Burn it Down Special - Author Mo Ryan

SPEAKER_05 0:00

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

SPEAKER_04 0:13

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

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is.

SPEAKER_05 0:46

And I'm that's it for me. I do my one pitch when I've realized what that will be. It's never one pitch. There will be another shot.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Oh, it sounds awful when you say it. Let somebody with a more charming accent do this bit. Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app for anyone that reads scripts. Makes notes, organise them into layers, and save hours of time by automatically transferring those notes into new script revisions. Sither listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash sither. Now that's how you do it, Noah. Welcome back to a special edition, an intra-season special episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as always, your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

And I am your currently on strike co-host, Noah Evels. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce somebody who really needs no introduction on this show, as she's both a repeat guest and the current talk of the town. That all said, I'd love to welcome Mo Ryan back to our podcast. Mo is both a longtime entertainment journalist for places like Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, as well as a current New York Times bestselling author for her expose titled Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood. Welcome, Mo.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Thank you for having me back. I think this is uh the sequel everyone has been demanding, everyone being me, of course, in this scenario.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

We you know our season ended uh a few weeks ago. We were we're we're taking a break from recording episodes, and I reached out to Noah and said, during this break, you know, should we do a writer's strike special given the number of listeners are you know affected by the strike, either very directly or or indirectly? Um and so we had a brief conversation about that. And then this book came out that everyone's got very excited about and has had huge interest. So I sent Noah another text that said, Why don't we do in our you know break between seasons? There's the writer's strike we should probably still do something on, but why don't we get Mo back on? Because A, it was a obviously a great, you were a great guest last time talking about you know personal stories around rejection and failure, but also some of the broad topics that have ended up being written so well in the book. Um but now the book's come out. I think it's definitely right that you rejoin us. So we're very excited about that. I think the place to probably to start is not about the content of the book, about the process of writing a book. Because you're effectively doing the thing that you used to write about, as it were, in terms of you've created this thing, you have spent a lot of time on it, you have spent, I think you said this last time, you know, put your mental health into this book, as it were, uh, because not just because of the topic, but just the thorough, the thoroughness that you need to do a book. Um, and then you press play and it goes out into the world. Just talk about what that just that part of it has been like for you.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Um the reception, the process of writing the book, or should I start with that? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Um well, what I keep doing is finding new things to do that are complex and deeply terrifying on like a soul level, on a professional level, a personal level. So, you know, criticism can be that. Sometimes it can be also really fun, you know, opinion writing, reporting, all these things. But I'd always wanted to be a published author, but I had so many friends that have written books that I knew that it had to be something that I really cared about and I could that I would be willing to devote years of my life to because, you know, the kind of reporting that I do or the kind of the kind of book I thought would add value to the world, I thought, you know, what could that be? And I actually took another attempt at a different style of book a few years ago, and I just I didn't feel the passion for it. And then I was sending texts to an industry friend in early in 2021, and I was working on stories about another, you know, sort of like another series of stories about bad showrunners or toxic people. And I was sending these texts, and I just sort of remember taking screenshots of them because I thought, I think if you take out all the swearing, this is something akin to a book proposal. And around that time, an agent approached me, and what I so we I didn't understand how involved it is to pitch a book. You essentially have to write part of it and then also provide a lot of other supporting materials that basically says to the company, you should invest money in this person because they're gonna really help you sell the book and be active in, you know, making it a thing, making it a successful thing. So the pitching the book around process was much longer than I thought it would be. And then we finally got a deal, and at the end of 2021, and I was really happy with that, but then I was saying to my book agent, wait, it's gonna come out in June of 2023. That's too long. I don't want to wait that long. And will it still be relevant? Who will care? You know, a lot of questions that Mo Ryan asked that were like real dumb because I 2022 was just basically crisis on infinite moes. I just on every possible level, I'm I underestimated the amount of time, effort, energy, and um capacity that this kind of book would require. You know, because you've got to sift down, okay, of these potential like 30 ideas for a chapter or for a part, which you know, 16, 15 make sense together. And actually, one didn't make sense. And I published it at Roxanne Gay's newsletter site, The Audacity, if you want to read that over there for free. Um, so it was a process of, all right, well, now you have the deal. It's kind of like write the film or write the pilot, and then you get notes. And that what I really, really underestimated is as long as we're getting into the failure and adversary of it all. You know, we talked about this before. Doing this kind of reporting is not just like going to an archive and reading a transcript or book or whatever. And I did a lot of that, you know, I read legal documents, I read, I, you know, there's tons of research I did. But this is the kind of reporting that when you're speaking to someone who's been through a difficult experience, you've got to like hold space for that, essentially, you know, as a as a human being. And my my style of reporting, I kind of I kind of landed on this phrase that I guess I'll be using on this podcast for the first time. And it's called human beings first. And I do talk about in the book how sometimes people will come to me, and my sort of blanket thing is if we set up a time to talk, we're not on the record this time. You're asking me questions, I ask you questions, we kind of figure out what's what, and if I think there's something more that could be done. And then sometimes the person who's come to me is like, you know, and actually, I think for from for a number of reasons, I don't want to do a public thing of any kind. And I'm like, okay. And so to me, it's not necessarily um about like doing a big expose and getting the clicks. I mean, you know, sometimes that does happen. It's much more about what is an angle on these syndromes or dynamics or institutional systemic problems that we can shed new light on or additional light on. So there's a lot of groundwork that has to be done. And then for every chapter in which I did a fair bit of reporting, you do the reporting. And that honestly, some days I can't write a lot of times. I couldn't do a lot of interviews and a lot of writing at the same time because these are very different, very complex sections of your brain. And like I think one of the big things I didn't see coming was, you know, on Wednesday, if you talk to someone who alleges that she's the survivor of very bad things that happened at Saturday Night Live over a period of years, um, when this person was a teenager and later filed a civil lawsuit about, like you can't I couldn't sit down and write for like days after that, you know. I mean, and this person is, you know, funny, engaging, interesting, intelligent. Um but like that's a lot to process, you know, when you have a three-hour interview with someone and you you're trying to be kind and compassionate, a good listener, but also as a reporter, I need to get what I need. And with every single interview I want to say in this book, I probably went back to most people at minimum of one time for fact-checking, for legal review. Like my editor would say, Well, I don't really understand this part. So there were many times I went back to sources multiple times. Um, so to get, you know, sometimes to get one paragraph in a chapter is, you know, seven hours of work, or you know what I mean? So, and also just the sort of like the emotional psychological labor of it. And the big thing, I had many fears during this process, and a big, big fear was clearly, I'm not writing an entire book about lost. Um, I could have written an entire book about Sleepy Hollow, you know, but am do I have enough to illuminate what I want to illuminate for this chapter? And you can easily fall down the rabbit hole from very justifiable reasons of because everyone you talk to is like, oh, have you talked to this person or that person? And at some point, just to get the thing done, I had to, you know, sort of like close the door. And maybe some people would come around and with confirmations or additional information later in the process, but I wanted to be both incredibly thorough and also not panned in my book a year late. You know, I could I didn't want to do that. And so that was the tightrope. You know, I essentially this time last year, I was in my sweats, just grinding it out for 14 hours a day, you know, just trying to get trying to meet my July deadline for the book, which I did, but and we were supposed to be done, like sort of like a picture lock, if you will, in um before the HarperCollins strike, speaking of strikes in November. And I did hand it in then, but then after the strike, uh we actually did some more edits and some revisions. And you know, some people let's just say that the person who's lawyer in PR people I heard from on Christmas Eve, you know, kudos to everyone. You're you're nailing it. I love it. Love that for all of us. Um so I I underestimated how much time I need, I would need, and um, doing the equivalent of like eight Vanity Fair deep dive stories at once is not something I recommend if you want to have any kind of life. Um, so it was really, really tough. And the two the North stars that I held on to were um because so many things are spinning out of your control. And I do really feel for people who write screenplays or films, or you know, even if you're an actor, you don't know what your performance really will come off as as until they put it cut it together, and then you see the finished product, you know. So all I could hope for was the two things I could could be left with were um sorry, the two things I was left with were I want to write a book I'm proud of. And I did that. And whatever amount of effort I thought I would put into it, I probably put 10 times more into it. And I'm very lucky that I had the input of many, many smart people to help me kind of get it right. So, you know, I did write a book I was proud of, and then my only other expectation when I emerged from this process, like essentially, you know, Winona Ryder in Heathers when she's like smoking a cigarette and covered in bruises and dust and dirt, that was essentially my entire spirit by like, you know, April and May. And um, I was like, write a book I'm proud of. Don't want to get sued. I don't want to get sued. I would not enjoy that. And I I think I hit both those targets, you know, because literally lawyers had to sign off on the book. Um, and that I was working with the lawyers at the publishing company for almost a year. And that was that was really rigorous. And you know, one of my new mantras is if you think that this kind of reporting, oh, you just did a hit piece, so you just did a takedown that was cheap and manipulative, or well, I'm like, bro, it wasn't cheap in terms of my time. Not like it was not at all cheap to my anyone's psyche, you know, we were in the trenches with this for uh months and months on end. So um I did both those things that I had wanted to do. And I gotta tell you both, I was really worried about the response. I honest to God, I'm not making it up. It's not false modesty. I thought I'm pretty tough on the industry. And you know, given the podcast that you do, I I I I wasn't like, well, no one's gonna come after me with a baseball bat. Like it wasn't like I I knew that like people who I'd engage with on these topics, you know, that probably a number of people would be like, well, it's okay, but you never know with anything. Will it go splat? Will people notice it? Will some people be furious with me? I wanted to feel like it was fair, and and I guess the word I use more is thorough, and um that I I I did a just and thorough job on certain very difficult and inflammatory issues. And so I did care what what the people who gave their time and their mental energy and their psychological baggage, if you will, or their spirits, I cared what they thought. And that that was a huge one for me, and not in the sense of like, well, they have to give me thumbs up or thumbs down, or we don't publish. It's more like this was a complex situation, and when you're doing something like this, these stories are just brutally difficult because you want to you want to be just, you want to be thorough, but you know, 30 people are coming at you, or 25, 20 people are coming at you with different points of view, they don't all have the same opinion. How can you create a readable narrative that has energy and has um you know a sense of structure and is interesting, but also not you know, not make it too simplistic to the point where your sources are like wow, you completely screwed up, you know. So I I'm just on every possible level the response has been so much more wildly positive than I thought. And I, you know, I know because I listen to your podcast, I I I I talk to folks in the industry all the time. Like I know that people are deeply frustrated about many things, but when I say that the book touched a nerve, like the last three weeks, four weeks of my life has essentially been like having a connection to that touched nerve, you know, it's been a lot, but in a great way, mostly.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

I think we want to stay mo, I mean, I think we uh Dan and I are gonna want to circle back to the reaction to your book because that is the meat of this of this podcast, and it's been phenomenal to watch. And when Dan texted me about you, and obviously we had already been sent the book. I read the book, I had reached out to you early going, This is amazing, but also deep down, I I was like, you know, it's explosive, you know it's going to have a reaction, and you were sort of waiting as well. I had gotten a month early to being like, what is but I want to go back a little bit to just stay on process, and then we're gonna get to reaction. It's a very simple question. And it came up at I think at the end of our last podcast, maybe even in our own sort of chit chat after. But how often, once you release a book like this or even an expose on a single showrunner, you get emails from people saying, do this person next. Oh, and how rigorous your reporting has to be to cross the legal threshold to be like, no, this is actually a real thing, and not just, I mean, that that experience might be real and valid, but you need multiple, right? Talk a little bit about that process, the legal vetting, and how it protects you. Yeah. This process must have been terrifying once you put this book out, you know, knowing that you're protected a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Oh, it was deeply terrifying. I mean, I'm not gonna name names, but through lawyers, people threaten me, you know, and that is really, really not fun. And so I had that hanging over my head the entire time. Um I I think this work is important and I think it's valuable, and I'm genuinely doing it to I think for reasons that to me are certainly defensible, because I I'm not I'm I'm the opposite of you know doing a TMZ hit piece, you know what I mean? I'm trying not to just show one point of view and take someone down, so to speak. Um, but the process thing, I I do think I am getting in all my inboxes, have you thought, in in generally in a in a in a nice way. I I I wouldn't say people are like, no, do you know you have to do or whatever. That every so often I'll kind of get in a little bit of an attitude like that. But generally speaking, people are respectful, and yet I do not think for the most part, people understand how difficult this is. Let me just give you a little bit of an example. The Lost chapter has undergone you know a year's worth of revisions, the version that you saw in the book from my editor, from legal advisor, from from uh from fact checkers. I I hired out of pocket on my own dime a fact checker to to fact check the book. And she was great and and and really helpful and did you know some research that I think bolstered many parts of the book. But I'm very aware that even aside from the legal aspect of things, this is my reputation on the line. And I you only really have your reputation in this world, you know. And so when people come to me and say, now do X, okay, but if I can just be honest with you both, and I say this with love for this industry, the love I've demonstrated by doing work like this, I think in many cases, for understandable reasons, people don't know what they're asking. It's it's it's very rigorous, and um you know, it's essentially it's living with gut churning stress from wondering if you, even though you did a good job and the lawyer signed off, and this has happened to me multiple times across multiple publications, living with the gut-churning fear of even though the lawyers signed off in the piece, you might still face some kind of legal action that will put your life into a blender for an unknown amount of time. So the last chapter, the book lawyers have edited it, many, many revisions. And then, you know, I worked with Vanity Fair to prepare a version of that chapter, a slight a somewhat shorter version of that chapter, um, for Vanity Fair for print and online. And then they're like, okay, now we're gonna have our lawyers review it. That that chapter was lawyered by two different media organizations. So, and and also fact checked again. So um, and the funny thing is, it was the actually the fact checker I had paid to work on the book. So, you know, she was already familiar and she actually caught a couple more things. So that Was good, but um yeah, this stuff is very challenging to do, and I think maybe one thing I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk about is just what I briefly alluded to earlier. What new facet of the industry and its dynamics will this bring to light? You know, I'm really proud of the fact that some of the stories that I've written, this is maybe only stuff that I know, you know, because I think about all of these issues a lot. I've talked about a parent who was um, you know, pumping at work, being bullied and um allegedly harassed. You know, I've talked about people who have childcare and other caregiving responsibilities being unable to fulfill them because everyone's being kept at work until 11 p.m. Like I, you know, we've talked obviously to me, a big thing with this book was racial bias. And one reason to write the Sleepy Hollow chapter, like, Mo, that show's been off the air for some, you know, it's eight years. Why dredge that, or seven years, whatever it was? Because all of those people are still in the industry, as far as I know, or you know, somewhat have been in the industry a long time. And I was actually one reason to write the book, to write something as long as that chapter, and I think that and the lost chapter are the two longest in the book, because how racial bias operates in the industry, you have to take a gigantic big picture view. I'm drilling down on these shows, but whatever anyone's intention was in any of those workplaces, certainly you cannot look at my book and say, well, there's no racial bias in Hollywood. I mean, that's just nonsense. So I have to go through a long process now when I when someone's like, now do this, now do that. It's a long, rigorous, draining process. I get to meet a lot of amazing people through it. So there are upsides. I get to watch people, I get to watch heroes in real life, frankly, you know, who are willing to do what the people on the picket line are doing, and that is make a sacrifice that is meaningful and challenging for a greater good for their industry-wide colleagues, if you will, or their future collaborators, or the people coming up. So it's really hard, though. It's it's it's it's frankly hard. I was just texting with a writer yesterday, you know, because people are like, when is Modo in the sequel? I mean, do we really want to rerun with just this the same things over and over again? Part of the reason I wrote the book was because I was doing the same thing over and over again. In 2021, I was talking to people who were in toxic work situations, and there was one moment I really clearly remember where someone said just described a scenario with almost the exact same words, words and phrases of someone I had talked to four years earlier, or about three and a half years earlier. So I'm like, we are we've not have we gotten anywhere, you know. I so I don't I don't want to like only do this with my life, if I'm really honest with you. Um, the point of writing the book was to say, as I keep coming back to something Orlando Jones said, the system seems set up for this outcome. You know, if these are the dynamics, these are the results that will happen. You know, another analogy I could make is if a car factory is producing cars and 40% of the brakes don't work, on you know, 40% of the cars don't have working brakes and people get killed or injured. Well, if the crew supervisor or the ship supervisor was actively sabotaging those cars, then yeah, we should actually put his name in a publication and out that. But if management knew and did nothing, to me, that's the level where I want to focus now. Like it's all like I think that the the part that I wrote about the Muppets was actually, I'm gonna bang the drum a little bit about that section of the book. I wrote about how you know Bob Cushel's tenure is the as the showrunner of a Muppets program. I wrote about Adam Goldberg's tenure as the showrunner of a Muppets program, who was he was the creator of the Goldbergs. So there were problems with uh people alleged to me at Adam Goldberg's prior workplace and at Bob Cushell as the showrunner of the Muppets that ran 2015 or so. And I sent Disney Muppet Studios, ABC, and Goldberg's former employer, Sony, pages of questions about not just Casell and Goldberg, but workplace standards, norms, and methods for employees to ensure that they not only are experiencing a professional and you know, acceptable workplace, but they have recourse if they're not. No one ever answered me. And so that's that's the part of the book that I that's kind of where I feel like I'm at in terms of a reporter. I've been doing this now, this that specific kind of misconduct reporting. I mean, I've been doing reporting on inclusion, problems with the industry, issues with the industry, issues with bias, issues with, but this is like this kind of specific, you know, showrunner, blah, blah, blah, this show, this production, whatever. I've been doing that kind of reporting now for six solid years. And I'm like, folks, I could do a hundred more of these stories. The problem is Scott Rudin only comes back if a lot a number of large multinational corporations allow him to come back. A24 wouldn't even talk to me about that. Will you ever work with Scott Rudin again? No comment. Nobody wants to talk about it. And that's, I feel like I've hit a wall. It this stuff happens because top executives don't care if it happens, don't know if it happens, and if they don't know, that's a dereliction of duty. So I don't know what else to say.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

So it's a fascinating answer. I I guess obviously answer this how you can and how you think your lawyers will let you, but for every chapter you wrote, I imagine that there was a quite a lot of things about that specific show that didn't quite make the book, but also, you know, in a separate way to people suggesting other shows to you. There were all the other shows that you had on your radar that would have been chapters uh that didn't make the cut for either because they were a version of the same thing or because they didn't meet the standards required. Tell me what you can tell me about what's not in the book.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, no, I mean there's stuff that um, you know, put it this way: if you have 30 sources for a story, a story, and again, I'm not being specific, and a source who told you, let's say, eight things, and you use six of those things in the piece, and you want to use the seventh and eighth, but the lawyer says, Okay, but this is so inflammatory or so damaging, we we need corroboration of this kind for that. So you can't you can't take out items seven and eight. Now, if everything else that that source told you checks out, those other six, uh you know, all six other pieces check out. I personally found this person trustworthy sometimes over a period of years. I mean, there's people I've been talking to with sources for 20 years, you know, off and on on different things. And sometimes we just talk just to talk, you know. So I find them a credible individual. I'm still I'm gonna believe item number seven and item number eight, even though it's not in the thing. I I will tell you a general thing that this is something that's interesting, that's you know, for your listeners to ponder because I don't have an answer to it. And again, I'm just gonna speak in generalities because your girl is not trying to get sued. But when it comes to matters of conduct, you know, um basically what happens is you you get into the weeds with the lawyers and with pay perhaps the the you know some kinds of representatives for the people that you're writing about, and you get into the weeds about like what can will end up in the book or in the piece. And for me, a lot of it's just you know, sometimes you just cut stuff because it's just repetitive. You know, this person has a habit of verbally um humiliating people in front of others. I mean, how many at a certain point as a reader 25 examples of that in a row? Like you have to choose the right examples to show a pattern, and then you know, maybe you'll have a sentence of like, you know, many other sources said that they witnessed similar dynamics or whatever, like that. Um, so when it comes to issues of say, um, you know, gender um bias and homophobia, it's kind of like the scale of what you get pushback on. So there's more, there's more pushback about when it it revolves around those areas. When you get into an area of race, that's when it's essentially like you really you like here's the thing, I think lawyers on all sides get very wound up about it matters to do with race. And so unless you have stuff really, really, really nailed down, and every word is chosen extremely carefully, um, it's harder to get sometimes stuff about race into pieces. I I'll again like I'm speaking in as someone who's had 30 years of experience writing about the entertainment industry. When people are feel accused of racially biased behavior or just flat out racism, um if sometimes there are moments when I'm like, I think I do have this nailed down. And this, and by the way, this is not I'm speaking of past things like in years past, not for the book. There have been times I thought, oh, I do have that nailed down enough, and lawyers, you know, contested that essentially. So, you know, I think Hollywood's trying to have a reckoning on right race, but at times, but I think it's often very cosmetic. And to be honest with you, I'm trying to fight the good fight on many different fronts. And the the problem is, you know, again, speaking generally, I'm I'm off when it comes to matters of these kinds of specific biases, you are talking about very wealthy people who have a lot of money to hire a lot of lawyers and to make a lot of noise. And as I write near the end of the book, oftentimes what that is about is um just slowing you down. Um, I do think that it's meant to get you to drop the story. There's one again, not not speaking about the book specifically, but there was a story I did once where I finally figured it out and I felt like, okay, Mo, you were not at your swiftest with this. Because I took, it took me longer than it should have to figure this out. They're trying to get you to lose your temper on the phone. And I would be very surprised if they weren't recording me. I mean, I typically record a lot of interviews. I really they kept pushing meetings. They kept, can you just answer these questions via because you know what everyone wants to do, their PR and their lawyers, can I just can we have an off-the-record talk? A lot of that is just they want you to spin your wheels, they want to waste your time, they want to they want to sway you in a certain direction. And I listen, you know, it's fine. You get to have that, you know. But sometimes it's like, you know what, at the 50th, can we just have an off-record chat? I just want to like, no, dude, I have work to do. What what is the specific thing that you want? They won't get you answers in a timely fashion. And then this one particular set of lawyers, I finally figured out they're not getting me what I need in a timely way, so they can get me to drop it. And when I'm on the phone with them, they're I think they're saying these things. Either they believe them, in which case that seems deranged, or they're trying to make me see unreasonable because they are just saying the most ludicrous things and trying to get my goat, essentially. So it's it's a really difficult thing to kind of keep all the plates spinning, write a good narrative, make sure the lawyers, um, you know, that I should actually I'll broaden that. Everyone that is working with you, because I it is a team effort, you know, I'm not Taylor Sheridan out here. Um, everyone is on the same page and understands why you're doing what you're doing and it makes sense to them. So yeah, it's it's a real, it's really hard. Um because I'm just all right, I'm gonna say one of the other things about this process um in terms of adversity. It was lonely. You know, I mean, I have a support system, I have a therapist, I have friends, but I cried many times writing this book. I cried because um just people were telling me things that were awful and I felt terrible and I felt despair about the industry and I I just felt fear, you know, there were just different times I felt will I be able to do this? Will I be able to do this without being nuked from orbit by somebody rich's lawyers? You know, I like it was just scary. And I mean, I'm sure you've both worked on big projects where at a certain point you're so far into the tunnel, you just feel like you're the only person. You're trying to wrestle a script to the ground, you're trying to wrestle a project to the ground, and only you know how many tentacles this monster has. And I, you know, I just, you know, for a lot of last year, I was just in that tunnel. Like, is this good? Is this words anymore? Are these words? I don't know what these little squiggles in the paper are anymore. I told you, you know. Uh so it was it was lonely and it was hard. Um, and I just felt under siege at times. So I do understand when you say, hey, do you want to take on this person? Insert name of tremendously wealthy individual in the industry. And um, I mean, I haven't recovered from writing this book, so maybe catch me on the flip next year. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 37:15

I mean, if if Mo, if I could give you a virtual hug, obviously we do this over Zoom. I would, we were in person, I would. Uh obviously, the reception of your book has been amazing. So we we know we were already a little bit forward in history, but I'm gonna ask you a two-part question. One is obviously, um, I got the book a little early, and I got the book right as we were gearing up and into a massive writer's strike. And the day of the writer's strike and the weeks after writer's strike, solidarity was I've never seen writer solidity like I see it today. The book you're putting out is writers talking about not people from the outside who are damaging the industry, but people from the inside. Were you wondering about the timing of your book and the receipt that it would have because it was in the midst of all this solidarity? Question number one, and because we're running out of time with that, unfortunately, question number two is like, what are you doing in the future? Is your next book going to be about the executives? How are you taking the success of this book and pivoting into your next projects? You are a New York Times bestseller, so congratulations to you.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Thank you so much. Yeah, my son now says that for like, well, you should buy pizza because you're a New York. I'm like, okay, you know, uh, you do get that I'm not Stephen King here. That's the next, that's the next phase of my career. Um, you know, I was worried about the timing. I had to revise that, you know, I knew I wanted to do a lot about labor and the guilds. And so that was always part of the plan. And my editor, uh Rakia Clark at Mariner was great. And she actually pushed me to do even more, which I'm glad because I think, but it was really tricky. Because you know how it is. Like I talk to writers, directors, producers, executives every day, and everyone, just about everyone, thought there would be a strike. But you know, in last October, I didn't know that for sure when I was revising that section. So I had to write it as if I thought there probably would be a strike. But you because you know, sometimes I think it was 2017, it was like averted, like it they just headed it off. So, like, you know, it was like a stare down, but then it didn't happen. Um, I I kind of had a feeling it would happen because as I write in the book, you know, 2020, understandably, everyone just did not want to pull the pin on a potential strike that year. There was too much chaos going on. But there were so many structural changes that I knew that this this six years that had passed since the last MBA agreement with the Guild Writers Guild and um the producers, I never want to say the acronym because I just always mess it up, the AMPTP. Um, they I I had a feeling there'd be a strike. And really what I wanted to talk about, and actually, this was maybe kind of a good thing from my timing, whether or not there was going to be a strike by any or all guilds this summer, I knew that there's conflict baked in going forward because of the structural changes going from a writer who's employed 44 weeks of the year, 46 weeks of the year, to maybe having 40 weeks of employment over a three-year period. Um, that's just a structural change that I don't even know, honestly, fully if the MBA can fully capture what was lost by the la, like how how things have changed. So the timing, you know, I what I could do is for the public give the grounding in why are the guilds important? And something that I've actually realized lately, and this actually I thought about expanding um burn it down further and going in in some form or another, going further into the following theory, if you will. Hollywood is both a cautionary tale and an example in the good sense, because the cautionary tale part of it is yes, exploitation and certain forms of brutality and frankly, adversity and rejection, all of that's actually baked into you know the industry because so many people want to be in it. And I do think that sustaining a career in it in the last eight years has gotten it's just the the game has changed completely. Um, it's gotten harder. So but the example is the following for the rest of America the guilds formed decades ago because what the guilds saw in the 30s, 40s, 50s was these the people that employ us, we might like the executives, we may we might like the work, we might like creating amazing classics for Walt Disney and all the you know, no, and MGM and all the big moguls, but they're not our friends, and the town unionized, and it's a very much like and I think that actually the America is learning now. Guilds were on the upswing for some time, and then sort of in my adult lifetime in my 20s and 30s and 40s, certainly in the media industry, I knew some newsrooms were unionized, but most weren't. And look what happened to my industry. It's now a shadow of what it used to be. The Chicago Tribune that I worked at proudly for 13 years, it just it's it's a it's literally a ghost of what it used to be. And there are wonderful people still there. I don't mean to denigrate them at all because they're doing great work, but it's quite literally a small fraction of what it used to be. And there's no reason for that, you know, except for you know, private equity decided to burn it down because it could. Um so I think actually Hollywood can is per is providing an example toward the rest of America. Like, yeah, Hollywood has always been gig workers. Nobody has guaranteed employment, nobody has you know guaranteed steady income. Because even if, no, you know this, even if you were employed on a show that was making 20 or 24 episodes a year, you could still get bounced the next day, and the studio might never have hire you again because the top you know non-writing producer for that show put a word in their ear and said, you know, this person ticked me off and um, you know, said I was a you know, made me feel bad, so never hire him again. So there it's not as if there were full and complete protections, but we are all heading toward, if we aren't there already, this kind of short term, no benefits, declining income to gig economy. And Hollywood is very much an example of how top to bottom you can attempt you can at least attempt to level the playing field a little bit with solidarity. And the solidarity too by the way. The the group things that I think are examples are people go as a group to reporters often to expose dangerous or bad or toxic or illegal workplaces or behaviors. People go out on the picket lines as a group. So I think this is kind of the sense that I have about where the country is heading that like should we all just be the playthings of billionaires? Should we all you know have a lower and lower quality of life so that a very small slice of people at the top can be paid tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, I think I think that's an American problem and I think Hollywood is kind of providing at least one set of answers at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Extraordinary so unfortunately this is a podcast episode and not an audio book. So we're not here going to have to stop. Yeah. Now we ask a final question as you know as all this know every time advice um and we we asked you that last time so we need a new advice question. So I sort of the question I want to ask but I can't phrase it like this is what's a single piece of advice you can give a showrunner so they avoid being in your next book if you were to write one. But I'll phrase it differently which is given what you now know about showrunners from the extensive research you had to do in order to write the book both what you wrote and obviously what you didn't write um what piece of advice would you give to a showrunner in modern Hollywood about how to less about running the show bit but more about how to run their productions and their people um if I if I may I'd like to give a small note on the question just say industry leaders.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

So I'm just you know if you're if you're the head of the camera department if you're the head of the costume department if you're an executive current executive or developer like if you are an industry leader the I I'll just give you a list of an adjectives that um you know Melinda Shee Taylor Offered up Aline Brosh McKenna other people I've spoken to be transparent to the extent that you you can you don't know everything be accountable and be humane and ask for help. I think a huge thing that oh my god that Taylor shared an interview I mean I'm surprised we didn't just spend the whole podcast talking about that no I don't know what a story coordinator is it's okay the job is script coordinator and they work incredibly hard for not enough money and this guy is just gonna make my whole head explode um nobody is an island and that sort of soul auteur I am the one genius here and nobody else needs to help me make the thing I have been guilty of this too. I I think I bought into this hero worship auteur model to some degree in in how I approached covering the industry. So when people are accountable to the those they work for and display humility and gratitude and accept and understand that people have responsibilities outside of the gig and you know I I think I've been in this situation have you ever been in a situation where a boss said okay you say okay I I would like X or I would not like to do X and they say okay but here's here's the pressure I'm facing and here's why you gotta do it or here's why I can't get you that and you know that maybe doesn't work every time or forever but what I the the commonality that I've seen in leaders is that people who honestly who work a lot and people who want to work with them I mean Vince Gilligan there's no turnover on his projects there's like almost no turnover unless someone gets an incredible dream gig outside of Better Call Sall which he of course created with Peter Gould um or or breaking bad if you are a humane leader I think you will not only produce better work you will not only have a better time of it yourself at work I think you'll get more work because people will want to work with you. And if you if your style of being humane um humble when called for but decisive when necessary and transparent and all those things that I just outlined if you do all those things and it leads your career into a ditch for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your work or your leadership then that's bad. And I here's the thing I know that that happens and I'm sorry that that happens but all you have are your reputation and the in your integrity. And if you act against those things for what you think is short term or even long term gain I personally think that that bites you in the ass. And maybe this is the girl who just you know got sent to Catholic school but I also think then you gotta live with the fact that you did that. And I don't think that that's a great headspace to be in so there are good models out there. Find them learn from them and you know they they want to teach I see on those picket lines every single day people who want to support their colleagues and you know be be a resource and this podcast is a resource. I honestly think the way the public views the industry is now very different. And I think it's in part due to what you guys are doing, what other people are doing. We are all just in a common situation where it's like as human beings we just want to be respected and there's so much more understanding now a gig in the industry is simply that it's a job you're not living the life of glamour you're not living in the you know the entourage mansion that is a fantasy almost nobody lives like that and even if you do how many people who we've seen end up 10 years later you know out of the industry entirely and doing something else to pay their bills um so it's it's really a tough industry but I'm not hopeless because I do think that people want to follow a different model and there's plenty of them in my book. So I just turned that into a book pitch that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

One point of clarification um in Hawaii Noah does live in an entourage style mansion you're right not for a guest house that's that's pretty cool. So look uh this is amazing um look Mo Ryan um author of Burn It Down thank you very much for coming on the show um your book is I think potentially industry changing which I think is obviously as you have said part of the reason you wrote it and obviously it is both a best seller on the New York Times list and also I think to this date the only book published that mentions our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

So connection there I think that's um you know it's not a small yeah maybe that's why but thank you thank you and also just if I could do one last shout out not only to you because I didn't feel like the book success was real until I got to talk about it with you. So that's not an unversion but thank you for this opportunity to like truly comprehend that it the reception has been good. But I think I actually want to do the anti Sheridan here and say in a in a very real and emotionally incredible way there are hundreds of people in the industry who contributed to my work over a period of 30 years if not thousands of people and there are hundreds of people in the book and I just want to say to all of them I thank you. If you are a lawyer for any of those people I don't thank you well there you go thank you Mo.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

All right thank you thanks Mo.

SPEAKER_04 52:37

All right take care guys a wrap on this episode of Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss as always is this episode was brought to you by scriptation the screen writing and annotation software that at the very least has made my life easier and will make your life easier as well. We'd like to thank our wives who put up with us recording these episodes in our offices and basements and closets and bathrooms and anywhere we can get a little space to record an interview. And of course we want to thank James Launch who provided us with the great intro and outro music.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

If you want to find us on social media you can find Noah at NEVslyn on Twitter tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and some terrible puns and occasionally begging for sponsorship. If you want more refined tweets mostly about football and whiskey you can find me at Dan Rutstein if you're interested in buying a copy of Scriptation if you go to www.scriptation.com backslash cipher s I t a you'll receive a special discount thank you very much for listening as always we appreciate you uh please give us any feedback mostly positive stuff about me and we will see you next week and if you do say a negative thing about Dan there is a chance I might buy you a free copy of scriptation boxing