Take 131 - Writer and Showrunner Michael Rauch, Beautiful People, Royal Pains

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career is littered with it, project that we're talking to go for short.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

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

SPEAKER_04 1:20

As ever, I am Dan Rutstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

And I am your still in the entertainment business, co-host, Noah Evelsn. For this week's podcast, I'm thrilled to introduce screenwriter, TV writer, director, and showrunner Michael Roush to the podcast. He's written such movies as In the Weeds, which he also directed, as well as Family Affair and others. And he's created and was the showrunner of such TV shows as Beautiful People, Love Monkey, Life is Wild, and Instinct, as well as writing and executive producing Royal Pains, Monarch, and others. Welcome, Mark. Welcome, Michael. See there we go. I told you I would screw it up at one point.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Thank you, Bob. I mean, thank you. I mean, thank you, Noah. No, uh, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm a big fan of this podcast, and uh, that's the perfect way to start with failure. Um, so uh I'm all I'm good to go.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

I always think every time I have we have a new guest on, they tell us a different type of failure we've never heard before. But Noah's somehow managing to mirror that. He's he's got films wrong and before a few times, and studios. He's never got the name of a of a guest wrong. I'm on I'm honored. Uh, which is great. So he obviously hold holds you in high esteem, Michael. Um, so um good. Right. So let's get let's go straight into it so so Noah feels less ashamed. Um I'm not ashamed, but I I knew it was coming.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I I just was getting too close that you're using it perfectly that I knew something was gonna slip. You called it.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Um so uh in the warm-ups, you casually mentioned quite an extraordinary firing that you had. Um, and it it felt like too good a story not to start with that extraordinary firing. So let's let's go straight in. No warm-ups. How how did you get fired from this show, from this movie?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Uh I went to graduate school, I went to film school at Columbia University, um, which I loved. And uh we had um something called the script bank. And Columbia was always kind of like the ugly stepchild to NYU and uh USC. Um, and we had very little connections to Hollywood. So what they did is they had every student who wanted to put a log line of a script they had into a document that then got sent out to every agency and studio and uh network in town. And obviously nothing ever happened with them. Um and one day I actually got a call saying we really liked this log line. We'd love to read the script. So uh I sent the script. I was so excited and didn't hear anything for about three months. And then three months later, I got a call from someone saying um it was on a Friday morning. Um, we want to buy your script, um, but we have to buy it by Sunday. So this sounded relatively shady, but again, I was in film school at the time, so I was incredibly excited about it. So I found an entertainment lawyer in New York who helped me sell the script, um, and they bought it. And uh I got paid money to write something and was really excited about it. And uh, at the time, there was a Canadian company and American company who were working together. What I didn't know was that they detested each other and that they soon would no longer be working together. And so the notes process uh was one company would call me with their notes, and the other company would call me separately with their notes. And contractually, each time I did a rewrite, I'd get paid. So for about seven or eight weeks, I was doing rewrites separate ones for each company, um, and and getting paid for each rewrite. And at some point, someone was clever enough to catch on that this was a losing prospect for them. And so without further ado, I just got a phone call saying I was fired from the project. And uh and it got made. And uh they changed the title, they changed some stuff, but it was an incredibly uh rewarding experience both to have it be my first time selling something, my first time getting fired, and my first time having something I actually wrote get made.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

That is um did that make you like the coolest kid in your in your class at film school because no one ever gets anything from this thing and you got it, got paid double, and then got fired all in one go.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

It was a feather in my cap and it made for a great story. Um, I got to kind of tell that story in each class because every professor wanted to hear about uh all of the pain and humiliation that went along with the sweetness of actually selling something as a student.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Okay, so you you start off with a bang, and I love that the bang includes being fired because it's gonna be I'm I'm I'm assuming for all of us in this business where firing is such a big part of our life, it was a good sort of entree into this business. But so film school, you're basically not even done with film school and you sell the script. How long did it take you to get your next project off the ground?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

So while I was uh in film school, I was waiting tables um here in New York City, and uh I had a friend who had an agent at uh at the time, William Morris, and I begged and pleaded and cajoled and bought him drinks and asked him if there's any way he could get my script to the agent. Um so he got it to the agent, and the agent who was more of a senior agent then passed it on to a junior agent who called me probably six weeks later and said, I read your script, I hate it, um, uh, but I love the writing. Uh so if you write something that's more personal, you can send it to me. So I took this again, both as, you know, you never want to hear uh, I hate your script, especially your first conversation with uh with an agent. Um, but I decided to write something that was more personal and sent that to her probably about three months later, and she signed me off of that. And so um, while this was going on, I was um waiting tables and uh going out to LA uh for that script because they were trying to get it set up. And probably by the third or fourth meeting that I was out there, I realized that this is a game that's being played. The script is never gonna get made. Uh, they're just trying to get actors attached who are never gonna attach themselves. And I made the decision um off of my film school kind of guerrilla experience that I was gonna write something that I could direct and raise money for independently. And so that became um in the weeds. And uh it all took place in one location in one night. I really tried to keep it as low budget as possible. Um, and uh we ended up raising money for it and shooting it, and um and it sold to what was Miramax at the time. Um, and that was an amazing experience. Um, failure is coming, don't worry. Um, so uh after uh we finished the film and we sold it, the uh couple of executive producers on the film said, we think this would make a great TV show. Now, I was raised going to films, old films from the 30s and 40s, uh, like you know, Preston Sturgeon's films and Howard Hawkes' films and Lubitch films, and was totally a film snob, and the idea of TV was completely disinteresting to me. But we flew to LA and um we pitched the the film as a TV show to Fox. Um, David Nevins was the head at the time, great guy, and they bought it. And uh they bought it as a low budget pilot and they let me direct it. And uh so we made it, and uh it was time for upfronts, and I got a call saying that they were picking the show up to series. And the same day I got that call, one of my closest friends was opening on Broadway um as the lead in this new incredible show. And so um, after the show, we went to the Broadway opening premiere party and got hammered. And at about 11:30 at night, um, I got a call saying that the show was unpicked up. So uh I very kind of quietly tiptoed out of the bar and quickly sobered up and went home and just uh, you know, fell into a deep, deep sadness and horror and and just confusion about how this business works and the logic of it. Um so it was a a really um educational experience um in the sense of you know, you can trust things up to a certain point, um, but until contracts are signed, uh, you know, things can fall away at any time.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Wow, I want to comment on two things there. My first comment is a positive comment. We had uh uh Jim Mickle on recently who created Sweet Tooth, and he talked about you know his how he broke in was not waiting for Hollywood, but making his own thing, and it you know helped jumpstart his career. And so yet another example of that. So that's on the success side. On the failure side, we've had 124, five, six, something like that guests on this podcast. We've had awful failure stories. I have never heard a story of a show being picked up and then quote unquote unpicked up uh at the upfronts, which you know, obviously there's a lot of you'd think thought involved before they make these phone calls and they put it on the grid. So um what, you know, what do you A, what do you think happened to why do you think your show got unpicked up? And and how and number two question to segue off of that is how did you pick yourself back up and and decide to keep writing?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Um, it's so to answer your first question, I I think that I I knew so little about the business. This was the first, my first experience in TV at all. So what I didn't know actually protected me because I didn't realize how lucky I was to get to make a pilot. I didn't realize how lucky I was to get into an opportunity to have it be picked up. And I didn't realize how that was a golden ticket. So that the devastation when I got the phone call um was obviously at a personal level and a professional level, but I didn't really have the context to understand just how close I came and what was taken away from me. Um, and then uh the second question the the show, you know, we were a low budget indie show, and they were trying to do low budget shows, just like the film was a low budget indie film. And the show that took our slot was uh a much more prestige show with uh known cast and a really talented creator and and a very powerful uh production company behind it. And so maybe there was politics involved, maybe they got cold feet about you know trying to do something low budget. I never really got the explanation. Um, I just learned very quickly that you know it's it's uh good news can last only so long.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

Given the show was alive for was it like maybe 12 hours from one phone call to the next? What next time, when given you've actually had some shows picked up now, when you got the sort of maybe not the next one, but certainly yeah, but I suppose basically the next time when you actually got the call that says one's up, you know, did you set a timer to say you know 12 hours later made sure you hadn't missed the call back from the studio? How did you sort of psychologically like your first wife cheats on you, and then when you marry a second time, how do you manage that?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So the universe has funny ways of of responding to things. And to answer your question, is I didn't know when my next show got picked up because um I was actually I had I had a show that they asked me to start casting on to go straight to series, but they hadn't picked it up yet. And so we're just gonna we're just casting the pilot. Um, and I was in a probably 10-hour casting session. And when I got when I'm in casting, I turn my phone off and I don't check it until I'm out. And when I got out, I turned my phone on and I had and easily over 100 emails, texts, messages, messages are full. Something had happened. And in that period of that day, um, I had two different uh pilots picked up um in the same day. And so uh I was so overwhelmed and stunned and excited, but but the amount of agents I'd never heard of were calling me, executives I'd never heard of were calling me, uh friends I hadn't spoken to for a long time were calling me. And there was something about that that made it very real because clearly uh there was a a sense that that these decisions were were actually gonna stick, uh, motivate all of the attention I was getting that obviously had nothing to do with me or the project, but of just wanting to be a part of it in some way. Um, and so uh I didn't have to sit through the torture of waiting for the phone to ring, saying, you know what, we changed our mind, uh, we're gonna go in a different direction.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Yeah. So the this one felt un not pickupable, if you sort of mean not unpickup, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

There was enough, they invested enough in it that uh I felt safe.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Okay. Oh, that's good. That's good. Um, so you mentioned casting. Um uh I feel you've probably got a casting failure story that you would want to share.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I well, I I do. Uh there's probably endless ones, but um, there was a show I did that uh was based around one character, um, a young woman, and we had a really, really hard time finding um the right person. And you know, casting in TV and film is is as important as as writing, not more important, uh, but I also think not less important. Um, and and uh we finally on probably the seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth casting session, this young woman walked in. Um, and the second she started reading, it was like, you know, trumpets sounded and rainbows popped up in the air. And it was the song. I I just realized, oh my God, not only is she so right for this, but this is a special and unique talent. And um, and the second the casting session ended, I said, we're done. I called the president of the studio and said, We just found our lead. You're not gonna believe it. Um, so we had a studio casting session the next day, and I sat next to the president um who I love. And uh about one page into the audition, he just kind of put his hand in my knee and shook his head and said, We found her. Um, and so it was it was one of the more exciting moments. And you know, when you're when you're casting and you find that person who just you know is going to carry a show and raise the level of everything. And so the next day we we took her to network um along with three or four other parts, and every part um that we wanted got cast, and the network presence said no to this particular woman. And I, you know, always want to be respectful of the network presence, um, and just said, you know, can you tell me why? And she said, I just don't see it. And I said, you know, well, if you have notes, we can bring them back in and maybe you know, you can see some other choices and see it in a different way. But I'm telling you, this is, and she said, I just don't see it. And so um the casting session ended, and I kind of, you know, went off with the studio uh president and just uh begged and pleaded and made my case. And he was so on board and saw what we saw, and he said, Let me do what I can do and call him later that night and said it's just not gonna happen. Um, so it was so devastating. The next day I'm at lunch and the same studio president calls me and says, you know, how you doing? I said, I'm okay. He said, I've got good news and bad news. Um, you know, the bad news is you're not gonna be able to cast her in this show ever. The good news is we just put her uh in one of our new pilots. Um, you know, and which was just proof that she was so talented that it didn't even, they just saw her and realized, well, okay, if she's not gonna be in the show Michael's doing, then we're gonna put her in something else and we can't lose her. But it was a really heartbreaking and devastating moment because I saw everything the show could be with this one particular um actor and and felt like you know, we had done our our work and then just to have it taken away for no real creative reason and no logical explanation, other than I just don't see it. Um, and so it taught me also about in those casting sessions, you know, how to be political and how to try to um uh hedge your bets to get the people you want past the finish line.

SPEAKER_04 17:27

So obviously, I'm not gonna ask you the name of the person or the name of the show because obviously somebody else ended up being in the show.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah, and she was she was fantastic, very different type. Um, and she's very talented and and it works all the time, um, but a very different type.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

So what when you obviously you're you have a creative vision, and obviously I know I know I'm not a writer, but I know enough writers to understand this. You know, you you sort of you write the thing on the page and you put whatever descriptions you're in, but at the end of the day, as you say, the person you cast changes things. So when the casting changes, did you go back and not completely rewrite everything? But did you change parts of the script now? Because not because it was necessarily wrong, but it was not what she matched what was on the page, and now you had to match what was on the page with this new person.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Let me answer that with a different story, which is um, I did a show called Instinct, um, which was based on a James Patterson great novel. And uh there's a character in it um who was described, he was kind of a mysterious, powerful guy, um, as a British bald black man. Um, and so we saw probably 15 to 20 British bald black men who who were all each one was incredible. Some I had known, some I never heard of. Um, and after each one, we just felt like this isn't the guy that we haven't seen the guy yet. And so uh later that day we had a a meeting. Um he wasn't gonna read, we're just gonna meet um with an actor named Naveen Andrews. Um, and if you know Naveen, he was on Lost. Um, and he is not bald, he's got long, beautiful hair, he's not big. Um he uh is very, very different from uh the way the character is described and the way the scenes were written. And he walked in wearing a duster and uh a kind of like, I'm happy to be here, but I'm not that happy to be here. And before he sat down in the chair, um, I turned to uh Mark Webb, who is the director, and said, This is the guy. And it again, completely different personality, completely different energy, completely different character physically as well from what we were looking at for how it was written. But he just embodied something that made that character become dimensional in a way that maybe I hadn't been able to do on the page. And so we we or I changed, you know, the scenes and the character um in terms of how he's written to tailor it more towards who Naveen is than to who we were looking for.

unknown 20:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

That line, I love your bald head, has to be taken out of the pilot. I want to um wind back a little bit, uh, because you say we this just came up in a conversation with a friend uh that uh about how you always, you know, people developing multiple projects at the same time, and you always have this weird daydream nightmare that two go at the same time, and you're like, I'm not gonna have the bandwidth, I don't know what's going on. And then someone that person said, you know, that never happens. Like, no matter how, even the big for the big writers, like that never happens. You're lucky to get one, the the which is uh, you know, a lottery ticket on top of a lottery ticket on top of a lottery ticket to get two is so extra so difficult. So you got two at the same time. It sounds like as part of your story, this is I'm not, you know, you've been doing things, you've directed a few movies and whatever. Well, this is really sort of your first uh you know entree into being a showrunner, and now you have a show creator, and now you have two at the same time. Uh, how did you manage and what are some early failures from that period?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Um, well, the again, I was so kind of new to TV that I don't think I got as overwhelmed and terrified as I would have if I knew what I know now. Um, I was just incredibly excited. Uh, I knew how how fortunate I was, and I just wanted to get to work. Um, what really helped was that there was a a common studio on both projects. So when I said, How am I gonna do this? What if they shoot at the same time? You know, what if one is in shooting in this part of the country and the other shooting? And they were very helpful in saying, look, we are invested in both these shows. We're going to make sure that none of those things happen, that the scheduling will happen in a way that you will be available um to to work on both shows. But one of the shows got picked up straight to series, and and that became um very tricky for me, less so in the first season, because basically I did the CBS pilot and then um We started shooting the first season of the show, Beautiful People. Um, and then while we were shooting that show, uh, Love Monkey got picked up a series. And um, and so when a ABC family who were like were kind enough to order a second season of Beautiful People, and that's really where the problems began for me, because you know, it was made very clear that that the CBS show is a bigger piece of business and a more important focus. And and you're gonna have to choose now because you're happening simultaneously. And so um I hired a great uh uh writer named Ann Kenny, who who ran the room for season two of Beautiful People. Um, but I was I was very uninvolved in uh the breaking of that season and the production of that season. After after every day of the room and production on Love Monkey in New York, I'd call and get filled in by how the stuff went. I'd always read the room notes and watch cuts and stuff. But I felt um personally uh like I was not living up to the promise that I made to the people who worked in that show by not being able to be more involved. Uh creatively, they did a great job, but it wasn't having nothing to do with that. I I also just felt uh a little bit guilty and ashamed that you know, here was a show with my name on it as creator, and I'm not there uh with them making the most important decisions. And so it was a really tricky time. And and I don't know if I could have handled it differently, but I do know I still feel the pain of not having been um as present uh in every way as a writer, um, as a showrunner, and as an executive producer um with you know the cast, the writers, and the crew of that show.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

We've asked questions before about like which show did you like better? And the answer always is, you know, fairly enough. These were both my babies, and so I love them both equally. And so in this case, you were forced to love one of your babies less equally, which I can see is painful. Have you ever had a show that you were working on sort of just begin to go sideways on you for, you know, and realize that you had to like, you know, that it was, you know, you're starting to realize that it might be ending at some point for reasons outside of your control, or like like what have you ever had a situation like something happened?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, I mean, I've got a couple of stories like that. One is a show that was um picked up by a network president who had been a um an executive on one of my shows earlier, and I really loved him. We really got along. He was a current executive and we stayed close, and all of a sudden he became network president and we pitched this show to him and he bought it in the room. And he basically said, you know, we had an amazing actor attach. We're gonna, I'm gonna put this show on the air, and he did. And um, and season ones are always just uh, I find the least enjoyable season of a show um because you're figuring everything out, you're figuring the actors out, the chemistry, the crew, who you want to keep, who you don't want to keep, the writing, the storytelling, everything. And then when you get to season two, it's it's just for me pleasure because it starts to run much more smoothly, and and now you get to have fun. Um, but uh towards the end of season one, uh, he had something happen to him physically and was removed from his post. Um, so we someone else came in as the head of the network and started giving his opinion of what he thought the show should be, which is his right. He's a network president, but it's very different from what the show was. And so in the middle of shooting, I think we're on episode six of season one, there just were these very long conversations about a different direction to take the show and the characters and the relationships. And I did everything I could to try to protect what I thought the show was at its best, but also, you know, I knew that this guy was going to be um integral in getting us another season. And I didn't want him to feel like uh, you know, I was just saying, fuck off. Um, so it was a very difficult period. And then uh we finished season one and everyone was pretty happy with it. And then um we got picked up for a second season, and in the meantime, between getting picked up for a second season and starting the room, um, a third network president came in and replaced the second one, oversaw him. And when that happened, no matter what was going to happen in season two, I knew that there was no way we were gonna get a season three because if the show were successful, it had none of his DNA in it, so he'd get no none of the credit. And if the show was a failure, it would be on his watch. So uh season two ended up being probably the easiest and and uh I don't want to say most fun, but uh creatively satisfying season of TV that I did. But it was very clear that that the love that we had had, you know, from the person who originally ordered us a series um had changed because the people themselves had changed. And so we didn't get a season three.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

So um probably the best way of asking this question. So you seem very uh uh likable and nice. That seems to be the conclusion I have drawn from our few minutes before and uh you know, and your answers now. What are you saying? What are you really like, but more the question is like how do you run a how do you run a room? How do you how do you lead? What's your sort of how would you describe your your leadership of I I really believe in collaboration?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Um I really you know we did I did a show called Royal Pains that uh Andrew Lancheski uh created, and we had uh eight seasons of that show, and I think we probably ordered dinner once in those eight seasons. You know, it was a very um incredibly creative adult um and and uh and open um writing staff. We had very few new people come in. And the idea was was basically look, we're gonna start at 10 in the morning. And um, I'd like us all to have lunch together so that we don't have to talk about work, we'll have the dailies on in the background, but let's just talk about you know what what movie we saw, what TV show we're watching, what's going on with our kids, our our marriages and stuff. And then there's no reason why we need to finish past 5:30 or 6 p.m. And and this is part of the conversation when I was interviewing writers, which is like this is the type of room I want us when we're together to be focused. There's no phones, there's no computers, it's just the whiteboards and us, and a very respectful and collaborative environment, with which of which has a a hierarchy, of course, because ultimately someone needs to make a decision. Um, and we hired writers who all kind of signed on for that. And it, and so there's no reason to, of course, every once in a while something comes in that needs to be better and should have been better, or someone comes in late without a good reason. And in situations like that, then I feel like it's important to be upfront and express, you know, that this isn't okay, or unless there's a reason why it happened. Um, but for the most part, I I personally don't enjoy toxic environments. I don't feel like I work best. I think some writers do, and and there's some great shows that are written in rooms where the scripts come in the day before production start. And so I'm not disparaging that, but it's not, I would not be able to sleep at night if that were happening. And so just trying to find a a modicum of control and respect uh is just really important to me in terms of the process. And it also allows me to then spend that other time doing all the other things that don't involve the room, you know, whether it's being on set, whether it's talking to actors, whether it's casting or looking at cuts or giving notes. And and so it's it's about trying to conserve time and energy.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

Great answer. Um what again, what's the worst single thing that's happened to you in a room? Either a room you're running where something has happened that you weren't expecting, or earlier in your career when you're in someone else's room and something happened that informed some career choices for you later.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Um the worst thing that ever happened to me was uh I got um wind from um social media and then texts that there were parts of an episode that was airing uh of a show of mine that were remarkably similar to a previous uh television show that was no longer on the air. And it was a show I I knew of and and hadn't watched and kind of brushed it off because there were always things, you know, like um you stole that style from us, or or your opening credit song sounds very close to what you know, things that don't seem to have that much merit. And so I kind of just shrugged it off, and then the next day it grew bigger and bigger, and um and I realized that that actually it was true, and um, and that that you know the writer of the episode had um consciously or unconsciously, incredibly talented writer, incredibly good guy, um, utilized a lot of the same things from a previous script from a previous show. And um, and so all I could do at that point in terms of of my job and the show protecting the show itself was cop to it. Um and I called the creator of the previous show and said, look, this has been brought to my attention. I obviously had no idea about it. Um, I am um embarrassed, um, I'm ashamed, I cannot apologize enough to you. Um, and uh I'll deal with it on my end in terms of of what's gone on. But uh, you know, if you want to yell, if you want to rip us apart, uh go for it, but just know that you know this didn't come from a place of trying to cause any harm. And he couldn't have been more of a mensch, more lovely, more understanding, you know, said, Look, this has nothing to do with you. And and the the writer is a really good guy, and I don't know what happened, but you know, let me and let the show off the hook in such a beautiful way, um, in such a forgiving way that it it just made that situation, which could have been haunting, um, you know, palatable. And then we we ultimately were able to kind of ride it out. Wow. Uh yeah, that was that was something I never thought I'd experience. Yeah. And uh uh and it was a very odd uh situation.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

So uh Noah's probably gonna tell a story about when he just used the same script again and hope nobody but but what what are we talking? Are we talking like like a line of dialogue that's similar or an exchange or a set or like literally like a copy?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

I'll just say more than you'd want to have. Enough that enough that it's hard to make a case that it was just you know a couple of lines that seemed familiar, and enough that I could look at because someone posted online two the two scenes, um, and you know, everything about them were were just too too similar. Um, so it was it was a really tricky situation. And and I, you know, when I spoke with the writer who who was completely horrified, um, and and he couldn't have been more apologetic and ashamed, and I don't think did it on purpose. And um, you know, I I was able to to see uh how much it affected him and and didn't you know harbor any ill will towards him ultimately for for how it how it shook out. Of course, had anger and disappointment that it happened. Um, but but it was a really just you know a fascinating experience because it was something I never imagined I'd have to deal with. And with social media, there's no time to think it out, to try to get to the bottom of it. You know, it's all just put right in your face and everyone's weighing in. And that previous show has an incredible loyal fan base. Um, so nothing gets by them, um, which was another thing I learned too, of just you know, the the devotion of a fan base is going to make you pay for your crimes.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Nothing, nothing gets by the fans. And that's all such a part, you know. I've been on a bunch of procedurals and a bunch of procedurals set in Hawaii, and you you're in your head, you know things that have worked really well on other shows, and you're really trying not to pitch that. Yet it's like it creates like a black hole in your brain of like, you know, that's good, you're in the same area, and yet you have to talk around it. Um, I do have a question though about uh your career, because you've worked as the showrunner. I mean, pretty quickly, you were elevated to showrunner and you run it, ran a bunch of shows. So obviously you did something right, people brought you back, they like you, you keep creating shows. Then you go on shows like uh, you know, Royal Pain's and Monarch, when Royal Paines, it sounded like you were on the whole time, did tons of episodes where you're not the showrunner, uh, number two or another EP or co-showrunner, but at somebody else's show. How did you sort of manage your own expectations and their expectations there?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Uh Royal Pains was so when that was brought to me, they had shot the pilot and USA wanted to pick it up to series, but they needed to get a showrunner attached because Andrew, uh, who created it, had never really worked in TV before, didn't want to be the showrunner and knew he, you know, brilliantly knew what he didn't know. Um, and so uh I was really interested in running somebody else's show because I hadn't done it before and I knew the challenges and and it it seemed like um it would be a way to kind of develop new muscles. Um, so when I first sat down with Andrew um and the other uh non-writing EPs, you know, to talk about it, I just said that, you know, I saw my job was to protect the show and to protect Andrew's vision, and at the same time to try to teach Andrew everything he wanted to know. Um and if that was everything, then then try to teach him everything. And if it was nothing, then stop there. But that it was very important in the beginning that ultimately it was clear that I had the final say on things. Um and and Andrew, again, you know, uh at a place where he he hadn't really done anything like this before, was very on board with it. And um, and it by probably season three, he felt like he had he was ready to co-showrun. And and he was. And so we ran the show together from season three to season eight. Um, and so it was a really, it was a you know a hard experience for me because I would get some calls um that that Andrew wasn't a part of in the beginning. And I felt that kind of, you know, having been a show creator, all I wanted to do was protect him because I identify with that position, but also, you know, for the first time, kind of being in a different role where um it's not ultimately my show and I've got to protect it, but but I'm not the person who's in in in both positions. And so uh getting over that tension uh took a little while. And then you know, we kind of found a really a really comfortable, easy rhythm.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

That's that sounds like the ideal situation where the new showrunner wants to protect the creator in place, and obviously that's the dream situation, doesn't always happen, but sounds like you you really I had yeah, uh when we did the pot of the love monkey, um uh CBS insisted that we have a showrunner for the pot.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

And that was the first pilot I had done. And so they had a list of approved showrunners. I think there was 10 of them. And and I anyone that I spoke to just said, whoever you hire, make sure they don't steal your show. And so this paranoia just kicked in of like, oh my God, I'm being set up now to have my first show that's gonna be taken away from me. So I started crossing names out, and then um I went to LA to meet a few of the people and I sat down with this guy named John Wirth, um, who is still a showrunner, uh, incredible at Darkwinds. Like, and we had what started at a beer ended up being probably now 15 years of beers. Um, and you know, I said, This is my guy, and he show ran the pilot and taught me so much. And when the show got picked up the series, CBS said to me, Um, you know, and this is because of my film school experience, like, you know how to run a set, you know, we have faith that you can run this show. Um, or you would you would you run around season one? And I said, I would if John's okay with it, and if John stays on. Um, and so John, being such an incredible guy, agreed to stay on in the writer's room as, you know, I don't want to say number two, like just kind of right by my side, making sure I didn't fuck up, um, and without ego guiding me and and being an incredibly important part of that room. And so he really taught me a lot of lessons about, you know, how to be firm, when to be firm, but also how to lead with grace and and how to stay focused on what's most important.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

If I've learned anything from this podcast, by the way, and in all the episodes we've done, uh John Wirth's name has come up a number of times in this context, same context as well, you know, but John Wirth then, we got him and he was great. So if you're looking for a showrunner, John Wirth is the guy, one name on that list. No, I'm just kidding. But man, he's you know, he's come up a few times. That's a really good story. We would normally go to our final question right now, but because you've given us such great, so such a wide variety of failure stories that we haven't heard on this podcast before. Is there anything we haven't got to, any failure story that you're bouncing around in your head that you want to share before we go on to the last question?

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Um, I I'd say a relatively quick one is is I did a show that um was we pitched it to a network because the non-writing EP uh had a had a deal there. And he said, Don't worry, they're not gonna buy it. And they bought it in the room. And and uh I was like, this is amazing. I can't believe it. And as we're leaving the meeting, he turns to me and says, Don't worry, just wait outside for a few minutes. I'm gonna get them to unbuy it. And I'm like, What? What do you mean, unbuy it? They just bought the show. And then I gradually learned, you know, we had a few more pictures that I'm like, look, they're never gonna make this show, let alone put it on the air. It's not right for them, it's not their network. Um, so we pitched a bunch of other places, and this first place refused to let it go. And they said, we're gonna make the pilot. And to their credit, they made the pilot. Um, and then the pilot tested incredibly well. It's just one of those kind of dark horses, no one cared about it. It it it tested through the roof to the point where they said, We're gonna we're gonna pick up the series, and um, which was very courageous of them because there was nothing else like it on their network. And um the show got spectacular reviews. Um, and our first night, I'm gonna say what would be a great audience now, but at the time, I think we had like eight, nine million people. Um, that was you know not looked down, not looked as as a victory. And then our numbers dropped. And then before the third episode aired, when we were shooting the sixth episode, I was in LA for um the press tour, and I met with the president of the network who said, Look, we know these numbers aren't what you want them to be and what we want them to be, but we believe we belong believe in the show so much we're not gonna cancel you. Do not worry. And it was the best thing I could have heard and finished a press tour and got in a plane and flew back. And the next day, um, the star of the show was uh booked new letterman, and I was gonna go to to hang out and support him. And as I'm packing up, I get a call saying the show is canceled. And so it was just one of these things where you know it kind of loops back to the first story of we ultimately have only so much control over our shows. And the reason it was canceled, really, I can't blame the network president because forces that were much higher and more powerful than her were being affected by our low numbers. And so pressure was put on of like, I can't have that show on this network an hour before my show because it's it's bleeding audience. And so it just went from we're not going to cancel you to being off the air an hour later. Um, and meanwhile, the star of the show, uh, I've got to go to his green room before he's doing Letterman to tell him, just so you know, we just got canceled. So you may not want to talk about the show the way you would have otherwise. Um, and this guy went on and just was amazing, you know, with the news of what had just happened, somehow managed to be charming and funny and give enough information about the show to get people to watch the remaining episodes without venting uh, you know, his confusion and anger.

SPEAKER_04 43:01

Extraordinary. So um if I was uh a young person doing social media for our podcast, when we write the caption for this episode, I think I would have the caption be some version of Siri, find me a guest who exemplifies everything this podcast is trying to tell in terms of failure adversity. Uh uh because you seem to have you seem to have a story specifically for every type of failure. Yeah, yeah, firing story, a show cancellation story, and then obviously some extra things we've never had before. So uh this has been magnificent, which is a shame because we are now at the end and we only have one question left. Uh, and that question is uh, as you as I'm sure you know, if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to enter the industry, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_00 43:56

I think based on what we've talked about today, um obviously you have to want it, but to be uh protective of your creativity and your ego and your drive because uh it is it is a guarantee that those are going to be attacked, if not on a daily basis, then on an episodic basis by a showrunner, by executives, by an actor, by Hollywood, by the business. And if you let it kind of penetrate and get in, it can destroy your ability to be creative, your ability to believe in yourself and your ability to persevere. And so whether it's through friendship or whether it's through you know your own faith and your talents, or whether it's through just blocking it out, uh, I think that that people who are able to do that are able to find uh a more successful life as a writer and a more successful life just as a human being.

SPEAKER_04 44:54

Fantastic. Look, uh, Michael Rausch or Mark Rauk, as Noah sometimes calls you. Thank you very much indeed for coming on our show.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

This was a pleasure. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Noah. Uh, and uh I hope to talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you, James Launch, for the music and putting up with our computer. As always, each episode is brought to you by Scriptation, screenwriting invitations. If you want to support the show, please download a copy at www.scriptation. If you want to find me on social media, I'm gonna worry about me on social media because we're gonna