Take 117 - Director, Writer, Showrunner Matthew Carnahan, Dirt, House of Lies

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 the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

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

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Sometimes even here.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

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

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Like everything in our business here, hands in the country.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I promptly lost it. Well, that's it for me. I do my one-bit shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app that instantly transfers your notes into new drafts in seconds. Scriptation allows you to digitally mark up scripts, separate notes into layers, track changes across revisions, and so much more. Insert Noah saying something nice about scriptation.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

It's great. My wife might have other things to say about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Sitha listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sitha.com backslash S-ITHA. 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-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

At this second, you're still in the entertainment business co-host Noah Epslin. On today's podcast, I'm thrilled to introduce novelist, screenwriter, TV writer, director, producer, and showrunner Matthew Carnahan to the podcast. Matt is the creator of such shows as Trinity, Dirt, House of Lies, and Valley of the Boom. He also directed the feature film Black Circle Boys, produced a documentary in 2001 called Rudy Ju called Rudyland about Rudy Giuliani, and Civil about Ben Crump. He also wrote a novel called Serpent Girl. Welcome, Matt.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Nice to be here. I forgot I did all that. So this is possibly a slightly unfair opening question, but so be it. So uh I think it's important our readers and our listeners understand that Matt and Noah actually are working together on a project. So, Matt, how does it work? You know, when you're very successful, when you're working with somebody like Noah, how do you manage that relationship to stop them sort of dragging you down too much or trying to take credit for stuff that that you've done? I guess the question is have you had a worse partner to work with than Noah?

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Um, you know, give me give me just give me one second to kind of think about that. I don't I don't know that I that I have. I'm not gonna say I have or I haven't. Uh Noah is is certainly among the worst uh collaborators I've ever had, but um no, uh somewhere at the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

That's that's my goal.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Yeah, yeah, there's yeah, yeah, it's like a like a catfish pond. It's you're in there somewhere. Um no, it's been uh it's been a pleasure getting to know Noah and uh and work with him and his uh amazing, you know. The the problem is uh I'm also working with his wife, uh Genevieve on the project, and she's just so cool. She just kind of she can't help but throw shade all over him, but but uh little than that, other than that, he's great.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Let's let's go backwards a little bit. We tend to try to do this in chronological order. Uh so in the beginning of your career, uh two-part question. Why did you join this crazy business? And what was your worst experience in Hollywood in your early years of Hollywood before you became a showrunner and you know gained you know the power that you have now?

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Well, I I don't I think I had a kind of sideways entree into Hollywood and uh filmmaking and television, especially, and certainly show running. Um I was a playwright in New York and uh I had a theater company and I got a fellowship to come to to come to LA and um through through uh this thing called the Chesterfield Film Writers Fellowship. And uh um it was through Steven Spielberg and these two really nice guys who started basically what what was like uh almost like a graduate writer's room. And so they gave us a little stipend to write a couple screenplays and um uh and then Spielberg would have a first look, and then Universal would have a second look, and then and then we would have our rights back to our material. So it's a pretty great deal. Um, and I think the I think for the two scripts we got paid $17,000, which as a playwright coming from New York, it was like I mean, I just didn't know what I was gonna do with all that money. I was so I was like, do I buy a car, do I buy a house? Do I buy, you know, one of each? Um but uh but yeah, so that's that's how I began. And um and from there, you know, I got I got agents um based on the one of the scripts that I wrote there. Um and uh I got a job um based on actually a play that I wrote. I got a job writing a script for Tom Hanks, um, who really liked the play, which was great, and I was so psyched. And and you know, as often happens in this weird business, like I got the job. I was at the time, I think I was working as like a personal chef for a horse breeder in Pasadena, and uh and you know, catering on weekends and like uh it was you know trying to make a living, trying to survive. And I got this job, and I was like, okay, I can finally I can be a writer. And uh and Tom was like, oh, but I I really like the title uh Across America with the top down, and that's the title of this documentary. So I think we should option the documentary, even though you're not going to use the documentary for the for the you know any content, and that and the cut to a year of Disney business affairs, uh trying to just trying to get like a commencement check to get, you know, my one little job started. Um and then, you know, and and and the job just kind of from there, it just sort of went pear-shaped, at least, at best. Um, and then just totally shipped the bed and and uh and um you know it was like this, it started, it started so beautifully. And you know, I was like, I got a job writing a like a dramatic comedy for Tom Hanks, like boom, I'm I've arrived, I'm there, and then it just and then it was just like, yeah, but um, we're just gonna put a shiv there, and then uh, you know, and then and then like the person who ran his company, like had a kind some something happened, and uh so it just the whole thing just began to become completely untethered and just float away like a like a like a balloon that was you know losing its its helium. It was just like it just drifted. So what what point did it get better? Um waiting. That's gonna happen. I know it. I know it. Um any day now, today, today with your podcast. Um well it got, I mean I from there, you know, I started getting um, you know, I got a few screenwriting jobs. Um and they would kind of just generally kind of go that way, like something would happen, and it would be a year to make a deal, it would the person who hired me would be fired and then or they would lose interest, and um, you know, it just never quite, it never quite those kind of jobs just never have been the thing that have worked for me. And so I had this, you know, I was a indie film at that point. I was an indie filmmaker. I had made a I made this movie Black Circle Boys, um, uh, and this other movie, Mailman. They both went to Sun Nance, they were well received. Um, you know, and that's sort of what got me on the oh, and uh Black Circle Boys was one of the scripts that I wrote for Spielberg at uh uh during the fellowship. And and so about the same time that I started as a writer at CAA, uh this agent Joe Cohen started as an agent at CAA, and and he was just this and still is this force of nature um as an agent. And he just bugged me from the day we met, like you should make a television show. And I was like, I don't like television, I don't want to do television, I don't I haven't watched television in 20 years. Like I don't what I don't even I don't care. Um you know, I come from the theater and thought I was whatever, better than television or something. And and to be fair, to me at that time, television did kind of suck. Um most of it, you know, there were these there were these standouts that I kept trying to ignore, but but mostly television sucked, and then there were these amazing, you know, uh these amazing, you know, NYPD blue would pop up or whatever. Um and uh so finally, just to shut Joe up, I wrote a one page like I wrote a one page description of a TV show. Um and um gave it to him and he was like, Oh, I I like this. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna show this to uh I'm gonna show this to John Wells. And and then he showed it to John Wells, and like I met with John Wells, he'll this is great, let's do this. Um we so we go into Warner Brothers, we pitch it, they're like, Yes, we love this, let's go pitch it to NBC. We they we love this, let's go make a TV show. So my first experience in television, that's when it got better, I would say it was like you know, just like one door after another would would spring open with a red carpet, and uh, you know, it was really amazing. And um I got to make my show, you know, and that was incredible. And uh um, you know, we went to New York and made a pilot, and Michael Caton Jones, Scottish, this great Scottish director, um, really, really grumpy but very talented, um, directed it, and you know, it it got on the air, and it was a really um it was a great experience and it premiered and it did well and it was chugging along and um and then Warren Littlefield, who was then the head of NBC, got fired, and the new guy came in and and basically canceled everything that was that was his and canceled the show. Um and you know, that was it. It got it got uh summarily executed. So we made the first nine episodes, and it was like this, you know, dream ballet of television, you know, it was literally like the one page pitch two days later, sold that the boom, the uh uh uh uh uh uh and then and then it was just like you know, boom, kaboom, and it was dead. Um so that's when it got better, but it also got it also got worse.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

When when that happens, and obviously we've heard versions of this on this show before. Um, as you say, I think Noah once said that you know you need 13 yeses to get anything made, maybe 13 is too too low a number, and you know, the to get them all to line those things up to have this sort of perfect storm where you get something made is amazing, and then obviously execs leaving and then being replaced by people who then cancel slates is a regular tale we've heard. I guess what does that do to you next time? So when you're when you're making show number two and all the doors are opening, you're like, Oh, here we go, I've seen this, I've seen this before, I know how this is gonna end. Like, do you get even when everything is all the yeses are lining up, are you are you still waiting for the no, or you're like, well, if it doesn't come now, something bad's gonna happen later. Does it do you get tricked into just assuming nothing will ever be successful?

SPEAKER_04 16:03

I think I keep I think I keep forgetting. Um I'm I am really like up until like three weeks ago, you know, like Charlie Brown with the football. Like every fucking time something happens. And and you know, uh like the next time trying to think what what what ended up happening after that, you know, I I think I I went and worked on uh a friend's show, which I never wanted to ever like boy did I not I didn't want to create television, but I really didn't want to work for someone else's TV show. Um and I went and did that, and actually it was it was it was really nice to be in a writer's room. Like here were a bunch of other, you know, similarly socially awkward, you know, borderline spectrum souls, and and uh um it was great, you know, that was really nice. Um so I did that, I did that on a couple shows, and then I um made a the documentary. I think I wrote a couple features and then I and then I connected with um uh with Courtney Cox and uh and David Arquette and uh and they wanted to do something about paparazzi. And and I had been kind of obsessed with this paparazzo in New York who was schizophrenic and was actually pretty good at it, but was you know, but was also dealing with schizophrenia at the same time. Um so I sort of smushed those things together and created uh created the show Dirt um with those guys. And I had known John Langraff and I had been we had when he was an independent film producer, we had worked on a on a movie of mine try to try to get it, you know, together and get it made. Um so and we had done a bunch of like charity stuff together. Um and so it was landgraph and and that was really that was really an interesting process and it was really my own idea and it was really weird. I mean it was avant-garde, like it was odd, and you know, getting it from like a like a some uh you know, it was like a really like a Jans Vonckmeier film or something. It was just like out there, it was very odd, and um shaping that into a show that could be on this you know pro very progressive, very cool network, but you know, it's TV network, it's a cable, a basic cable TV network. Um and finding finding like finding the pure the the pieces of compromise to get it to um to get it to into a place where it was satisfying to me as a writer-director, and satisfying to the network and to the actors as something that they could sink their teeth into that had, you know, uh that had traditional narrative elements as well as the weird stuff, and had, you know, elements of soap and elements of melodrama, which basically all television has to have if it's not just straight up comedy. So yeah, and that was that was a very good experience. And then uh, you know, I think I got pushed back on a lot from uh not from well, you know, Langraff and I had real battles over that show. Um really, really like I mean that killed our friendship for a while, you know. Um like we really we really practically came to blows over it. And then, you know, but we figured it out and uh and then Chernan had his problems with it. You know, he didn't, you know, he you know, work it, you know, coming from the Murdoch organization and you know, uh um, you know, he wanted it to feel more like, you know, like what their tabloids felt like. Um, so he sent me to London to like um hang out with the Murdochs and with. um and with uh Rebecca Wade yeah Rebecca Wade Rebecca Brooks Rebecca Wade yeah um and that was really informative and so that was what informed season two and I think that was really on track and then the strike um and then the strike utterly gutted uh that show you know um just fucking cut it off at the knees um we were we had shot two episodes and written seven um of the second season but the the five episodes were first drafts and then we went on strike and I couldn't even you know I couldn't even like fix them and I mean that was so and then they went and shot them uh and I haven't even I mean I've never even looked at them because I can't imagine how bad they are and and just to clarify this is the 2007 first not not obviously not the strike that we just had but this is we're still at 2007 and part of your career.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

So what yeah I guess what happens emotionally because we've kind of kept at the crux of what this podcast is about is sort of mining people's emotions around these losses because I mean you're you you lost a friend you were fighting with a friend over the creation of the show you you you you had something primal inside of you that came out of story that opened up that got you your 13 yeses to use dance example like you had to get this thing on the air and it got on the air couple shows have gotten on the air now and then have been sort of wrenched away from you in ways that really have nothing to do with the writing or the crafting or the creating or anything that you did. It's just outside forces came in and stripped you of the thing that you've spent years on these take years, right? So what happens emotionally to you in those moments when you're trying to get back on the horse or just processing the loss of the thing you've worked on for so long?

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Yeah that's such a good question. I mean you know I was listening to Bill Lawrence who has you know from from your podcast um from the finale last year and and he just had such a good attitude about you know and such a like journeyman um take on on writing and I was thinking about how my few successes and you know of course you know for every success many many failures um like I've I mean I've I've been gutted I've been absolutely fucking gutted by some of these you know losses and some of these you know where to the point where I'm gonna where I go okay I'll write a novel you know or okay you know I I give up I'll you know and it's it's tricky because I've never like I've literally never done a single taken a single job because of the money which is probably really in retrospect really stupid um but but I haven't so so what I have is like what I can have what I have at the end of the day is like did I was I able to maintain my integrity was I able to make the thing that you know that was in my head you know and at the end of the day am I proud of what you know of what I got to make and you know that there's a handful of those and there's you know and then the you know the the the road behind me is littered with the detritus of all the of all the shite you know that I've that I've produced you know while trying to while having really good intentions um and trying to get it right and trying to apply you know an actual sort of artisanal uh you know uh uh methodology to what I do and fuck you know it's it is it is you know it's not like working construction it's not nearly as hard as that but I will say it is hard it is you know and and unlike construction you don't get to leave it you know you don't get to leave it at the job site in the same way it just always for me the whatever the kind of writer I am which I sort of describe myself as a method writer like I get into it deep into it and so this this stuff you know it it leaves marks you know um but but it's also really I wouldn't do anything else you know it's not like I want to do anything else and at some point I didn't have any idea when it happened at some point I was like oh I I like television better than all this like better than all my days in doing theater and you know television's amazing like it's it's the most novelistic the most difficult the most right and left brained you know running a TV show is is really challenging and really like I don't there's not anything else I want to do professionally.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Do you think and it's so fascinating because obviously you and I are working on something together and something that I'd like to think we're both really passionate about and like to think that we've had some amazing success. We can't talk about the project specifically but this is moving forward in a time where at least to these stages when things really aren't moving forward and there's based on no IP, based on just life history and something that we're both passionate about my wife's passionate about obviously and your producing partner's passionate about it. And is it that and that makes it that much more scary I think for all of us to take on this project because a lot of projects I write it's just like marketplace driven that's fun oh well that didn't go or that got sold but didn't go oh well but things like this and the things like this project you're talking about that actually went forward you put not only your like your heart and soul you put a lot into it and when they eventually fall apart for reasons that are not your fault or maybe they're partially your fault you feel that pain right that emotional pain.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

And is it like do you think they're connected that there's no way to you know for the Schnipher shows you write specifically you need to set yourself up for that kind of failure to even have a chance for it to get on the air yes I do I don't think there's a way to beat the dealer on when you're making good shit like I just don't think there's a way to beat the dealer like you can you can play uh psychological games with yourself you know you can compartmentalize you can say I assign you to project passion project a I assign you to a space that I don't give a shit about until you are a Go project. Like you can do things like that. I think for me I have limited success doing that. But in terms of like making the work good and what it takes to make the work good and what it takes in terms of for me anyway I you know I no idea you know everyone has a different process but for me it's like the level of self-examination uh and uh introspection and revel you know self-revelation or whatever it is uh it you just gotta go all the way balls to the wall and and then when that project uh almost invariably because most of them you know the percentage is it's likely that that is gonna ultimately um be left by the side of the road somewhere um then it's like okay then you have to you know then you whatever you you make peace with that um so look you obviously you know you your career started off sort of working with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and it's ended up working with sort of Noah Evslin. So it's an interesting wow when you put it that way no but I was gonna I guess the question how do you deal with the the either the failure how do you deal in the moment with the failures so it sounds like like a lot of people in Hollywood you've had you know things have gone well and they've gone badly things just went badly straight away what's your process for moving on are you a a drinker a fighter a swearer uh forget it ever happened like what's your in the moment when it's gone wrong how do you sort of process it and then how do you move forward to the next thing well there's yeah so 10 11 years ago and before uh I would consume any substance uh that you put in my path to make the pain go away um and and I also fed on a pretty steady diet of rage and uh resentment and probably burned a few really solid bridges along the way with that um now I don't now I you know I I go surfing I talk to my kids I go surfing some more um um but yeah I mean I it it is a very different as a as a semi-adult now it's a very different process of processing failure um and and also reframing it you know I don't process I don't process something not going forward all the time as failure I've been working on this project with Martin Scorsese for the last three years and it may go forward it may not but along the way I got like this notes call with him that was like a masterclass in voiceover um you know and those those moments process it's all process so writing the thing having having like transcendent moments of right of actually writing the thing having moments like that where I'm working with my heroes and they're revealing things about making film and television that you know that I in my limited capacity would never have sort of grocked um you know the the that's now I'm able to attach a different uh a different uh paradigm to the whole thing in terms of like what what is what is uh success but you I mean there's a moments in everybody's career where a it's so awful you have no idea what you're gonna do and then on the flip side you get a call from you not me get a call from Martin Spresezi and you're on the phone going even though you're you've done a a lot of television you're like I can't believe I'm sure to some degree that this is my career that these are the phone calls I get to make and these are the people I get to talk to in my career. So you know in along those lines we're we're running out of time so sort of in brief what is your highest high in Hollywood and maybe your lowest low uh in comparison during your career so highest high pretty easy I think um going six years of everyday going to work uh with Don Cheadle and the cast of House of Lies and the writer's room and probably the highest high of that high was going to Cuba directing the finale of the series with these people who were now very much my family with the entire you know uh with David Nevins and all of the sort of showtime family who had actually become family as well believe it or not um like that feeling of that feeling of getting to complete something so uh special you know it's it's a very rare it's a very rare feeling very good feeling the worst I mean boy it's such a panoply of of of choices um yeah probably yeah probably it was probably it was the feeling the very first you know on that first series um trinity of just realizing that it was all going to shit and that I was essentially um even though I I uh was brand new to the game what it was just like a hundred and fifty people turning and pointing and going it's his fault um and um yeah watching that watching that collapse around me was pretty was pretty gnarly excellent great answer um but unfortunately we are now at the wrong end of the podcast so uh it leaves me to ask just the final question which is uh I can't give given everything you've said and the way you've said it I can't wait to hear what you're gonna say now if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to enter the industry what would that single piece of advice be oh well do it first of all there's nothing better um but don't don't be fooled by all the crap um don't I in my opinion don't try to get the assistant job don't don't go go make your own shit with your own people and build your community of artists and filmmakers and caterers and uh friends and supporters and patrons and make shit just make it make it as bad as it has to be as cheap as it has to be and then make the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one and and then you're you wake up and suddenly you are doing it for a living that's the way I think that's the only way compared to you know slogging along in someone else's reality love that Matt Canahan thank you for one of the I'd say the rawest most candid and honest uh interviews we've done thank you very much for your time oh thank you it was it was a pleasure very cathartic actually thanks thanks Matt thank you so much guys thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music and thank you to our loyal listeners and if there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection failure in adversity please send them away if you are interested in following us on social media I've lost track I am an Epson on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it and thanks to Elon Musk I'm also Epsilon on hive out blue sky red on high space French