Take 70 - Actor, Writer, Producer Michael Starrbury, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete, Colin in Black and White

SPEAKER_01 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 the floor.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

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

SPEAKER_00 0:20

For every success, there is months, sometimes even years, of painful failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the norm.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

You have to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business, your hands of calcium bounces off you.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

That process takes years, that doesn't happen overnight. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose, and I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking, like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Welcome back to Streaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as ever, your English non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

And I am your industry co-host, Noah Epslin. Today I'm excited to have on TV writer, screenwriter, and show creator Michael Starbury on our podcast. Michael was the writer of the feature film The Inevitable Defeat of Mr. and Pete, the creator of Legends of Chamberlain Heights. More recently, he was the writer on When They See Us, and a writer, executive, producer, and showrunner on the critically acclaimed Colin in Black and White. Welcome, Michael. Hey, thanks for having me, guys. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So very excited to have you on the podcast. We're gonna we're gonna go straight in with the sort of the most straightforward version of a question we can ask is obviously, despite your successes, there will have been failures because that's the nature of the entertainment industry. Which rejection has hit you hardest and all the things that you've tried to advance in the entertainment world?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Um, so I started to, I became a writer to become a director, actually. I had no desire to be a screenwriter. Um, and I had a script on the blacklist in 2011 called Watch Roger Do His Thing. And to this day, for these 10 plus years, it continues to be rejected. Um I'm trying to make that my you know debut as a director. And for the life of me, I can't find the right person or people to say yes. And I can't give it up. I mean, I really can't quit it. I I just want to make that movie so bad. Um, I I I've I've had actors attached to it, producers attached to it, the right people attached to it, everything except for the money. So that is the hardest thing. That's the the biggest rejection of my career so far. It's trying to get that script, one of the it is one of the scripts that you know allow me to have work out there. But I can't get seem to get anyone to want to kick down and um you know put a couple of million into it. So if there's any rich people watching or any film financiers watching, let's go. I'm ready to take that step. Let's get this rejection off my plate.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

So one thing we've talked about is is people write something, no one wants it, then they become they write something else and then become successful or famous, and then the old script then comes back and everyone suddenly now loves this thing that they didn't want before. So now when you have success, do you immediately follow up with, thank you very much for letting me work on this project? By the way, here's this thing. Do you want it? Do you sort of bring it out every time you have another success?

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yes. I I've tried that um with this one a couple of times, a few times, um, after the Emmy nomination. And I will say that it did get a little more traction. Uh you know, it got a two more eyeballs on it, and it seemed like it was it, and it even to this day, if it's further along than it's ever been. Um, but absolutely, absolutely, but not just with that script. You know, there's things that people passed on before, like TV stuff that I would say, well, what about this or what about this? And, you know, I think there's actually one project where the what about this might actually turn into something. So they're not all failures, but you know, yeah, you you never think you're, okay, I have some garbage on my hard drive that I've written. There's no doubt about it. I'm not handing that out to anyone, no matter what kind of successes I have. There's definitely some some trash, some trash, you know, in the uh on the hard drive. But some of these things you really believe in, and you just, you know, you hope that people start to see your vision for it.

unknown 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

I have a little question, and we're going to get to some of your you know more modern stuff that you've been working on. But the um we've had a number of people come on who don't live in Los Angeles and they they say, oh, we live in Canada or we live in often Canada, and they're like, oh, we're very far away from the industry. But but realistically, many of these people who live in Canada are sort of industry adjacent. They live in towns that are industry towns, they just happen to be in Canada, they're not in Hollywood. You, you know, and in the more modern, you know, today a lot of people are choosing not to live in Los Angeles because a lot of stuff is is over Zoom. So you don't actually have to be in this town as much as you used to. But you know, you don't live in Los Angeles currently. What's behind the decision to sort of make your fame and fortune in a different city?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Um well, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do in the industry, which, you know, was to be a writer-director, um, I didn't really see a need to live out there. My I never had a desire to be on a writing staff, you know. So becoming like a television writer didn't seem, it didn't seem like I would need to live out there because I didn't have that kind of dream. That wasn't really what I wanted to do. Uh that's part of the reason. Another part of it is my wife didn't want to move, if we're keeping it 100. Like that part sucks. You know, there was there's times where it would be advantageous for me to be out there, um, to live out there, I should say. But uh, you know, there was there were moments in my early career where it would have been difficult to make that happen because of family obligations. Uh but now, like you said, with the technology and it seems like I'm some kind of you know, trailblazer or pioneer, because I've never lived out there, but I work out there all the time. I mean, when I was running in Colin, I lived out there. Uh so you don't really need to plant a flag down there or in LA, I don't think. Uh, if you're willing to do the traveling and the work from home, which I've always kind of had that discipline anyway, because of my goals. I never really saw myself working on a television series that wasn't mine. So it was easy for me to just stay at home and write features and even write pilot scripts. And, you know, that was the goal. That was the idea was if I'm going to do it, these are the things that I want to do.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Three years ago, I would have said, you know, you absolutely have to be in this town. I don't see a path forward for people who TV, feature writers, filmmakers, directors, they can live wherever they want. But TV world, because the staff, the rooms are here, I would have said you have to be in Los Angeles. But now obviously the world has changed. But you've, you know, pandemic aside, you've forged your own path and you became a showrunner. So I want to ask about that because we've had a number of showrunners come on, and a common theme is they became showrunner, not accidentally, they worked their ass off, they deserve being showrunner. But then the pressure of being showrunner hit them. And they came up through the traditional model of let's just say being in most of them did being in LA or LA adjacent in Vancouver, running a show, having a staff, either creating a show, you know, you know, halfway up the staff, but but having that experience of working with others in the room and then running a room of their own. You did work on other shows that were in your own, but you know, you've done it all from the outside. So when you became showrunner of the Colin uh Colin in Black and White, did you feel ready? Was that like, was that were you ready to take charge? Was it was there a little bit of nervousness that you hadn't yet, you know, been in a room in LA? You said you did move to LA for the room. Like what was your what was that moment around the hiring, your thought process, your fears, your anxiety, and maybe your strengths that you're kind of bringing into that room?

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Um, so just to bring it back, uh I was a co-creator on Legends of Chamberlain Heights, the animated series. So I was in that room. Uh and as a I don't I don't really talk about Legends that much. It wasn't the best experience for me. So I'm sure you guys would love to talk about it. It wasn't it wasn't great. It wasn't great. But the the experience that that was the most experience I had, even though I was a co-creator, I was an EP on it. Um you know, I kind of learned what kind of chemistry it takes to make something like this work, to make showrunning work. Um on uh when they see us, they had a room. I think their room had been going for a year before I got involved. And Ava called me directly and asked me if I wanted to write the finale of the series. And I said yes. And I wrote that here at home. You know, I wasn't involved in their room when they were, you know, going through the interview process with the guys and you know, just doing all that like important early research work. It was just me. And then after I turned in part four, I ended up doing work on the other three scripts, just a little bit of work on some of the scripts. And so I never was in that room, I was just at home. My relationship with Ava and that process, for whatever reason, she believed that I was ready to run a room. And so she called me again and said, Hey, I have this thing I'm doing with Colin Kaepernick, and I want you to run it. And, you know, having been on sets and just film obsessed, and just the, you know, that experience early on Legends of Chamberlain Heights and learning what I don't want to do, and you know, just how I felt like my ability, my leadership skills, the the way I love elevating people, the way, you know, I'm such a I'm a team-oriented guy. I knew that running the room would not be a problem. Um, as long as I came in prepared with these sort of stories that we want to tell. You know, the burden of that should not be on, you know, people who didn't have anything to do with writing a pilot. My idea was to always just be as prepared as possible and put my writers in position to succeed. And, you know, obviously with room for collaboration, which they were awesome at. Uh so for me, it was just the years of writing, the discipline of writing at home alone, uh, learning a little bit on Legends of Chamberlain Heights. Uh, big part of it is Ava's belief in me. You know, I didn't want to let her down. Um, but she she trusted me. And you know, I'm forever grateful for that. And yeah, that's how I became a showrunner. Um, nothing nothing about my career, period, has, you know, I people always say, Well, how do you do it? How do you become this and this and this? I can tell them the discipline it takes to become uh dedicated to your craft, but the path nobody knows. I mean, no one can tell you you you do this and this and this and this happens. That just does not work like that in this industry. So, yeah, I mean, it takes a little bit of luck, but you have to be ready for when that luck comes.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So you've talked you've talked already a bit about how driven you are. You talked about sort of specific goals that you've had. It seems to have worked out rather well for you. Were there times where and I know you said you didn't want to write on shows that weren't yours in a room, but were there times where you were offered what for other people would have been, you know, the obvious easy job, and you actually turned them down because you didn't want to go in that direction?

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Oh, yeah, yeah. I I I think I can speak on this one and and very um specifically. There was a show called Wilfrit on FX, right? And I loved it. I I thought it was a funny show. Um, Elijah Wood, you know, like a guy in a dog suit. It was amazing. And you know, they wanted me to write on the show. Uh and it was something I considered briefly. Um what I what I discovered, guys, was it was one of these quota things. It wasn't about it, it had very little to do with the fact that I could write and everything to do with the fact that I'm black. And I don't need writing gigs like that. I'm a good writer. You don't just hire me just because of my skin color. Like there could be people less experienced who needs that experience in a room that you can put in a room and just have them sit in a corner. That's what they were gonna try to do with me. So I told them no. Let me tell you guys else what what else happened during that episode. My agent was but they were so mad that I passed on it and I and I actually did this. They asked me to send this dude, the showrunner, a bottle of champagne. And I was so new to the game that I did it. Now, today I would tell them to kiss my ass. Like, you gotta be kidding me, you know. Not only would I not, and you can leave this in that not only would I not send them a bottle of champagne, my agency should be sending me a bottle of champagne. You know, like this is the it's when I think about it now and how they used to treat me. It's it's I I don't get the the warmest of fuzzies thinking about that. But I know a lot of new writers go through that, and it's unfortunate. But no, I was steadfast in my belief that I wasn't going to just write on any old TV show, even one that I like. And I thought that show was really funny and had my sensibilities. I think I would I could have contributed to that show, but I don't think they were looking for me to you know bring anything to the table other than my skin tone, and that's not me.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Fascinating answer. And uh the your honesty and saying leave that in is exactly why we love doing this podcast. But it's interesting because we the quota things come up before, and we had another writer um who I think took a diversity position, but knew that they were probably going to cut it after a year because that's often how it worked, and his goal was to get in and then show that he was a great writer, you know, whatever colour he was. Um but which is obviously the other version of it. Obviously, given what you you did and it worked out for you. Yeah, well in general, do you do you uh think they shouldn't have those sort of quota diversity situations? Um, or do you can you see how it would work for other people? And if you're when you're running a room and choosing staff, how much do you think about that side of things?

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Um to answer the first part, I I absolutely think those programs can be very um helpful in getting diversity into a room. But the goal shouldn't be just to have them there, you know, performatively. That's not going to help anything. If you're hiring writers, even from you know these programs or you know, to fit some kind of quota, you should still be hiring writers that can bring something to the table that can elevate your stories. Um I know that some people need to be told, hey, you need some diversity in this room. You know, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that can be necessary. Um, when I'm thinking about my rooms, I'm story first. So, you know, I'm an EP on another couple of projects that we're gonna be looking for writers for. Uh me personally, I don't care. I'm looking for who can nail these characters, you know. Um a lot of the times, if I'm writing about um black woman, I would love to have a black woman in the room. I'm not going to say, you know, let me get a room with five white guys in it. You know, I'm going to want the perspective of a black woman, but I'm still looking for storytellers first. Storytellers first. I wouldn't exclude a white man from that room if he was a great storyteller. So uh yeah, yeah. I I think it's important to have voices that kind of reflect the stories that you're telling. But for me personally, just be a dope storyteller and we can work around the rest. You know, if you know these characters, we can work around the rest.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, thanks. And no one's heard me tell this story before, but when I was a sports journalist, uh I was covering some cricket in Namibia and they had a quota system and it was a disaster because the white players felt like they weren't being given a chance to fill the team. The black players felt like they were only in as tokens, and however well anyone played, nobody seemed to be measuring people on their performance. It was all about other factors. So I I can see you know it doesn't work in lots of different ways, even though it does theoretically create opportunities. Anyway, no, I know you've got a question.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

I think we'll we'll jump off of race in a second and go back to just the your career. But I do have a question because Hollywood is so sort of heavy-handed and awkward around questions of race and diversity, right? They they just they they sometimes try to do the right thing and then they overcompensate or they screw up, or they've just they've just not traditionally been very good and natural at just making sure rooms are working correctly, that people's diversity of experience and perspective is not only in a room, but it's getting made into TV shows. And there's that our TV is reflecting our society. I think they're trying. I mean, we can make a get into a big argument with different people on whether they're doing a good enough job or there's a ways to go. I think there's a ways to go. So my question, I never asked this question, but because you gave such a candid uh answer to the last question, if you were given the keys to Hollywood, now there is no such thing as the keys to Hollywood, but you are given the metaphorical keys to Hollywood, you can make whatever changes you want to make with whatever budget you want to spend to make Hollywood a better place and a better place for telling stories, whether or not that has to do with diversity, storytelling, chops, whatever. What is there any changes that you'd like to see made that like like starting tomorrow that's not happening? It's it's Hollywood super inefficient.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Um on the on the TV side in particular, there's a lot of layers to get through um for creatives. You know, I think a lot of people find a way to justify their jobs by giving notes, by injecting themselves into part of the process that's not their strong suit. Um I would try to find a way to have lanes for the creatives and for the business side. Now we pretend like that's a thing, but you know what happens is now everything's so corporate, the creative side gets kind of mixed up in having to kind of placate uh an entirely different kind of audience that has nothing to do with the audience who's ultimately going to enjoy their show or their movie. My the thing I would do is I would I would try like heck to figure out a way to keep the business and the creative separate until they needed to marry. I don't know how I would do it, but the the most frustrating part for me as a writer is navigating through committees that judge your work. Um that's hard, and it's not necessarily hard because of I've gotten some fantastic notes, you know, some notes that make my stories better. I'm working with Netflix now on a thing, and you know, every time out it's getting better and better. It's great. The process of determining, you know, who are we writing for, who are we telling these stories for, you know, when that stuff starts to get in the way of the creative, then it can get it can get really really bumpy. The the cool thing about what we do, uh, it should never feel like a job. You should never feel like, even to me, you know, one of the most important things about running that room is I didn't want anyone to ever feel like they were coming to work. You know, the idea is we're here to have fun. You know, we're we get to tell these stories, you know, this is gonna be great. We get to hang out, you know. Netflix, uh, the snacks were amazing. You know, it was it was it was a great time. And that's and that's what it should feel like. And I think that, you know, when you're in that bubble camp. Extend. I don't I don't understand why it can't be a little more efficient in Hollywood where you trust the people that you're paying all this money to to create these stories. Just believe in them and trust them. And you know, the other thing I would do just real quick is, and I think they might be working on this in some capacity. I'm not big on the um, you know, I write features too, but I don't do the um the bake off thing, you know, where you and you know, six other writers are competing for a gig. That's another thing my agency, I don't think they love about me. He wouldn't staff write and he wouldn't do like bake-off stuff. Hey, I'd be I I think it's ridiculous to have a group of writers, you know, have uh have multiple takes on things, give those to a studio, the studio hires writer X, and all of a sudden, you know, these ideas that they're picking from the ones they like and telling this other writer to go off and write, you know, her version of it. And to me, that's silly. There's enough proof in the pudding already for you to know who you want to hire. If I'm on your list, you already know what I can do. We're professionals, we've been doing it for years. Hire me or hire her or him or whoever. It doesn't matter. You should be confident enough in your, you know, at least initially, to say, hey, we love your work. We think you would be great for this. You guys figure it out together, and then you go and write the movie and hopefully make the movie. That's the other thing I would love to um, you know, figure out in Hollywood is how to get rid of the bake-off situation.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

I I think in the WGA that they're they're also trying to figure that out. And I think you're right. I think it would actually be faster if they just hired Michael Sarberry to write the first draft or the second draft or whatever, then to do the whole bake-off and get all the takes. You'd actually have something on the page. They could move on, or they could hire you to write a second draft and a third draft, but at least the movie is getting written as opposed to the 55 takes that take two years and they decide not to make the movie at all. I have a question though. I'm, you know, I'm not from Minnesota, but I'm from a small island in Hawaii. And, you know, the the, you know, and you come to Hollywood and your family is excited for you because even when you're an assistant or whatever, you're in Hollywood and you're doing this thing, and then you work on a show and they're even more excited and they're proud of you, and what and they think you've succeeded, and they tell all your friends, no matter what level you're at, that that your kid's doing really well. So sort of the small town storytelling of it all. Now you've worked on some really cool projects, very specific projects, not sort of, I don't see any sort of like broad titles in there. It's these very sort of like specific uh to your voice and to the stories that you can probably tell. They're really good for uh for that. Do you feel like if your career stopped tomorrow, the people in your town, your family would be proud of what you accomplished? And would you be satisfied? Or is there it feels, or is there just so much hunger still to make that movie as a writer director that everything that came before just feels like a stepping stone?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I I um exceeded everyone's expectations of me in my life already. Uh you know, my dad, you know, he passed away a few years ago, but you know, when I was a teenager, he was convinced that I was either gonna end up dead or in jail. I'm from the projects in Milwaukee. Like you, a lot of people don't make it out of the prior at least, you know, with any kind of success. And it's not their fault, it's a system thing, and as this is in the podcast for that. But it's um, I would get after, listen, Michelle Obama invited me to the White House to watch Mr. and Pete. I've exceeded everything, you know, far beyond what I thought, especially as a writer. Again, I didn't set out to be a screenwriter. I started writing stuff that I thought I could make myself, you know, or things that I loved. You know, I wrote Mr. and Pete because it was personal to me. And, you know, I would remember hearing this adage, you know, the write what you know thing. Um, I started writing crime fiction because I loved Elmore Leonard, you know. So I was just writing things that moved me in, you know, kind of the lane that I wanted to be in. Uh I get notes still to this day about Mr. and Pete, where people would say it made me want to be a teacher, you know. Yeah, yeah. Um, obviously everyone's has seen what when they see us is done, even for the guys. I mean, they went from being called the Central Park five to the exonerated five, you know, no small part to what Ava did with that show. Uh, to be a part of that is amazing. Um, Colin and Black and White people got to see, you know, it's the funny thing to me about Colin is everyone assumed, had this assumption about him. I shouldn't say everyone, a lot of people, a lot of his haters and naysayers thought he was one way. And we got to show that no, it's almost a completely opposite, the other way with his family growing up. And so it was nice to be a part of making people aware about him. So yeah, if it's over, which you know, I tell my son all the time, who knows? Like we could wake up and people just will be out of the Michael Strawberry business. It could happen, you know. Um, yeah, I I could I feel great about, I mean, come on, man. I won a humanitas award. I'm nominated for a Peabody Awards, nominated for an Emmy, nominated for you know independent spirit award. Like it's it's amazing. So no, I I I feel very, very good about where I'm at. And if it's over, you know, it's a nice career, nice run.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So I there's a question I often ask people about what they want to achieve next. And I've got a sense that I think I know where you're gonna go with this, but I want to ask it anyway. So I'm gonna give you some options. Okay. So if you if you could choose to write a very commercially successful TV show that's quite mainstream and runs for you know 10 seasons and you can make an absolute fortune, um, or uh you write uh uh a TV show which maybe uh is very critically acclaimed and award worthy, uh that uh a story you really believe in is your sort of soul story, or uh as a third option, you get asked to uh uh work on a Marvel or similar movie. Which of those options would you choose?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Well I do not operate on money doesn't rule me. I don't, I I mean I'm pretty well off, but money does it even before then again. When when I'm passing on these staffing jobs, I didn't have any money. I just had my conviction, like I knew what I wanted to do, and I felt like I knew what's going to help me succeed. It would be option B for me in a heartbeat. Story rules, because here's the thing, and I and I used to try to explain this to my reps when I nail that, the other things are going to come. Trust me, and you know, eventually they started to trust. I mean, they do now, but the idea was always, you know, I always make this analogy because I'm a big you know basketball fan. I would say, you don't ask a three-point shooter to shoot from the post. Let me do my strengths, you know, the things that you know, I know my limitations, I know the things that I will excel at. I'll do those things and things will be okay. The B is the thing that would move me the most and excite me the most as a writer, and that stuff comes. You you can read that on the page. You can read it. It's there, you know. I personally could not do the is particularly. I I I know that you know, if you can nail a show for CBS, for instance, you know, broadcast show, it's running for 10, 15 years or whatever. That I mean, that's golden yachts for you. I I I mean, I I I know I know the game, I know that part of it. And I know that you know, people would there's a few people in my life who would love for me to sit down and write like an amazing procedural that has that kind of potential. But then what? Like, I I I don't, it's not in my heart, and and you know what else that I also tell people, that is a skill set. Let's not for like make it seem like any old writer can go and do that. That that is a real skill set to be able to do that, to do it well. Are you kidding me? You're doing 22, 24 episodes a season, you know, that's hard to do. So, yeah, I'm I'm I'm gonna pick in the Marvel thing, you know, and I've had a couple of meetings with them. Cool people, it's way too controlled, you know. Like they they know what, you know, they they got this thing, and it's just like, hey man, you guys do you, you know. Like yeah, yeah. They might be able to do that um through AI in a in a few years, like just AI scripts being out of now. Um so no, it's you know, the the more personal, kind of story-driven, character-driven stuff that may or you know, may or may not be critically acclaimed, but it'll be sincere. That's the one thing I I can tell you, it'll definitely be sincere.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So you you did give the answer I was hoping you would give, uh, which which I love. Well, so obviously, now you've as you said about using your basketball analogy, you know, you sort of you stick to the thing that you're you're good at, even though other people may be telling you to try and do other things. Obviously, now you've achieved this level of success, it's obviously a lot easier. But during this process, when you were turning down rooms and when you were so driven that you only wanted to make the things that you wanted to make, sounds like your reps weren't necessarily always in agreement with you. But were you getting pressure from your reps, maybe friends and family, or people giving you advice saying you've got to you can't do it this way, you have to do the more traditional way, or you've got to maybe give up on your dreams a bit for some practicality in the middle part of your career. So, did you get that pressure? And obviously, now it's all worked out, but were there times where you questioned whether actually maybe you should have taken some of those things because you weren't getting in the right direction quickly enough?

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Um I have a really, really, really good manager, Julian Rosenberg at Circle. He's the best. So Julian understood where I was coming from and what I wanted to do with my career. Julian, listen, I I hardly ever talk to my feature reps at CAA. Like if I talk to them four times a year, you know, that's and and I want to make movies, and you know, I write movies. I'm writing a movie now, you know, and that didn't come from them. You know what I mean? The stuff I get from them is completely different than the things that people call me for directly. Um my manager understands me. I think that CAA, it's a different, it's a different thing with them. You know, um it's not I wouldn't say it didn't, it it's there's nothing that I passed on or you know, a job I didn't get that I you know wish I would have taken or anything like that. There's nothing like that. It's more about you know catering to the kind of career that I want. Can that be can that cause some you know friction in the you know client rep relationship? And you know, I'm I'm pretty, I can be pretty tough, man. I can be pretty tough when it comes to that thing. Only because again, I I just know what I want and know what I can excel at. Um, I had a I I wrote a script, rewrote a script recently that came through CAA, and even that turned into like a hot mess. Not the script, but just the situation. And you know, life's too short, you know.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Super interesting. I I I want to uh we only have time for a couple more questions, but I want to wrap all the way back to to to Michael Starbury as a kid, because you said you grew up in the projects uh in Milwaukee, and I don't have any experience with the projects in Milwaukee, but I do have experience growing up with some really poor people all around you and having a dream that doesn't necessarily coincide with the dreams that other people are having. Uh and so where where did the dream when you were growing up on the projects to become a director and a writer and a screenwriter and you know, mostly a director, because I think that was your earliest dreams. And did it clash with the people around you? Were were they supportive? Were you an outlier? Was there a group of creative people all doing cool things? Like what was the vibe of like the teenage Michael who was like telling people this is a thing I want to do, or even the young wherever whenever that dream came into your story?

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah, that's that's a great question. Um I didn't discover that until I mean I was in my 20s when I wanted to chase becoming a director. Uh I was working in IT. Um, I wasn't doing too much with my life, it was just a regular, you know, life. It was, you know, there was some upward mobility, you know, because the IT field, you know, there's opportunity there. But I fell in love with pulp fiction. And from there, I fell in love with like Reservoir Dogs, and from there I discovered, you know, Elmore Leonard. And, you know, now I'm going down a whole rabbit hole of independent films. It's Spikely, it's Robert Rodriguez, it's Steven Soderbergh, like all of these guys. I'm just, it's, it's more than just uh, you know, fling. It's I'm just falling in love with this whole thing, and I really want to make movies. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why I was struck by it. Um I don't know where what where the inclination to write a script even came from, other than I wanted to make movies and I didn't have a script. So I had to learn how to do it. I didn't go to film school. I never, I've never taken a screenwriting class. I learned how to write by buying the the script for pulp fiction and just learning the format from reading it. That's that's how I learned how to write. Um story uh screenwriting format. That was it. And I watched a ton of movies and I read a bunch of scripts. And yeah, I mean, that's that's that's what it was for me. When I was a teenager, I mean, I don't I don't know if your audience cares about this, but I used to hustle. For me, it was, you know, when I lived in Milwaukee with my mom, my dad lived here in Minnesota, that's where I live now. Um, it was, you know, let's go to the Milwaukee Bucks games or the Milwaukee Brewers games and scalp tickets and try to make some money so we can eat. You know, and it worked. You know, we did all right. Um, I wasn't really going to school. So if I would have stayed there, I wouldn't have graduated. Uh, you know, so I came here in high school. Luckily, I graduated from high school, no college, but that's when, you know, those are kind of my formative years being out on my own for a little bit after high school and you know, just kind of seeing the world and figuring things out. I was I was kind of blessed because I've I grew up around diversity too. In Milwaukee, I mean, it was all black people in the projects. In Minnesota, it was mostly white people. And so, you know, I got to see, and it was kind of a middle class, upper middle class vibe. And so, you know, I got to be around different kinds of people. And here in Minnesota, I got to see some sort of successes. Um, and yeah, so it made me believe I could I could do these things, I think. So it's again, like I was saying, I wouldn't recommend my path. I would, I wouldn't even know how to tell you how to do my path, you know, because it's first of all, I think you can shave some years off of it if you do it a different way. I was super patient. I was when I was when I first started writing, you know, I didn't have any kids. In the middle of it, I had a son, and my number one priority is to be the best dad in the world. So I had to be that first. I didn't care after that, you know, when when he was just a little dude, that was the most important thing to me. Was like I I, you know, thankfully my wife didn't mind too much. I didn't care about chasing anything. I just wanted to be a better dad than my dad. So that was number one. And, you know, once I felt comfortable being a dad, I started writing again. And that's when I wrote Mr. and Pete. And Mr. and Pete changed my life.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

So yeah. I I I a great answer. And I think learning how to hustle is an underrated skill in learning how to navigate the halls of Hollywood because people are hustling and some people just don't even get that side of the industry. And it's a very different hustle than what you're talking about. But there are some crossovers definitely for both selling projects and selling yourself and knowing how to scalp a ticket, scalp a script, scalp yourself to somebody. Uh, but that's actually not the question. I we do unfortunately, uh, it's now time for our final question. And you've you've answered this already, sort of in bits and pieces. But you know, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to an aspiring filmmaker uh just entering this business?

SPEAKER_02 41:26

So I don't have any answers that are, you know, no one watching this is going to be like, that's it right there. He just gave me the answer. Like, I'm about to become Steven Spielberg. I don't have that answer. But what I would be doing, I have a wannabe filmmaker in my household, my son. What I tell him and anybody else is you can make movies with your phone now, bro. Are you kidding me? When I was like discovering that I wanted to direct, I I went and bought an old Super 8 camera. I had like a what was a DV camera, like I was shooting every kind of skit and short, you I mean, just whatever came to my mind, I would I was just shooting this stuff. Now there's places to put it. Now you can actually, I mean, you can almost rack focus on an iPhone. If you can tell a story, you know, and make it work with the equipment that you have. And I'm not saying go shoot on an iPhone, go rent uh uh an area if you want. But the idea is to be making things, make them, make them, make them, make them. It's it's so important to actually be doing it versus you know saying you're going to do it. You know, now I would even tell someone to you, I would say if you know how to, you know, use YouTube, you don't need to go to film school. That's how much information is on YouTube to teach you how to make a movie. Now, not everybody can learn that way, but if you have that ability, all the information is right at your fingertips and it's free. And it's free. There's enough information out there and enough people who want to do the other jobs. You can find a DP, you can find a gaffer, you can find someone to do the sound, you can find a production designer, you can find actors. Go out and do it. That's it. You do it well enough, the people who you want to be doing it for will see it. And all of a sudden, you'll be making moves to become that thing that you always wanted to be.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Magnificent. Look, Michael Starbury, thank you very much for being part of this podcast. I think everyone who listens to this is going to agree this has been one of the most fascinating, insightful episodes. And I love just the your whole story and the fact that you kept turning down the chance to do what is the easy thing. And I think a lot of the people who listen to this just want to get into those rooms just to achieve what you wanted to achieve, and you've achieved it. So it's been amazing having you on. Thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Well, thank you guys for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

And that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, we want to thank James Launch for the amazing theme music.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Do you before we sort of thank our wives and stuff, do you think anyone actually listens this far, or do they stop when the music comes back in?

SPEAKER_03 44:40

I think they normally stop after you mention your second and third podcast. That would be podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Not that anyone really cares about. So if you've got complaints about the show, go to NEVSlin and feel free to air those. If you have praise or you want to pay us in some way for something, come to at Dan Rutstein. And have a great day.