Take 136 - Writer Matthew Aldrich, Coco, Cleaner

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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

SPEAKER_03 0:14

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

SPEAKER_01 0:26

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

SPEAKER_00 0:50

That's it for me. I want shot. It's never one bit shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Brought to you by the Emmy Award-winning annotation software scriptation. As ever, I am Dan Rutstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

And I, although I'm not quite sure we even have an industry anymore, at this second, I am uh you're still in the industry, co-host Noah Epsilon. Uh, today I'm delighted to introduce the screenwriter Matthew Aldrich to the show. Matt has either written or co-written such movies as Pixar's Coco and Lightyear, as well as Cleaner and Spinning Man. Welcome, Matt.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Hi, thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me. This is this is fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

This is awesome. Um, so I'm gonna start with a question. We've never asked the guests this question before, uh, because the world has never been like it has been recently. How are you, Matt?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Um I'm doing okay. Uh I am if if ever I'm lapsing into despair, I try to counter that with a fair dose of gratitude because um I am I'm busy right now, and I know a lot of people are not. Um I'm incredibly grateful to be working on the projects that I'm working on and with the people that I'm working with. And um, and generally like happy, healthy, the loved ones are fine and happy, and everybody's good for right now. Um, you can ask me again tomorrow. I mean, we can we can keep coming back to this and checking in, but for but for right now, I think I'm okay. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

No one's ever asked us that actually either. But I think we're I'll let Noah answer when it's his turn to talk, but I think we're we're broadly fine. It's raining, which in LA I guess is about a month too late. Um, but um it's been a very odd start to the year in in lots of different ways. Um so uh i in a in a world where uh rejection, failure, and diversity is happening, not just in your industry but everywhere, let's let's try and focus on your industry. And and Noah always tries to make this joke, um, but I think it's as real as it ever has been. Your industry is uh in a bit of a mess at the moment, I think it would be fair to say. As you said, you're you're grateful because you're busy and you've got projects running at the moment. How does it feel to be a writer at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Um well, I can tell you how I feel. Like, I don't know how it feels generally to be a writer, as I'm sure you guys know, like we're we don't talk to each other very much, especially on the feature side. Um, we're all kind of these um mercenaries kind of going around and occasionally we'll run into each other and swap stories, but um uh I just have my experience. Um and for right now, um what I'm writers are still somehow um writers are still integral to the process. Um and writing is still integral to the process for some reason. And again, we can talk about the threat of AI and all that, but um, at this moment things really don't start happening, meaning money really doesn't start changing hands and opening up uh unless there's a script. Um and uh that's that's still sort of a strategic, a strategically advanced uh advantageous place to be. Um to be the one who can turn a raw idea or an intellectual property, a book, an action figure, a board game, um, Legos, like whatever, to be able to turn a piece of material that's not narrative into narrative is still a marketable skill, even with all the craziness. Um you know, is it the best time for writers? I I don't know. I only know the time that I'm in. I've been doing this for over 20 years. Um, I sort of wrote my first decent screenplay, uh, I think probably back in 2001. And um, and that's when I kind of got my first agent and found a producer and really just felt like, oh man, it's happening, it's happening. Um, and you know, we can get into my background even before that. Um, but right around that time in the late 90s, um, 2000s, was um it was a period of time where the studio system was breaking down and an independent system was coming forward and starting to make a lot of money and matter to the social conversation and to the culture. I I I'm not I'm not a fortune teller, but I feel like we're on the cusp of of another kind of change and another kind of revolution. Um, because um a lot of the systems that we've been relying on for the last 20 years are just they're not they're not working anymore. The studios aren't making as many pictures. Um the ones that are being made are, you know, there are bigger and bigger bets with longer and longer odds. And it's just unsustainable. Um, you know, studios used to like their bread and butter used to be these base hits, you know, these romantic comedies and buddy cop films and all these things that sort of were reliable and paid the bills. Um, now it's all like the movie has to make a billion dollars or it's not profitable. And that's that just can't, it that can't sustain.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Thank you. I'm I'm so glad that you you you talked about sort of existing out of time as a writer. I just I had an interview for I think it was final draft recently, and they asked about how do you keep going during this time period. And I I sort of said the same thing. It's like, you have no idea when your script that you write is going to get traction. It could be now, it could be five years from now. So you're always writing sort of outside of the clock. Uh that said, I I do want to, you know, for those who are the listeners to our podcast, you might have noticed that Dan and I took a prolonged break. And one of the reasons I we were taking a break, you know, from recording a podcast was, you know, obviously our industry was in a really weird place, but that was fine. We were still recording, and then the fires happened, and it lost everything. Uh, but would you come and you know talk on our podcast? And but I I we we got a lot of requests, and people, you know, I do feel like to some degree talking through some of these things during hard periods uh has been helpful to you know, both the our guests and to the listeners who are going through their own things. And so let's let's do this, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Before you go on, I would like to add like the podcasts like this actually perform a really great service because um I, like I said, I'm sort of a lone wolf. I don't even live in LA. Um, so I really don't even run into screenwriters or anything. So it's like listening to shows like this helped me feel connected to my community, my industry. Um, you know, I I yeah, it just it it it it actually helps. So I I'm I encourage you guys to keep going.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Well, well, well, thank you for saying that. Um, I did notice I I'm sort of fascinated though. This is a very traditional Noah early question, which I is I'm fascinated by your career because you say you wrote your first screenplay in 2001, first good one, yeah, uh, and you got repped. And then in 2007, Cleaner came out, which looks like it's sort of a thriller with a really great cast, uh, but very different from Coco, which came out in 2017. So, how do you, you know, when we as a TV writer, sadly, we tend to get pigeonholed. If you do network television, you get hired to do network television, even if you were like a totally different writer to start, right? In features, something similar happens. You know, they're not going to hire a horror guy necessarily to write a children's movie or vice versa, unless you have some amazing specs to back it up. So, what how did you go from talk about the origins of cleaner a little bit and then how you sort of segued into sort of one of the most personal and I can I think say I can say profound of all the Pixar movies, and uh, you know, was a very sort of a different thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Well, that's uh it's very nice of you to say thank you. Um, and you know, I um it's hard to it's hard to um draw a straight line from those two films, as you can imagine. Um, cleaner was a spec. Um I my career here here here's the sort of thumbnail of my career. Um, anything that has um can move the needle in any way um has been an original spec idea that I've that I wrote. Um so in this world where we all have to get jobs and we all have to adapt things and do all that stuff, um, I I really just encourage everybody to not give up on writing original pieces because um, even if those things don't ultimately get made, um they get seen, they get read, and they get you your next job. Um, I I've never gotten a job because I did really good on my last job. I've always gotten a job because I wrote something that made somebody go, oh, hey, look at that. Um so cleaner was something that was inspired by an episode of This American Life where they followed around this guy um who cleaned crime scenes for a living. It's a really kind of famous episode of This American Life. And um, I heard it and I was captivated. I was like, oh my God, that would be such a great um like that would just be such a great job for a main character to have in sort of a noir thriller, you know? And so that was that was the premise that I kind of started with was like this guy cleans a crime scene, he goes back to find that the police had actually never been there and he unwittingly covered up a murder. And now he's got to figure out who hired him, who what's at stake, who's chasing him, all that good stuff. Um I think what people liked when they read that was um the fact that that this American Life episode actually got optioned. And people were trying to make a story about his life, but they couldn't. And so along came a spec script that was unencumbered by reality um and by like the facts of this guy's life and all the um Michigas that's around, you know, doing somebody's life story. Um, and you know, like, oh, he this this writer was able to execute that idea where we're running up against um brick walls. And so um uh I got a lot of meetings and a lot of really great leads, and and my first couple of paid jobs was off of that spec script. The fact that that script ultimately got made is uh, I mean, that's a longer story for another day, and and one of those indie film miracles. Um, and it was incredibly thrilling, and um, you know, it just it was it was honestly a dream come true, and I really felt like um, you know, that I had finally sort of crossed some invisible invisible finish line. Um, what was uh the the thing about Pixar is it really had nothing to do with cleaner at all. Um I once again wrote a spec script a few years later. Things, I mean, this is this show's all about rejection and failures and all that stuff. Um I think it was 2010. Uh I was not working. Um, I had a kid. Um, I had another on the way, like it was looking dark. Um, and I was I was really going, like, yeah, maybe this screenwriting thing had kind of run its course. Um, maybe maybe this is not gonna work out. Like I had a good run, I got a movie made, this was really great, but maybe it's starting time to to look at other things. And I was I was looking into um going to culinary school and becoming a pastry chef. That was that was my plan B, and frankly, still is. Um, and so uh I wrote a script. Again, it was based on a it was sort of inspired by a news article about a man who robbed a convenience store with his uh nine-year-old girl standing right next to him. And there was this sort of amazing picture of the two of them robbing this convenience store together. And I immediately thought, what if it was all the girls' idea? And and then that started getting me thinking on like a sort of a father-daughter, five-state crime spree kind of movie, like like a paper moon kind of thing. And I was like, I really need to write this. And I had spent literally probably 18 months chasing assignments, pitching, pitching, pitching, not getting it, not getting it. Not even not getting it. It's like you pitch on something, and then suddenly like the project itself just vanishes, like nobody got it. You know, it's like I can stand losing a job to another person, but to nobody, this is just this is ridiculous. Um, and so I wrote this script and my manager uh really loved it. My agent at the time did not um thought that I should spend more time uh pitching. And um, and we said uh no, and we got a new agent, and then that script we were able to sell in short order. There was like a bidding war on it, and we sold it big on the spec market, and um it was on the blacklist uh later that year. And suddenly my life was totally different, and it was from the blacklist that I got the call from Pixar. And um Pixar you at the time used the blacklist as a sort of farm team, I guess. Um they would they would scout the blacklist for writers who were uh kind of up and coming, and they would read them and then you get a call. When you get a call from Pixar, it's um, hey, do you want to come check us out? We want to talk to you about something. Or maybe it's we don't want to talk about anything, we just want to meet you and see what you're like. Um, but this one they wanted to talk to me about something. They said, would you be willing to fly up to Emeryville to um to talk to them? And I said yes. And here we are, 12 years later. I still live up here. Um we moved my family, I'm raising my kids here. Um it's uh yeah. Here was the interesting part, and this is maybe you guys will I don't know, maybe you'll find this interesting. Was uh after I did the the um after I got the call, they said, is there anything else uh that we can read of yours that would be good? And I had two scripts that I felt really strong about. One was a book I had adapted. Um I had gotten the rights to the book on my own. It was a drama, it was very, very like pensive drama. And then the other one was a job that I was hired to do. It was a biography of Pablo Escobar. And we really were like, which one do we send? It was like we were wringing our hands, like, what do we do we send Escobar to Pixar? Like, do we really do we go there? Because it was a really, it was a really good script. And um uh I think we ultimately sent the other one and um and then they agreed to fly me up and and meet me. So I'm glad we didn't send the Escobar script ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

So if I was Noah, I would say there's lots to unpack there.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Um yeah, I talk a lot. Sorry about it. I should have warned you.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

I'm not quite sure where to go next. Bad interview. I just want to know the answer. So, did your uh daughter-led crime spree turn into something apart from getting you the next job?

SPEAKER_02 17:10

No, it never got made. Um, it got bought. Um, it would made all the papers. You could look it up. Um, it's it's there. Um, you know, it's it's buried in the annals of deadline. Um, but um no, it never got made. It was really again, it was a very it's funny, it's like you could probably get the movie made now on like Hulu. Like it's it's that kind of like mid-range budget, fun, you know, father-daughter, five-state crime spree. Like it's a good um, but at the time, this was 2011, the studios were not making that, and and the streamers were didn't exist as as they exist today. So there was really no way to make that movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Um so let's talk about oh sorry, as an aside, that's fascinating that one of your specs got made, uh and the other one, and this is how Hollywood worked, didn't, but ended up getting you cocoa.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

So yeah, you know, and and now there's a pretty as always with these things, there's a good chance it'll come back to life because that's how these things uh uh let me uh I'll let me talk more um because the uh you brought up Spinning Man in 2017. Spinning Man was actually the very first paid job I ever got back in like 2003, something like that. Spinning Man, um, it was a book that the people who made cleaner they had this book and they were like, Matt, do you want to take a crack at it? And I was like, Yes, I mean a paid gig. Like this was, you know, I was I it was an adaptation and it was a rewrite, technically, though I started over. Um, but it was like points toward guild membership and all that stuff. I was really, really hungry. And so I went and did it. And we spent a number of years trying to make it um in the early 2000s, had a director, all that stuff. It was we were really trying. We we were trying to attach Pierce Brosnan to pay play the lead because he had just sort of finished up the Bond stuff and he was doing movies like The Madador and things like that. And so it was with Brosnan's people, and they all loved it, and they all loved it for him and everything. It never quite came together. Well, 12 to 14 years later, um, we get this random call that uh it the that the that somebody bought it up and is actually making it. And it was uh one of the assistants in Pierce Brosnan's company was now a producer, and he always liked the script and he dug it up, put it together, and Pierce Brosnan's in the movie. He's not the lead, but he's actually he's he's the foil. He's the he's sort of the the cop. It's another noir thing. I was to your earlier point, Noah, I was sort of cat pegged as this um noir crime thriller guy in the early days.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

It's a nice bit of uh Hollywood full circle. So um Coco, um obviously, as Noah said, brilliant. Um talk us through because I'm sure there must be stories, talk us through what it's like to actually go from sort of having that first meeting to writing it to getting it finished. Like tell me where things went wrong and and how really didn't happen and all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

I was on I was on COGO for three years. Um I think it took six years, Soup to Nuts, to make that film. Um, so I was on for three for the first three. Um and you know, the ethos around Pixar is you know, fail early and often. So I was there for all of the early, often failures. Like every day was it felt like um, you know, uh one step forward, two steps back, like every every day. And that that um that was um I was not ready, I don't think anybody's ready to work there. Um, but I was able to adapt um and learn. I I always say that Pixar is the film school I never went to, um, and I and I mean that. Like I learned more about movies and how they're made and what's important and um and just sort of the nature of collaboration. I I I can't even I can I could I could do a whole podcast on on the stuff you learn when you work at Pixar. And I am um but it is a it is a very difficult place to work um because the pressure is super high. And a lot of that pressure, I mean, to I'm gonna be totally honest, is self inflicted. Like when you go to work, you know, when you Enter the main building, the first thing you pass are these like uh like giant sculptures out of Lego of Buzz and Woody, and then you see there's like these big vinyl statues of Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo, and then the entire Incredibles cast is over here in this other statuette area, and you pass this case with all the the Oscars and the Annies and the Golden Globes and all the things, and you're and you you sort of look at all of that when you kind of walk in every day. And you know, when I when I first entered, I was like, oh shit, like I have to make characters that can stand in a lineup next to Buzz and Woody. Like this is this is hard. This is not this is not for the faint of heart. So um uh so yeah, uh there were so many uh face plants, personal face plants, like pitching stuff to just a dead room or um writing something and just loving it, and then it would just be like, yeah, we gotta cut that. And it's like ah and you gotta rewrite it again. And then you know, there's uh weekends and late nights. Um, but then there's also like these transcendent moments where the pieces fit and you realize, oh my god, that's that's it. That's what we're gonna go do. And then that kind of gets you over up and over the next hump.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

I I I have I I'm gonna stay on this because it's fascinating. I think it'll be fascinating to our listeners, and it's not exactly failure specific, but it's just granular. I'm so fascinated. I mean, obviously, as a TV writer, we go into a writing room and we're in a studio often, and we same thing, you know, there's we're we're working with a team. Uh a screenwriter often, like you said, is working in a vacuum. You're working alone. And so, but in the Pixar system, when you walk through those doors, are you going to work every day? Are you turning in pages every day? Are they storyboarding them? Because I it is a very different process, correct?

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah, it is and it isn't. It's actually it's it's more it's more similar to TV than it is to film. And um, they do get they do bring a lot of um TV writers over there to work on films um because um TV writers kind of they look around and they go, Oh, okay, that's the showrunner, this is the crew, this okay. And like they kind of already they walk in and they kind of understand the landscape maybe a lot better than a screenwriter might, um, just sort of intuitively. Um it is a uh yeah, writing for animation is a is very different, and you kind of have to learn how to do that on the fly. Um but the process is essentially this it's like you um um imagine getting to make a movie seven times before you make the movie. And you take those seven times that you make the movie to work out all the story kinks and you to find efficiencies to make it sing, to make it funny, to make it all the things that it needs to be. Because um, once they actually start animating it, that's a very time-consuming and expensive process. So they they don't want to animate anything they don't have to. So we spend the storyboard process um um uh to kind of hone the narrative. Um, you know, so in the beginning, it's it's a small group. It's the writer, the producer, storyboard, you the head of the storyboard team, you know, the story um supervisor, um, the director. Um those are the people in the room breaking the story, figuring it out, putting it up on cards, really just kind of um workshopping it. And then at a certain point, the script has to get written. And then there's table reads, and then it gets rewritten, and there's more table reads, and at a certain point they go, okay, we're gonna now storyboard this. And the script gets chopped up into 35 pieces and handed out to storyboard artists who then work on their individual piece, and it all gets edited together with temp music and dialogue, and um, and then screened for an audience, like a full audience in their theater, you know, 250, 300 people. Um, and you have to sit there and watch your rough movie either sink or swim. And then um then you get to do that all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Are you working? Sorry, this is another granular question that I'm sure we'll go to some more failure stuff with with Dan. But the uh are you working the director, Lee Unkrich was also a writer, and Jason Katz and looking at the credits now, and you so like uh you get story by and screenplay credit. So it's like you you were in it the whole time. Do are you working with the other writers? Are they coming on later, especially the director, because he's there the whole time? Like, how are you collaborating on the yeah?

SPEAKER_02 26:51

There's some clarity because in fact, you uh I'm um I I should correct something that you said earlier where um uh on light year. So I have a story credit on lightyear. Um I I worked on light year for the first year. I wrote the first draft of of lightyear. Um and um uh but uh Jason Headley and and uh and Angus did all the heavy lifting uh on that um project. So um the story by credit really goes to the people who were in the room, kind of beating it all out, um, figuring, you know, um there's there's only one writer at a time. It's um it's not a writer's room per se. We there are a lot of writers at Pixar, but we're all working on our own project. We'll sometimes consult on each other's, like we'll we'll be brought in for a day to help brainstorm this or that. But really, it's just one writer or writing team. Um and uh and so yeah, the screenplay credit goes to that. So after I left, Adrian Molina, who co-directed Coco, he continued to write the script as it continued it, as it continued to be iterated um after I left in the in the years of animation and and production. So that's why he and I share that um uh credit. So we didn't work together, we worked consecutively, if that makes sense. Yeah, totally. Um we did work together. That was that's the weird part, is that he was he was on the show the entire time and we worked together. So it's it's just uh it's a it's a quirk of the credits that doesn't quite reflect how it all came together.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

One of my favorite unimportant questions, which somehow for me is always important, is tell me about the premiere. Uh because I love hearing stories of people writing things and then not making it to the premiere or being uninvited or that. But presumably this one, you were invited and you went to it, and was it amazing?

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yes, it was, it was, and it was all of them. The the the premiere that I uh sort of the um what I think it will be a very hard day to top in my career will be the Mexico City premiere that I went to. Um it was it was released in Mexico a full month before it was released here, um, because it was released around um the holiday. Uh in the United States, it was reached released around Thanksgiving. Uh it was a Thanksgiving weekend uh slot. So a full month ahead of time, we went to Mexico City and they um they um played it at the some the Bell Arts um Palace of Fine Arts is gorgeous, you know, beautiful, beautiful venue. Um full orchestra there playing part of the score, you know, um uh uh beforehand and and having some musical acts sing some of the songs. And then and then they played the movie to to a um, you know, there's probably it's like a three to five thousand seat uh auditorium. It's like for operas and stuff like that. So it's a gorgeous, gorgeous venue. And um, and so to watch it in Spanish with a Spanish-speaking audience was always, always, always what I wanted to do with that. Like I was desperate to do that because there are so many nods in the movie toward um like the golden age of Mexican cinema and uh telenovelas and things like that. Um, and and um, and so I just wanted to see how it would all play uh in in Mexico. I was desperate to see how it was all gonna play in Mexico, and it was absolutely thrilling. It was it was one of the it was like I said, it was uh that night, I career-wise, I don't know if I'll ever top that.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Amazing. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

But that's not a failure, that was a success.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

No, that's good. I mean, look, you're allowed to talk about successes as long as they're sandwiched between some.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Oh, so it's a failure sandwich. Yeah, yeah. So let's let's get back to it. Failure bread, failure bread, success, tuna. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, like if I don't ask you a failure question now, we're gonna get complaints from our seven.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Okay. Okay, yeah. Um, uh so that's more like a club sandwich where there's like a little failure slice in the middle before we get to the next success, and then okay, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

So yeah, so you've done you've done cocoa, you've had this amazing moment. Um how long does the I wrote cocoa thing last before you're then back into we don't care about that? What have you got next?

SPEAKER_02 31:18

I mean, like me personally, I I ate I ate out on cocoa for about, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes. Like I really did not, I did not want to rest on those laurels uh at all because it it just takes too long to make stuff. I mean, here we are, it's it's it's it's many years later, and I'm still sort of there are still rocks that I'm pushing uphill. Um you know, the first thing I sold after Cocoa, we'll get here's a failure. I'll I'll I'll I'll lob a failure slice of bread to you. Thank you. It's not a failure. It's a it's a it's a success in progress. Because it isn't, it is not a failure. Um, but it is it is, I think, part and parcel of what is uh what can be really infuriating about this business sometimes. So I sold a pitch after Cocoa, and I absolutely sold it on the strength of Coco. They were like, you know, I wanted to write a musical about the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was like, I I had become fascinated. I'd done a deep dive research, I realized how insane the story was of how it actually fell, and that nobody had ever made the definitive movie about how the Berlin Wall fell. There's a lot of movies set in East Berlin, but there's no movies about how the Berlin Wall actually came down. And it's one of these uh seminal moments of the 20th century. And so um, I wanted to write a punk rock musical about the fall of the Berlin Wall. And um because she's amazing, um, uh Elizabeth Gabler at Fox 2000 said, yes, let's do this. And I sold the pitch and I wrote the screenplay. And by the time I turned in this the last draft of the screenplay, uh Fox 2000 no longer existed. Like I literally turned in a screenplay to a studio that wasn't there anymore. And that is as that is as um absurd. Um that that's just an absurd reality of this business. Like that by that point, Fox had been bought by Disney and the division had been um uh dissolved. Now, to uh Elizabeth's credit, um, you know, she she's she went on to create um uh her own shingle over at Sony and brought the um project over there, and we're still trying to um push that rock up the hill over there at Sony. So like I said, it's a success in progress. But at the time, um it was like, oh boy, this this this does not get easier. It doesn't matter. It does not matter what you what success you've had, it just does not get easier.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

I think that it's you know, people talk about, you know, if they're the the to all the aspiring writers listening, one of the things they're going for always is like, I want to get my WGA card, and then I want to get my first screenplay, you know, made or whatever. That's like the thing, but you're I don't think you're truly a Hollywood writer until you've turned in a script to a studio that doesn't exist anymore. It's such a common story because it takes so long and the execs get fired, and you just like you were often writing to without realizing it, two studios and execs who are no longer gonna have their job. But that's not my question. You've teed us up for the perfect failure question, and I and I've been waiting to ask it, which is like you the premiere is the highest of highest. The premiere in Mexico City, Coco is a huge hit. You knew it was gonna be a hit, and it was a hit, and it's amazing, and you have your premiere. Okay, great. You got that awesome moment. What's what was your lowest low?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

I I talked about it already, I think, because when uh I wasn't working, um, and you know, I had a young child and another on the way, and I I really that really was the lowest low. Um I yeah, it was when I really started to, it was when I was really thinking, like, yeah, I don't know if how much longer this is gonna last. Um the since then I've had lows and frustrations, and whether it's coming from a a script uh I can't figure out, and I'm beating my head against the wall, and the the guy I got people asking me where is it and all this stuff, and I'm you know, in panic, panic, panic. That's low. But by this point in my life and my career, I kind of I have faith, I have enough faith in myself that like, well, eventually I'm gonna finish this thing. Like, I'm not worried anymore that I'll just never finish this script. Like, I'm going to get to the end. It may take 10 times longer than I think, but I'm going to get to the end. And when I do, I will experience the kind of relief that I'm looking for. And um, and so uh, but then, but at the time, like back in 2010, I really didn't have much faith. We were also very similar to today, you know, we were, you know, I sort of went through the strike in 2007, 2008. I had just joined the union, uh, like I was not even six months in the union before that strike. And just like now, in this, we were kind of living through a post-strike doldrums um in uh for the next few years. Um, and um, and things were bleak all over. And and so I wasn't looking around and seeing a bunch of other people doing great either. Like we were all struggling.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Yeah, I was I I don't know if I've talked about it on this podcast, but I was a new writer in right after the strike as well, and without you know, going around with scripts in hand, not realizing all of these pods had no money. So that is a way of saying, you know, to the you know, people who are scared that this is cyclical, you know, it might be the worst I've seen it in a while. But I I do want to like I have a question for you. It's a little bit of a loaded question, but it's but it's leading us into the future. So we've talked about your past, we've talked about sort of what's going on with with you know the present and what you're working on now a little bit, but um looking towards the future in your career and in Hollywood, I have heard promising uh you know things from my screenwriter friends. And when I say screenwriter friends, I mean feature writer friends who are saying that we're selling projects, we're booking jobs. Like the world is not as bleak as what it feels like in television right now, where we're in like at least a 30, if not a 50% contraction of what they're making. And yet there was 30 to 50 percent more writers all looking for those same amount of jobs, like a much smaller amount of jobs. So it's it's really hard to find work. I'm hearing upwards of a thousand submissions per job, per staff job. So a thousand people are going, and these are people who have amazing credits because they're they're no longer working. Um, so what does it feel like to you on the feature side? Do you feel bullish? Do you feel scared? Do you are you indifferent? Are you hopeful? And and and how do you feel personally?

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Um personally, I feel uh like I said, I'm I'm grateful because I'm I'm busy. Um and um I more important than being busy though, I I have um I have found um sort of a group of people, producers and also you know, my reps and everything like that, I really trust um and know that we're all gonna try to keep working together no matter what and making things. And it's gonna be hard, um, but we're gonna we're gonna keep doing it. And I the more I'm in this business, uh, the more I realize how important it is to find the right people to work with. Because I've worked with the wrong people uh in the past. I've worked with abusive people and um uh unsavory people and questionable people and erratic people, and it's that is that is crazy making. And so when when you find like reliable like um people to work with, things tend to feel more stable and more hopeful. Um, and so that's kind of where I am. I think my my rose-colored glasses are are come from the fact that I just find myself working with some really, really talented people right now. And so I can't help but feel optimistic. Um, but I I fully acknowledge that that's not everybody's case right now. Um speaking macro, like uh what I think, you know, my opinion about this this industry and where it's going. Um it is cyclical and movies have no choice but to come back. I don't, I don't think, look, uh movies stopped being the biggest industry in entertainment when you know 20 years ago when video games eclipsed it. Like movies aren't gonna be the biggest thing, um maybe ever again, but that's okay. Like that that's the thing. It's like I I I'm I'm not worried about that because they can they um they can still get made and they can still get seen and they can still be powerful. Um and uh and so I'm I'm okay with that. I don't I don't need I don't, you know, I don't I don't mourn the loss of TV guy. You know, I just I I I I go like look, we're it's gonna always be changing, and so let's change with it and um you know hang in there.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Um so look, we're we're near the end of this podcast in the beginning. Um I want to do one more question before I finish. I think I'm gonna just because um I've I think I know what I want to ask, but it's not necessarily a brilliant question. So we're gonna do a choose your own adventure here for your last question. Uh um you tell me, do you want to answer the question? Uh and you opened the door when you said you've worked with some bad people. Do you want to tell us not the name? Um that's not how this works, but do you want to give me a uh a bad person story? No. Oh, well, hold on, let me give you your choices before you. Okay, okay. The second one, less contentious perhaps. Um, I'm always fascinated by how people A celebrate the success of a project, and B, how they mourn the failure of one. So your second option would be to tell us your how you reward yourself for your family and and how you punish yourself and your family. And then that's it.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Oh, there's a third? Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Well, um, yeah, and then actually let's just do two because I think you want to answer the second one.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Okay. Um, well, I it that's an easy choice because um I don't celebrate wins. Um, and that's so I I I I can't describe how how how to do that. I'm you know almost physically unable to do that. Um, so um I because I'm always uh I always feel like it's bad luck. Like I'm feeling like uh yeah, don't celebrate the wins um because the other shoes about to drop. Um so um, but that's uh if you want to hear more about that, we can do a podcast from my therapy session. Um, you know. Um, but uh yeah, I mean, look, the looking back on the difficult people, like it's funny now. At the time it was not funny. Like I can say, like it's really funny to me that like one time I was working with a director and I sent him the latest draft of a script, and he sent me 50 pages of notes typewritten in all caps. That was that was the that was that was the document I got in risk in return. 50 pages of his writing. Like, and and it was like not a long time. Like he like literally, like, I don't know, I don't know if he was on drugs, I don't know what was going on, but he he um uh I got an earful. And I was like this young writer who, like at the time, I was like, I guess I have to execute all 50 pages of these manic um all caps notes. Um, luckily, uh, when the producer found out about that, she had some words with the director. And so um uh yeah, like those those those stories are now, I don't know, they're amusing to me. Um, but they were not amusing at the time at all. Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Um look, uh so now is the last question. You don't get a choice about this one, you have to ask because we ask every guest this question, which is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody looking to enter the industry, which sorry, what single piece of advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Um I've I I've heard your show, so I've thought about this question. Um, and I have two pieces of advice, if that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

I mean, we what are we gonna do? Tell you no? If you make notes about how you've broken the rules? 50-50 pages. Um no.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Uh yeah. Uh well, I'll say this. I don't know if it's good advice, but I'll say this is this is what I did. Um, what I did was uh out of college, I got a job in the movie business. I got a very strange job in the movie business. I worked at the Sundance Institute. Um, so I it was a I was working in a nonprofit. Um, but it was again, it was since the late 90s, and it was very much at the center of the of the movie world in a lot of ways. Um and when I say get a job in the movie business, I'm saying what what here's what I got out of that. I got a an education of just how the movie business was working at that moment, who was important, who was making things. Um, and most importantly, I started making relationships myself with my peers and um and and other people who would go on to sort of help me, you know, sort of give me a leg up. Um, people I could lean on a little bit, going, hey, can you read this? You know, I know you I know you know me as this guy who works at this place, but I wrote this thing. Would you mind reading this and let me know what you think? Like that was the um that was, you know, I I don't know how I would have gotten my foot in the door otherwise, other than to get a paid job somewhere. Um, and then the other piece of advice uh that I think is a little maybe more evergreen is um uh learn how to pivot. Just learn how to pivot. Like don't get hung up on how you think something ought to go. Um, whether it's uh specifically like something in a script you're writing, like a story point, you might have to pivot off of that to get that thing made or to get it to the next through the next gate. Um, you know, uh have faith that whatever got you this far will continue to get you to the next gate. So don't be afraid to pivot.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Right? Super. Uh Matt Aldridge, who hopefully we will never have to find out how good you are as a pastry chef. Thank you very much indeed for coming on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Thank you guys for having me. This was really fun. I appreciate it. Thank you, Matt.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you, James Launch, for the music and our wives for putting up with our compiler. As always, each episode is brought to you by Scriptation, my favorite screenwriting annotations. If you want to support the show, please download a copy at www.scriptation.com slash number.scriptation.com slash. If you want to find me on social media, I'm don't worry about me on social media because we care about