Act One Podcast
Act One Podcast
Screenwriter Karen Hall
Act One Podcast - Episode 39 - Interview with Screenwriter, Karen Hall.
In her career as a screenwriter, producer and creative consultant, Karen Hall has worked on numerous television series, including M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Northern Exposure, Judging Amy and The Good Wife. She has received seven Emmy Award nominations, as well as the Humanitas Prize, the Women in Film Luminas Award, and the Writers Guild of America Award. Her novel, Dark Debts, was a Book of the Month Club main selection when first published in 1996 and has been translated into French, German, and Japanese. She rewrote some of the book and re-released it in 2016.
The Act One Podcast provides insight and inspiration on the business and craft of Hollywood from a Christian perspective.
All of my beginning students, they write one script and they want me to, you know, find them an agent and sell their show. I do oil painting, it's a hobby, and I've always been amazed at how much that's like writing. Your first draft is like when you when you just color wash the canvas so you're not painting on stark white. So I always tell myself when I'm writing a first draft, I'm just getting paint on the canvas, and then I'll go back and make it work. So there's that. But the other thing is, when I finished my first oil painting, I didn't think someone should hang it in a museum.
James Duke:This is the Act One Podcast. I'm your host, James Duke. Thanks for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a good review. My guest today is screenwriter Karen Hall. In her career as a screenwriter, producer, and creative consultant, Karen Hall has worked on numerous television series, including MASH, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Northern Exposure, Judging Amy, and The Good Wife, just to name a few. She has received seven Emmy Award nominations, as well as the Humanitas Prize, the Women in Film Luminance Award, and the Writer's Guild of America Award. Her novel, Dark Death, was the Book of the Month Club main selection when first published in 1996 and was translated into French, German, and Japanese. She rewrote some of that book and re-released it in 2016. Check it out. Karen is a longtime faculty member at Act One and a good friend of the program. She has a lot of great insight that I think you are going to enjoy. Karen Hall, welcome to the Act One podcast. It's a pleasure to have you on.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Thanks for having me.
James Duke:I've been a longtime fan of yours, and uh we were just chatting just briefly there and talking about uh you you've been a part of uh the the ethos of um the act one community and so much of especially in the early days of of shaping the conversation around um training and preparing Christians to work in Hollywood. And uh you've had um uh a very interesting career and uh as a screenwriter and a producer. And I'm just excited to talk to you about a lot of your journey and just let people get to know you a little bit. And uh so let's start if we can, um, you know, back a little bit for people to get to know you. Uh tell us, you know, where did you grow up? Um and uh kind of what were the initial inklings that you were going to be a writer, that this was something you wanted to do uh as a career, you wanted someone to pay you to write. When did that first get birthed inside of you?
SPEAKER_01:I decided at age six that I wanted to be a writer and have someone pay me to write because um my first grade teacher was reading Charlotte's Webb to us, and I guess she talked to us a little bit about the author, and I thought, wait a minute, you can get paid for making up stories. So, you know, I'm like, I went in on that. Um, and I I just had always loved to write from first grade on. And uh another reason that I became a writer is because I lived in lovely little town, but that was so boring that I can't even tell you. Um there was a movie theater when I was young, and we would my sister and I would go to everything they played. So um I think I've seen a lot of kung fu movies and uh Fu Manchu movies and all of that.
James Duke:Did you grow up in Georgia?
SPEAKER_01:No, I grew up in South Central Virginia.
James Duke:Oh, Virginia, that's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Very very close to the North Carolina border. It's tobacco country for a long time.
James Duke:When you were writing as a little kid, was it just writing, telling stories, or did you actually think about um because I can only imagine growing up in a small town thinking about writing movies and television couldn't have been necessarily on your radar?
SPEAKER_01:No, that wasn't on my radar. Um, really, my sister and I got her into writing too, and because you know, I wanted somebody to write with, and and we were both bored. So we would write a story, and you know, I take it to a certain point and then give it to her. And and we really were learning to plot because we really wanted to leave the other one stumped. So it's like, let's see you get out of this. So it was really good training. But the earliest stuff we wrote was absolutely we were writing fan fiction before it was a thing. So, you know, it started with uh I had a crush on the on the um captain of the football team, and uh, and he had a girlfriend who, you know, I had a girl crush on her, and so my my best friend then and I started writing stories about them and passing them back and forth. And it's funny because I I later became friends with the cheerleader and we're still friends. Um but after that, you know, I I was a big fan of the Osmonds, and so then my my sister and I started writing Osman fan fiction, and and we have an agreement now because I've we both still got some of it, and we have an agreement that whoever dies first has to go to the other person's house and and burn it before anybody gets there, but uh but you know, I think we we learned a lot doing that.
James Duke:That's funny. Well um Donnie Osman has uh uh no idea what the Hall girls wrote, but uh he never will. He never will.
SPEAKER_02:He won't.
James Duke:That's funny. So now did you grow up in a home that was particularly religious? Did you uh find yourself um thinking about uh the you know things of God and the nature of God? Because you obviously you've gone on to write about those kind of things, and I'm just curious uh if if if any of those things were instilled in you early on.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, you know, we were a religious family, but that was just pretty common back then. Um, I have a brother who became a Methodist minister, so but you know, I don't remember us sitting around talking about it a lot. It was just it was very incorporated in daily life. It's like we would we would be talking about something else and throw in some God and Jesus, and it just didn't seem weird. Um, but I always have been just obsessed, and I I don't know what to call it, but I've all my life just been just wanting to get closer to God, and and you know, it didn't seem to be bothering anybody else, you know, but it's I just was obsessed with it. I have something, I don't know what it is, and I don't know what to call it, but it's just been an obsession with me all my life. And I I just kept trying to figure out how I could get closer. And I remember during high school was during the um, you know, the the time of of uh the Jesus freaks and the altar calls and Billy Graham. And so uh our priest, our our pastor would have an altar call, and I my deal with God was always, I'm not gonna go unless I feel like you're moving me to go. And I never did. But all my friends are going and they're coming back weeping. And I remember one time going into the sanctuary like at night, and there was nobody there but me, and you know, kneeling at the altar and just telling God, basically, what am I, chopped liver? It's like you know how I feel, but you know, I just I just kept going. I just I I wanted that, but I wasn't gonna do it if I didn't feel like I I felt moved because otherwise it just was like a show and I felt like a hypocrite. So I was extremely well behaved in high school.
James Duke:You were a good girl.
SPEAKER_01:I was a very good girl. In fact, uh my nickname was Mary because all my friends told me I was the last virgin left. It was it was during the sexual revolution. Um but I just, you know, I I have always like I read the Bible, I really loved the Bible, and I read it a lot when I was a kid. I had a children's Bible, and I believed it, and that was gonna be my deal. So I remember getting into a conversation with people in high school in a government class, and I don't know what we're talking about, but I'm talking about you know, all the stuff that was going on in the world, and I was trying to make myself known. I I just said, you know, there's there's only one Bible, and it hasn't changed. And I remember I had tears in my eyes, and everybody was laughing at me. So here I am all these years later, and I still feel the same way.
James Duke:Wow. And you all you are also a very funny writer. I don't know if you I don't think you would classify yourself as a comedy writer, but you have written comedy, but you're also a very funny writer. There's that there's a lot, there's a lot that you've written that is downright funny. I mean, obviously you wrote for shows like MASH and Moonlighting and other types of shows, but you've done other things too. And so was that a part of growing up? Was that was did you come from a funny household? Did you did people acknowledge your humor early on?
SPEAKER_01:Was that something that you know everybody else was just as funny? And so nobody said, Karen, you're funny. But you know, my father was funny, my mother was funny, my cousins were funny, and uh kind of when we all got together, you know, we would all tell stories and everyone would try to make everyone laugh. So, you know, it was there were so many of us, no one thought I was funny.
James Duke:Oh what what was your first? Do you remember what your first professional paid writing gig was?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um I was a senior in high school and I sent a story into some magazine, and they bought it and paid me ten dollars. So that's awesome.
James Duke:You don't remember the magazine?
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't. Um my first like really, really professional thing was uh my I got hired to do a freelance episode of MASH. So that was that's how I got my writer's gift card.
James Duke:And and you so before we I want to get to MASH, but before we get to MASH, the um that was kind of a I don't want to say it was the only way, but that was a very common way, right, for aspiring writers back then was to submit to periodicals and to magazines and to uh maybe even newspapers, right? You write letters. Um uh to get published in a magazine was kind of the zenith point, wasn't it, for a lot of people, aspiring writers?
SPEAKER_01:It was. It was a big deal. And what happened to me was I went to when I went to college, I got interested in playwriting. And so I spent all of my college time writing plays. There wasn't anywhere really to submit them. Um, and I wasn't thinking about submitting them. Um, I don't know what I was thinking about. I was thinking about I loved writing plays, and then you know, I always assumed I'd go up to college and you know, meet somebody and get married, and he'd go to work and I'd sit home and write whatever I wrote. About junior year, second semester, I realized that that wasn't gonna happen. And so I thought, okay, I am actually gonna have to feed myself. It was a big shock to me. And so uh I decided, well, you know, where will they where will they pay you to do this? And the answer was, you know, New York or Los Angeles. And I decided that if I was going to starve to death, I didn't want to also freeze. So I thought I'm gonna go where it's warm. Um, and I wrote my last semester in in playwriting. I we we had a really strict and wonderful playwriting teacher who was my mentor, and he would make us write three one act plays per semester and rewrite each one of them three times. And I have taught I've taught screenwriting, you can't make that happen. Um, I don't know how he made that happen, but it was perfect training for writing for television because one thing you have to do is write fast and rewrite fast, and so I got used to doing that. But um, by my last semester, you know, I'd written so many one acts, I said, I really am just I'm out of one act ideas. And I said, because I was a huge MASH fan, and I said, What if I took the cast of MASH, you know, those characters, and I'll write a one-act play with with them? And he said, Well, if you're gonna do that, why don't you write a MASH script? And this was long before anybody ever thought of writing a script for something, and and so I said, I said, how how do I do that? And he said, I don't know, but we'll find out. And so uh he sent me to the library, and I got a lot of um radio plays, um and you know, scripts from them, and that's kind of how I learned. And then um I I had when I was in grad school for one year, I had uh I loved the show Taxi, so I thought I'm gonna write to them and get them to send me a script so I can look at it and see what the format is. And you know, back then it was pretty easy to get somebody to do that, and so um I had a friend in graduate school who also wanted to write for television, so we wrote a spec taxi script, and we went to a conference where we met um a guy named Bert Metcalf, who was a freelance writer for MASH. Um, and we ended up being friends forever, and uh asked him, you know, what can we do with this? And he gave us uh the address of a man named Um Jim Burroughs who did all he would directed taxi.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And so we sent it to Jim Burroughs and God bless him, he called us, you know, we were in Virginia at my friend Miriam's house, and he called us and told us that he really liked the script, that it had a thought it had a lot of really good stuff in it, and we should keep going, keep trying to do this. And that was, you know, I tell people these days when you know everybody who wants to write comes at you with what they want is I'll write a script and you'll get me an agent and I'll have a series on the air in a month. That's not how it ever happened or or how it happens now, but that gave us a reason to keep going. You know, so we kept writing spec scripts, and then uh finally at the at the end of the year, I decided I was gonna move to LA and try to actually make it. Um my friend Miriam ended up staying back in Virginia for five more years, but then she came out, she made it too. We lived a block away from each other in Sierra Madre. Um, so you know it all happened. But also a huge part of mine was um when I wrote that MASH script, and I was a just a huge fan of MASH, I would put signs on the TV on Tuesday, lest anyone else dare think they were going to watch something that night. And um I went out with a group from the University of Richmond and did a two or three-week course in LA, and the teachers who taught it were more into television as sociology. Um, but they had a lot of people they knew and and met with. And so I took that class, and one of the people we met with was Alan Alda. And I started talking, so I meet him. I'm sitting here talking to Alan Alda, and I told him about my playwriting. And I actually had written a um a one-act play that was being produced in my community theater while I was in LA. So I was telling him about how I was missing my my you know big debut to come here and talk to him. So he told me to send him, you know, something that I'd written. So I went home, I sent him that play, and I think I sent him a couple other things, and he called me on the phone at my Sorrati house, which you know, none of my sorority sisters would believe because one of my sorority sisters answered the phone and and he said that it was Alan Olda calling for me, and she said, Yeah, and I'm Bob Radford. And so I'm lucky I ever got to talk to him, but um yeah, he just kept having me send stuff and he kept telling me it was good. And then at one point he said, You know, I've talked to my agent, and he really says you have to live out here to be able to break in. And so I said, you know, okay. So I dropped out of uh grad school after one year. Um went out there and I worked for uh there was a temporary um, you know, like like a Kelly Girls thing called Apple One. I don't know if they still have it.
James Duke:Oh yes.
SPEAKER_01:I I don't I think they still might. Wow. Yeah, and so I went there and I took a typing test, and you know, I asked them to, you know, when they hired me for jobs, could they please send me to the studios when they had them? So they did that. So I did about 11 months of that, and then I got a phone call from Alan saying that Mash wanted to hire um a writer, and it was during the whole ERA push, and so he was not happy that they'd never had a female writer. They'd had a a couple of freelance female writers that never had a woman on staff, and so I he got me you know a chance to go pitch there, and it's funny because um the guy who was the executive producer, Bert Metcalf, had at the same time read a script that my agent had sent him and decided he wanted to call me in. So he and Alan used to argue over who had discovered me. I had a I had sent a script in, you know, um back when I was in grad school and got the standard, you know, uh rejection letter that Bert had signed. So I framed it and put it on my wall in my office, and Bert did not think that was funny. He was explaining to me, and it's like, I know, I know, I just I love the irony. Um but anyway, so I ended up I ended up getting the job and I was there for the last two years.
James Duke:You you were the first female staff writer on MASH. And oh that's such a crazy story that Alan Alda and uh I mean who does that? Who goes from grad school or dropping out of grad school to joining the staff of the number one show on today?
SPEAKER_01:No, and I when I was in grad school, one day we were in one of my classes, and and we decided we would all go around the table and talk about you know where we saw ourselves in five years. And I said, Well, you know, I want to move to LA and I want to get some work as a television writer, so I hope in five years that I've accomplished that. And one of my friends said, Why don't you see yourself writing for MASH in five years? And I just cracked up. I'm like, you're out of your mind, you know? Um, and and within five years, well within five years, that's what I was doing. Wow. Actually, I tried to turn the the job down when it was offered to me because I had done a freelance for them that um I liked and they liked. And then uh I went and did a show called Eight Is Enough for a year, and it got canceled at the end of that year, and that's when MASH was looking for a staff writer. So um my agent, you know, they had liked my freelance, and so my agent called them and said, you know, they want to interview you for the staff position. And um actually he told me they had wanted to offer me that. And I told him he, I said, I want you to turn it down. And he said, Are you out of your mind? And I said, I said, it's mesh, they will fire me in two weeks. And he said, if they do fire you in two weeks, you'll live off of it forever. And so I said, Okay. But he said, I am not gonna call Mesh and turn down a staff job. So I ended up, they didn't fire me, and um the rest is history.
James Duke:That is uh that's a fantastic story. I I think what's interesting about that is a lot of people don't realize this about the town. Obviously, there's just a lot of grossness about this business and about this town. But there is there's always been this sense of if you've got the chops, we'll create the room for you. There's always been this sense of you know, school of hard learn from the school of hard knocks. If you show that you're willing to put in the hard work and write and do, you know, like there, there is that aspect of the business too. I just I know of so almost every professional writer I know all received a helping hand from an older writer, a more established writer or director or producer or someone. They've all got that chance to go up because someone else said, Hey, you you've got the stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I have a couple of people working now who, you know, I was the one who told them that. And that that feels good. The problem with that whole lovely system is that when you turn to be about 45 years old, all bets are off. So um, you know, and I wish I'd believed the people who told me that because what my thinking was, well, we're the baby boomers, you know, nobody can fire all of us, but I was wrong. So um, and and men can work until they keel over and die, but women, by the time you look like their mother, they don't want you in the room. So it's the truth. Um, you know, they don't want you ugling up their cocktail parties.
James Duke:Do you let's talk about that for a little bit because obviously you mentioned that you're a um how difficult was it being a woman staff writer? How difficult was it to how difficult was it? Um what were the challenges uh you faced um that you felt like um you had to fight a little bit harder, a little bit, you know? I I'm just curious, as someone who lived it, you know, we we uh what was the kind of the unique things that you felt like you had to encounter uh in order to overcome?
SPEAKER_01:Well, one thing when the Me Too movement started, I just went, Are you kidding me? That was my entire career. Um but uh I mean, not in terms of uh I didn't sleep with anybody to get a break, but there was just constant what they would now call uh sexual assault verbally. And you know, one guy used to put a mirror across from me in one of the staff rooms so that he could look up my skirt. So I started wearing jeans after that. I mean, not even not even pretending it was like so you know, it was a lot of blatant that stuff. Um, but I got a lot of jobs because they it was in an era when um they had decided maybe we should have some women writing since we have a lot of female characters, and so you know, I mean, the masked job I got because they wanted to put a woman on staff, and um, I think probably the same was true at Hill Street Blues. I was the first woman, and Moonlighting, I was the first woman.
James Duke:So I'm like, you were the first woman on Moonlighting? Yes, wow, I would not I'd given Sybil, I I would um okay before we get there, wow. Um, with MASH, you know, the thing that also I think our audience needs to remember who are listening to this is television back then is was very different from television today in a lot of different ways. But one of the biggest was if uh for a show like MASH, the majority of people who owned television sets in the country tuned in to watch MASH. So when there was a show on, there was only so many channels, and so the majority of people would be watching the same thing. So culturally, the conversations were more people were talking about, and that's these shows were bigger. So the numbers that MASH would do like not there is nothing that comes even close to a low-rated rerun of MASH back then today because the audience is so fractured, there's so many options today. Um, when when you were when you guys were in the room writing MASH, um was there a sense because you're coming on to a successful show, right? You're coming into a show, like the last two seasons of a of a big hit TV show. Was there a sense? Did you or was it just kind of like I'm just in here and I'm not sure, I don't I'm I'm curious if there was ever conversation maybe from the other writers. I mean, you had some brilliant Gilbart and all these guys. Like, I'm curious, was there ever a conversation about what the audience thinks about this show? Or was it just like, you know, we're in our room, we're talking it's what we want the characters to do, it's what, or was there a conversation about, hey, what's America gonna respond to? Uh if if Hawkeye, you know, if Hawkeye freaks out, I mean, what's that famous episode where Hawkeye has the PTSD? You know, like what I'm just curious, was there a conversation in the room about what America was thinking about the show?
SPEAKER_01:No, there were zero conversations about that, and I really think that's been the downfall of a lot of shows. Um, you know, I've just noticed shows that I love it after after a couple of years, especially now because you know, there you can go on the internet and you can read what the fans are saying, and you know, we we got an occasional letter, but we didn't really know what the fans were thinking. Um, and I think it's really hurt uh television for people to be aware, you know. I I love Ted Lasso, and I'm I'm watching the third season with great trepidation because it's like, are they going to do that? Um, you know, and and shows that did do that. I mean, even as early as when happy days, when when people started clapping for 15 minutes when Fonzi came in the room, yes, not the same show. And I think the thing about both um MASH and um Hill Street Blues were there, there was nothing except the show. You know, it's like this is the show, this is what we're doing, these are who the characters are. This is um, and there was nothing about what might the fans like. Um, of course, it's easier to be like that when there's only two other shows you're competing with, right?
James Duke:Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Three shows on the network.
James Duke:So and and was Gilbart was Gilbart in the room those last two seasons with you? Like, did you work with him?
SPEAKER_01:No, I only saw him at parties in the last two seasons. Wow, okay.
James Duke:Who who was running the show those?
SPEAKER_01:Metcalf was running the show.
James Duke:Metcalf was okay. And and how involved was Alan Alda on the creative side? Was he involved pretty heavily with the series?
SPEAKER_01:He was he was very involved. Um, you know, he really trusted us, you know. That was back in the day when people really respected writers too. So he trusted us for what we would come up with. That was almost all from research they had done. Um, but he would have, you know, he was very involved in that he'd have ideas for episodes and he would write episodes and he would direct episodes. And I had an episode that I had pitched, uh, you know, my first day there that I wanted to do. And we just kept putting a pen in it because Alan was afraid that it would make Hawkeye look bad. And I could see in my head how I was gonna write it, and I I thought, no, it's it's gonna make him look good ultimately. And so we didn't do it the whole first season. I was there, and then finally, I guess at the beginning of the last season, uh Alan and Alan and I wonder the two of us came up with the idea of let's write it together, and that way, you know, he can make sure we don't do anything that makes Hawkeye look bad. So we wrote it. The show was called Hey Look Me Over, and it was the um season premiere for the last season. And it's it's um, you know, what I the topic I wanted to deal with is you know, somebody, some other woman needs to call Hawkeye on the fact that he only chases the gorgeous nurses. You know, it's like he's very shallow in terms of you know who he wants to carouse with. And we had this woman named Kelly Wallet, who was uh she was a Hawaiian woman, everybody knew her as Nurse Kelly, and she was um she was adorable, but she wasn't somebody who looked like a model, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And and and the the main nurses he was chasing one was Rita Wilson, who's Tom Hanks' wife. I don't remember the name of the other one, but she was also really pretty. And so I I wanted to do an episode where Kelly calls him on the fact that you know he doesn't pay any attention to her, and so and it ended up being a really good episode, and and you know, I think Hawkeye learned something, but he didn't um look bad, he just looked like he looked like he'd looked for the entire length of the series. This is what he does.
James Duke:Yeah, you know, it's often been said good comedy is dramatic and good drama is funny, and obviously a show like NASH uh that was the playground in which you guys worked, uh you which you played every episode. I'm curious, how did that um what was the balance there? Just for you as a writer and any advice that you have for writers, what's the balance between the story versus the joke? Like what the how to turn how to turn up a scene on a dime where you've got two characters, you know, doing silly, you know, silly wordplay to then all of a sudden, you know, someone's dying and their arms are on their operating table.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that that that was when you when you heard the helicopters, that's when it was time to stop joking. But um, you know, for me, I just that's what my natural sensibility is. I have I have a really dark sense of humor, and um you know, I liked writing those kind of jokes, but I ended up deciding to to be more of a one-hour drama writer because the thing about writing comedy is if you come in and you had a bad day the day before and or you don't feel well or whatever, it's like I don't want to write funny when I'm when I don't feel good. So I noticed that I would always put the funny scenes aside until I got the dramatic scenes written. Um, and I just thought I don't want to spend the rest of my life having to be funny all the time. Um, I remember I had a big, you know, powwow with agents back then because you know I didn't want to be pigeonholed. And I was supposed to just be grateful to be in television and not be thinking about being pigeonholed. And plus, you know, once once I'm a comedy writer, it's easy to sell me as a comedy writer.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So so I had a big fight with them. In fact, I left an agency because they advised me against taking the job on Hill Street, and I I just thought, I know this is wrong, so we're gonna part company. That's the thing Hill Street was one of those shows, you know, it was like mesh. It's like it's funny when it's when people are funny, and then it's serious when people are serious. And and to an extent, Moonlighting was the same way, and that's what I really like writing. I'm not capable of writing something with no humor in it.
James Duke:Um it's that's funny you say that because I think most people would remember MASH and Moonlighting as comedies, and most people would remember Hill Street Blues as a drama, but you're right. I mean, that I I watched way too much TV when I was a kid, and I was young, and I was the youngest of four, so I was always having to watch things that were because it was like whatever my older siblings and my parents were watching, and so I watched I was watching Hill Street Blues. That was one of my dad's uh favorite shows, and um there were episodes that scared me, terrified me. It was uh, but but I remember the the humor, and I and I think that uh it's curious what you're saying. When people are funny, you write you write funny for them, and when you know, the how do you avoid, I guess, how do you avoid melodrama? Uh because television is melodramatic. So, where is the balance there between um going back and forth between those two things? Or maybe is that the way you avoid melodrama is to be able to bounce back and forth between those two things?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a lot of it. I mean, I just don't have any melodramatic tendencies, so it wasn't hard for me. Um, but and I would have trouble when somebody, when I was teaching, if somebody's writing melodrama, I have trouble explaining to them what that means. Um, but usually it just means they're not acting like people act, you know. They're you know, people might get melodramatic for you know five minutes over something that they get over, but you know, moods and emotions just bounce all over the place all the time. So you know to me, that's how to avoid it.
James Duke:That's good. With with MASH, by the way, before we go, the um so you know it's famously known for the final episode being you know the number one episode of all time in terms of viewers. And I think that the old I think that the old story, maybe I'm am I thinking of a different show, but I think it was during the finale of MASH. Um they had water pressure issues in New York because people were at all at the same time or running to the bathroom during that. So the majority of toilets were all being flushed at the same time and stuff. It's terrible. Yeah, that's what there was. What when you when you guys as a staff, I mean, uh because at that point I'm sure you had obviously the writing had been done and you had packed up and started moving on to other stuff, but but what was that like to get the word back the next you know couple of days when the ratings came in? Um, did you guys celebrate? Was there some sort of special thing of of of um of wow? We just wrote the biggest thing ever in television history.
SPEAKER_01:No, we didn't know that we'd done that. What we did was we wanted to watch it at the same time as the rest of America, because you know, we knew a lot of people would be watching it, it was a big deal. So we reserved the theater at Fox, and we all the whole company sat in there and watched it while America was watching it. Um, and I really liked that. And and it's hard to believe, but I have not watched it since then.
James Duke:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, I constantly have people telling me how good it was. Um, you know, I think because we were so close to it, I mean, everybody was happy with it. All I could see were things I didn't like about it. So, for instance, uh our set burned down in the middle of filming it. So we had to write in a fire, and it bothered me because that wasn't organic, it wasn't in the original script. It's like we just have to do this. That bothered me a lot. You know, if I go back and watch it now, it probably wouldn't bother me at all.
James Duke:But the set just caught fire and act as like something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was it was not the not the studio set, but the set out in Malibu where we did the exterior shots. Wow, you know, fire swept through Malibu, so you know camp no longer look the same. Um, and I don't know what else, but little things that had bothered me about it. I'm just like that. Uh all I can see is is what's wrong.
James Duke:Did you work on did you consider going on to Aftermash? The what was it? Was it called Aftermash?
SPEAKER_01:The show was, and and I didn't because I had already uh agreed to go to Hill Street. And um, I really loved Hill Street. I was excited to be going to another show that I really loved.
James Duke:And that is a that was a fantastic show. That is I don't realize, I don't know if people realize what a precursor Hill Street was to so much of television, particularly television in the 90s and early, late 90s, early 2000s, in terms of how it shaped um really influential, wouldn't you say really influential and how it shaped um our television?
SPEAKER_01:I always make my um my students watch it, watch the pilot of Hill Street and tell them, you know, if this hadn't happened, you wouldn't have streaming right now. You know, yeah, yeah. This made it possible for can you explain that?
James Duke:What what what is what what was it about Hill Street Blues that you think was uh so influential?
SPEAKER_01:It was, you know, up until then, cop shows had always been pretty uh formulaic and and very pristine, you know. It's like, you know, once Ranko is taking a magazine and going to the bathroom, that's a different thing than we've seen before. Um, and and it was very gritty, and it was really so much closer to what cops actually go through than anything that we'd ever done before. Um, you know, the topics that were tackled and uh just everything. It just like broke through something to make everything that came after it be able to happen.
James Duke:And was that Botchko? Did Botchko create the show?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
James Duke:And what was it like working with him or for him?
SPEAKER_01:I I learned so much from him. You know, I I've got great mentors, and and and he was one of the biggest ones. And I remember like he taught me everything I know about dialogue, and because like a most beginning writers, I was just overwriting everything. And one day he he called me in his office and he had my script on the desk and he said, you know, stand behind me. So I did, and he said, watch this. And he just went through and started striking out words, and that was like a moment that changed my writing life. It's like, oh wow, you know, and when I teach dialogue, the thing that I try to harp on is don't use any word that you don't have to use, and you know, go through and strike out it because.
James Duke:makes the dialogue crisp and it makes it just you know 100% better so i learned that from him i learned a lot of uh how to put a story together from him um and i remember i i just always felt like i wasn't good at it and he told me he said he said you will learn to to write story when you have to and i thought okay and then later when i was running a show it's like oh okay i get it's like nobody's gonna fix this so i had to learn it wow and for on hill street you said you were you were also the only female writer uh staff writer on hill street books yes i think they had some after i left but at the time i was how long were you on the show how long was i on it i think i was there for two seasons okay back then you know when you could get a new job anytime you wanted one two seasons was about as long as is you know i got bored after two seasons i wanted to go write something else you know that's the no you wouldn't stay you wouldn't necessarily stay on a show the whole run would you no it's like I've written this I want to go write something else so I left there and I went and wrote a bunch of movies of the week and then um Glenn started being after me to come work on moonlighting and I turned him down for a long time um because I I was not a huge fan of that show I became a huge fan of it but I've never written silly stuff and I didn't think I wanted to write silly stuff but finally I I went and I actually ended up having a lot of fun writing silly stuff and then you know most of it was not silly so now that was a show for a lot of people who don't know that was a show that actually that had a big um if I if I remember correctly you can correct me but it it had a big uh campaign audience campaign to keep it renewed because it was kind of always on the bubble and at least towards the latter years right like that like there was a big they used to call them a big write in campaign because that was the way right people would write letters so ABC would get flooded keep keep moonlighting on the air right and so and and and so it was it had a it had a a the the the audience maybe wasn't necessarily as large but it was an intense audience basically yes I I left there when uh I found out Sybil was pregnant because I just I said to Glenn I don't think we have a show anymore.
SPEAKER_01:You know I I didn't want them to sleep together. I thought that we didn't have a show after that and if gunsmoke could do it for 24 seasons I didn't know why we couldn't and um because that's what all the you know dramatic tension was about and I still think I'm right about that but uh when I found out she was pregnant I just went I the this isn't the show and this I don't want to write it. So I left my sister took my job and uh oh really Barbara took your job yeah so she got to deal with that.
James Duke:That's funny. Now okay so I'm from Memphis just so full disclosure I'm from Memphis my mom would tell me old Sybil stories so I'm just you know like to be clear like I already have a little true story you know behind the scenes background. I'm curious especially given the fact that you were the you know the only female writer there for a while like um was was Sybil a handful did did did she did did is that was was that a little uh made up in the press or what what was it like behind the scenes?
SPEAKER_01:Let's just say that there's not much I can say about Sybil without getting myself into trouble.
James Duke:Did you guys get along the two of you or no?
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean short answer is yes um she you know sible warned to be my best friend but Sybil had issues with Glenn and Bruce that I did not have and and I did not want to team up with her against them and that was kind of where our conflict was yeah yeah and and Bruce Willis obviously um he kind of came out of nowhere that show was the show that that that launched his career.
James Duke:And if I remember correctly to once again you correct my memory here but I think you were off the show at this point but uh when he came back after diehard that was when they it was like suddenly the network wanted him right it was uh it everything kind of flipped and is that was that really the downfall of the show at that point when it was I don't know I don't know I was gone by then but um you know I adore Bruce but I only had to work with the pre-diehard Bruce my sister got the post diehard Bruce and I think we have a different take on it but you know when when I was working with him he I can't say enough good things about him and his worth work ethic was incredible um and he was just great i you know I loved him yeah it's sad to see right now what he's going through you know stuff yeah also the thing that I think a lot of people don't always remember in this business unless you're actually working in the business day in and out is is they call him stars for a reason. They have genuine power and control. And the bigger the star the bigger the power and control. And um that's a part of the game right Karen that you have to play in the business.
SPEAKER_01:It is and I'll tell you every show that I have created you know since then I have made an ensemble cast for a reason because you know with with the two of them it's like they just completely had us over a barrel because you can't have the show without the two of them you know we did some depesto episodes we proved that um and then I went on to do judging Amy and I will never again do a show where the where an actor's name you know is part of the title. It's in the show that's stupid you know I'll also never do one what where an actor is an executive producer. It just works so much better when the power is distributed better than that. Speaking of judging Amy you uh so that show was created by your sister right yes I mean a version of it was created there were many versions of it created before it got on the air so I think Amy and her husband had created a version I know that John Tinker and whoever he was writing with at the time had done a version um but barber did the version that ended up getting on the air.
James Duke:Okay. And up to up to before judging Amy had you ever uh been on a staff with your sister or was this the first time you guys were working together in a room no that was uh ever since you know we wrote stories and traded them off in high school that was the first time we had ever worked together. So so so the the only time you uh the last time you guys had worked together was your Osmond uh fanfiction fan fiction to judge again me and it was funny because you know I loved working with Barbara in a lot of ways um the way in which I did not love working with Barbara which she knows is that she had to be nicer to everybody else than she did to me because I'm her sister.
SPEAKER_01:So if she got mad at everybody else she yelled at me. So I didn't like that part. But you know I I love we write very very similarly I'll find stuff now that we wrote a while ago and I can't remember who wrote what because our styles are just so close. And so I remember like getting notes from Barb was great because you know I I came in and sat down one day and I had a script I needed to do a rewrite on and we talked in shorthand and so almost nothing was said and other writers were sitting in the room and it's like when we're done they thought you know how to go rewrite this based on what just happened but you know um I loved that part of it. And I loved working on the show. I it gave you a chance to write you know so many different things that I really liked writing. So that was probably my favorite staff job I ever had.
James Duke:You were you you your career you've worked with so many great actors I mean even with judging enemy with time daily the the I mean uh just there are there are certain roles that some of these actors inhabit that you just like wow I I you just they they own them at a kind of a different level and I think that show Time Daily was just she was that character. Yeah she really was when you when you know you have an actor at an out and out you know Alan Alder I mean obviously Alda even a completely different level with Hawkeye because he was so integral but you know Sybil Bruce you know all these guys um when you've got an actor that you're just like is is if as a writer do you just want to just throw as much raw meat to them as you can like I'm curious about your process you think man I can't wait to hear these guys with these oh yeah the thing about them was because I I'd done some work where this wasn't true but with you know the actors that you mentioned I knew that what I wrote was what I was going to end up seeing in dailies and that was very exciting because you know I could hear it in my head I knew how it should be and then to just go and just enjoy the dailies because you were getting you know what you should get that was great.
SPEAKER_01:And it would be fun to write for for both uh Tyne and Amy it's like I would write to what I knew they were really good at um and just look forward to seeing it because it just would be great. So around I think it was around this time and once again correct my correct my uh memory here I think it was around this time you uh decided to write a novel uh called Dark Debts and I uh highly recommend everyone who's listening to this uh to go out and get it it's fantastic yeah but but make sure make sure they get the 2016 version and not the 1996 version well that's the one that I read you took you know I I I took a lot of bad words out of the next version because mostly from my mother who was like 92 at the time and she wanted to be able to rec uh recommend it her friends but also um when I wrote the first version you know my protagonist is a very liberal Jesuit and and I was a it I want to say idiot liberal at the time um and after my conversion experience that came from writing it I just kept kind of following where God led me and so there's a lot of stuff in that first version that I just didn't feel good about you know leaving out there in the world like things that the priest was not happy with with the church that I have long since come to be happy with. And so what I did in the second version was I added another priest who was a conservative Jesuit who was based on a good friend of mine so that so that you could hear both sides of that story.
James Duke:Oh okay I didn't know that that's interesting maybe I should go I'll go back and read the the new version I never read it um let's talk a little bit about uh that's what I that's kind of what I wanted to get to is you you uh in the process of writing this book and like you said just then there that some of the characters in the book are are are priests you found yourself you know well like any good writer you need to go back and do some research because you were raised Methodist you wanted to and so this then led to a spiritual awakening in your life and I'm just curious if you could just kind of unwrap that for our for our audience what was that process like when did you decide to write the book and what was that uh process like I'll tell you one thing I have a new book coming out I don't know when but I wrote a book for Ignatius press that is about the the conservative Jesuit that I based the new character in the new book on and um you know so I got to I I got to use him to say the things that I now believe.
SPEAKER_01:And when I was doing reviews for the first I mean for the when my editor let me rewrite the first book he had always wanted to take a book that a writer had written and then wait some years and let them write it again to see how it would change. So when I had a lot of interviews about it and people would ask me you know why I why I felt the need to change it it was hard to answer that question because the real answer was because I put a lot of nonsense in that first version and I want to fix it before I go to my grave. So you know I made all sorts of things up that meant that. But my conversion experience was you know I had been very religious growing up and then I just hit the point where I'd had it with trying to figure it all out. I went back to uh the Catholic church instead of a Protestant church because I really had fallen in love with you know what I what I used to think of as just stylistic things. But you know I always wanted something more than to sit on a bench and have somebody lecture me. It's like so I I frequently tell people that I became Catholic because I have ADHD and it's like I got to stand up and sit down and kneel and you know say some things so I can stay awake. But you know in terms of coming back to Christianity I remember the first because I'd been gone for 15 years and you know I wasn't really giving it any thought. And so when I first got back to church it's like my first thought was well they still believe the same archaic stuff they used to they haven't grown up at all. And so it's like okay so not only do I do this research but I've got to convince myself that a a character I'm writing is supposed to be really intelligent would believe all of this. And so when I left I had a friend who had gone with me who belonged to the church and she asked me you know would I ever think of coming back and I was like you know well no because I know one of the things at the time I was on my high horse about was you know women's live so you know Catholics aren't famous for that. And so then I came back the second week and I just felt extremely nostalgic for the time in my life when I believed all of that stuff because it's like you know I mean I I I I really wish I could go back and believe that again. And then after a couple more times I said to myself if there's any way on earth I can make myself believe this story again I'm going to and then I went home and I had piles of books that you know I had bought back when I had uh you know I mean my mother always says um you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything which I think you know the the whole world is a good example of that right now but uh I'd I said I'd see books like I remember the titles of books would make me think that I was right in not believing in Christianity. So when I finally got to that point I made myself two piles of books and one was piles of books of people defending Christianity and the other was all these New Age books and everything else and not even New Age but you know very liberal books. So I started reading and about three books into the the anti-religious stack I realized that these people I had a fundamental difference with these people which is they don't believe in the supernatural. And I grew up in a haunted house so I knew that there was something going on that I didn't know about. And so it just that was like a turning point to me. So I went okay they don't believe something that I absolutely believe. So I can just push that whole stack aside and read the other books. And I couldn't get to the point I don't I don't think you really can where you know books had convinced me that it was right. But you know Barbara Nickelosi laughs at me because I I always told her that the fourth stage of my conversion was me saying oh hell I believe this I just you know I said you got to give some credence to you got to believe something and so why not believe what you want to believe um but I also felt like I also have to give some credence to the fact that I feel something on the other side of this you know if if if nothing were going on there I wouldn't feel what I feel and so I need to give some credence to that so I did and then you know not too long after that I joined the church. But even then I I I write about this in my new book I was really um what I call I was a I was a Mahoney Catholic which doesn't have much to do with you know a St. Ignatius Catholic and so you know I had to I had to reconvert myself after I converted to just keep going where I felt led. And that took me really back to where I had started with you know I believed the Bible. I I know that in the year 2023 for me to say I believe this because it's in the Bible I might as well be saying you know because I I saw I'd written on the clouds as far as the rest of the world thinks but it's it's where I am and it's where I'm gonna be it's a that's a it's such a beautiful story the way in which this passion for storytelling leads you back to the greatest story ever told.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
James Duke:And um and you know the great thing is is is why I'm encouraging people to read the book the 2016 version of the book is because the book uh wrestles one it's a great it's just a great yarn so like if you just want to I I mean I I think I read it in two sittings like it just I just I'm remembering years ago it just it it it's a it's a it's a fun fast paced uh supernatural thriller and um so that's fun. I like those kind of stories but it but it because it's a novel you clearly are you're having more than just the the the obvious conversation these characters are grappling with um what real life faith looks like and that is something that I think to this day all of us grapple with what does faith look like when applied in the real world when we're trying to live it out in the real world and when you have your characters actually do that instead of you know I think this is something that you and I have something in common. This is something that's part been part of the DNA for act one since it's since its inception and that is this idea of Christian cinema or Christian movies or whatever um the the label that we give it everyone knows this now. Everyone knows that we give it that label because it's not good. We give it that label because um the characters are written two dimensionally um the plots never go anywhere you you know what you know what's how the movie's gonna end uh you know five minutes into the movie um my number one problem is there is no subtext and there's no exactly and there's no answer and there's no subtext exactly what they're they're thinking you know and
SPEAKER_01:Everything that they're thinking.
James Duke:It's like dragnet. It's like just take the facts, ma'am. Just the facts, ma'am.
SPEAKER_01:And there's no the power is in the place where the audience, you know, sees the sub sees the text and feels the subtext. Because, you know, the power of anything is where the audience feels like they get to do some work. It's like, oh, aha, I get what they're trying to say. And that's powerful. But it's it's the same as show don't tell. It's like if somebody is just going to give you a list of facts, there's no feeling in that.
James Duke:So how do you, as a screenwriter? So, and then this is the question I was trying to get to, because with a novel, obviously, you're you're able to kind of go to all kinds of places with this because of the internal dialogue of the characters. But with a screenplay, what is your advice or you know, even your own struggles with this uh as a writer? As a as a how do you externalize such an internal discussion and that being faith lived out? Like when someone's trying to quote unquote practice their a character who is either faithful or faithless, how do you externalize such an internal aspect to the human nature?
SPEAKER_01:Well, the short answer is that it's really, really, really hard. You know, one of my mantras when I'm teaching is this is so much harder than you think it is. So, you know, you have to find something that symbolizes something and you have to write it in a way that the audience, you know, knows. And and and same as don't use any words that you don't have to, it's like not just in a in a speech, but in in entirety. It's like if you can do this without a word, do it. Um there's a really good scene, and I really loved the first season of uh True Detective, and and there's a great scene where they go to look at this place where you know something bad happened. Um and there's like maybe maybe 10 words in that scene. And it's mostly you watching them discover stuff and and feel what it makes them feel, and you understand it. So, but for a writer, it's like you got to know what those 10 words are because they need to point you toward, you know, what what we're saying and setting up as a subtext. You have to just you have to write very economically and you have to, you know, be skillful in in how you um write a symbol, you know, write something that's gonna stand for something else. And the and the biggest thing of all of it is you have to trust the audience. And and this is something I harp on with my students too, because they think the audience has to be told every single solitary thing 15 times. Um, so you know, and the shows that like Hill Street, when I first started watching it, one of the reasons I loved it is because I could watch it multiple times because I never got it all the first time, because they didn't slow down for the audience. And I like that, I think that's very powerful.
James Duke:And if you don't know, and if you genuinely don't know that I've often tried to like, what is it about um so many what we call great television shows that just works at a different level? And one of them is you you genuinely don't know what's going to happen next. There's a low grade tension, even if the show, I mean, I'm not I'm not even necessarily talking about thriller type shows, I'm just talking about dramas, right? There's a low grade tension. I don't know what this character is gonna do next, and would and they surprise you, and then I want to go down, okay. Let's go down this path, let's see what happens, right? And so if it's Tony Soprano, you don't know what's gonna happen because he's a psychopath, or if it's um judging Amy and you have a mom and a and a and a daughter um at a crossroads arguing about something really important, um, you don't know how it's gonna get resolved, and that draws you in uh as an audience member, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I I love I love The Sopranos and I love shows like that where you literally don't know what might happen. Um, you know, I've got a show I'm working on now that I'm trying to make that the case. Um, and you have to do things like, you know, one of the things you have to do is if you're gonna kill off a character, you can't write them tentatively before that. You've got to write them like they're gonna be there forever, and you know, they have all these qualities that make people love them to death and then kill them. Because I remember and in in Dark Deads, I had somebody was telling me that, you know, I really got upset when so-and-so died. And I thought, good, because I wanted you to get upset when they die.
James Duke:Yeah, it's like the old Star Trek red shirts, right? Like they're just there, you know that they're going to die, they're just there for fodder. And yeah, I think Hill Street Blues was actually one of those shows that began to push television in that direction where where there were real stakes for the quote unquote main cast, and there were consequences and shocking deaths and things like that. The um one of the things that we're constantly preaching at Act One, and I know you've done this for years, is when trying to tell a story, don't start with theme, because I think that that's like you know, that's like throwing the um what do you call it, the anchor for your ship over before leaving port. Yeah. Um for you as a writer, um, where do you like to start? Do the ideas come with characters? Do is it is it characters that fascinate you or is it scenarios? Where kind of where do ideas get where do you go to get uh ideas and how do you uh sort of develop and foster those ideas?
SPEAKER_01:I used to always start with characters because I was always really good at character and I'm really good at dialogue. But when when I start to try to do things on my own, you know, you can have brilliant characters spouting wonderful dialogue for a long time, but you're not getting anywhere. So even when I'm teaching, I always try to decide am I gonna start with plot or am I start with character? And I've been leaning a lot more lately into starting with plot. Um, you know, because it's like the blueprint. It's like if you don't know, you know, where this go and when it's going where, um, you know, you're just gonna be because people I was like this when I first started, but I love voice writing characters, and I could just have them sit and banter and you know forever. Then I started when I was working, I'd get scripts from people who were trying to break in and I'd go, you know, your characters are lovely, but I just don't want to sit and listen to them talk for 14 pages, you know. I want something to happen. Um I have I think one of the things that's been kind of lucky for me as a writer is I get bored really easily. So I'm really aware of you know when the audience is gonna get bored. Um and and and there's so much stuff you just have to do consciously, which I also try to explain to my students. It's like, you know, you got to know that they can't talk for 14 pages. So if you write 14 pages, you gotta cut 13 of them, you know. Um, but I there's so many things when you're teaching, you just feel like that you're talking in a voice that only dogs can hear. I feel like things I tell them are so simple to do and they just don't do them.
James Duke:Yes, that's so true. I love that. Um, what what okay, so for an aspiring writer who's listening to this podcast, what what do they what do they not understand about plot?
SPEAKER_01:There's a couple of things. One is uh my my mentor always said to me, I won't let you break the rules until you show me that you can follow them. So don't try to write memento. You know, everybody wants to write, you know, some big huge thing that's gonna change the industry. And no, um, you know, I I start with like diehard and jaws and other things that are really clear three-act plots. Because the thing about that that plot diagram is that it works. And so, you know, do that first and then figure out um, like I love the pilot of Breaking Bad, but the the stuff that's up front is really it's from the third act. So, and so you can do that once you know how to write in a linear way, and you know that I'm putting third act stuff here. Um, so you know, a lot of it is just to be conscious of it and to be conscious of following the rules. And if you break the rules, you at least have to know what the rules are and you have to know exactly what you're doing. So there's that. Um, another thing I've been telling people lately is I read a quote from John Wells who said, I wish someone had told me that this was like learning to play an instrument. Because when I teach people, you know, uh all of my beginning students, they write one script and they want me to, you know, find them an agent and sell their show. And this is another I talk in a voice only dogs can hear. It's like your first script, you were not gonna find an agent, you're not gonna sell your show. Um, I also I've been doing, I do oil painting um as a hobby, and I've always been amazed at how much that's like writing. So, you know, your first draft is like when you when you just color wash the canvas so you're not painting on stark white. So I always tell myself when I'm writing a first draft, I'm just getting paint on the canvas and then I'll uh can't canvas and then I'll go back and make it work. Um so there's that. But the other thing is, you know, when I finished my first oil painting, I didn't think someone should hang it in a museum.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:It's good enough that I'm hanging that it's hanging on my wall, but you just have to understand how hard this is to learn, how much it takes work in practice. And and you know, I always uh whenever I go somewhere and some beginning writer raises their hand and says, How do I get an agent? I always tell them you're asking the wrong question.
unknown:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, the question is, how do I become as good as a professional writer? Because that's when you will get an agent. There'll be agents killing themselves over you. But boy, trying to make anybody slow down and do it, you know.
James Duke:No one like no one likes that answer. At Act One, we we talk about the 10-year rule. The thought is if you just teach me how to write it, I've already got the greatest idea in the world, right? So now you're just gonna tell me all these, you know, what how to format it. Okay, sure, whatever. Now tell me how to sell the script and make all this money. And and and and it's like I I don't even I don't even know the world in which you're asking this question because the every every professional writer I know um has been working minimum, have been writing for years for for at least a decade before anyone would would would consider um um buying their stuff. They they've they've uh I always tell I always tell our act one students is you have a thousand bad pages in you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yes.
James Duke:And as soon as you get those thousand pages, you got to get those thousand bad pages out of you as soon as possible. That's like your first 10 screenplays.
SPEAKER_01:I know. Yeah, I have a I have a producer friend who tells people he'll read their fifth screenplay. Yes, yes, I'm not gonna read the first four. And you know, I mean that's one of the things I've been like in and out of teaching because I get so frustrated that I can't make anybody hear that. And nobody is interested in, you know, what I wanted to do when I wanted to be a writer is I wanted to become a really good writer. Yeah. Um, and when I went, when I moved to LA, I said, okay, you know, what's what what's my goal? What do I want to be true about me? And and what I told myself was I want it to be true that if somebody hires me, they know they're gonna get a good script. You know, my goal was not I want to win an Oscar. Yeah, you know. So uh I I talk to people a lot about what are you know holy goals and unholy goals, and a lot of beginning writers have unholy goals.
James Duke:Yep, and have and have um unholy expectations. I the the um nothing beats a good work ethic. No, it it just I'm sorry, but you've gotta have this mentality where I'm going to work today, I'm putting on my hard hat and I'm gonna put the work in to feed my family. And it doesn't mean that what I'm gonna work do for the next eight hours is going to get make me famous and make me a lot of money. It just means that I'm just one day closer to getting a little bit better. And um, and that it just takes time, and that's not something that uh a lot of people want to hear today. They want that kind of that automatic. The the truth of the matter is, is if you read the script for Michael Clayton, you think, oh, this Michael Clayton script is amazing. I can write a mic a script like that, but you can't. It took him years before he wrote that script. It's just it takes time and it takes really hard work.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and and you know, I I do tell my students that from what I've seen, it's the people who are willing to work the hardest that will end up being successful, and some of them aren't even the best writers, but it's like you know, they just kill themselves. Um, and when I first got when I first started taking playwriting in college, I I always talk to myself about you know, what is my goal and and what's accomplishable. And so I thought, well, what I'd love to be is the best playwright in this department, but I have no control over that because I have no control over how much natural talent I have. So I said, okay, I can become the hardest working playwright in this department because I have total control over that. And and so that's what I set out to do. And you know, if you do that, you you might end up becoming the best.
James Duke:That's great. That that's really good advice. Karen, this has been fantastic. I love, I think I could talk to you for hours about all this kind of stuff. I know you, I know you're working on uh some stuff now, and um, I just we just want to bless you and thank you. Hope everything's as you continue to work and um create great stories. We pray that things go well for you. And I just want to thank you for your time. And you've you've always been such a source of inspiration and challenge uh to those of us in the business. Um and um um I just thank you. Thank you for your investment in Act One. Thank you for your investment in uh the community here. And and um I just I just want to thank you for for all you've done.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. And I really enjoy talking to you about all of this anytime.
James Duke:Well, I'd love to what I like to do is I'd like to close our podcast by praying for our guests. Would you allow me to pray for you? Sure. Heavenly Father, I just uh come before you thanking you for my sister Karen, thanking you for uh her kindness, thank you for her just her wisdom and her clarity of thought. Um God, thank you for uh just using her in so many different ways uh over the years, um, not only in just telling great stories and making people laugh, um, but in encouraging other writers and inspiring them and teaching them and training them. God, I just pray right now for all of her current endeavors. Uh, God, that you would go before her and open whatever doors and uh give her access to whatever kind of conversations that are being had right now. That um, God, I pray you'd bless her writing. Uh, I pray that um that you would just inspire her um uh for uh all that she's writing and working on. And uh um we just thank you for this day. We thank you for this chance to be able to spend time with her and just pray a blessing upon her life, her marriage, her family, and uh just pray you'd protect her and watch over um her and all that she does. And we pray this in Jesus' name and your promise as we stand. Amen. Thank you for listening to the Act One podcast, celebrating over 20 years as the premier training program for Christians in Hollywood. Act One is a Christian community of entertainment industry professionals who train and equip storytellers to create works of truth, goodness, and beauty. The Act One program is a division of Master Media International. To financially support the mission of Act One or to learn more about our programs, visit us online at Act One Program.com. And to learn more about the work of Master Media, go to mastermedia.com.