Take 118 - Writer Tom Vaughan, Winchester, The Haunting of the Queen Mary

SPEAKER_00 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 shore, dozens of unproduced script littering.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

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

SPEAKER_02 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is default.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I love it.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Screaming into the Hollywood events is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app that instantly transfers your notes into new drafts in seconds. Scriptation allows you to digitally mark up scripts, separate notes into layers, track changes across revisions, and so much more. Insert Noah saying something nice about scriptation.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

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

SPEAKER_02 1:43

And for those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am as ever your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

And I am your still in the entertainment business co-host. Well, this week anyway, Noah Epson. On today's podcast, I'm thrilled to introduce screenwriter Tom Bond to the podcast. Tom has written such feature films as Critical Assembly, Unstoppable, Playing House, Winchester, and The Haunting of the Queen Mary. Welcome, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

So the obvious place to start is uh last week, our guest, sorry, two weeks ago, our guest uh had won four Emmys. Um Tom, have you won any awards in Hollywood?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Uh I I have not won any awards. The the closest I've come to winning an award was my uh my national nomination for a Razzie a few years ago.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

So tell us Tell us about the Razzie. I think we've had we have another Razzie. I think we've had a winner on before. Um Catwoman. But um but tell us tell us about the Razzie and the process and whether it's actually a humiliation or if it's just a bit of internal fun and you were proud of that work.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

It it is it is it is a good question because it it is I have the Razzie um on my IMDB page, which I'm very proud of. Uh but did it actually hurt? Did it actually I think it would hurt more if it was a film where you didn't understand why it didn't land. Like if you made a film that you thought was really strong and it was the movie you wanted to make and you didn't understand why everyone hated it so much. I think that would be pretty, that would be really, really tough. And I I mean, I would say of all the films that I've made, there there's not one I'm particularly proud of. There's not one that I really love. I have some scripts that I love, I have some screenplays that I love, and and one I wrote and produced. Like one of those films I wrote and produced, and I'm and I'm not happy with with how it turned out. But for my Razzie for Winchester, I actually in some weird way took it as validation that they should not have gone away from my original draft as much as they had. Uh, so there was a part a part of me that was like, see, see, this is you should have kept that original draft. You should have kept that going. Uh, and so when it when it landed and the reviews were so terrible, and I didn't think it was nearly as bad as the reviews had them at. Like, I I didn't think I I was expecting a 40% or 45% rat uh Rotten Tomatoes or something. We were at like 13 or 15. It was some vicious reviews. But I felt so a part of that film by then. I'd been off the project for so long. It didn't, it didn't really resonate, other than like I wanted my family to be a little more proud of it. I wanted, I wanted my friends to be a little more proud of it. But um, you know, I still will occasionally get emails about like someone, how much they love the film. And you have to go through that process of, well, gosh, do I say I don't love it that much? Do I do I reply of like, well, it's not really my movie, I don't really like it that much. Or do and or do you just say thanks and and glad someone enjoyed the film and someone appreciated? So it is a little bit of a psychological um uh battle every time of getting really nice remarks from movies that you know you don't even love having your name on them.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Interesting. This reminds me a little bit of the uh Jeffrey Lieber and his lost pilot, uh, where we spent the whole episode talking about the fact that people talked to him about lost, even though by the time it came out it was nothing to do with any version that he'd got. Yeah. Um, so you said so, well, you said a lot of interesting things there, Tom. But the one that struck me as the most interesting um is what you said about not being proud of any of the movies. So if if Noah even writes one line of a TV show, I get invited around to his house with everyone else we know to watch it on there because he's so proud of everything. Um so tell us what you mean about not being proud of them.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Well, I don't I don't love the movies, I don't love the way they turned out. Um, one of them is my fault, one of them is absolutely my fault. Um the others, the the scripts changed, one got developed into oblivion, and by the time it went into production, the they had changed directors a couple times, and and that didn't turn out well. So there isn't that there isn't that movie, and I and I do think I have a couple coming up that that have a chance for that, because I the the directors that I've had you know talk to want to do the script as as is mostly. Uh, and there's a third one that will be me and the director working because we're friends working you know tightly. So I have some possibilities, but there isn't that movie out there that I feel like, oh, well, that's what I envisioned, that's what I wanted, that's what I that's what I wanted audiences to see and experience. Um, and in a lot of ways, they're disappointments, both from an audience perspective and and from a uh um a critical um reaction. So it is tough. I'm proud of my career just sticking around as long as I have, you know, through many ups and downs, and you know, been kicked out a couple of times and had to find my way back in. And um, but uh it it is it is uh it does kind of suck that I don't like I'm not I don't have my my movie posters up, you know, real like all over the walls, real proud of them. But I tell you what's really interesting is the film that I think I did the best work on was this film called Dead in a Heartbeat. And uh it was a movie that got greenlit like in 2002, 2003 for TBS, and it was um it was right before a strike, everyone thought a strike was gonna happen, and so they were try to like doubling up on um uh production to get as much as they could in the can before the strike came. Luckily the strike never came, but you had these projects that had no business going into production. And the director, I don't know if Noah's ever worked with Dan Sackheim. Dan Sackheim um was you know mostly a TV director and did a lot of the X Files and great guy, and one of the directors I really, really enjoy working with. And um he had this script that you just could not produce, it was just unproducible. Like you couldn't produce, like, I don't know how it got greenlit. It was awful. And he brought me in to rewrite it, and we had, you know, my memory has probably made it more dramatic since, but I think we had like four or five weeks before we were gonna start shooting. And all the locations were set, the cast was set, and we had to do this massive rewrite of this unproducible, unproducible piece of garbage. And by golly, between the two of us, we got that movie in an incredibly short notice to be a firmly mediocre TV movie. And it to this day, it is like the the best work that I've done. Like within a short, I got I got a bottle of champagne from the actor who shipped it out to me, of like behind the scenes, putting everything I knew into making decent scenes and putting something together. And all we established was a mediocre film that my name wasn't even on it. But I know like that was like a true display of professionalism to like to be able to maneuver that and get that going and get that done. Um, but no one will ever know it. One, my name's not on it, and two, it's still just a mediocre TV movie. It's nothing really special. But I'm really, really like proud of taking something that was unwatchable and making it watchable.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

That's so interesting. I'd like to clarify a little bit on the things you're talking about because we have both experienced screenwriters who listen to our podcast, and we have aspiring screenwriters who listen to our podcast, and we have people who are not even in the industry who listen to our podcast. And what people don't often get and ask me questions about, or don't even ask questions, just don't the Hollywood sort of plays into the illusion that if your name is on the script, you've written every word of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

But when you say, you know, there are scripts with my name on it that you know changed and isn't, you know, I don't feel too connected to anymore, that they don't realize that often, like you just mentioned, people come on uncredited, do a lot of changes, and they think and very much change into something different. And so the thing that your scripts that I'm sure you're proud of when you turn them in have become something else by the time they've come out of the machine. So, like I think it's and I think it's too few people talk about that process. Um and that's and Hollywood definitely leans into muddying those waters for whatever reason they like to have one name on things. But you know, you came across my, you know, my desk, you came, you came to my attention on on social media, as a lot of our guests do. Uh, you first came to my attention because I watched Winchester at the movie theater and I actually agree randomly. I like haunted house movies, but uh the uh and I noticed uh that you were very open and that you were willing to talk about the mistakes you've made, you were willing to give advice, and sometimes it's tricky to give advice on social media. Could we all take hits for doing that? Yeah, but my question to you is you had taught you had done a thread recently about some early mistakes you made. In this case, it was about not taking notes and learning how to take notes and and that how that hurt your career. Can you talk a little bit about the mistakes you've made and how you sort of rectified them or even just recognized them over time?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, yeah. Uh I mean, for starters, I was uh I was a big old drunk for for many years, you know. I was a an alcoholic and and was making too much money and and too much time, very insecure, wasn't totally sure I belonged. And so all these things kind of compensate and overcompensate, and uh always thought I was the smartest person in the room, uh, you know, regardless of how you know, which you know, you rarely are. I mean, sometimes you are, but most of the time, no. And even if you are, so what? You know, like it doesn't, but for whatever reason, that like was important to me and my insecurity that I knew what I was doing and and others didn't. Um, and of course, the joke is I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn't, I was 10 years doing this as a professional before I really had any ice idea of what I was doing. Um, so I think a little bit of that insecurity and and uh you know, trying desperately to feel different about myself, which is a fairly traditional alcoholic mentality of like how do I feel different about how I feel about myself right now, you know, whether whether it's drugs, alcohol, you know, uh power games, fame, like whatever these things are that we, you know, um, I never got the fame part, just throwing out random stuff. But so like when I would go into meetings, I would a lot of times just kind of disguise my laziness and my insecurity as some form of artistic integrity and try to pretend that I was I was the artist in the room and would not take notes and would argue with people. I would, I would uh just ignore notes from executives. I would I I would get notes when I had a project with Disney. I would get notes directly from the head of Disney and I would ignore them. Like it was just really insane. And I I look back on that self-destructive behavior trying to figure out why, like where it came from. And I've like I said, I've got some ideas, but um it was this belief that I was more talented and more valuable than I was. And I think it has a lot to do with just me talking about it out loud and thinking about it, is I I didn't really come out of a film school or any kind of environment. And so I wasn't always surrounded by a lot of really, really talented people that were doing the same thing I was doing. I had a lot of talented actor friends, a lot of talented playwright friends, but I not a lot of filmmaker friends. Um, and so moving into that, I think there was that illusion of feeling like you were more special than you were. And as you get older, you realize that was just an incredibly lucky break that you had, that there was just some randomness to it that worked out well for you. But when you're 25, 26 years old and you're insecure, you kind of interpret that as, oh, I'm just this good. I'm just this good. And so, you know, that you know manifested itself. And, you know, after a few years of being argumentative and a few years of people not working with me twice, um, you know, I pissed enough people off that, you know, no one wanted to do me any favors. No one wanted to help me out. No one wanted to, you know, I got I got uh blackballed at UTA, I got blackballed at CAA. Um and I essentially I joked that I got kicked out of the business, but it wasn't even that active of a kicked out, like they didn't care enough to kick me out. They like they just I just stopped getting hired and no one would take meetings with me and things like that. And so I left the business for a few years, got sober, which was huge, um, started teaching. That that really, really um solidified, you know, my love for what I did and what I do, um, really got me thinking different about what I do, started like uh really forcing you to explain why you do what you do, and then kind of making it much more of a of a tool that you access. So I think after that, uh, started to come become more of a craftsman rather than um just kind of a drunk hit or miss typewriter and really elevated my consistency and then trying to be a better person over the years and and you know, seeing if this this stupid belief I had that there was a decent person in there somewhere was true or not, and you know, bringing that out. And I had just just enough relationships that when uh one of my old scripts sold, I was able to kind of reach out and just kind of slowly rebuild my career. And, you know, I'm real proud of the fact now that I I have producers that work with me two or three times and I have relationships that are really strong. And um, but it was by no means always the case. Uh was not a team player, was not agreeable. Um probably just succeeded a little too early before I was emotionally ready. Um, but you know, when I look back on it, I probably wasn't going to be emotionally ready to my 30s anyway. So, you know, it happened as it happened. But um, yeah, my my first 10 years were just filled with just nothing but mistakes.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Yeah, I tell people that our these careers are like a game of pachinko where you're one of the balls and your ball might happen, and all the balls are equally talented, and some balls go into the holes, and some balls and you don't actually know there's no way to tell. I mean, there it probably is in retrospect, there's ways to tell, but you there's so much luck is involved. So, my question to you is you by the way, this is this is for a podcast about failure, these answers are great. Uh you know, obviously you're you're willing to to go to these, you know, admit to these faults that's some people don't like talking about. But uh, we're at the 30,000-foot view of, you know, I piss people off, I got blackballed at CAA, I got blackballed at UTA. Is there any story that you're comfortable telling that keeps you up at night? You don't have to you can name names if you want or not name the names about like how does that happen and what did you say and what did you do that stopped them from returning your your phone calls?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Um there is there was a couple, and you know, like that one at Disney. I look back on that one of uh that producer, and she's a producer now. She's huge, she's really smart and really great. And I can't remember um uh her name. She produced the Hunger Games, for goodness sake. I mean, like she used to run Disney. So um not not taking her notes was was was big. Um, but that's just one job. It was really just kind of like doing that over job over job over job. I know I left CAA because I CAA discovered me. An agent at CAA kind of you know brought me in, discovered my playwriting, and brought me in as a screenwriter. And for whatever reason, I had a I had a very I had a very well thought of uh script uh of a western with Chalyon Fat attached. So Chal Yon Fat was attached to to do it, John Wu was producing, and then um oh god, I feel terrible because I can't remember his name. He's mostly out of the directing business. He directed Blade, and it was gonna be his next film after Blade. And this was before um he had a terrible flop with Sean Connery. That I'm just getting old, I can't remember any of these names. Um, so I keep thinking Scott Derricks is his name, but it's not Scott, it's somebody else. It's like that that's the name keeps popping up, but it's not him. Um uh and I thought I was not getting enough love from CAA. I just thought I was not getting enough love from CAA. And I was, I was just arrogant and dumb and stupid. Um, I had um uh Joe Cohen was my TV agent. I had the best TV agent in the in uh Stephen Norrington, thank you. Uh I had the best TV agent uh in the business, and I thought at the time TV was beneath me. So I like I look back on that and I was like, oh my god, I just want to hit myself. Uh and so I was like, nah, I don't really do TV. I would do TV movies occasionally when I needed a check. That was like my sense of TV. And so I I'm thinking I'm this real special hotshot. And like, why am I not getting more love from CAA? Why aren't they not packaging more of my projects? Why are they not, you know, doing this? I've got a manager in my ear who's the producer of the Chalion Fat thing. And he's whispering in my ear, you know, going, you know, they don't treat you well. They don't, they don't do it for you. Like they're not working hard enough for you. So I let it be known that I was, um, you know, that I was available. I was on, and so I went around and I met, I met UTA, I met William Morris, I met um ICM. Um, I can't remember if Endeavor was around back then, but uh I ended up re-saying no to UTA and then going with ICM. And that ended up not working out very well at all. And purely, again, purely my fault. Um, I remember one story, I had a I had a spec script that my agent at ICM didn't like. She was like, I don't think we can sell this, I don't think we should go out with it. And so I just used all my contacts and just called up people myself and said, I know enough people. I know someone at every buyer in town that I have some kind of relationship with. I can call them up. And I went out with that script by myself. And and it did not sell. And no, you know, like it was uh, but it was just this really arrogant, arrogant step of I wasn't, I wasn't one tenth as successful as I thought I was. Like one tenth as successful as I thought I was. Um, but I was so isolated I didn't quite I didn't quite know how many good writers were in this town and and how many talented people because I was kind of isolated. So uh but what that ended up doing when things didn't work out with ICM, I had turned down UTA. And so UTA was like, we're not taking you now. Like you turned us down. So I got I got I got shut down over there. And then another CAA agent wanted to bring me into CAA a few years later, and then I had enough people remembered me from there, and they were like, No, we're not taking that guy. That guy's a jerk, we're not letting him in the building. So it was just a lot of arrogant decisions where um I just thought I I was more rare than I was. Um, I didn't realize how good everyone was in the town. And I'm a good writer. There's no, you know, like I don't I don't have any question about that, but just I'm not so good that I'm worth being a pain in the ass. I'm just not, you know, and there's very few of us that are. So um, if I'm going to be a pretty good writer and then be a pain in the ass, they'll be fine to work with another pretty good writer who's not a pain in the ass. You know, like that's that's not that's not a huge debate on their part. So uh, you know, changing that was, but the key thing was is it wasn't even so much about like, hey, I've got to change my behavior. It was really, I just want to be sober, I just want to be a decent person, I just want to be happier, I just want better relationships with human beings. And so just like focusing on that for a while, just by by nature, you're gonna end up being easier to work with. Like you're just that's just gonna be a result. So um there are still times where I have to um, you know, learn how to not get in my own way during notes. I've gotten pretty good at it now, but that transition was tough because notes hurt, you know, notes, notes sometimes, you know, people will give you notes and like you hear the subtext, which is I don't think you were you thought about that hard enough, which is not what they're saying, you know, but that's what you hear. Like, and so you like you take it personally of like, oh, I hear what you're saying, and you're saying you don't think I put much effort into that sentence. Well, let me assure you, I put a lot of effort into that sentence. And so, like, just being able to like skip past that and just listen and and and make sure they feel heard and and then figure out what to do later, you know, but to not not argue with them, not debate with them, not defend myself of just so, you know, my focus during a lot of those meetings is just make sure everyone feels heard, just make sure everyone feels heard. We can all figure out what the intentions are later, figure out next steps. But for me, just the strategy of going into a notes meeting where my job is to make sure they feel heard, just changes your perspective so much. Um, you know, what you can do as a as a member of the team.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

So when you when you had your renaissance and you returned to the industry uh sober and with a sort of new sort of attitude of sort of self-awareness and wanting to do things differently, there are still moments where you need to be assertive and potentially difficult for creative reasons. So how did the second time around you manage you play that balance where you're not trying to be what you were the first time, but equally you can't just take a load of notes that don't make any sense and ruin a project? Or have you not been able to find that balance?

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Um I I've been able to find that balance with most people. Sometimes you'll get someone in there that's just a wrecking ball, and there's just not much you can do. You know, I've had a couple wrecking ball directors um that like you that they're just determined, they're me 20 years ago. You know, like that's that's who they are. And but now they're in charge. And so, and so in those times you can't really do much. But for the most part, I have found teaching has helped considerably. Um, because normally what I do is is I share my approach, I share my values, I share what I'm trying to achieve. You know, I have a very strict, you know, story-based value system of defining very explicitly what the story is and how each moment, each scene, all those things, you know, support that. And, you know, very very key of the value system of what emotion and making decisions of what emotion we're trying to evoke in any given moment. And so instead of doing that just by myself and being upset that they don't do the same thing I do, I communicate with them. I go, hey, this is this is how this is how I work. I really like to define very explicitly what the story is. So we all have that mission statement that we're all working off of. Can we find an agreement about what story we're we're we want to tell here? And so you kind of get everyone on board and get everyone on that mission of we are all trying to tell this singular story. Uh, and that helps a lot because it gives us that baseline for all the discussions of like, hey, how does this help that help that transformation? How does that push that forward? How does that push it back? How does it tempt them in another direction? And so I try to share that vocabulary with them uh and try to get them to buy in. And for the most part, it's helped considerably. Um, they share to me like what's important to them. And and it's really just like, what is the win-win negotiation? Like, what are they really worried about? What are they scared about? What are they nervous about? What are they trying to do? And what am I trying to do? And I think for the first 10 years of my career, I was trying to get what I wanted, impose what I wanted to do on them. And now it's well, how can we find ways to honor this agreed upon intention and make sure what you're worried about is taken care of and make sure what I'm worried about is taken care of. But the key is having that shared intention of like we both want to do this with this scene, we both want to do this with this sequence, we both want to do this with this script. If you don't have those shared intentions, uh it's it's it's tough. It's tough because you're you're literally working in different directions. And then how do you find the middle ground there?

SPEAKER_02 30:17

So in terms of where you are now, um what do you want to do? So you've done movies which, as you said earlier, you haven't had one you're proud of. You um you presumably don't look down on TV anymore.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Oh good gosh, good gosh now.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

TV's the new movies. Uh like do you want to go in a writer's room and sort of be among people? Do you want to be a showrunner? Like what do you want to do and why do you want to do that now, given the sort of career you've had?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Uh, it's a good question. It's a good question. I I mean, I'm pretty I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing now. I don't like chasing assignments. I've learned that about myself. I don't like chasing open writing assignments. Um, it's just a lot of work. There's so few of them. Everyone is going after them. They're very, very tough. Uh, so I like writing on spec and I seem to do okay writing on spec. Um I would love, I would love to be in TV. I think it might, I'd be curious what Noah thinks of this because like my assumption is I'm too old to be in a uh writer's room right now. Like I would not be hired in a writer's room just being around this business as long as I have and being my age. Uh so it would have to be a show that I created, uh, and then hopefully learn under a great showrunner, find a really good showrunner who's still a good teacher. Uh, and I'd be curious what Noah thinks about this as well, because like showrunners used to be great teachers. They mean like that was like a huge part of what they did. And I I don't I don't know if that's the case anymore. And I mean, literally, I don't know. I'm not saying like like they aren't or they are, I just like I don't know. But I would love to find um, you know, a good showrunner to to to mentor me, uh, and then eventually do that. But my my ambitions of like when I was younger, of you know, just I don't know, awards, millions of dollars every year, like the all those sort of things, obviously that'd be great. Um, but uh I don't really think that way anymore. Like, like I know whatever I'm working on at the time tends to take mal my attention. So like one of my one of my stupid um uh hobbies in LA, and I mean that stupid uh affectionately, uh, was improv comedy. And like we would, and I wasn't even that good at it, you know, but I had fun and I enjoyed it. And we would go to these, you know, these really small strip mall theaters and perform for like eight other people that were all other improvisers, and like totally useless endeavor in the big picture. Uh, but when I was up there, like it had my full attention and I was happy and I was present and having fun. So um, you know, I'm I've reconnected with an old buddy from of mine that was from this this time of my life, my big drinking years. Like Jamie, Jamie's actually the one who introduced me to drunk Hollywood. And uh he he directed a film uh back um called Urban Legend and Valentine, uh, which were like really great late 90s horror films. And Jamie and I have been trying to like figure out a time, a way to work together for 25 years. And so um, you know, we finally think we got a script to do it and to kind of figure it out. And you know, it won't be a large, won't it won't be a big budget movie. I mean, who knows? Maybe maybe it will be. But like to me, that's like that's the best. If you're like, I'm gonna work with a buddy. We're gonna try to get a movie made. Even if we don't get it made, it'll be really fun. Uh, when I'm writing that and working with him, I'm totally focused on that. I'm enjoying that. I think the only time you ever really worry about is just finances, you know. Like, do I have enough money in the bank to last me a certain amount of time? Um, that's that's you know, that's a concern. But other than that, I'm totally happy just working on projects that I enjoy working on and working with people I enjoy working with. Um, anything that comes up that could put more money in the bank and create even more of a longer runway that I can even worry more about things that I only love to do, that'd be great too. But um, I miss production. You know, I miss production as a feature writer. You're in production maybe once every two years. Um, I would love TV in that aspect, just to be constantly in production sounds so fun to me.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Absolutely is fun. Uh, and it's it's tiring, it's very fun to answer your question. I would have said a few years ago you're too old. I wouldn't say that anymore. No, ageism is a very real thing in Hollywood. There's you know, the over 40. It's like it's like over 40 is when you're like there's like a whole over 40 committee. So in the WGA, but um, that's mostly for TV because it used to be a young man's game, especially the comedy rooms where they'd work 20 hours a day, you couldn't have a family. They wanted to know they wanted a young buck, female or male, mostly male back then, who could stay up for 20, like 20, 20 hours a day and work with them and then do it all again the next day. I do think that the rooms have changed and they are looking for experience now and they don't age you out as quickly. And if you fit a certain role for them, they'll hire you, but you need to um convince them as a screenwriter who's never done TV that you're okay being rewritten, that you're okay being the totem pole, and that's on you to convince the showrunner. And yes, they still teach in their own way, and it's amazing to work with what you know, one of the better the better showrunners who bring so much to the page, and it you just you begin to adjust. Um, my question to you is is you know, uh obviously you've had some moments of clarity, like you know, uh you you you you went sober, you've gone sober, uh, you had a rock bottom. Uh you you know, you don't necessarily talk about the rock bottom that led you to go sober to get sober, but was there a rock bottom that you know led you to having to pick yourself up in the screenwriting world, dust yourself off? And sort of where do you get the fortitude to do that? Like to like what are some tips and tricks for people who are in that situation now?

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Um, it's a good, yeah, because I I when I I had moved back to Houston and I was working from here making enough money. And then I realized my my career had been fizzling out, and so I moved back to LA to try to revive my career. And after about a year and a half back, it was very clear that there was no, there was no career to revive. So I never finished college. I never got my bachelor's degree at that point. So I decided, let me go get my bachelor's degree and figure out what I'm gonna do next with my like what's next for my career. So I'm in my mid-30s probably, and I had to work, I worked at the Apple store to work my way through college and to do my second, my second two years of of of school at my beloved U of H where I'm at now. Um, and everything was, I was, I was really, this is such an interesting thing of my singular goal at that point was to get my degree. That was it. And so I worked at the Apple store to earn the money to do that. I I got through as fast as I could, I got my degree, and whenever I've been that focused on anything, whether it's that focused on a day, I think it's very similar to what I was saying earlier of like just improvising, like during that 10 minutes, I'm happy because I'm focused and present. And so I had this objective to get my degree. And as soon as I got my degree, like there was like another, like, oh shit, what do I do now? Like, here's this objective that I wanted, and and then I achieved it, and now what do I do? And so now the Apple store suddenly sucked really bad. I hated being there. And two years earlier, I was so delighted that I would get checks every two weeks. I was like so baffled by that. That like I was trying to explain to the to the people that worked there's like, you guys don't understand you you get a check every two weeks. We just have to show up. And I and you you have more money in your bank account every two weeks. It was it was such a small little miracle for me of like being a feature writer for so long. Uh, but as soon as I got out of school, I was just done. And I got very fortunate where an older script of mine that did not sell, a producer friend had got had set it up. He had managed to set it up because I gave him permission. I just was like, Yeah, if you want to try to whatever, if you want to try to whatever. And he did, and he got it set up. And that that that really just got my juices going again. And I was like, all right, well, maybe, maybe this is possible. Maybe I can get back, maybe I can kind of pursue this career again. And it took a little while, just kind of real slow, moving, you know, a little slower. I was teaching on the side. Um, but I think that huge break was different. Like, that's what made the difference. I think if I tried to just turn around quickly, I don't think I would have known exactly what to do. I wouldn't have known um how I wanted to do it. But and even if I wanted to, like I needed to re- I needed to learn to appreciate it again. I really needed to rem remind myself that this is what I love to do and what a and what a blessing it is to be able to do it for a living. And I think that's like just that entitlement I had through through so much of that early career, just that like just wasn't grateful for anything, just nothing. It was just all everyone sucks, the business sucks, everything, like everything. And so, like going into it from a place of gratitude of just being happy to be back and happy to do this for a living. Um, you know, that that it is something I encourage my students all the time of just that attitude makes such a huge difference. Once you start complaining without any solutions, once you just start bitching about the business and what it's like, but you have no solutions to do anything about it, like you've already lost that mental battle. And this, this uh, this industry, from my perspective, and I don't think there'd be too many people that disagree with me, is is primarily a mental battle. It is, it is a mental battle day in and day out against rejection, against getting kicked in the balls all the time. Of just like it's it is if you don't love the process, if you don't love the good things about it, I don't I don't know how you get through it. You know, like how do you get through it? Because it's there's too much negativity. Um so I I think coming from that of an angle of plentiness, that being happy for friends that were doing well, and that took a long time for me to do. Like I was definitely coming from a place of of you know you know, limited resources and limited success, and someone else's success was going to be less for me. And and um, and certainly my career has not proven that to be correct, you know. Like I've I've I've I've derived uh so much help from friends that were more successful than me, of people like who would reach out and help out. And so I I think more than anything, just a a uh a change in my mental perspective did more good than anything else, of just looking at it from a place of abundance uh and gratitude. And frankly, that changed my life as well.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

That's a great answer. Uh, we are heading into our final question, but before I do that, I want to do something that actually rarely do. This is not a podcast where we promo people's work because we'll often get requests from publicists. Someone has a book out, someone has this out, and that's not just not what we are. We don't, we're not, we're not places to do that. There's other podcasts that will do that. But uh, and I'm very particular about people who talk about rules and give give advice because I've been in a long time and I've learned that there are, you know, there's very few rules that, you know, but your um your story and plot newsletter is fantastic. And signed up for it, and people should sign up for it. It's it really uh it's really interesting the things you have to say. I like to read it because it makes me better, it makes me think about things in different ways. So sign up for your story and plot uh newsletter. Uh, but uh this is the question that we ask every single person that comes on the podcast. If you could give one piece of advice to somebody joining the business, in this case to be a screenwriter, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Uh there's so much. There's so much, and I think they would find the same advice from a lot of people. So I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give a bit of advice that I think might be different than what other people would say. Uh my advice is find a community. Find a community, find a community of fellow artists, find a uh a community of of support, of people who have the same um creative values as you. Um and don't try to go through this business alone. I I have found my time in LA was so much more gratifying and so much more um productive and wonderful when I was a part of a creative community. And the times where I wasn't were pretty dark and pretty horrible, and I felt pretty lost. So I I I think a lot of people feel the need to fight through this by themselves, and not only is it not necessary, I don't think it's advisable. Find a community.

unknown 44:57

Very good.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Uh well, Tom Vaughan, um that I think goes down as one of the most candid, uh self-reflective, self-reflective episodes we've ever had. Um, so thank you very much indeed for for bearing your soul on our little podcast.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Oh, thanks. I'm I'm an old drunk, I'm used to it.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Thank you so much. Thanks, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 45:24

Thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation. Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music, and thank you to our loyal listeners. And if there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection, failure, and adversity, please send them away. If you are interested in following us on social media, I've lost track.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

I am an evslin on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, and I'm also at No Ebslin on Hive, Scotable, Blue Sky, Reds, Mastodon, MySpace, French True, and I'm sure it's