moved, we were in Atlanta for a few years, then we moved to LA in 2004, and then um my career really started there. Like I the office was my really was my first big gig, right? So we decided to move back to Canada um in 2017. And the reasons and it was one of those things where I was working regularly now and I was at a place actually where I could, I had actually been offered two jobs um before I left that would have kept me in the States. And I chose to turn them down so that I could, and one of them was like a network executive, like a network, like a network comedy, and I would have been like, oh, it'd been nice to go back to that. But I was like, we're going back. The reason was reasons were twofold. Um one, I was doing my own series in the UK. We were shooting in Belfast, and going back and forth from Belfast to LA was like a big long trip. If we were in Toronto, I'd kind of be in the middle and I could kind of go to UK, I can go to LA, it's a little bit easier, it was a little bit more of a central location. Um, the bigger reason, I mean, Trump, Black Lives Matter, those are the things that were also like big for us. Like I at the time, my my daughter was 10, my son was three. I remember my son talking to my son about why he couldn't trust police officers. He's a three-year-old, right? Like I just remember thinking to myself, like, what the fuck are we doing here? This is not a conversation I should be having with a three-year-old. So my wife, who's also from Toronto, we just kind of decided, you know what? We were planning on going back at some point, anyways, because we wanted our kids to go to university in Canada. And so, like, is is now the time to go back. And so in late, so early 2016, actually, I went back to Toronto for like a week just to kind of see what it would be, to see what it would, you know, if I was going to be able to like, if people were gonna want to talk to me, if I could, you know, the thing about Canada, we love American success stories, unfortunately. Like, that's just the way it is here, which is weird. But because I had credits in America, everyone wanted to talk to me in Canada because they want to create shows that will work not just in Canada. But also work in the States and kind of bring some of that stuff here. And of course, at that point, I had a show that was doing well in the UK. I had a lot of American credits. And I actually had worked on one Canadian show at that time called A Little Moss on the Prairie that I came back to do for a few months in 2010. So it was like, it was got to a place where I was like, okay, I can develop in Canada. And in fact, I started developing pretty quickly. Uh we can have our family move back here. My my mom was here. My wife's uh aunts and cousins were here. There was so much free babysitting. Um it was ridiculous. Uh so we just got to a place where we're like, you know what? Like it's it's time, let's go back. The I'll be able to work. Um, I'll be able to work um in Canada or if I need to, because I'm a dual citizen. All of us were dual citizens at the time, too. That's also a big part of it. We can come back and forth whenever we needed to. So we're dual citizens. I have production, you know, I can make TV in Canada, I can make TV in the this, you know, in the States and UK. So it just felt like a natural place to just have a central hub and I was cool traveling if I needed to. So that's kind of that's kind of how that move back came. Because initially we're like, let's just go back for the summer and hang out. And that summer was like, before we even left, we're like, no, the summer is too short a thing. Let's go back for that.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Let's go back for good and see, see how it works. In 2017, if I could have moved back to Canada, I think I would have to as well. So I don't I don't actually blame you. And you're one of the few people who I know actually moved to Canada as opposed to saying they were going to move to Canada when things were were going sideways, to say the least. Um, but I do want to talk about, you know, uh now I want to talk about sort of sort of this this the psychology of taking on too much because you know what it's like to have boom years and you know what it's like for the beginning of this chat to have bust years where you're not finding the work you need to work to do. Do you think that you kind of like wanting to uh not micromanaging as much as you should, based in your own words, uh, with other people, taking on a lot is because you know that at any given point it could all go away. Like, do you still think that it could all go away? Or do are you comfortable in your success now that it's like this is going to continue and I'm never gonna go back to Macy's to full t-shirts? No disrespect to that. But I mean, no, you know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

I I never I never feel comfortable. I always feel like it's gonna go away. Like legit, like uh not that long ago, someone asked me if I wanted to come and teach at their university. And I was like, hmm. And I was just and I'm like in a place now, like I'm literally developing, I'm developing like probably like seven or eight different things, and there's stuff on the horizon. And I'm sure running two shows right now. Like it's just like I have like I have a lot of stuff going on, but even still, like I was like, ooh, that that stability sounds nice. I'm like, I'm as stable as I can get for a person in as I'm as stable as you can get as for an artist. Like I'm as stable as it gets when it comes to artistry and that that kind of stuff, but I'm still kind of like, ooh, university gig though. Just so I'm all I think it's you know what it was, it was like also like when that those right before those lean years when I was working at Macy's and and uh Kaplan, I had been offered a gig that I turned down because I was like, oh, I'm already working on this other thing. And I was like, you know, I'm already developed I was the I think I was developing a pilot with Disney. I was building a pilot. I was like, you know what, I got this pilot with Disney, it's gonna be fine. Like I'm I'm gonna be I'm gonna be doing that. So I'm gonna turn on this gig. And I turned on the gig. And then uh it's like the the the writer gods were like, how dare you turn down a gig for this you will pay. I was just like, come on, writer gods. So I so because of that, I'm kind of like anytime someone comes to me at a job, I take it very, very seriously. So yeah, it is a lot of that, a lot of that fear and the light on that, like, you know, it's like, where's the next paycheck gonna come from? Because you know, even if you have a hit show, here in Canada, it's kind of like you have a hit show, you have like you do like you. That's you might have another year of work if you're lucky. And what's gonna happen the year after? You don't know. You're kind of at the whims and at the mercy of like you just try to make the best show possible, but you just never know when something something's gonna happen. So uh, so yeah, that's always in the back of my mind. Both my parents are accounts too. Like my dad and my mom are both accounts. So I'm always like thinking about like those things.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So what what given what you've just said, and you know, obviously you're not the first person in your industry to worry about such things to do with, you know, steady versus not steady, all that sort of stuff. But what what if you could choose what you can do next, which we all know you can't because that's not how the industry works, what would you know, is it obviously more show running, but you know, do you want a sort of a nice commercially successful network show? Do you want a an award-winning show that you've written with your soul? Is it actually um your animated series just because it sounds amazing? But also that's obviously that's sort of in as you said, was sort of trying to help define who you were. Like what sort of success do you want to have next?

SPEAKER_02 27:09

I mean, for me, the the next big thing that I I see on the horizon, like I think, I mean, just speaking candidly, I feel like as you get in this business, you're just trying to find more control, right? You're trying to figure out a way to have more control over the thing, over the art, over the things that you're doing, those kinds of those kinds of things. So for me as a showrunner, like what's next, right? Like you see it all the time. Like you go from showrunner to to having your own production company where you can then, you know, be the person who's in control of the IP, be the person who is, you know, looking over the showrunner, producing, and just kind of like on me as a mentor, I there are so many people who I think should be showrunners that I love to produce shows for them. So I think that's kind of like one of the next steps for me. And then you kind of look, you kind of look at like what's after production company. Do you have your own, do you have your own broadcast or do your own like network? Like what's I'm I'm never afraid to like just think about, think big about these kinds of things because it's one of those things, especially in Canada right now. Like there's a big, there's a big issue with like who the gatekeepers are in Canada. And it's mostly, it's mostly white people. So we're amongst like you know, the black community here in Canada, a lot of times we're talking about like, when should we have our own, should we have our own thing? Right. Again, I keep on thinking, oh, should is there something we should talk about where we have our own like black channel and here in Canada? So that's kind of like one of those things where it's kind of like, oh, that's interesting. So there's there's there are those things that always kind of pop into my brain. It's kind of like, oh, you know, if I have some time to think about these things, I think those are the things that I would start uh start, you know, putting down on pieces of paper, like, oh, think about my own little channel, like, you know, whatever how that would how that would work. And what I usually do, I'm I'm because I'm lucky to have access to people, I'll I'll talk to people. I've talked to a lot of production companies, a lot of production company heads, how they started, how what I would need to kind of like get those things done. And then, you know, just talking to broadcasters about like, you know, the business of like having a channel and just like not like expecting not expecting to have any profits for like 15 years, which to me is kind of like, okay, that isn't something job for me. So it's it's those kinds of things that uh that I look towards uh as I as I age out of this business.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Super interesting. I I have a question that I've been asked kind of mulling over myself, and I'm gonna ask you as a comedy right, you know, primarily comedy writer. I I work in network broadcast procedurals, and the world has gotten so dark. You know, you mentioned 2017, Black Lives Matter is Trump, and and and you know, things arguably right now are as dark as they've been for a long time with the shootings and whatever in the United States. And you begin to really think about what you're doing, uh, your career and the reflection the entertainment world has on the broader world are responsibilities to add good content. Um, and otherwise, do you ever wonder, you know, is there a moment in the content you're creating where you're like, should I be writing things with sort of deeper metaphors? For instance, like like this shit again is definitely a deeper metaphor about life and and reflection on slavery and whatever. Um, do you ever try to put those themes into your work? Or as a comedy writer, is it like, I am providing escapism and laughter? And what, you know, what what more what is there that's more important than that?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, I I can I try to I'm trying to do a little bit of both, right? Like I think, for instance, one of the show, like literally the opposite of them right now, is for a show that we're gonna that's gonna get announced um in a in a week or two called um called when is this gonna air? Should I uh I'll just say you can announce it because it'll be after two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 30:50

So just say a week.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Um the this show is called Shelved and it's set in a library in set in the Toronto Public Library. And it's one of those things where it's like it's it's a comedy, but it's also about this underfunded place in one of the more underfunded parts of the city where it's mostly immigrants, people who kind of come into the country. Like so it's it's it's talking about this this magical place, this library. I mean, it's and it's just it's basically just like a half-hour single camera comedy. But libraries is such an interesting place where it's like there are you can walk into a library, you don't have to buy coffee, you don't have to pay for anything, you can read a book, you can sit there, you can you can go on the internet, you for free, Wi-Fi, like have a free room. Like there's it's such a it's one of those places that they don't exist. It's like a unicorn almost. Like this is how does this place exist in a in the city and no one's looking for profits and it costs money to run them and they're still around. Um so I feel like this is one of those shows where it's like, it's like, oh, this is just the scripts that we have, they're funny, but they absolutely kind of wrap that world up in a in a way that kind of gives it a little bit of a hug. They kind of like, oh, this is like this is this is really nice and really warm. And I've been trying to do this actually with with um, I've been trying to do this actually for, I don't know, for a little while, for like the last five or six years, even since I moved back to Canada, it's kind of like finding shows that bring warmth and bring happiness and like especially doing working on family shows, like I think it's important. I think it's also important for representation for people to be able to see themselves on TV, like growing up as a kid, like you know, wanting to see more representation on TV. Like I get a chance now to make that a reality, which uh it's I've been lucky to do for a little while. But like those are the kinds of things I'm trying to do. I remember and I remember pitching those things and not getting them to move. And then COVID happens and Ted Lasso happens, and now all of a sudden, all those ideas that I had that I tried to sell in 2018, people are coming to me like, hey, what happened to that thing you had back in 2018? We want to talk about that now. So it's kind of like it's like people are more open to it now because uh just because of the the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

So it pains me to do this because um I'm enjoying this discussion enormously, and not just because you're Canadian, um, but it's just it's fascinating talking to you. But we have, in the way podcasts work, we have reached the the end of the podcast journey. So I have to ask the final question. Um, well, I'm fascinated to see where you go with this, given as you've said, mentoring is important to you. But if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody entering the industry, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Oh boy, a single piece of advice. Uh oh, you know what I would do? I would say I would say take all the notes, don't be afraid of notes. Only use the ones that make what you that make you more of what you want it to be. And don't use the ones that make it less of what you want it to be. I think I find notes cripple people. And I'm gonna play, I personally, I'm like, I'm happy to take notes, just I don't I don't take all the notes. I take the ones that make the thing that I want to be better. If I if I agree with the note, I use it. If I don't agree with the note, I don't use it. So I mean that's something that I've I find a lot of a lot of, especially writers coming up, they don't realize that that's an that's an option. So I'll tell you that's that's one of the things I would suggest. Don't be afraid to take ones. And if you didn't, you have choices.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Excellent. Thank you. So look, after 70-ish episodes of this podcast, there is no one who's going to listen to this episode and say, not this shit again, because actually this has been a fascinating discussion um full of wit, humor, and insight. So Anthony Q Farrell, Macy Salesman, teacher, and also showrunner and creator and Canadian showrunner of the year, thank you very much for being part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

And that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, we want to thank James Launch for the amazing theme music.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Do you before we sort of thank our wives and stuff, do you think anyone actually listens this far or do they stop when the music comes back in?

SPEAKER_04 35:16

I think they normally stop after you mention your second and third podcast. That'd be my guess. Well, I haven't mentioned them yet, though, have I? Uh if you do want to reach out with us to us for criticisms, complaints, or praise, uh, you can either reach out to us through the website or I am at NEVslin on Twitter. And Dan, you have an account?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Not that anyone really cares about. So if you've got complaints about the show, go to NEVslin and feel free to air those. If you have praise or you want to pay us in some way for something, come to at Dan Rutstein. And have a great day.