I Still Know What You Did at Film School. Showrunner and show creator Trey Callaway from APB, Supernatural, House of David and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

SPEAKER_04 0:14

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_01 0:27

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

SPEAKER_00 0:33

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.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

That's the normal to be able to support your like everything in our business.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

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 with that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

And I am your still in the entertainment industry, co-host Noah Epson. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, we have screenwriter, TV writer, showrunner, and show creator Trey Calloway on the show. On top of writing the screenplay for the hit horror film I Still Know What You Did last Summer. He's worked on such TV shows as CSI New York, Rush Hour, Station 19, 9-11, Lone Star, and many others. He's also the executive producer and showrunner of APB, The Messengers, and the Amazon series House of David. On top of creating and running Mercy Point, when he's not doing all of that, he's teaching screenwriting as a professor at one of the top film and TV programs in the world, the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Welcome, Trey.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Thank you very much for having me, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

That might be one of the longest intros we've ever had. Yeah. So hopefully there was some time for some failure in between all of that.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Oh God, was there ever time for failure?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So you I'm gonna hopefully I'm gonna I'm gonna start without making a failure here. You went to USC, I believe. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 2:47

I did go to that is what uh uh initially brought me out to USC. I mean to Los Angeles, I should say, was yeah, I got into the writing division at USC. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So you're sitting at the back, or maybe you sit in the front, but let my story's better if you're sitting at the back. You're at USC. Um I'm guessing uh mobile phones hadn't been invented yet.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

No, they had not, my friend, and thank you for dating the story properly.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Uh AI obviously, you know, was only in movies at the time. You're sitting at the back of this class. Um did you ever think that there would be a world where you would go through a career doing all of the things you've done and then end up being at the front of the class teaching the new kid at the back of the class?

SPEAKER_03 3:32

No, not in a million years. Uh look, what brought me out to Los Angeles and specifically to SC is the same as so many other people in our uh industry. It was, you know, summer of 1977. I spent all of the money I had earned mowing people's lawns to see Star Wars 11 times in a row at the Fox Theater in Tulsa. And and that was the first time. It was like on my radar of like, oh, this is a job that people have. They they get together in groups of a couple of hundred and they build worlds together. And I had no earthly idea how I could get there myself until then Francis Ford Coppola came to Tulsa where I grew up and made a movie called The Outsiders. And I got a bit part in that movie, a single line and a medium close-up. And that was what was most important about that, aside from getting my head shaved long before I was bald, uh, was that the circus came to town, you know, and then the circus left. And then I went, oh hell, I I I would like to stay in the circus. I guess I gotta go where the circus is. Wait a minute, where did George Lucas go to school? Oh, yeah, okay. And then that's that's what somehow led me to USC. How the hell I got in, I couldn't begin to tell you, but it was uh it was a great, you know, uh, although I was not one of those kids who went on my parents' credit cards, I worked like 17 jobs and took out every loan imaginable. Like it was uh it was definitely a great way to launch a career.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Now, uh of all the people sitting in the back of the room, I imagine a good percentage never made it. A lot of people who move from not just Tulsa, but you know, lots of places outside come here. Nowadays they Uber drive and then they maybe go home again when it didn't work. At what point and and and Noel, I'm sure, ask questions about sort of your career progression, but at what point did you realize that this was real and you've made it and actually you could do this for the rest of your life? How long into your journey, or are you still not sure?

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Well, I mean, I think I've done okay at this point, but uh I I've paid my bills anyway, but I paid off the student loans. But I um yeah, I mean, at what point during film school or at what point in the career? In your in your career. I mean, look, it's the old, I can't remember if it was Mae West or or or Dorothy Parker who said uh it took me five years to become an overnight success. Uh but you know, I I was generally on that path, which I find to be true for a lot of folks in our business. And so to answer your question, it was it was uh the same year, uh, in the same year, I the very first television pilot I wrote, which was called Mercy Point, got picked up to series, which was an ridiculous lottery win. And then that same year, I still know what you did last summer, uh, was made. And so even though I had been toiling away in the screenwriting trenches and you know, lucky enough to sell a few things that again helped me pay the bills that no one ever saw, like everything, the floodgates opened in that year. So that was the first time that I actually like allowed myself to breathe, maybe, or exhale, and just recognize that like what maybe this is something that I could actually do.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Okay, let me let me let me sort of like try to encapsulate some of this because you have an amazing resume. You you you've had a great career, you still have a great career, you you're teaching at an amazing school, you you're inspired by Francis Ford Coppola, who comes to your hometown to make movies, and then you decide I'm gonna make movies, and then you get into USC, which is the top arguably the top program in existence. Okay, and then you write your first pilot, which gets picked up to series, which and I was looking at your your and I, you know, we've known each other for a long time, and I was looking at your resume, but I was only sort of doing a deep dive into you earlier today, and I was going, This asshole started at an executive producer, he started at the top. So I'm I want to hear about the early failures because I they have to be there.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah, oh without question, they're there. Uh look, I I uh I I came out of SC, I won a screenwriting award while I was there. God rest your soul, uh uh that Abe Polanski, one of the Hollywood blacklisted 10 screenwriters, uh underwrote. And and that was great. It got me a little bit of attention coming out of school, but mostly from uh uh for lack of a better way to describe it, uh, you know, sort of third-tier producers that, you know, were kind of the Hollywood equivalent of people who hang out around playgrounds and and would just sort of like I so I took a bunch of meetings and I I literally wrote my first script uh for a thousand dollars uh from not Roger Corman, but Roger Corman's brother Gene. Uh and that and and that like I thought that was like wow, I've I've hit it, I've hit the big time. But I I I I wrote a lot of stuff that never saw the light of day, but just slowly helped me chip away at student loans. Uh and and almost all of well, all of which got passed on. And so I had not only that experience of you know grinding it out on the page and you know, either maybe getting paid, usually not, and uh, and usually getting passed on, but you know, also uh rejection after rejection in the pitch space, um, which I didn't know it at the time, but you know, I created 20 years ago at USC a class called pitching 101. The film school didn't have any kind of pitching program at that or class at the time. Um, but I always like to say, like, I I wanted to introduce that class at USC because I had to learn all that shit the hard way. I I failed miserably in pitch after pitch after pitch. Uh so I had to learn all of those hard lessons that way. But like, yeah, in that five years leading up to things finally kind of getting off the ground in a in a bigger way than I could have imagined, like there was no shortage of failure.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

But uh and by the way, you talk about teaching a pitch class, and I you know, and you're one of the not one of the few people, because there's a there's a lot of you out there, but you're one of a handful of people that both have legitimate credits and are teaching at a legitimate school. So, like, you know, sometimes people who they say if you when you if you can't do teach, but you obviously do and teach, and so people in your class are m must be, you know, them it must be a great class to take, especially something like a pitching 101, because we've had other people on here and I've told stories of like nobody teaches you that stuff. You have to come into this industry, pitch major players, and there's no conversation from your team or anyone else how you're supposed to do this, and we're all just supposed to like, is it a joke? Are we all supposed to fail, you know, coming in early? So, what was like what was that first realization for you that made you realize you needed to teach a class that, like, like there is just no school, there's just no way to understand this uh normally?

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Yeah, again, it was just the trial and error and failure after failure. Um, you know, I I will I'll never forget. Well, actually, I consider this to be a good kind of failure, but I I had a pitch early on in my career uh of a feature, and it was such a big get for me at the time. I remember because it was at Paramount Studios, and I pitched to the legendary producer Gail Ann Hurd. So I get to go into her office and it's one-on-one, you know, none of this Zoom pitching nonsense. Like it's the old school right opposite her on the couch. And I I pitched to the back row, man. I I put my heart and soul into this thing. I knew every nook and cranny of this movie, but uh, I tried to tell the most compelling story I could in 20 minutes. And I could tell just from reading the room, I had her. I she was hanging on my every word and I was succeeding. And then I finally finished the pitch, and with the big beaming smile on her face, she she looked at me and she said, Trey, I enjoyed the hell out of that pitch, but I have to tell you that movie isn't even remotely of any interest to me. And just completely shot me down in cold blood right there. But I have to tell you, it in retrospect, because I I know you've experienced this, like most times no one gives you a good flat New York no, right? It's it's it's like, oh, very well told, you know, uh, we'll think about it or we'll get back to you, whatever. And you kind of sometimes, especially if you think you did well, you kind of drift out of the room and you can't wait to call your reps and be like, I think I nailed it, only to be disappointed, you know, after a weekend of spending the money in your head. Uh, you know, so it's rare that somebody just shoots you down right there, face to face, in the moment, because then I prep I almost floated out of that office because it was like, wow, at least I know where I stand. Um, but there was so much of that, so much of that. And even to be honest, like I still know and Mercy Point, which both happened in the same year, they were both born of failure. Uh it all started with me pitching a movie. It was originally called Night and Gale One, that was about a space station hospital. And I I pitched it to to Sony Pictures and 12 executives at the table, uh, Peter Guber and all kinds of people. And and when I finished and I even went so far as to make a quick joke, you know, oh, by the way, this would make a killer TV series, and they all laughed politely, and then they bought the pitch. So I thought, well, that's great. And then I wrote four drafts of this big budget sci-fi movie, only to have, I think it was Starship Troopers opened and didn't do so well at the box office. And suddenly the studio lost their taste for big budget sci-fi. And that was it. That that was the end of my movie. It was just one more movie that I had sold that was never going to be seen by anybody. But two successes came out of that failure. One was one of the executives sitting at that table initially heard me make that joke about the TV series of it all. And he called me up and he said, You know, you made that joke, but I didn't think it was funny. So I took the last draft of your feature and I sent it to the president of UPN, and they want to talk to you about adapting that into a TV series. That became Mercy Point. But then also because the development process had gone well and I hadn't completely shit the bed in that department, I got a call from a Sony executive saying, Hey, sorry, we can't move forward on your sci-fi movie, but do you have any interest in coming in with your take on a sequel for I Know What You Did Last Summer? So, like the that failure stung in the moment, but like it wound up leading to two other successes. So that's the way I try to frame failures for myself. Like, I'm either gonna, at worst, I'm gonna learn something from it and step up my game or improve things the next time out if I get another next time. But at best, like you never know where they lead. So I try not to get too brokenhearted over those fails.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Um, obviously, as somebody who's listened to this show, you know we ask an advice question at the end. I might cut what you've just said and put it at the end because that is a great piece of advice. Um, but it's great. I mean, look, the whole premise of this show was that failures can lead to success. So that is the point of it. And so the fact that your pitch failed and it ended up with two different successes, one in TV and one in movies, is actually a brilliant uh sort of story of how it all works. Um, I think I would be remiss in my role as co-host of a podcast to not make the comment that Noah often doesn't get a straight no at the end of his pitches because often the exec is asleep, um, which is something that has happened to him in the past, and I will never let him forget that.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

I'm right there with Noah twice. Uh you know, I I won't name names, but I bet you money Noah knows who I'm talking about. There's at least one famous TV executive who suffers from narcolepsy who, when you are pitching to this person, you have to keep varying your tone of voice. You got to slap the table every once in a while, you got to do a number of tricks to keep them awake. Uh, and I also had somebody while pitching a diehard sequel once, I had the executive sitting across from me, uh, the producer, I should say, sitting across from me, literally falling asleep while I was in the middle of an action-packed diehard pitch of all things.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Good comment. And I do like to add I sold that pitch, so it's not just left if they fall asleep.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Like they buy it in their dreams, it was their pitch of their dreams. That's all right. Um, so um, I think I've got a new favorite question, so I'm gonna try it on you. Um Trey, do you actually like writing?

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Uh I do. I I enjoy uh two parts of it the most. Uh one when you're knee deep in it and you lose all track of time and space, and you are essentially living someone else's life or lives. Uh so I love that complete disassociative state of creative immersion. Uh and I love the second part of it that I love is when you finish it. You don't get this pleasure quite so much, but back in the day I used to do this habitually uh when we used to print things, if you guys remember that. And uh I would print it and put the brads in, whatever I'd written, and I would literally use it to fan myself. And I just loved the idea of like having generated enough material that I could also uh fan myself with it, so that if nothing else happened, like at least I was gonna get that pleasure. Um, but yeah, I mean it's tough. And and one of my most important mentors in the business was a professor of mine at USC, the late great William Kelly, who won the Oscar for co-writing the movie Witness with Harrison Ford. And when I was in my early 20s at a young pup at USC, he would frequently say to me, Trey, every time I type the words fade to black, another little piece of me dies. And I thought he was just being melodramatic at the time. But after all this, these years of doing it myself, like I know exactly what he meant now, because it's our job to tap veins all day. And that takes a toll. Like it's to be clear, it's still the greatest job in the history of jobs, even on its worst day. It beats the hell out of breathing coal dust. But it's it's tired, it's exhausting, it's emotionally exhausting. And uh so I don't like that so much. And I don't like a lot of the uh tap dancing that we seem to have to do more than anyone else to sound like a whiner for a minute, um, especially these days. But but I really do love being immersed in it. I really love trying on other people's lives, and I I I really love, you know. Okay. I'll be I'll be I'll be slightly overly earnest for a moment. Um, but uh you never know how many people you have the ability to to move and to touch. And a perfect example of that is when I was running the series APB on Fox, and I was you know back and forth to Chicago and sleeping two hours a night and all the grind. And one day my assistant comes in and throws a stack of papers on the on the table, mail, and I sift through it and I see one that's handwritten and addressed to Fox. And so I think, oh, it's probably maybe it's a fan letter. I'll I'll open this. It gets my attention. So I open it up and it's a letter from a gentleman in Cleveland on Ohio who says, You don't know me, Mr. Callaway, you never will. Uh a lot of that's because I'm currently in a hospital here, uh dying of stage four pancreatic cancer. Um, I have to share my room with another uh stranger, and that means we have to take turns choosing who gets to watch whatever's on TV on any given night. I should tell you up front that I do not like police shows. I definitely don't like science fiction. If you ask me, APB is a combo of the two. So I have no reason to want to watch your show, except it was my roommate's night to choose. And so we watched the first episode of APB, and I have since watched every episode of APB, and I'm writing to thank you for giving me a brief glimpse of a future that I won't survive to see. And I burst into tears at my desk uh because I was suddenly powerfully reminded of what is so easy to forget, which is just those multitudes of audience members, just like I was and still am, who are out there being moved and touched in ways that as writers, we we don't get to see, which is why I started habitually keeping an aerial photograph of the USC LA Memorial Coliseum, which is one of, of course, our biggest venues in the city. It holds 100,000 people at capacity. And anytime any writer friend of mine or showrunner friend of mine would say, God, we did so poorly last night, look at our numbers, I would quickly do the math and I would determine exactly how many coliseums full of people that was, and I would send them that many coliseums in an email, and I would say, You have no idea how many people you moved. And and that's I guess I should add that to the list of other things I love about writing because um you you can't underestimate that power. I know that as an audience member, um, but it's it's something I never take for granted when I when I get the shot at telling stories to people.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

That's a remarkable answer. Um and I I love the the story. So my I not in your world, my day, I run a professional soccer team, and um it's not quite the same, obviously, but we we're so busy worrying about you know what we're doing on game day, you sometimes forget that fans are coming in, if you see what I mean. As in you got because you have a thing you have to do, and obviously they enjoy it, but you don't always sort of necessarily and you're doing it for them in a way that you're writing entertainment for other people, but sometimes you're so busy doing the job that you actually forget the audience. Um so I think it's it's such a a powerful answer. I guess I'm I I'm gonna change my question. Now. So based on that, and particularly that experience as well, that real visceral reminder of the impact you have. When you're working on so after that happened to you, when you're working on future shows, did you do anything with that in the sense of when you're thinking about a pitch or when you're thinking about the room, did you how often did you bring that up as an example to inspire your team or like how did that moment change what you did afterwards?

SPEAKER_03 22:27

If it did? Well, I definitely immediately shared that letter with the writer's room, uh in between crying jags, probably. But um You know, I I think I just it's become increasingly important in my career, especially now, as the world feels uh uh often uh pretty dark around us. Look, I've killed a lot of people in my career, whether it's horror or sci-fi or crime dramas or whatever, and even if the good guys usually win and they're all parables in some way about, you know, uh what is good versus bad behavior and accountability, et cetera, et cetera. Like, I do feel sometimes, or I worry sometimes, that like, have I just added to the collective din of the collapse of civilization, or am I really trying to make a difference while I'm entertaining here? And it's become increasingly important to me, especially of late, to whatever form it takes. And listen, to be clear, I love taking people on a ride, uh thrilling them and chilling them and scaring them and or making them laugh or making them fall in love, whatever the assignment entails. But like what's become extremely necessary for me since receiving letters like that, but also a whole series of experiences since then, is that I gotta cultivate some kind of hope. And it and this really hit me hard during the pandemic when I was, I guess I could say I was lucky enough to have just closed a deal to uh develop a piece of IP for a Greek entertainment company and and ride a pilot uh that was based on a uh a very real scenario of global financial collapse. And, you know, I did some research with some business and finance folks or whatever, and really quickly realized just how easy that scenario could be and how quickly we could all be brought to our knees. And when I tell you it was one of the worst experiences I've ever had writing something, not that I don't think I did a decent job at it. It's just that like I was literally wallowing in the darkness of humanity. And when I came out of that, I made myself a promise. Having worked on, you know, shows like Revolution, which was a post-apocalyptic world without power, or The Messengers, which was sort of a biblical apocalypse. Like, I I I've played in that space plenty, and I don't want to do it anymore. I I I would much rather, whatever form it takes, even if it's a gritty crime drama, like there's gotta be some hope baked into it. There's gotta be some uplift in it, or I'm not sure I'm the right guy for the gig anymore.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

That's that's so interesting. I'm actually looking at your the like there's your face on my screen, and then your credits are right beneath me, and I'm kind of looking at them, and I'm realizing in many ways I'm sort of the team of Timu version of you, uh, down to the hair we have and the beard. But our credits, and actually are specifically our credits, because I have uh a number of network shows I've been on, and I write horror too, and I've sold horror. I never had one made, but that's like if I'm selling features, as normally I'm selling horror features, and people have commented going, that seems like there's a big difference between network television and horror. And and I don't think there's such a big gap. I don't think there's like it's so different than people might think because the pacing is sort of similar and the way you're sort of keeping people's attention. But I'm just kind of are you with the credits that you have, and you kind of have dabbled in in sci-fi and not dabbled, but like succeeded in sci-fi and and uh uh and and sort of standard network crime dramas and horror. What's the playground that you enjoy playing in the most? You just talked about hope.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

You know, um maybe to the consternation of uh of people that I've worked for over the years, other showrunners who've been my bosses, like um I I I stubbornly believe that life's too short to tell the same story over and over again. And definitely my credits reflect that, right? Like you said, it's the crime drama and the horror and the sci-fi and the westerns and the and the serialized soap and and animation and all of that stuff. Um, but I I'm I'm holding on my final piece of advice for the end of the episode. So I don't want to steal from my own thunder, but I I will say this like uh maybe to a fault, maybe to the frustration or consternation of people I've worked for, especially in the TV space. Like, while I want to work within the parameters of whatever the show is and honor what its premise is and who those characters are, I always try as hard as I can to find a way to insert my voice into that mix. And and the simplest, maybe most pathetic way of putting that is like, I gotta honor my inner 10-year-old. I I have to I I have to feel as excited about that episode or this movie as I did walking into the Fox Theater in Tulsa uh to see Star Wars for the first time. Like I there has to be like some component that is whimsical, that is off the usual mark, that surprises the I'm a huge sucker for surprise, so like surprises the audience in some way that they're not used to. So like that's that's my jam, whatever form it takes, like that's the constant voice that I wind up trying to figure out a way to insert.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

What is you know, like looking at this, you know, career where you've you've done a lot of shows and and and and it seems like from the outside that you've gone from show to show to show, and then obviously in those gaps that aren't on IMDB, you're developing and you're you're writing features and you're doing other things. Where was your dark knight of the soul in this in your story?

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Well, there's there's a couple. I mean, professionally it's it's just those moments when you are uh you get the rejections, you get the like you know, sometimes two or three in a week, you know, back in the huge days of development when you could on the lucky side, you know, set up two or three pilots. And then you but you knew the odds going into it, you know, when the networks, this is before the streamers even joined the conversation, but like, you know, when they would routinely commission 50 to 60 pilots, and then out of those, maybe 10, 12 would get picked up, and and those odds have just you know gotten worse over time. So there were there were lots of those dark moments where it was like you know better than to you know pre-spend money and to and to count the chickens before they've hatched, but you know, those rejections and having to like smile your way through them and and you know continue having conversation with your kids over the dinner table, that stuff, that stuff is is dark. Um I think one of the darkest nights, probably the darkest nights for me on both the professional and the personal side. Uh, I was uh um one of my dearest friends in life was the late great Gary Glassberg, who uh was the showrunner of NCIS and created NCIS NOLA and was a brilliant writer. Uh, by the way, the first person I staffed on Mercy Point. Uh, he and I wrote a sequel to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid that we sold the Sony together. Uh, so we we loved each other and were great writing partners. Um and when I was uh running APB and was in Chicago, he was running both NCIS and NCIS NOLA. And uh I was shooting one night, didn't get to my hotel room until about three in the morning, knew I had to be up at six to put out a whole series of fires, uh, as is often the case with showrunning. And I but I couldn't sleep when I got into my room. And so I I the image that came to my mind was a run, a rerun that I had seen as a kid of the Flintstones, where Fred Flintstone has to stay up for 24 hours for some reason. And to do that, he drinks a lot of coffee and he puts toothpicks in his eyelids. And that image stuck with me. So, of course, laying in bed when I should be sleeping, I Google Fred Flintstone coffee toothpicks. I get the images, I put them together in a little meme, and it had a single caption I put at the bottom, which was showrunning. And I sent it to Gary because I knew he would get a kick out of it. But what I didn't know is that 20 seconds later he would respond at what was 1:30 in the morning LA time. He was still up looking at cuts the same way I was up and needed to be asleep. And at and he literally texted me back, oh my God, it's killing me. And I had a little laugh and I went to sleep. And um uh a couple weeks later, uh I got the news that he he had passed away uh just after his 50th birthday. And and I lost a dear friend. I I wound up being one of the people who gave a eulogy at his at his memorial service at Paramount. And I remember because I could only see the front row, I remember looking right at Les Moonvez, who at the time was the god of CBS, and uh and probably delivering more of a of a of a sermon than a eulogy, but I I remember saying Gary and I felt the same way about this job. It it's hard, but it's the greatest job in the history of jobs. The the thing is it's not worth dying over. And and and I I didn't know it at the time, but I was I was preaching to myself, not only because I had no work-life balance, but then just a few months after that, my wife was diagnosed with leukemia and cut to the good news there. 10 years later, she's still in remission after a bone marrow transplant. But but I I that was at the end of APB. I literally had to step out of that experience at first end goal, just as I was about to wrap our season. And I had to delegate to all of these talented people that I knew I could count on anyway, but then I had to go be in the business of trying to keep my wife alive. And and those are those dark moments where you're like, uh on the on the one hand, well, I guess I got more stories to tell, but on the other hand, that's the last thing I want to do. Um, and and so, you know, I guess lots of people say life has a way of getting in the way, but like um that those are those are dark moments where you're supposed to be creative, but under intense personal and professional pressure, and it it takes a toll. And and you really, really have to remember that part of your job as a writer is to sit close to the fire and warm people with your stories. But by sitting close to the fire, you can get burned in the process, and you have to remember that about yourself and uh push yourself, but not push yourself too far. Sorry, you're muted, Noah.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Dan is up for the next question, and I rarely do that, but that that answer so affected me that I didn't turn my mute off. That was uh uh affected me on a number of levels as someone who worked on NCIS or you know, similar group of people, and uh and who are as I get closer to showrunner and I have a lot of showrunner friends, and I've gotten those messages that this is killing me, that this is breaking me. And this isn't this isn't you know, we we are prone to hyperbole as writers, but these are people who are actually being broken by our process, and something needs to change because that's that's that's not what we signed up for.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

Well, and also people who care deeply, you know. I I I'm not gonna name the show, but I had a very epiphanous moment uh on a show once that I was an EP on, and we were in the writer's room one day, and one of the writers was rubbing their head, and another writer said, You got a headache? And the first writer said, Yeah, you know, my my doc changed my meds, and whatever antidepressant I'm on now is really giving me terrible head. And then somebody else piped up and said, Oh my god, the same thing happened to me when I switched from Lexapro to Well Butrin or whatever, blah, blah, blah. And then someone else said, Oh, that well, that's why I went on XYZ and blah blah blah. And it became this really sweet in the moment, very supportive dialogue. But I went off to the kitchen to get, you know, probably another LaCroix or something. And I and I stood there and I had this epiphany, which maybe sounds ridiculous, but like in the moment I just recognized that, like, oh, of course we're all a bunch of broken toys. And that's that's what put us in these rooms. We, we, we, we all come from some base of trauma or or or challenging circumstances. And instead of necessarily following along in those same troubled or traumatic footsteps, we have chosen to try and process those experiences emotionally on paper and through storytelling and in ways that can be really impactful and moving. But like I said, you know, can also take a toll. And so you you have to just be mindful of that and and be mindful of it in the creative community that you're a part of, you know, not only watching it in yourself, but watching it in your fellow writers and directors and actors and crew members, because we're all a bunch of really talented creative people, but that makes us particularly sensitive people.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

So look, um, I'm definitely grateful for this conversation. And look, and we create a podcast that's comes from the failure and adversity side rather than the other side. So, you know, of course we're gonna have these sort of conversations, but let me, if I may, go to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. So it's um it's awards the awards are all happening again, and uh I opened my Instagram this morning and saw all sorts of pictures of people dressed up, some former guests of ours in their glad rags waving awards around and all that sort of stuff. Um do you like all that? You strike me. I mean, I could be entirely wrong here, Trey, but you strike me as a man who likes going to premieres and hang out at award shows, or am I wrong?

SPEAKER_03 36:52

No, no, uh I actually don't. I I've been to one Oscars that my late great father-in-law took me to. It was the year that uh uh uh uh David Letterman was the host, and uh and it was great and I loved it. But no, I you know what I love most about awards uh ceremonies, and I experienced it at the uh watching the Emmys on TV in my comfortable living room just the other night. It was uh when Vince Gilligan won for Pluribus, which I voted for and I I'm glad he won it. It was more that before he even accepted his award, he he was quick to point out that he wouldn't have minded losing to Valerie Chu, uh, who was nominated for her script for the pit. And I cheered like a father because Valerie Chu was one of my former students at USC. And I've been doing this long enough at USC that I have at least a good solid dozen former students who are now showrunners themselves. I think a couple of whom you've worked with, Noah. And and and like I recently went to a showrunner weekend seminar that John Wells was kind enough to do in his offices for showrunners about budgeting. And it wasn't until I sat down at his conference table and looked around that I saw that there were like three other people there that had been former students of mine. And I got to have this wonderful experience during the lunch break when we were all catching up and laughing. And John walked over and said, You know, well, you guys seem to be having fun. Do you know each other? And I said, Well, as a matter of fact, John, I taught all of these three talented people in the school that has your name on it. So it was like a great full circle moment. But like to answer your question, like those are the moments that I get most excited about. It's like when I see somebody that I know uh, you know, succeeding, knowing how hard it is to get there. But like, no, it doesn't really matter that much to me. I I've got a I've got a single award, I think, is a Saturn award for best sci-fi show. And it wasn't my show, it was Eric Kripke's show, Revolution. I was just proud to be a part of it. But like that's not generally my scene.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

All right, very good. I love your answer was better than yeah, I love it. So good, it's much nicer. Um, very good. Right. We have actually reached a point where I'm gonna have to ask uh ask the last question, which you've you've answered sort of once and nearly answered a couple of times. You obviously held something back, so um, you know, you've you've built up this moment, Trey. I mean, I don't know if it teaches us at USC, but you've now put us in a position where this answer has to be amazing.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

So I can't I again I can only fail by those standards. But yeah, I I look, I'm gonna take us back to um I'm gonna take us back to William Kelly. Uh Bill Kelly, this beautiful, talented, irascible Irish drunk of a professor that I was lucky enough to have. Um, when I wrote uh one of my two senior theses scripts uh when when I was about to graduate from undergrad SC, um uh I was so proud of myself because the screenplay that I wrote was called X Marks the Spot. And it was, at least as I saw it at the time, it was my brilliant retelling of Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island set on a college campus. And I was so proud of this script, right? And I worked hard on it, but like I I was more proud than I should have been. So I turned it in, and Bill Kelly, God love him, not only carefully read all of our material, but then when he handed it back to us with our final grade, he went the extra step and he had it leather bound with the title embossed in gold on the front. So you really felt special getting your work back. And I couldn't wait to open it. I opened it and on the cover page of X Marks the Spot, he wrote A. So that was my first sigh of relief. But then beneath it, he wrote, and I quote because I committed it to memory well written, fun read. Next time reach further, dig deeper, try telling stories that only you can tell. And when I tell you I have carried that with me to this day, I I preach it to my students to this day, especially that last part. Try telling stories that only you can tell. I I have that's what I was alluding to earlier when I say I try to insert my own voice as much as possible without breaking the machinery around me that probably pre-exists me. Like I think it's really important to try and find that place for your voice. Um, so that's having heard lots of your shows and heard lots of great advice, and I I would probably double down on most of the advice I've heard on your show. The the one that I'm gonna pass along is the same torch that William Cowley handed me. Try telling stories that only you can tell.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Great. Um great answer. Um I nearly said well told, uh, but that wouldn't be very good because um, I think that has the opposite meaning. But um that was uh this is the point where Noah says I say this all the time, but this was one of my favorite episodes. Some of your answers were absolutely magnificent. Um so Trey Callaway, whose whose credits are too long to start listening them again now. Thank you very much indeed for coming on the show and giving such thoughtful, in-depth, candid, interesting, illuminating answers, all explained brilliantly. Um, so your students at USC are very lucky to have you.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Uh it's an absolute privilege and pleasure to speak with both of you. And I can't wait until our creative paths cross uh outside of the Zoomosphere. Me as well. Thank you, Trey. All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

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

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Or perhaps even better, www.scriptation.com backslash Dan. Dan is spelled N O H.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

If you want to find me on social media, I'm at Twitter at n Epsilin and more recently on threads at no epslin.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Don't worry about me on social media because all you people seem to care about anyway.