Take 103 - Executive, writer and showrunner Lisa Morales, Shameless, Two Sentence Horror Stories

SPEAKER_03 0:00

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

SPEAKER_01 0:14

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

SPEAKER_02 0:20

For every single day, there is even this is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is like everything in a business here.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

I was being told by my manager, and I probably lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I do my one big shot. What I've realized with that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

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SPEAKER_01 1:25

Dan, I I think this is where they actually want me to talk about how much I love it. And I do love it, it's great. It's calling function transformed me from the messiest writer in Hollywood to well, ever so slightly less messy. My wife might have other things to say about that. Sitha listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sitha.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

For those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. If you're wondering about timelines, this episode was recorded before the strike ended. 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 2:27

And depending on when this airs, I'm your hopefully not still on strike co-host, Noah Epslin. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce TV writer, showrunner, and executive producer Lisa Morales. Lisa has worked on such shows as Shameless, Rosewood, Bluff City Law, and Queen Sugar. She was also the executive producer and showrunner of two sentence horror stories on the old CW that no longer exists. Welcome, Lisa.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Nice to meet you guys. Thanks for having me. Yes, that was my quote. I'm sorry, CW.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Um good. So let's start. I'm trying to try to think of the right question. There's so for some guests I prepare sort of very specific questions about their career. Other ones, I like to just do a sort of random failure question. So let's start with a random failure question. Um, Lisa, have you ever crashed um a car or anyone else's car as part of your professional working life?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Uh yes, I was James Cameron's assistant on from before Titanic to the Academy Awards was my last night. And in the middle of that gig, I decided to crash his Hummer while I was driving a Malibu. And I thought I would be that was the end of me in Hollywood, but luckily it wasn't. He was very understanding and I was forgiven. But yes, I crashed Jim Cameron's Hummer when I was his assistant.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Fantastic. Um, I'm glad that question was a terrifying moment in my career. But look, I mean, obviously, joking aside, um, I'm sure you had a great working relationship with him. Um, but there are probably assistants in Hollywood who've been fired for a lot less than crashing somebody's hummer. Um given the you know the nature of Hollywood work, when you had to make the phone call to say, you know, this Hummer of yours, um, it is crashed. How did how did that play out? And genuinely, were you worried that there would be a Hollywood overreaction?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, I was terrified. I thought I'd lose my job right then and there, and my time in Hollywood was over when it was just starting. Um, but he was amazing and he was gracious. And I drove up to the house with a messed up Hummer. And Jim, I got to tell you something. He's like, What? Let's go see. I go out and he's like, All right, all right, just you know, get it fixed. I can't drive it around like this because it looks like I'm on the bad driver. And uh that was it. And I looked at him and sincerely thanked him for being gracious. And I thought you were gonna kill me. He's like, you know, Lisa, it's stuff. I don't get emotional about stuff, you know, which is typical Jim Cameron. He cares about the prodigy, he cares about the film, the work, the shot. But um, the little stuff, you know, my experience with him was that he was go with the flow and deal with it, you know. So yeah, the the reputation doesn't always equal the reality.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I do want to add that uh, you know, I too have a James Cameron story that I'm not gonna go into, but right behind me is my dog, and that dog, which you guys can't see, James Cameron did come up to and say, You have a very beautiful dog one day at a random breakfast that he was sitting next to me at. So I and we had brought our dog. So uh James Cameron loves my dog, that's probably should go to the top of any of my you know bios. But you know, so let's let's move let's you crash James Cameron's Hummer. Um and somehow you crash your way in. This is my segue. You crash your way into a staff writing job uh, you know, in Hollywood. Did it take you longer than you thought?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

What was 15 years in between?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

All right, let's let's let's look into that part.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Literally, the Academy of Words was my last night because I knew it'd be probably a a good eight to 10 years before he did his next film. So I went looking for I was writing, but I was too scared to start the writing career yet. So in like 97, 98, actually, I think it was I think I left him around 98. I ended up as an assistant at John Wells Productions. And I was at John Wells Productions from assistant to senior vice president and as a development executive until 2010, where I then ended up switching careers and starting over and went on shameless as a story as a as a staff writer. So I had a whole other career, which you know makes me a little different than most writers as an executive. I was on the other side, I was on the dark side. And uh, you know, giving notes, working with writers, I was on the feature side. So that was what I knew well. And um, you know, was there when Damien Chazelle was launching his career, had a project with him, and you know, Arashamel. So I got to work with young writers just starting up, and I mean, I loved it, but I always knew I wanted to write. I was just scared. I was scared, you know, when you're a development executive, it's very social. You go to Comic Con, you go to Sundance, you do drinks, you go to screenings. And John Wells is such a tight company. We'd all been together for you know, eight to ten years together, a bunch of executives all over town right now that I can name from Jenny Howe to Tracy Underwood that have all come up together. So I was scared to take the leap. And at the time I thought I was going to be a feature writer. The idea of being, you know, in my shed writing by myself terrified me. And I just I just wasn't ready. And then finally, as as TV was picking up and cable took off like crazy and streaming, and like the most interesting stuff was happening on television. I had the opportunity. I wrote a script, John liked it. I had a feature script that ended up on the blacklist, and that's how he found out I was writing on the side. But I had the opportunity to go on shameless on season four and season five. And that's yeah, it took 15 years to get there.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

The um, you know, we had Jan Nash, who's actually my well, my current showrunner if I'm was on a show and not a strike, uh, one of my current showrunners, and she had the same experience where she was a high-level exec, and then she jumped over and became a writer. I was a non-writing producer for years, and I always told my wife it felt like I'm climbing the wrong ladder. And the higher I got, the more uncomfortable I got climbing that ladder because it felt like I was getting further and further away from the career that I wanted. But did John Wells sit you down and go, Are you crazy? Or was he understanding? Because he's a writer too, right? Like, why would you ever want to do this? Do you have jobs?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

No, he got it. You know, I mean, he's a producer, and John's a master producer. I mean, he's a great writer, but he's a master producer, so he got it. But uh he didn't give me that talk. He said, What do you do, kid? You're not getting any younger. Are you do you want to be a studio executive? Do you want to keep because I'd been there for so long, you know, you get complacent. Or do you want to write? And the you're not getting any younger is if you're gonna do this, it's time to do this, like leap. And I had had I'd had two bosses, one of the best in features, one of the best in TV. And I didn't, you know, I was get out there in the world. So luckily I had a soft landing ground and um ended up on shameless um for him when he gave me that opportunity. But that created a little bit of an imposter syndrome for me, which it took me a while to get over. Like, did I deserve to be here? Yes, I wrote a feature that got attention. Yes, I wrote a sample that proved that I could write TV, but it took those first two seasons, you know, here you're and I don't know if you guys know anything about shameless, but it tends to be very top-heavy with all executive producers and one staff writer or story editor to kind of break them in. So here I am surrounded by these amazing playwrights and and and screenwriters, TV writers, and me. And you know, I'd never I'd never been in a writer's room before, besides to visit it. I was the person that was used to giving notes and and breaking out writers. And a lot of times I'd met all those writers because they had pitched projects to me. So, you know, it took me a while to get my feet under me. I mean, sure, I could pitch ideas, that was easy, but to just to find my place in a writer's room and realize what does it mean to be a TV writer? What does it mean to this life to come in to prep to do all that? So it wasn't easy in that sense. And after two seasons, John's like, you need to go out there and spread your wings and get new bosses and experience new writers' room. But, you know, it took a moment and then I landed on Rosewood. And, you know, your show's about mistakes and failures. And it was the first time in my career where I lost my job. And it wasn't because so much about my performance at all. I mean, Todd Hartham's a great showman and a good guy. I think it was about my confidence level. And I showed a little bit of fear in the writer's room. And when the time came and they needed more help, and you know, someone had to go, I was the person that probably had the least confidence in that moment. And I lost my job, which was devastating. And it took me two over two years to jump back and to find my voice.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Sorry to interrupt this. I want to explore a bit more on this because you know, we did warn you that we don't really care about how successful you are.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

This is the what we've come for.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

So talk to me about what that's like in terms of not so much the the firing, but the before that, the sort of given that you've been in a room before, you know, what was it about that room where you didn't feel confident? Is it you know, is it you? Is it the way that room is is run? Like describe what left you feeling like that is why it all happened.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

No, the writers in the room were super supportive and great, but you know, they were they were in their they were in their stride and at that point in their careers. And that machine, John's, you know, a master room room runner. I mean, he's run so many shows, and it's such a machine. And we meet, you know, that particular room, shameless, meets three times a week for three hours a week, and we get it all done. So it just runs like a machine with all pros. And I think for me, it was like I I was questioning, was I good enough? Or was I here because I'd been a loyal employee for John for 15 years or whatever it was, 12 years, and he saw something in me, was giving me an opportunity. I was questioning whether I could live up to that opportunity at the time. I knew I could, but there was just something in me was like, Am I in over my head? Because I was thrown the D-bed, you know, like this room had already started. I joined it, like I think the second or third month that it was in. So I was catching up from the get-go. I wasn't there to break the season at the beginning of my first season. So it was just me getting in my own way and my own insecurities that were wondering like, do I deserve to be here? When I'd hear stories about writers that struggled and struggled and struggled, and had I paid my dues. And at that moment, I wasn't sure if I had. You know, and it's kind of like sometimes when you meet success and maybe you're not ready for success just yet. I think it was kind of one of those cases. It's okay. I had to earn it when I was unemployed for two years. So that time I got over that moment. But, you know, and I also I hadn't had a new job in 12, 15 years. I had, you know, been in this safe space as an executive for so long. You know, don't get me wrong, being an executive is hard. It definitely has its hard moments. But it was it's different, you know. I was comfortable and I had to get out of my comfort zone as a writer.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah. So tell us about the the moment. You know, did he call you into a room? Was it over the phone? How, if you can remember, I know sometimes with these things, you remember the outcome, but you don't remember how they told you. But tell us about the actual sort of moment of being fired and how they phrased it and what you said and how you felt with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Well, Johnny was very comfortable. That wasn't a let go, that was more like you need to spread your wings, you need to, you need to experience other rooms. When I lost my job on Rosewood, it was I had just come back from set, I had delivered my script, everybody loved the script, handled my producing duties, came in, and I knew that that we were there were other things going on separate of me, and um he needed to bring in a higher level writer and there wasn't enough money to cobble it together. So I knew that was in the background. I just didn't think it was me. But he came into my office, he said, you know, I hate this because I like you, and you delivered your script, and you delivered on time, and you delivered on set, but I'm gonna have to let you go because I need someone with more experience. And I was devastated. I couldn't get out of that place quick enough. I packed up my office as quick as I could be, and and I was devastated. I was like, wow, am I ever gonna get a job again? I just didn't see it coming, you know, and and I was assured it wasn't me, it wasn't my performance, it wasn't my writing. But every fear that I had about was I deserving to be here kind of got I didn't listen to the good stuff, I only listened to that little voice that was terrifying me. And in my opinion, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me because that forced me to figure out what I was doing that was getting in my own way. It wasn't the talent, it wasn't the pay what I was putting down on paper. It was me believing that I deserved to be here and that I had earned my way from the experience that I had before that was transferable. And it also was me digging a little bit deeper and writing in that sample that was gonna kick ass and get attention. You know, maybe the two samples I'd written before were a little bit safer or what I thought people wanted, instead I wrote something super dark and super messed up that got me attention and gets me interviews, you know, and ultimately led to me being a showrunner. But that's that's what it took. It took two years of me sitting there. And there were some dark moments, man. There was some, do I need to quit? You know, my mom's like, you left it, you know, I'm a first generation of immigrants. Like, you left a senior vice president job to do this, and are you crazy? So it took some moments, and and what I had to come down to was like was believing that one, I had the talent, two, I had the drive, three, I wanted it. And more important than all of that was I deserved to be here. And I had to finally get to a place where I believed that and learn how to interview, learn how to do showrunning meetings with other showrunners, learn to, you know, to kind of advance yourself. So it was all for the, you know, and then after that, my career skyrocketed. After that, it it moved fast, it moved quick. My old experience as an executive informed my ability to run a room. But it was there were some, I mean, I was $75,000 in debt. I was unsure if I'd ever get a job again, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

One one of my sort of most memorable moments in Hollywood was sitting in the private practice room as a researcher and assistant with 14 superstar writers. Uh, Shonda hired great writers, and uh they all spent two hours for whatever reason talking about all the times they'd all been fired from their jobs, and that they all, and every one of them had been fired from one job or another. And it was sort of this reassuring epiphany that we get fired a lot in this job. And I also want to add kind of what you know, this light bulb went off when you're talking about the two years you spent in development or honing your craft or in-between jobs or whatever you want to call it, that you know, why we are so prepared for this current strike. Hopefully, it's not a current strike when this airs, but that we are we do all go through these periods of time where you aren't getting paid and you have to survive and you have to steal yourself for what's coming next. But I want to talk about, you know, I I remember when I went through a short gap and there was this I got the next job that that I kind of had job after job after from, and it's it's been like it was like it brings you to tears because you don't ever know, think it might be coming. You just don't know what's gonna happen. What was your next job and how did your approach change to that room where you probably had already realized that maybe this was a confidence issue, not a talent issue? Did you was your approach different as a writer in that room?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

I think there were two things. One, when I got my next job was Queen Sugar. And one of the big things was the showrunner in that room, Anthony Sparks, became a mentor. And he saw that I was talented and he encouraged me to give more and he encouraged me to step up and being seen and being recognized was what I needed at the right time. But I was also ready to accept that. I don't know if my job, my work ethic was any different. I just think I approached, I just knew how to kind of sell myself better and sell myself more, and I think I just chilled out, to be honest with you. I think I had gone through a breakup of a long-term relationship. I had lost my father on the first day, the day before the writer's room had started, and I was unemployed for two months and so freaking in debt. In other words, it's just a job, like care, we don't give a shit, which is something that a fellow writer, Liz Sagal, had given me advice on because my, you know, my agent realized like I'm getting in my head too much. And I sat down with her and Liz Sigal, if you're hearing this, you kind of changed my life. We went to lunch, he said, Lisa, you've got to learn to care, but to not give a shit. And that kind, that kind of way of thinking kind of helped me not get in the way and think like, oh my God, like you know, we get anxiety in the writer's room if your pitch f if your pitch flops or or you know, everything you're you've done for that wake seems to not be hidden, and you're worried about do people think that you don't get the show or whatever. There was a moment where I just stopped caring about that. And my thing was just to come there, do the best thing I could do, pitch the best ideas I could give, help the other writers as much as I could. And I stopped worrying, I got out of my body, so to speak. I stopped worrying about the perceptions of other people, and I just did my job. And when that moment came, it changed everything. And I was able to perform better under pressure and quicker and faster, and bad. It's just, it's just it's really is uh this is a job that the the least when you're less when you're the more unself-conscious you are, the better you perform. And when you learn that little magic thing, it's one of the pieces of advice I give young writers, just get out of your head, don't worry about if the pitch fails or this or that. Just keep doing it, just keep grinding it out. When you get out of your own way, is when you think the good you think the best, you know, you're in the zone, just like an athlete. And when I learn that, everything changes. But I had a mentor and I had someone that encouraged me, and then I had a second mentor when I went on Blessed Ela with Jean Jane Jigueris. Those are two people that really kind of helped uplift me. And at that point, you know, we built confidence and and and it went from there.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Uh look, I've never heard it quite phrased like that, but that's a really interesting approach. Um, obviously, Noah with his podcasting definitely takes that approach. He doesn't really care if the questions are terrible or not, he just sort of goes through it and doesn't even listen to it. And that's what you want in the room. And and maybe that was actually a good thing. Um no, I think it no, look, it's um I've never say that again.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

So it's for me getting out of my head and just being in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

No, but the uh the care, but it's it show that you don't it's like care but don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

The givea shit is what you take home with you and get anxiety about. Caring is you showing up on the job. You know, I'd love to say that it's mine, but like I said, Lysigal is the one that gave me the the the bit of advice. It was literally, and I mean, I have given this piece to everybody I can think of that will listen to it. It's like care but don't give a shit. It matters, means you don't take it home with you as much. You don't label labor the moment that you screwed up in the room a little. If you no one's paying attention, nobody cares. You know, let's just keep rolling.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I mean, and this the sad thing is for the most part, this job doesn't uh give a shit about you, right? It absolutely doesn't give a shit about you. So that's it goes both ways. Care they care about you, but they don't give a shit about you, and you're part of a cog, and you know, you help them along. So now we're moving through your career. You've had some mentors, you've had some great mentors, actually, it sounds like in your life and in career. Uh when When did you decide and how did you manifest your move into Showrunner? When do you decide you were ready? And how did that actually happen for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Right place, right time. Luck, preparation, all of it. Um, you know, it was a little low-budget show on CW, two sentence horror story, an anthology show. I mean, there's nothing on my resume that says I do horror, but uh my sample's dark, so you can see the horror in it. But, you know, I was put up for this at first. I ignored the submission. I'm like, I'm not a showrunner. I mean, come on, you know, it's like Howie P, really? You're gonna jump, I'm gonna jump. Um, I, you know, my sister reads a bunch of my submissions because at this point I had like I was getting behind and I had submissions. She's like, you need to look at this. So I did. And I looked at the show and I'm like, okay, this is cool. Writing 12 little movies, or 10, I don't remember what it was, 10 or 12 little movies, you know, 20-minute movie. I could do this. This is I'm my old life is coming forward to meet my writing life, and I can do this. They're just a bunch of shorts. So I went after the job hard. I prepped for it. I did a slide presentation, I did a music presentation. I did all, I went crazy. I put the whole thing together. And when I did that interview, I got lucky, they liked my take on it, and um got the job, got the offer. It was literally luck, right place, right time during COVID, and it all kind of came together. They couldn't afford a fancy stare runner, so they needed someone that they could break out. And that happened to be, you know, changed my life moment. Thank you, CW.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Oddly enough, I think that was with stage 13, right? I was also with stage 13 when they kind of went belly up in a weird, not in a weird way, just in a normal Hollywood way, this amazing little company that was doing interesting things, just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And taking chances on people that maybe didn't have an opportunity. But yeah, it was. I mean, what I came to find out is all that experience that I had working with writers before helped in the writer's room. You know, I knew how to foster that. Being on set and being on, you know, feature productions beforehand, all the all my previous experience set me up pretty nicely to succeed in that job as a showrunner. Now, I mean I mean, showrunning is the greatest gig in the world. It's exhausting, it wears you down beyond belief. But to me, it's it's it's it's a job that's kind of ready-made for me. Not that I wouldn't be a number two or number three again, don't get me wrong, but it's a job that I kind of like the stress of it all and the organizational aspects of it, the people managing aspects of it, and just getting to see a project from beginning to end and you know, discovering that, oh, I'm good at editing or I'm good at this. It's it was a really fascinating, fascinating experience.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Can we talk? And if we can't, we can edit this out, but can we talk a little bit now about the the mini-room? Uh, like you and I came into contact with each other, and we, I guess I could say we've known each other for a couple of years because we've sort of both worked work in the CVS sort of uh and you had some questions about I've interviewed with your boss, Jan and Chris, for NCS New Orleans, yes. And you and you got a big gig running a room or at least a mini-room, you know, trying to create that type of network procedural for for Puerto Rico. Uh uh, what what was that experience like?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Um it was challenging. It was another level of my career to fine-tune a whole other, you know, another additional all that skill sets again as a showrunner was the second time around of running a room. Um it was not enough time on the world to do what we were asked to do. Um and it was it illuminated why we are on strike now. And hopefully when this comes out, we won't be anymore. But, you know, um look, I had great partners at Kaplan Entertainment and I had great partners at as far as the development on the CBS side. At the same time, I feel guilty to this day that I had five supervising producers to EPs making minimum that I'm sure they were getting their quote, they wouldn't be hurting as much right now during the strike for those 12 to 15 weeks that I had them. You know, um it it bothers me that here is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, and you're paying five EPs scale. So, and you're giving us 12 weeks. I extended it, they extended it to 15 weeks to do six scripts and a Bible. So it that's the part that kind of while it was a great experience for me to be able to do this, it's also on the other end kind of um bothersome, you know, that I wasn't able to take care of my writers as much as I would have wished I could have. You know, because there's loopholes and they found all the loopholes. Let's oh, let's pay all these guys minimums for 12 to 15 weeks and get top-tier network quality work out of them. You know, it just it's you know, it was CBS's, like I said, it was the first time they did a mini-room. Us in secret hideout, I think it was. Um, why they didn't it you know, it's just it felt like an experimentation that was gonna like, oh, this is the first time of many mini-rooms to come for the networks. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's kind of what it felt like that the direction that we're going in.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

So um I want to be slightly careful about asking questions about when the strike's gonna end, because it may have ended by the time this episode is, or it may still be months away from ending, unfortunately. But I guess a question for somebody uh in your position. When it's all over, and I don't know what the outcome will be, obviously, but there'll be some form of agreement, whether it's one that you know the strike at the writers like or they like slightly less, I don't know. But when it's all done, um and you go back in to work, ideally as a showrunner again, what's it gonna be like, do you think, for the first maybe month, in terms of either sort of what it's like in a room, because obviously everyone will be excited to be back, but then everyone will sort of know that there's been some kind of deal, but then also you're you know, taking notes or whatever it will be from executives who are part of the company that's put you into strike. What will it be like, do you think? And what sort of things will a showrunner have to do maybe differently in that immediate post-strike world?

SPEAKER_00 28:45

I mean, let me start off in saying I think that the executives that we work with at studios and networks are allies. They're not the it's they're not the money men, they're not the people at the top of the level. I think my experience and the people that I've talked to are all in favor of the strike and are backing us and want us to get as much as possible. Sure, they want to go back to work just as much as we do, but I think that for the most part, the people that Noah and I interact with are allies.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

I think those executives, Dan, your question too. I know it wasn't directed at me, uh, are as scared as we are. I mean, the we do interface with their careers are as much changing and on the line with the AI. They don't necessarily like the changes happening, and they, you know, are equally directly affected by the strike. So I do think that there might be some weird camaraderie created over it as well. Uh, that that it is those at the tops who have don't understand necessarily even kind of like the business of Hollywood. They've taken over the tech companies, they've taken over Hollywood, and they don't, you know, there's there's a distance between the things they create and what we create, and it's not the same. And they're, I think they're surprised that we're just not coming back, like not accepting the authors there. So Lisa, what you know, strike aside, because we don't know where that's going. Uh hopefully we're not going to be in it when this airs anymore. What keeps you up at night as a writer? Like what where are your fears uh, you know, about your career, about sustaining a career? Uh, a lot of the people on here were in therapy. How do you deal with those fears?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Uh I do do therapy. Um, luckily, I you know, I've been in it for a while. So I'm like, I have a session today at four after I get off with you guys, but I only see her about once a month, not just for maintenance. Um, my biggest anxiety is just sustaining. Like, I this is a weird thing to say as a second-time showrunner, but I don't have a house yet. You know, I'm saving to buy a house. No, we've joked about this about Porter Ranch or whatever back in the on a couple things, but you know, that's one thing for me. But I'm going to be okay. I I get submissions, I get interviews, knock on wood. I'm gonna be okay. I think what worries me is the next generation. Um, this this the squeezing of of the the powers that be wanting to make us more like an animation uh industry where it's a showrunner and a couple of freelance writers and no staff. So I think the fight for a minimum writing room is you know incredibly important to our future. Um because I, you know, I think what are the numbers? There's 11,500 writers in the writers' guild. I think there's five or six thousand that are working writers that are sustaining the guild. If we keep moving to these smaller writers' rooms, uh what's gonna happen? 2,000 working writers sustaining the guild? The guild can't sustain, we can't survive that. So I think there is an existential issue here that we're fighting for. And that scares me because it scares me that it scares me that we're the what's gonna happen if I'm having a hard time surviving right now. What's happening to the story editors and the staff writers and the co-producers that haven't been able to save that kind of money to get through a hard time? You know, that's the next generation of storytellers, the next generation of showrunners, and the sustainability of this industry is what concerns me. A yeah, it's copyright, we'll fight that good fight. I think that's fine. It's really to me about what is it gonna look like? Are we gonna have writers' rooms? Are we gonna have these shows that can sustain four, five, six seasons, or are we just gonna be a collection of small, you know, big movies, eight episodes a piece, and showrunners are sitting in sheds writing them by themselves with a couple of freelancers? That's not that I don't know, I don't think that's sustainable as an industry. And that's what I'm concerned about. Just what is it gonna look like in five to eight years? Yeah, you know, I'll be fine, no and I will be fine, we'll get gigs, but what happens to the next generation?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

So, I mean, on the subject of the next generation, I guess this is unfortunately we're we're running out of time as sometimes happens on these podcasts, particularly when we have guests who give great answers. So we are down to the last question, which is about, and I know you've already given some advice earlier on, or at least you've showed us some advice that you were given, which was so helpful. But as you know, the last question is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody entering the industry, what would it be? Given what you've literally just said about your worry about the industry, then this is a like the answer to sort of reflect that.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I mean, you gotta want it, and if you want it, you gotta write. You gotta write it as often as you can, even when it's hard, until you get that break and you know, preparation, meeting luck. That's your break, you know, and then you take advantage. You gotta write, John Wallace says that you're not a real writer until you've got a foot high of scripts stacked up, bad scripts, until they get better and better and better. But you have to do it and you have to be committed to the job and you have to prepare. Number one, and number two, have a balanced line. You know, do whatever you can to keep your mental health, your body, your soul as as happy as possible because your success should not define your happiness, which is a hard thing for a writer to do. Any writer, writer, actors, directors, that that that tendency to see your level of happiness based on your success and what level you've achieved, or how many, how many shows you're on, is very tempting. So I think keep your mental health as healthy as possible, have friends, go out, join writers' groups, just have a take a walk, you know, live life and get outside a little bit. Those are the two things. Work hard, but then play hard and take care of yourself. I think is it because it's a it is a it is a grind. This business is a grind. Even when it's a when you're rolling and you're getting job after job and we're successful, it's still a grind, and there's always someone that's gonna try to push push you off. So the more centered you can be, the better. I think is the one piece. So two pieces of advice. I lied. Two.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

That's fine, two's allowed. So look, Lisa Morales, thank you very much for being part of our podcast. I care enormously about the quality of this episode. But I don't give a shit who listens to it. Um care, but I don't give a shit. Thank you very much for being part of this.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

As it was a pleasure, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Thank you, Lisa. 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, and adversity, please send them our way. If you're interested in following us on social media, I've lost track.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

I am at NEVslin on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, I'm also at Noah Ebslin on Hive, Scoutable, Blue Sky, Threads, Mastodon, Myspace, French, and I'm sure a thousand more.