Take 144 - Showrunner, Writer Tony Ayres, The Slap, The Survivors

SPEAKER_02 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 literature.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

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

SPEAKER_03 0:20

For every success, there is something.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Like everything in our business, your hands can counters.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry, brought to you by the Emmy Award-winning annotation software scriptation. As ever, I am Dan Rottstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

And by the skin of my teeth, I am your still-in-the-tertainment industry co-host Noah Epsilon. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce TV writer, screenwriter, executive producer, and showrunner Tony Ayres, the podcast. On top of having a new limited series airing on Netflix called The Survivors, based on the best-selling novel by Jane Harper. He's also created andor executive produced, andor was a showrunner for such shows as Fires, Clickbait, Stateless, Glitch, Nowhere Boys, The Slap, and way too many more to list here.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Tony, I think you're probably our third Australian that we've had on. So I guess I'm gonna ask you a question. We talk a lot about working in Hollywood. As somebody who works from Australia, but obviously, you know, Netflix, among others, is based in Hollywood. Do you see yourself as part of Hollywood and uh sort of Australians see themselves as part of Hollywood, or do you see yourselves as different and better than that?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

I think the Australian industry in general has a kind of uh love-hate relationship with Hollywood where you know it it's we all aspire to work there, or not not everyone, but a lot of people aspire to work there. I actually am part of that machine because uh I have a producer deal with MBC Universal, so uh so my bosses are actually in LA, or my boss's boss and uh is in LA, so so I do have um a necessary relationship with Hollywood.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

You've obviously got a tremendous number of credits uh across the industry. Uh have you have you ever been tempted to move here, or do you prefer the the relative sanctuary as one of the best cities to live in in the world?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

There were a few moments where I considered it, but I just didn't have a life circumstance that allowed me to shift cities. So I I think um you know I'm I'm content with doing the occasional visit.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Okay, so normally I'm the one that sort of sets the table for people's careers here, asking you questions about the origin of your career. And I'm gonna I'm gonna get to all that, but I'm actually fascinated by something because I am, you know, I've come up in the Hollywood system. Most people who listen to the podcast know that I live in Hawaii now, so I'm no longer in Hollywood. But my question to you is uh tell us a little bit about the differences between the Australian system and what the Hollywood system is. And I mean, do you guys have writers' rooms as a showrunner? Who are you overseeing? Um, those kind of basic things.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Okay, so I I think the Australian uh industry can best be categorized as a government subsidized cottage industry. We uh we are not uh a um huge market, like we're a relatively small market and we punch enormously above our weight given the size of the market. Like we have incredible talent in front of the camera, behind the camera, but we we are way we're we're the poorer cousins, absolutely. So we do have writers' rooms, but you know, like when I did clickbait uh under the American system, I had a 22-week writer room. Up until then, the longest writer room I ever had was like three weeks. So and we do this thing called mini rooms where we just gather people together for um, you know, for brainstorming or for plotting uh for a few days and we pay them a daily rate. It's completely different from the American system where there are staff writers and there's a whole ladder that you climb up to, you know, where your uh pay accrue you know is increment gets incremental as your credits go up. We we don't have that at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Oh okay, so we'll ask more questions. I'm sure Dan is fascinated too about the differences between the two systems. But let me back up a little bit to you know, most when I'm asking people who are from America, like what you know inspired you to get into Hollywood? What inspired you to sort of become a TV writer? Often it is that ladder you were talking about. They they wanted to become a staff writer and then work their way up. So for you, you know, and you're right, Australia has created such vibrant talent for the decades that it's been creating, you know, film and television. What was your inspiration and how did you break into this world in this industry?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

I guess I I wasn't one of those people who naturally thought, I want to be a screenwriter. You know, like those kind of filmmakers who know make super ed movies, you know, when they're teenagers. I, you know, I that wasn't me. I came to it in my late 20s, uh, having done a philosophy degree and a visual arts degree, and I liked words and I liked pictures. And so I thought, well, I don't know what else to do. I'll go to film school because that involves words and pictures. And um, and I found I had an ability in screenwriting. And I think I I kind of grew to fall in love with it as a form uh rather than it being my the the place that that I was always destined to be. Um yeah, and you know, uh I I guess it's it's such a privileged career to have, you know, you you get to spend your time trying to nut out sort of ways of communicating how you feel about the world to you know other people, audiences, and and you know I can't think of many better ways of spending your time.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So tell me about some of your early sort of experiences breaking into you know Hollywood, just breaking into Hollywood, breaking into Australia and Hollywood, and what were some of the first like like uh sort of obviously it's a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity. So was there some really some early challenges that you faced as you over as you joined the industry?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Uh I I guess I I could answer it in two ways. Weirdly, I actually did pretty well straight up. The first thing I wrote out of film school actually won all of these prizes and put me on the map. It was a a little half-hour um TV drama set in an anthology series about my mother, my sister, and I going on a taxi ride. It was you know, like it was a tiny little piece, but somehow it affected people and it started me. And I had a slow and steady career, I would say, for the first um you know, 15 years. I, you know, like I did, you know, little documentaries and short films, and I made a feature film, and it was it was a very kind of um my Chinese design is the ox, and and I I I felt like the ox, you know, a slow, steady, incremental sort of um you know, just managing to get by. But I guess what I was also seeing was that um my peers were sort of like taking off and having uh way more successes than me. Uh and and I sort of realized that, well, partly it was because the stories that I was interested in telling as a Chinese Australian, the worlds that I were, I that I was fascinated by and the the stories that I I was naturally gravitating towards were always considered marginal. They were always considered somewhere on over there on the on on the sides. And like I I probably started 20 years too early, because I think uh today those stories would be um welcomed more than they were back then. So I, you know, like I I I I think I was very niche in the early parts of my career. And uh I guess that that's where I I would kind of say my difficult difficulty was. Uh like I wasn't ever really offered anything. Everything that I did was self-generating. Um I was pretty entrepreneurial, so that kind of kept me going, but but you know, like I didn't I didn't have anyone knocking on my door. I was knocking on a lot of doors.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

So obviously you you're working with Netflix now. Um that feels like the opposite of you know where you were before. Like obviously, I know when you started in this industry, Netflix and and obviously businesses like it didn't exist. Um but you know, now you're you know, there's nothing uh more mainstream than Netflix in some ways. So have you do you feel like you've managed to sort of get the corporate part sorted out while still being able to sort of tell the stories with your voice, or have you had to compromise a little bit in order to get things made?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

When I started out, the word commercial was like a dirty word, and somehow it was like a bit of an insult if your work was considered commercial. And now I just use it all the time. Hey, this project is great, it's really commercial. Uh so I I think that um, yeah, so that probably is a sign that I have navigated somewhere somewhere more towards the center. I think um in the early days it was just so much about, you know, like being an artist and finding your voice and you know, like you know, being uncompromising and being provocative. And as I went along, I kind of realized that, well, the work doesn't exist unless it exists in relationship to an audience. Like, you know, like other otherwise it's just you know, like a piece of you know, data on a hard drive. You know, the the work is only there if someone watches it. And so I increasingly became concerned with how do we get people to watch these things? You know, like what and it also felt to me like it was increasingly important to think of myself as someone who served an audience rather than have someone who was entitled to have an audience. Like so I I started thinking about well, what do I have to offer people? You know, like people have a lot of things to occupy, you know, to occupy their time. What why would I what would I bring to them that would help their that would value add to their lives? And so that you know, like again, when I started out, entertainment was a dirty word. And um and I think that now I'm I'm I'm quite happy to embrace ideas like entertainment and commercial because I I think that they are just ways of getting your foot in the door. And then, you know, like I you know, I haven't completely abandoned being an artist. Um, what I I try to do with the work is make you know, Trojan horse, the things that I care about, you know, into the the the form. And you know, sometimes that works, some you know, better better than others.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Yeah, so interesting. I was actually I was gonna sort of make that sort of point as a question. So we've had a lot of people who've come on here who tell stories of you know, they wrote these scripts, no one was interested. And then when they suddenly became a hot showrunner and they pulled out the bottom drawer of their old script, suddenly these things were amazing. Are you now able to leverage your incredible credits list to try and resurface things that maybe you couldn't have done earlier?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I mean, I'm incredibly persistent and quite stubborn, so nothing ever kind of die dies for me. Like, you know, like I'm I'm always trying looking for ways to make the things that I uh love happen. And uh, you know, you I think that you just kind of have to. Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever been uh so successful that people have completely re-examined my past work and realized the genius of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Okay, so so uh that that was kind of left me laughing there. I'm hoping one day someone will re-examine my past genius as well, but it hasn't happened for the record. Um the the you we talked a little bit about your relationship with Australia and then um going, you know, obviously you've now crossed the the Pacific uh to you know to work in Hollywood. Did did um uh was there any sort of trials and tribulations there where you were first coming to Hollywood with a project? And maybe you had a big attachment, or maybe you had something that you thought was a sure thing, and Hollywood being Hollywood surprised you by you know not reacting the way you wanted them to.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Um LA is just a mindfuck for me, and it always has been. But but you know, fortunately, the the the my thoughts about it change and evolve as as I get to know it more. Like I I guess my first real brush with Hollywood was um I did a show called The Slap, uh, which is a TV TV show. It's the first TV drama I ever did. It was a book adaptation, hugely successful in Australia and in the UK. You know, you know, like it was the in the days before global streaming, but it was really successful. And NBC decided to remake it with um and so um this this is my Hollywood story, okay. Um I was I, you know, like I had a film in Toronto, uh a feature film in Toronto. So I was flying through uh LA on my way to Toronto, and uh NBC had just announced that um it was remaking this lab. I was an executive producer, but honestly, I really wasn't involved. You know, like I think I looked at the scripts once. Uh, but somehow because I was attached to this NBC remake, everyone wanted to meet with me. And they were like the top execs of all the broadcasters, and you know, like I was suddenly like really hot for a show that had nothing to do with. Um, and then uh I think a year later, I had something else in Toronto and I was going through again. Oh no, and actually, uh I had a a um a show that was nominated for an international Emmy. So I was going through uh again, LA again, and the slap had just come out and uh it tanged. Like everyone said how terrible it was. Fortunately, everyone also said how much better the Australian version was. But I was in LA and no one wanted to meet with me. Like I was meeting the assistant of the assistant, and uh and uh and I just thought uh suddenly I was like as cold as a corpse, and and it was like I was hot for a show I had nothing to do with, and then I was cold for a show that I had nothing to do with. And um and for me, that was my sort of like first kind of quintessential LA experience.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

It's like an episode out of a studio.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

So how how did you um dig your way out? Because clearly we we know how this movie ends for you, because we know we're here because you have a show that's airing on Netflix that just started airing, but so you must have at some point figured out a way to go from the assistant of the assistant back up the line. So, how how did you do that? Persistence, really.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

You just I mean, fortunately, I have a career in Australia, which is the foundation of my life. So I, you know, like I get to make things in Australia, and sometimes they chart and sometimes they don't. And then then I started exploring other markets. I I worked with David Heyman on a show called Clickbait, which was originally set in the UK, and then um, you know, and this is another LA story, and and this is more a story, this is a success story and a failure story, because the clickbait was set in London, and uh David and I were pitching it and it was picked up by uh a streamer, and then the personnel changed in London, and like within one call, I knew that our show was dead because the new person who talked about it was like she just did not get the show, and that was it. The show was gone. Um I you know, and then my studio, NBC Universal, uh pitched around to all the other buyers, and within two weeks, we every single person said no. A year later, uh again, because I was flying through LA, I thought, well, while I'm here, what if I reset that UK show in America? And um, no harm in doing it. It took me one day. And um uh, you know, I just changed mum to mom and um a few other things, but not not that much. And and then pitched it to about five different buyers, and there was a bidding oil for it. So, you know, including it being bought in the room. So, you know, I I I guess that's that's more a story about time and place and how a show can go from cold to hot, um depending on what um the moment is. The other thing about LA that you know, like for an Australian, we we are fairly forthright in in the way we we communicate with each other. And it took me a long time to understand that American executives never mean what they say and they speak in a certain code, and they also seem to have some kind of like um manual or something where they all say the same words and the words change every couple of years. Like, you know, like there was one time when the word sticky was everywhere, and then suddenly sticky got too icky and no one said sticky anymore. And then and then, and now the the word is propulsive. Uh, you know, you know, a couple of years ago it was undeniable until people realize that everything's deniable. Um, you know, like so the whole language of LA is kind of foreign to me, even though we speak the same, you know, technical language. Um, and it took me a long time to understand that. I remember going into a meeting with um, you know, you know, the the broadcaster that I wanted to work with most of all, and um with my uh the American exec that I was working with. And um the you know, the meeting I thought was smashingly successful and I thought it went really, really well. Came out of the meeting and and I said, Oh, you know, they're gonna buy this. And and Scott, who I was would just shook his head, said no. He knew exactly what they were saying, but like LA to m me is is kind of like more like China than it is Australia. Like, you know there's a kind of code that people in LA understand that you know, like I think you Australians who live in LA, um you know, I think they've slowly learn and get it. But you know, if you don't live in LA and you're just just a a visitor, it it's always discombobulating. I I mean I have a love-hate relationship with it. Like people are I, you know, I have lots of friends there. It's a really great place. I have a particular bubble that I I exist in somewhere between West Hollywood and Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, you know, like it's a very privileged experience. But um it always feel like I'm I'm it's the most status, subconscious city that I've ever been in. Like I think, you know, everything from where you're seated, whether you get whether you get into places, um everyone kind of you know let you know what your status is in in these kind of funny, invisible ways, like the speed at which they return your messages, the you know yeah, it it it it is a it's a puzzle that that Australians kind of have to decipher. And you know, I I'm still trying to work it out. Like even though I've been going there for 15, 20 years, I'm still trying to work it out.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

One of my Dan has a question, but but I but before I pun over to him, one of my most famous like things I've ever wrote and it's written on social media was a series of tweets called Translating Hollywood Speak, where I would say Oh my god, can you send it to me? What the speaker and what somebody would say and what it really means. Um and I'll also we'll also put it when we air your episode, I'll I'll add it to the to the post so that people can see it. But it's yes, yes, you are absolutely right. It's an o not only an oblique town, but often they're saying the exact opposite of what they mean until they say what they exactly mean, and you don't always know when that switch has happened. But anyway, it's punting to damn for the real question.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Well, it it always strikes me as like people are kind of in this lose-lose situation because if you're an exec, uh you have to be nice to everyone because they might be the next big thing. Yeah. Yeah. And you might lose your job if you say no to them. But they also might not be the next big thing, and you'll lose your job if you say yes to them. So yeah, you know, like people are caught in, you know, like I have friends who are execs who I, you know, I really love, and you know, I I get their dilemma, you know, so you know, because unlike Australia, like people's careers, you know, especially execs and agents and um, you know, the the infrastructure around talent, uh people's careers are diff are defined by their relationship to talent, you know. And you know, someone can be suddenly like hugely successful because they're like, you know, friends with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And uh and one thing I notice is the way in which friendship is used as this kind of like commodity in LA. Like you, you know, like it's almost like your cryptocurrency.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

It's very true. Noah basically spends a lot of time telling people he he co-hosts a podcast with me, just so you can get some of that credibility. I mean just how just how the town works.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah, yeah, you're like a meme coin.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um in terms of sort of where you are in your career, um what would the I'll I'm gonna give you some I I do this a lot, I give people options. If you could choose one of these three things, what what's the one that you would really want? Would it be to make the show of your dreams in Australia um be very well paid for it? Um is it to be invited to be a showrunner in a proper sort of network TV in Hollywood room? Um you're shaking your head, so so that probably answers that one. Um and I guess is that like the sort of the the third option is obviously I know you're already with Netflix, but to become a sort of you know, the go-to streamer, Australian writer to do all the things that need doing over your side of the world for for Netflix and for Amazon and for whatever the next one's gonna be. Um, but doing the sort of commercial projects that that they want you to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

What I think um, you know, like someone like me is all is always kind of like moves on a dial from art to business, or what, you know, like a at different ends of the scale, you know, like and I think that I'm always going to lean more towards art if I can, with you know, like in the early part of my career, I was like pure art. And um, and then you know, some I'm now somewhere in the middle, but uh I would always want to lean towards the art of it. So if it if I got to make the show of my dreams in Australia, I would be perfectly happy. I it I'm kind of location agnostic, but I'm also realistic and I know that um America is uh the cultural capital of the world, and that the resources that you're given to make an American show uh gives you a kind of um ability to do stuff that normally you don't get to do. Like, you know, the thing about Australia is that we do make work under you know incredibly lean circumstances, like our budgets are nothing compared to American shows. So so having the ability to really go for it creatively, you know, is you know something that I would also love. But my dream would be to make the show that I wanted make in America with an American budget, but film it in Australia.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

What's the bit that you like of the business? Is it sort of the ideas and creation part? Is it the actual writing part, or is it now that you've been a show runner a few times, is it running a team to help build out your vision?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I guess my essential identity is as a writer, like that's my sort of first position identity. I um I love staying up late and cracking a problem and suddenly feeling like, oh my god, you're a fucking genius, you know, like this is amazing. You've really solved something. I I love doing that. Um and and and but I I also like uh showrunning, I like the uh creative control. I because I was a director as well uh before this. I you know am used to the the kind of being in the role of the creative boss and I and I like doing it. I I particularly like the edit. I'm I I like problem solving. And um, you know, I I get I guess the problem with show running though is that you know so much so much of the role also involves people management. And uh that's probably the bit that I like least. It's fine when everything is going well, but you know, like in it, you can't get a group of people together without some conflict, without and um and if you're the boss, you you have to be prepared to you know sometimes make tough decisions, or sometimes um, you know, I I I like to be liked, you know, so and I don't think you can be like a really good showrunner if you if you just want to be liked. Yeah, I mean you can be a popular showrunner, but the show may not be great.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Yes, no, indeed. Um so you said something now. Noah might be able to correct me on this. We've done uh whatever it is, 140 episodes of this podcast. And I would say over half the guests at some point have said some version of they don't like writing. Like even though they're writers, um, and I think even Noah said it a few times. I think I could be wrong. I feel like you're the first person who says you love writing. Now I know you you theoretically you all love writing because you probably wouldn't be doing it otherwise, but no one no one ever says that. So um do you really love writing?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

I really love writing, but that's because I don't get to do it all the time. Okay, so you know, uh, if I had to do it all the time, I would probably eventually hate it. But because like my time is split between, you know, pitching and uh I I work a lot as a non-writing EP. So I work with other show with other show runners to develop their work. Um, you know, I'm always reading submissions, which uh, you know, like I said, I've always got a pile of scripts by the side of my bed. Um I've you know, like I'm always doing meetings with people, you know, like so that actually occupies more of my time than writing. So so writing just feels like a holiday, you know, like it's it's um and you know, I get to be by myself and I, you know, uh yeah. So so I guess that's kind of why why I like writing. If it was just if I was just a writer, I I think it would be harder. I mean, the other thing about writing though is that you're constantly uh, you know, like the thing that stops you writing is you, like you're constantly dealing with imposter syndrome and this idea that you can you actually have no talent and you've been able to get away with it for a certain for a long time. And um but and and you know, most writers I know struggle with that. But also it's one of it's it's also one of those crafts that you sort of realize actually the more you do, you get better at. You know, uh you you can work out how to be a better writer, and that's exciting, you know, like it's kind of lifelong learning.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

I I I do want to quickly correct the record here is and say that I do I am in the rare minority, and it is a minority of people who like writing. In fact, I cheat on my writing with other writing. I you probably do as well. It's like I'm getting paid to write this, but I really want to write this, so I'm gonna sneak this at three in the morning because I gotta do that later. And I don't know why I'm doing that, but it's and I do have learned on this podcast that most people like having written. Very few of us, and I it must be really difficult. I talked about that with some friends for those of us, for those of the people, the writers out there who don't like writing and still yet manage a really great. They're no better or worse than those who actually like it, but I can't imagine doing it and hating the actual process. And that was almost more admirable than the us that are being like, no, I actually enjoy that's the part I enjoy. It's the rest of the stuff. We you know, we would write for free. It's the notes and everything else that we're getting paid for. Oh gosh, it's nice. It's all the nonsense. Um so you know, we'd be remiss to if we didn't talk about your new show. Uh this last time, you know, it aired last week, I think, on Netflix is when it first came out. Uh, can you talk a little bit about the journey of that and maybe any of some of the problems that you're still in it, so not like don't don't throw anyone under the bus, but some of the challenges to getting that show made.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Um well the show was um an adaptation of a book by Jane Harper, very successful Australian uh murder mystery writer. Or she writes more than murder murder mysteries, but she's uh very popular, and so there's a lot there was a lot of pressure on to get it right. You know, the book is naturally a movie, and I was brought on onto it by uh the my sister company Matchbox Pictures, uh, who had optioned the book and they they asked me to consider it as a writer. And um there was something about it which kind of resonated for me, and I sort of ended up uh writing and showrunning it. Um so the challenge, creative challenge was how to turn you know 90 minutes of screen time into six episodes. So we had to do a lot of spinning out. Um we also had the creative challenge of having to film like the inciting incident is a storm in a sea cave. And um I stupidly thought, oh well, let's just go to a sea cave and film people. And you know, and I was quickly told that no, everyone is gonna die. Um you can't do that. So we had to, you know, like a we had to build this extraordinary set uh on the world's biggest sound stage in or the southern hemisphere's biggest sound stage. And uh we had to build all these concrete caves and put them in sea tanks and like so for technically we had those kinds of difficult difficulties. But um to be honest, like we struggled with episode one, you know, that there is um you know, in the world of peak TV, you know, that there is so much attention paid to the first 10 minutes, I would say even the first five minutes. And so we had to keep editing and editing and editing to get something which Netflix were happy with, which I was also happy with, you know, like it's I think that's um that's an a really interesting creative question for for now. Like, how has screenwriting changed and how has TV making changed in this kind of you know saturated market? Like, you know, I I did a show when I did the slap, you know, it's it's you know, it's about a child being slapped at a barbecue by someone who's not their parent and and uh the parents of the child get so outraged that they take the guy who slaps their son to court and it it causes this rift throughout the entire friendship circle. It's a genius book uh by Christopher Scholkers. And um when we did the slap, the TV series, it started with this guy, Hector, who's the guy who throws the barbecue and who's just a central character, um, waking up in the morning, yawning and sort of contemplating having a wank or not, and then doing some push-ups. And I said that if we had to do the slap today, you know exactly how it's gonna start. It's gonna start with a slow, super slow motion shot of a kid being slapped, and it's and it's gonna you're gonna have this title that goes up six hours earlier.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

So I you know, like I think it's it's a challenge for all of us, you know, because you how do you do that? How do you get people's attention? Like, you know, and how do you get the remote out of their hands so they don't change this the station? Um, but also not do exactly the same thing every single time. Like, how do you make the show you know its own unique thing?

SPEAKER_01 39:18

I mean, and on that too, which is I mean, I can go go on a huge tangent on this too, because I've dealt with your first five at your same place, by the way. Yes, we'll talk about that later. But the um the the uh the concept that you have to start so propulsively, right? That's a word that you talk about. And yet then they're then people are upset when you haven't spent the time you know creating characters people like because you have no time to develop them because you've started you know in media res. So like it's it's a really complicated problem where we would love to have a 30, like let's just say a feature film actually have gone down to 15, 10, 10, 15 minutes when you need 14 to actually make people care about the characters who are going on this journey. So they're creating a different problem by getting a watch, they're actually then making a product that's not as good. So we don't quite know how to fight back about that, but that's that's that's the that's the situation as I see it, and it's sort of an endlessly tricky situation to be in.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

But it's also like if you keep making cookie-cutter TV, yeah, the thing that's gonna pop or stand out is the thing that is like not the cookie cutter. So shows like I may destroy you or White Lotus or Adolescence or you know, like that, there are lots of so many examples of shows um that don't do that, that actually are the ones that are celebrated and lauded. But you know, like to get a show like that up, you you need a um a fierce advocate somewhere in the commissioning world.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Oh, and and they're always gonna say it's an outlier. That those are the outliers. The outliers, yes. Like, like, like, sorry, we got it, we got a tangent, and and we're actually gonna have to ask the last question, but I just cannot brought this up with Sinners too, with somebody else, about like that, you don't know what that movie is until the mid-midway point. But then they're like, that was such a great, interesting film. They're like, well, but that's the outlier. And I'm like, well, then are all the good movies the outliers? But anyways, we are sadly, uh Tony, as it's clear from this conversation we're having right now, uh, I could talk to you forever. I'm sure people listening could listen to you forever, but we are sadly at our last question, which we ask every single person that comes on this show. If you could give one piece of advice to somebody joining the industry, in your case as a screenwriter or TV writer, well, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

It's just TV. You know, it's just TV. Don't fuck up your life and destroy your mental health, uh twist yourself into uh a kind of bitter emotional pretzel for this. You know, it's you know we are at an ephemeral moment uh as human beings are, and so you know you have the choice to have as good a good of a life as you can possibly have, and you know, work towards that.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Brilliant. That's a a uh we keep saying this after 140 episodes, uh, but that is one of the neatest, uh most sensible pieces of advice. We've we've heard, I like that. The sort of thing you'd only hear from an Australian. I feel like no one in LA would say that, and if they did, it would mean something else.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah, yeah. I I'd be curious to know what it means.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

This has been great. So look, um pleasure. Tony Ayers, the uh showrunner of Survivors on Netflix and many, many other things in the past and more to come. Um, thank you very much for bringing a different perspective to the show.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yep, uh, hopefully I said something useful, but it was uh pleasure both meeting and talking to both of you.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Thank you so much, Tony.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again for music and our wives for putting up with our conversation. As always, each episode is brought to you by Scriptation, my favorite screenwriting of annotation software. If you want to support the show, please download a copy at www.scriptation.com backslash.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Or perhaps even better at www.scriptation.com backslash dan.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Dan is if you want to find me on social media, I'm at Twitter at DanEpslin, and more recently on threads at nopsliner.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Talk more about me on social media because few people seem to care about