SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to Hello and welcome to another wonderful episode of the Hollywood Blueprint. I'm producer A.K. Moore.

SPEAKER_05 0:11

And I'm your host, Michelle Goldsboro. Today I'm speaking to a really funny guy named Andrew Zuber. He's a writer who started in the NBC Page program and has had students literally everywhere. But just to narrow it down a little bit, Discovery Channel, a British film festival. He had a moment at an agency before getting staffed on Stitchers. He worked as a director's assistant for Anton Cropper before going to Rainbow, Butterfly, Unicorn Kitty, and Arcane. For a moment after that, he was a photographer. And now his most recent credits live with the neighborhood, for which he wrote two episodes. And when he's not writing, he moonlights as a magician at the famous Magic Castle. And did I mention he's really funny?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Wow, I guess he's really funny. I can't wait to listen to the episode.

SPEAKER_05 0:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Let's get to it. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:04

We just like to introduce the producer.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So it's nice, nice to meet you. Um nice to meet you. Yes. Love the typewriter. Love the back to the future. Oh man. Nerds nerding out. Absolutely. You have to nerd out if you're a nerd. It's like required.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I did all this just for this. I'm going to return all this as soon as we're done.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

So where where did you steal it from?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Uh IKEA and a in a library.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Oh, I frequent those as well. They're really good places to steal from.

SPEAKER_05 1:31

I still.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, exactly. Well, I'll let you guys get to it so that it doesn't take too much of your night. We appreciate you doing this.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

Cool. Um hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_05 1:44

I'm good. How is your? I don't know what day of the week it is, but we can pretend it's Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Sure, is it? Yeah, let's go with that.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

Happy $5 Sprout Sushi Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I did not know that was a thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:59

Yes. On for on Wednesdays, you can get $5 sushi from Sprouts, and it's always a good deal.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

And that lasts like, what time to Sprouts? I might have to wrap this up.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

We can end early and we can just go over there. Great. That'd be awesome. I should do the podcast from the sushi counter.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

That's an amazing idea.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

Okay. I'm excited. You seem funny. This is going to be great because I am not funny, but I love to laugh.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That's perfect. Because that's yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

Andrew, welcome to the Hollywood Blueprint. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I'm phenomenal. How are you?

SPEAKER_05 2:33

You know, I'm great. I'm I'm really excited to meet you. I had a lot of fun getting to know you and your background and the shows that you write on, which is part of why I love doing this because I get to learn about people I literally would never meet otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

Yeah. I mean, why not? And to, you know, get started with the, of course, the the age-old question of like how you got started. I know that you made a 40-minute feature film in high school. Like what tell me about that? How was that for you? I know it was called cuts and scratches.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yes, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

This is like a I know a throwback. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

No, I love it. Yeah, it's hard to remember because this was almost three years ago. No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_05 3:17

Um, you actually like got me for a second.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

How old is you're married? So what?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I uh yeah, it's I've got I've had quite the ride. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 3:27

Okay, Benjamin Button.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah. I'll be an infant when we're done here. Oh yeah. I was in uh like a media, film and TV and radio broadcasting class in high school. And so for my senior project, I had to make film of some kind, some kind of project that fit into that space. And so uh my buddy Jay and I, uh who was in the class as well, decided we were gonna make something together for our final project. And I just on a weekend, it was like a Friday night, we went out to Baskin Robins. All my stories start with ice cream. And uh Jay just said, we should make a horror movie. And I said, Yeah, because that's what everybody does.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

Horror movie? Oh, I can't watch it then. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

It's not scary or good. But anyway, so I said, Okay, I'll throw something down on paper and see what happens. So I went home Friday night and I I knew what the ending of the movie was, and I had no idea what else was going to happen. So I wrote the last scene first, and then I basically reverse engineered over the course of the next two days to get to the beginning of the movie. And then Monday morning I brought this like 35-page script to school and I gave it to Jay. And I'm like, here's our here's our movie. So we'll do that. Wow. And we spent the next, I guess, six months or so making it, and then and that was just for the class, but then we entered it into a film festival in Washington that was called the Northwest High School Film and Video Festival. We we turned it in late, barely. We like barely missed the cutoff. We were like an hour behind, but we got it on the person's desk where it needed to be submitted.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

That's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

The uh, and as you said, the movie was 40 minutes long. The time cut off for that festival was five minutes.

SPEAKER_05 5:10

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Real fast and loose with the rules because they're like, you know, it's late and it's too long, but somehow it's too long, and then we won the top prize at the festival. Um okay, that's that's incredible. Congratulations. So really be a rule breaker is the lesson.

SPEAKER_05 5:28

And that's what you would tell your younger self. Be a rule breaker. It literally does not matter.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Just go for it. So they showed at the festival where we went, our teacher, because this was for everywhere, like in the I'm from Seattle, so it was like the greater Seattle Pacific Northwest area. And uh our teacher just said, A little birdie told me that you guys should go to the festival screening. That's all I can say. Like, all right. Um, and so they showed a little clip from the movie at the festival. I don't even remember what the clip was, and then they just go, There's 40 more minutes of that. And um, yeah, and we won. So that was uh my first foray into really and then it's just downhill from there.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

No, just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

You've had like a really peak for sure.

SPEAKER_05 6:09

You've had a really I like meeting people like you because you've done a lot of things, and I have too. So I feel seen when I find someone who's done like lots of stuff. No shade to people who went from college to a desk at an agency, and then now they're like a creative coordinator or something. But it's really cool to meet people who've done like you were in the NBC Page program, which is like a little bit famous. You were you've had a many an assistant job. You've been in writers' rooms, you're a script coordinator now, right? And you have been a staffed writer. Like that's really cool. Damn, yeah, you've been around the block. What was it like to work?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

We recovered it.

SPEAKER_05 6:51

Okay, bye. I'm curious because I've never been in the NBC Page program. And you're the first person I met that's an alumni from that program. Nice. What did it teach you about being in the industry that still helps you today? And did the program lead to any jobs for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Absolutely, it did. And I can't say anymore because I'm under an NDA still. But um When does it expire? It was so I was it's kind of weird. My college experience was not very straightforward either. I it took me like six schools and seven years to get my bachelor's degree.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Six schools.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_05 7:26

Is it like a school a semester?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Like I did, I started at UNLV in Las Vegas. Um, and I was there for a semester, and that was not my kind of you lost all your money, so you left. Lost all my money. I literally walked out of my dorm room one day and my bike had been stolen, and I was like, you know what? That's a sign. I'm I'm heading out.

SPEAKER_05 7:44

So okay, we can have on because I've also had my bike stolen.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

But oh well. Yeah, I'm sure there's a warehouse somewhere with our bikes, a few others. Anyway, so then I went to like some community colleges and stuff, and I lived in Bozeman, Montana for tiers because they had a really good film school, but the film school, like the finances were difficult for them, so it was hard to like move up in classes. They only had so many slots, and it was just this tricky. So I eventually went to Cal State Northridge, uh, which is where I graduated from with my bachelor's degree, but I did broadcast journalism, which is a thing that I emphasized to people because like film schools are so incredibly competitive and popular to get into. But I did journalism, I was still writing, I was producing, I was directing, I was editing. We were putting a live show together every week that had to be done at four o'clock every Monday afternoon. So it was like anyway, all that is to say that that got me an internship at KNBC, like the NBC station in LA.

SPEAKER_04 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Through the journalism program. And through that internship, I uh met the people who were running the page program. So that's how I got into the page program. I mean, I started to interview and like you know, bribe a bunch of people and stuff, but that's how I got into the program. So I definitely did not do things in the most direct route whatsoever.

SPEAKER_05 8:59

Which makes it just fun. I I do wanna wait. Can you just list all of the colleges that you went to?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Oh, yes. It's tricky because I was lying about that. No. Um was uh UNLB for a semester, and then my safety school when I'd applied was um the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, which is where Matt Groening, who created The Simpsons, went to school.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Went there for a day.

SPEAKER_05 9:23

Um What? Okay, okay. I will just accept that as a blanket statement.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

It was a very like liberal arts school, and I went to my first class, which is an English class, and they taught us some Japanese, and we did some charcoal drawing, and I was like, I'm too what in the liberal arts is going on here. I was just like, I'm too grounded for this. Sure, it's a great school, but it was not for me. Then I went to a place called Pierce Community College for two quarters just to like stay in school.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And I went to Montana State University in Bozeman for two years, and that was a lot of fun. But as I said, the money thing um made it hard to keep moving forward. And then so I moved back home and went to a place called Bellevue Community College for two quarters again just to be in school. And then finally went to Cal State, Northridge for my undergrad. And then I did my master's in 10 months, though.

SPEAKER_05 10:11

So my God, you definitely like to it's oh my god, that's so much. You definitely kept things fascinating. I'm sure your parents were like, What state is he in this week?

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, we don't know. My parents were both teachers, and they were like, You don't finish college, we're going to murder you. And I said that's fair.

SPEAKER_05 10:27

Yeah, join the parent club of people who don't understand why we do this and where we are.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

But anyway, that got me into the program. Um, I guess that was an amazing experience. I can't speak to it as much now because when I was there, we saw the tonight show in Los Angeles, and so uh, and we had studio tours uh within Burbank.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

Those yeah, R. P.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah. So I saw about 200 tapings of the Tonight Show, which was really fascinating, just to kind of see how a live show worked. Um, got to meet a lot of cool people. It was uh an election year, so all the candidates that were running for president came through, which was amazing.

SPEAKER_05 11:02

Whoa, what year was this?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

This would have been 2008.

SPEAKER_05 11:06

So it was an exciting election.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

It was like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:12

All the people, I guess I'm outing myself as a Democrat on this podcast, but I would have had a field day. Yeah. For people who are listening to this, he just went all like, oh my gosh. But I would have been that would have been really exciting to be in the same space as Obama and Hillary, sure. Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Um, that was a lot of fun. So yeah, that was. I mean, the tonight show is a very well-loiled machine, so it wasn't a lot of. I mean, we had a I guess uh one of the things I learned there was that stuff can still go awry. Like we had this was crazy. We had a girl who was maybe like 12 years old who was gonna be a guest on a show, and she was an animal expert of some kind.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

Like she was okay called Ellen.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

It was one of those just sort of like quirky guests who like is gonna come on, she's gonna bring her llama into the studio and talk about it. And a few hours before we were set to tape, they determined that she was like not a llama expert or didn't actually know what she was talking about. She lied. And I guess, but like they brought a trailer with a giant live animal to the studio. So this was like she had access to one.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

Okay, sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So they called up, I think it was Wanda Sykes. She was sort of one of the backup, like if anything ever happened, somebody called out sick the last minute or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 12:32

Wanda can always save the day.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, she was doing that show, New Adventures of Old Christine.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Um, which was like down the street. So she, I think she was the one they called. Anyway, she like zipped over and we did it. But it was an interesting thing to see, like, oh, even a show at this scale can still like still have oops happen.

SPEAKER_06 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

So good on that. Yeah. But then I had an assignment as well, because usually when you're a page, you work in different offices of NBC.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

So I was in the office of Universal Media Studios development. So we my I was an assistant, like answering phones and setting meetings and stuff. And my bosses were the executives that oversaw uh Heroes, Friday Night Lights, the office, and we were developing Parks and Rec while I was there.

SPEAKER_06 13:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

So yeah, I got to like see kind of the studio side of uh some pretty cool TV shows. And I also got to read a bunch of scripts that were that never got made into anything and went to a big garbage bin somewhere, and you're like, wow, there's a lot of writers out there.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

So yeah, it's crazy to think about how many people are out there because you really don't get to see it. But since the internet has evolved so much, you see it way more than I'm you see it way more now than I'm guessing you saw it when you were starting out in your career. But I can imagine it was a lot of stories. But that's really cool. Okay, wait. Yeah. So NBC Page program happens, then what?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Uh so that program it was weird because I started during the 2007 writers' strike. Um, I started like December of 2007. Um, and so for the first couple months, we actually didn't have a tonight show to tape because the writers were on strike, but Ellen's show was still going, Ellen de Generous. So I worked on Ellen pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

I love that you have to say her full name, like we wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So that happened. Because her writers were still there. Uh anyway, so they the page program is normally a year, so they extended me a little bit just because a couple of things happened. One, I didn't get the like full experience at the beginning. So they kind of wanted to give me a little bit more time to make up for that. And two, in my assignment with the studio, I was going to when the page program finished, I was going to join as a as an assistant. And I was basically gonna stay on as a full-time assistant for my two bosses that I was working for. And then right before the holidays, uh, NBC absolutely cleaned house and they fired a ton of people. My actual two bosses stayed, but because they let so many other people go, it was it was like a couple days before our white elephant white elephant, like Christmas party party at the office, and variety, the headline for variety when this happened was uh NB Holida NBC holiday or NBC pre-holiday peacock bloodbath.

SPEAKER_05 15:16

It was so bad you remember the headline.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yes, because I was like, wow, this is crazy. And literally, like I was in the office and people's phones were ringing around the office, and it was HR calling them, telling them that they were Wow, what a different oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

The job that I was gonna have, I did not have. So uh then I applied for a bunch of stuff and didn't get anything because uh it was just a terrible time in the industry in general. Uh so that's when I decided to go to grad school. Um so I moved to England and I went to grad school over there.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

You're like pivot.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, it was a hard pivot.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

You're like, I didn't do what so well in undergrad, six schools. Let's do grad school.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Let's do grad school.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

See what happens.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

It was an MBA, so it's in business, but I wrote a dissertation that still had to do with the entertainment industry. So I could like keep it relevant and did that uh and lived there for about a year and doing grad school. And then my dissertation got published in three different languages, none of which I can read. So I assume that they did me justice, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 16:22

But that means it's it's successful if they want to publish it in different languages.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I guess, although the funny part was that you sort of state at the very beginning here's your like hypothesis of your dissertation, here's what I'm proposing as a business plan. Right off the bat, you have to say whether or not your idea is feasible, and mine was not. So the the like first paragraph, I'm like, by the way, all that I'm about to talk about doesn't work at all. So it would be a huge failure if we tried it.

SPEAKER_05 16:48

So yikes, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Um, but then I went back home and I came back to the States, and then a friend of mine who I'd been a page with at NBC heard about an assistant job at an agency. So there it is. That job and everything has sort of like that.

SPEAKER_05 17:04

Yeah. Okay. So to skip ahead a little bit because I want to I make the rules. Um, how did you get rep?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

I so this was I worked at the agency and then they heard about an opening in a management company. And so they sent me over there to interview because the agency was like I was getting paid sometimes, but it was also part-time like internship. So it wasn't like a full-time employee. So when this happened, they sent me to the management company. I got a job as a coordinator at a management company. And kind of long story short, there, I was there for like two and a half years, and then I was ready to just do some creative stuff, and I did not want to be in representation at all. And so I had that chat with my bosses that I was kind of ready to move on and hopefully they could help me find something. Um, right when we had that conversation, a client there who I had a relationship with sold a show to ABC Family at the time, which is now Freeform. And they put me on that show as the writer's assistant um when it got picked up to series. And then when I got staffed on that show, they in turn repped me. So Wow. And you're like not normally supposed to work, was like you don't normally go to work at an agency or management company and then they end up repping you.

SPEAKER_05 18:16

But yes, that is that is quite unique. Normally, you at this point today, you're lucky to even get promoted. You're lucky to stay there, you're lucky if there is room for growth. But I will I've I worked at a management company for nine months, and I did have so much fun creating relationships with clients. So I think it's like one of the like unspoken positive parts of doing that, but it is incredible to be in a position where it's like, do you want to read my writing? Can we talk about things? Because you know, you go into these jobs and it's like, yeah, I want to be here. I want to grow up, I want to be an agent or manager. No, you don't. It's just like unofficial grad school. So it's really lovely that they like accepted you for what you wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I mean, I like I don't remember what I said in the initial interview. I'm sure I was like, I don't ever want to leave this office. Uh, but I I'll sleep here. Yeah, sometimes I did. But I immediately they were like one of the first things my boss said to me was anytime you go out like and network with other assistants or anybody like in the business, you know, you like go have coffee with them or something, let me know, bring the receipts back to me, and I will pay for it because I'm like he's investing in me, which was great. And I very quickly also was able to like form relationships with clients, which I don't think is the case at every company like that. Some of them I think are gonna be a little less like open to that. But I was like, I flew to New York and shadowed one of our directors who was directing an episode of The Good Wife. Like, wow, I put myself out there, they didn't pay for it, but they were super supportive of me doing which is a great lesson.

SPEAKER_05 19:57

Speak what you speak your mind, tell people what it's very awkward to do it, but do it and it will work eventually. Um amazing. Okay, wait. Quick question about um under the umbrella thought process I'm having right now of like getting found. Do you think spec scripts are currently worth it?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Hard to say. You mean like us like specing a show that's on the air? I tend to say no. Um because for a couple reasons. And I've talked with like we I had a chat about this very thing with the showrunners on my last show, who they've and they've run shows for decades and decades.

SPEAKER_05 20:33

So I'm asking questions executives are asking, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Well, I asked it and then they answered. But yeah, they actually sa an intern in our office asked it.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Not to um no, it was uh, but it is interesting because I think people have different takes. But in general, first of all, like a show has a shelf life regardless of what it is, unless you're writing a spec for maybe like Gray's Anatomy or Law and Order or something that's been on for a thousand years.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Um season 28 SVU.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I know continuous. We did it. My favorite show.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Yes. Anyway, spec scripts.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

You know, shows end, and generally the most popular kinds of shows are gonna be shows that probably aren't running, you know, super, super long because they they're really popular for like a short amount of time and then they're done. It's just rare to see longer orders for stuff now, I think. But not everybody has seen, you know, the show that you might be writing a spec for. So they may not know if the tone is right. And then also you can't really do anything with it. You can't sell it, you can't submit it to the show that you wrote it for, um, because for legal reasons, they're never ever gonna read it. So it's a good like exercise if you just want to see what it's like to write somebody else's voice. Like I very early on wrote a spec script for the office just because I knew the show inside and out.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

And I was like I would love to read that.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And it was like a fun thing to do. And I was also submitting it to the Warner Brothers Writers program because at the time. That was one of the things they wanted was a spec script.

SPEAKER_05 22:02

I don't recall what their processes are anything, it's good for when you're submitting to structured mentor-e kind of programs. But that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

If they're specifically asking for it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

But like I can't do anything with an office spec script. I mean, I'll send it to you and you'll you'll pay me the the money that I request on demo for it. But like apart from that.

SPEAKER_05 22:22

So let's get into your career a little bit because my gosh, is it fascinating? You start what?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

You haven't interviewed many people, clearly.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

Or they're all no, you I think you will be guest number five, potentially. I can't remember. We're early. We're a baby. Yeah. Sure. Um, you start with Stitchers. And okay, I did have to go like through IMDB, obviously. So please tell me if my categorizing of anything is incorrect or the order of events isn't correct. But it seems that you started on Stitchers, which is a secret government agency crime solving show, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah. So it was about a woman who can read the memories of dead people to find out how they died.

SPEAKER_05 23:03

Yeah. So you go from that to go you go to Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty, which is an animated show about a kitten with powers to transform into a hybrid animal.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

Okay. And then somehow from there you go to Arcane, which is the biggest budget, world-building, beauty beautiful, most beautiful animated show possible. And then from there you go to the neighborhood. What?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Yeah. I think that's pretty straightforward.

SPEAKER_05 23:32

Your range, my guy, is crazy. What happened to people? Like, is wasn't it a thing where people like when you got signed, didn't your agents or managers or your team say, pick a lane, write this genre? But then they're like, Yeah, your writing is so versatile. Let's send you here and here and here. And you did it.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I mean, what's funny is, yeah, my man my first manager said, Yeah, you're a drama guy because you've written on a you got staffed on a drama. You've written a couple episodes of a drama series. So that's what we're gonna do. But the fun thing about reps is that uh you still have to get work for yourself because you don't want to work and do it. Um it sort of it varies. So I when Stitchers ended, and Stitchers was fun because it was like a lighthearted thing, like we made a lot of stupid jokes, and like it was I still got to infuse comedy into it. So because the showrunner and I had a very similar stupid sense of humor. Amazing. And so we sort of we liked riffing off of each other on that regard. Side note, fun fact about him, his name was Jeff Schechter, and he created the uh software called Writers Room Pro. Whoa, I know which I use all the time.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

So I'm gonna ask him for money for plugging that. Um so there was like a comedic element to it. Um, so that was fun for me. But they like when you join the writers' guild, if you choose to do so, they will set you up with a mentor. And so the mentor, so I had a little mentor group where we would meet up every three or four months and have dinner with our mentor. Some people like sort of depends on the mentor. Some people like meet with them once and then they never hear from them again. My mentor I'm still in touch with like years later, he's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Name is James Duff. He created the show The Closer and then it's spinoff of your crimes.

SPEAKER_05 25:24

So James.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

But it was like they put me very much in the drama lane. Um so James had done drama shows and they set you up with somebody who's in that same like category of writer that supposedly are. But I just wanted to work. So after Stitchers ended, I just started emailing our writing staff after a little while and was just like, hey, just want to see if anything anybody's got anything going. And one of our writers immediately wrote back to me and is like, I'm running this show for Nickelodeon called Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty. And if you want to jump on board, we'd love to have you. And so I was like, Oh, it's incredible. There it's paid. Okay, I'll do I'll do that.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

Money.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah. So yeah, that's kind of how that happened.

SPEAKER_05 26:07

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

And then my manager did get me Arcane.

SPEAKER_05 26:10

So yeah, I love, I cannot emphasize enough how much I love Arcane. The last time I loved an animated show so much was Avatar The Last Airbender. And I I'm not a huge like uh it takes me a while. I'm really skeptical about shows now because everything it takes a while to get into it and this, that, and the other thing. And everyone kept saying Arcane, you should try it. And it wasn't on my radar. But I was like, you should because I love animation. I was so invested in this. I'm so mad that it's taking so long. I hope season three is coming. I don't know what's going on. I haven't Googled it, but it's so good. So I'm very excited to meet somebody who wrote on it. Because my gosh, it's nuts. But to take a teeny step back, back to Stitchers. Talk to me about your experience in the writer's room for Stitchers and how you got in as a staffed writer from being an assistant. If it was just simply that your team pitched you when you got in, because I'm sure there was like some kind of process since it was, I think, your first room.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Yes. Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_05 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

I just I subtly implied every day at work that I that I carried a gun. I didn't like show anybody. I was just like, just so you guys are aware I may or may not have to take action of something, which goes over well in a in a workplace.

SPEAKER_05 27:31

Definitely, especially in America.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah. No, I like again, I uh I had met Jeff when I worked at the management company, so I already knew him. The show was picked up very, very quickly. Like ABC Family had a pilot that was set to go into production, and something happened and the pilot dropped out and they needed to replace it. So we had sent Stitchers over to them on a Friday just as like a writing sample for for Jeff, just so he could do like a general meeting with them, which is when you just go and like meet execs and just get to know each other. So Friday night that's we sent that over. Monday morning, they called, they said, We love the pilot. We would love to meet Jeff. We said, Great, started setting the meeting at right after lunch on Monday. They called again. So this is like 48 hours after the script has been sent to them. They said, Forget the meeting. We're picking it up to pilot and we start uh pre-production in six weeks.

SPEAKER_06 28:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

And we were like, What? Um, so it was because that other pilot had fallen out. They already had a director, they had like a line producer in place, so it all moved insanely fast. And then my bosses at the management company had a production company, like that was part of the management company. So they were gonna be producers on the show. So basically, I already had a relationship with Jeff and the two other executive producers going into it.

SPEAKER_05 28:47

So there it is, relationships, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Yeah, okay. So they were like primed already to like push for me to you know to get to write and to to be staffed if the show got picked up.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

So hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah. So they had me like while we were waiting for prep to start, they started doing their meetings and stuff to you know, staff up like crew and everything. And they we went out and shot the pilot. So I was just kind of like their assistant for the pilot, which we shot over the course of two weeks. And then I went back to the management company because we had to like wait and see if the show was gonna get picked up or not. But while that was happening, they had me start reading samples for writers. So I read 160 samples of submissions scripts that came in, tracked everything.

SPEAKER_05 29:32

Oh my god, that's so many.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

It's a lot, and why I have no power or good taste in anything.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

Why was I the one that was 160 individual script samples?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yes, and it is true, like what they say, like you want to get people's attention in those first few pages because I didn't read 160 full samples.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

God, I was like, mmm.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

I read at least the first like 10 to 15 pages of every script. There were it because it was like a police procedural style show, there were a lot of scripts like that. And I got to the point where I was like reading one, and on the first page, it's like a woman is uh getting like an ultrasound because she's pregnant, and then she takes her I don't remember exactly what the setting was, but she like takes her feet out of the stirrups and then picks up her gun and her badge off the table. And I was like, Oh my god, like if I have to read one more, like here's a crazy in into somebody being a cop. But that shows how difficult it is to like screw and be unique. But then I remember very vividly a script that I read that was my favorite script out of the bunch, and I told Jeff and our producers, I was like, read this one absolutely. Um, and they staffed her, and she's a good friend of mine to this day, like a working look what you did.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

And she'd staffed on stuff before, and then she had to like take a step back because there was no work, which a lot of people have to do.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Happens okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

So that got me into the writer's room, and then I just had to figure out how to be a writer's assistant, and I asked a friend of mine who was a writer's assistant on the mentalist, and I was like, How do you do that? Uh and every room is a little bit different. Our room was great because they were pretty chill, they were sort of like they didn't have any hard and fast requirements, like in terms of how notes were gonna be done. Every room is as I say different.

SPEAKER_05 31:23

So through any of the shows you've been on, have you been able to get production experience like being on set with your writing in action?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Um, I've been very lucky because Stitchers, our writer's room was like 20 feet from the sound stage. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 31:38

Um because that's sometimes a thing where it doesn't happen. So I wanted to know.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I love more than that. Yeah. Some writers loathe it, they cannot stand being on set. I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Um, the you know, when I wrote my episodes on Stitchers, like I was there covering set and you know, uh the power trip that I went on, let me tell you, I made everything miserable. Um no, it was like it was great to be able to sort of, you know, watch a take and go, ah, that's not quite right, and like giving notes to our director and then going, yeah, good, and like going off and seeing it like it adjusted in real time and like, yep, that's what we needed. Like it's it's a really cool feeling. So yeah, I got to do it on that and then uh on the neighborhood as well. Like we wrote incredible, and the writers are always on set for multi-cam.

SPEAKER_05 32:26

So yeah, and don't worry, we'll get to the neighborhood. But that's that's that's really cool. Yeah. I I started my career on set because I didn't know any different. And I went to Temple University and they teach you how to be on set, and oh my god, it is so nice. And if if you want the experience, but you don't think it's like your like one-stop shop, the the end of the line where you're gonna like get stuck, it is so much easier to do it when you're younger because of how many hours I worked and like show to show to show for like years, a few years, and oh, it's exhausting how many people are there and what's going on. I'm just like, now I couldn't. I was a PA, but I'm like, now I I couldn't do that. But PA works really cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Super hard.

SPEAKER_05 33:12

You get someone bringing you your drink.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, like you matter, like the PAs don't matter.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

They don't we do not matter. Yeah, I just uh you were in Video Village or you sat somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Yeah, I was in video village.

SPEAKER_05 33:24

Okay, yeah. So that's we PAs were like, at least my like when I was doing it, we were like, Do we do we go talk to them? Do we say hello? No, okay, bye.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah, it's uh our sho the my shows have all been pretty welcoming too. Like it's we had we had a PA on Stitchers who was interested in getting into writing, and they had her like come into the writer's room one day when she was able to and just like sit in for a few hours. So that's cool, which every every show should afford that.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Incredible. Okay, a little bit of a broader question because you've worked across a lot of corners of television and you've worked in, as we've already kind of mentioned, writers' rooms, but you've also done a little bit of development and production and photography. And I'm just wondering how how did these different experiences shape your understanding of storytelling?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Oh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_05 34:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, I don't know. Um, I don't know. I do so I'm I'm sure you uncovered that I'm also a magician.

SPEAKER_05 34:22

We'll get to that too. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Because I that's like my other big big thing. And I am always very interested in like storytelling in my routines there. I did stand up for a long time and I was not great at it, but I was like you would have fooled me, but it's an opportunity. Well, I yeah, yeah. So I like anything I'm doing. I'm always kind of thinking about some kind of narrative. I don't know with photography as much, although I'm definitely looking at a scene if I'm taking a picture of something and I'm thinking about how I'm gonna tweak it in Photoshop to like make it my own thing. Because sometimes people are like, Oh, well, it looks like you edited it. And I was like, Well, yeah, anybody you can point like a phone and just push click and like take a picture of something. Boom, there it is. It becomes a little more artistic when you get to like choose how you want to frame things and highlight and play with color and all that.

SPEAKER_05 35:10

So um, I don't know if that really answers your question, but no, but it's interesting to pick your brain and it definitely doesn't answer my question, but it's just nice to like yeah, it's just I think I just have a lot of hobbies and interests.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah, which is what we do.

SPEAKER_05 35:25

Creatives mostly have hobbies. That's why we're all weird. We all can't pick something normal. We like uh listen, the other thing, if anyone looks at your LinkedIn alone, they'll see that you've been doing this for a while and clearly you've stuck with it. So that means you're either crazy and you're like, this is really hard, but I'm gonna just keep doing it and just like see what happens, or you have talent and you know how to figure it out. You're probably a mix of both. Um, but just like that's why we're here because it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

I will say my my boss at the management company, the thing that he said to me that is the most valuable piece of advice that anybody's ever given me is especially for working in the arts, like writing and correcting, um, is have a narrative. Like the people who come in and they're just like, all I do is I just write. I write eight hours a day, five days a week, and I'm just constantly writing, which is great if that's how you operate. But like, what else?

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

How what what other hobbies and interests do you have? Have you gone through any like crazy things in your life? What are the highs and the lows? Like, what makes you interesting as a person? We had a client at um the management company who my boss would always call and he would talk about her to executives, and he would say, Yeah, so when she was five, she saw a UFO in her backyard and she saw aliens coming out of it. And he like goes into this whole thing that she's talked about. And if you'd ever had a conversation with her, you'd be like, Yeah, that checks out. Um she was very sweet, but it was like, even if it was some crazy thing, it was like, here's something interesting about this person that she's talked about. So yeah, I have tons of hobbies, but I think it's incredible. Yeah, as you should.

SPEAKER_05 37:04

The fact that you have time for hobbies, let's just start there. That's impressive. But um, okay, so you've worked in both it looks, it seems like comedy, dramedy, and genre. Do you approach writing for both differently? Because I imagine they're all very different shows.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

So how does that work? It's tricky. I'm honestly I'm not a big genre guy. Like, I don't watch a ton of that um particular kind of stuff. I Arcane I got because they were looking for a writer's assistant. My manager was like, I she knew some people who were um some of her other like writing clients were gonna be on it. We're more established who'd like written more. And so they still wanted to read a sample of mine just to see like if I could contribute anything if I wasn't if I had any, if I knew how to spell words and stuff. Uh so yeah. So they wanted to read a sample even as an assistant, um, which is like a good thing to know, have a sample ready to go for and something like that. But being in the writer's room for it was very interesting because it all boils down to the same. It doesn't matter if it's like a wacky sitcom or an animated cat who's doing parkour, which is what was happening in my episode, um, of Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty. Uh it all like boils down to still like characters and relationships and stakes and like what, you know, sort of like where the the drama lies in a story. So it really it's like there can be dragons or it can be like you know, as I say, like on the neighborhood, it was like a black family and a white family living in a store. And what does that relationship look like? It's like the core elements are always the same. It's just sort of the you know, the world that that changes. So like Arcane was the most passionate group of writers I've ever been around in my entire life.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Like I love to hear that. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

They were that job was supposed to be five weeks long because they'd they they produced the pilot and they'd written the entire they'd broken the entire first season, but this was all these were all employees of Riot Games, which is a company that makes League of Legends that produced Arcane. Uh, but they were not TV writers. So they'd taken sort of this like crash course on TV writing from this guy. I forget his name, but he I think he wrote like a book. So they'd gone to this like weekend workshop with this guy, but they really wanted some people who'd been in television writers' rooms to come in and sort of help them refine. So initially we were told it was gonna be a five-week job to just kind of come in and tweak and all that. Um, and it ended up being five months um to write the first season. Um, but not in a bad way, it's because they were so unbelievably passionate about that story and about getting it right. So I went into it being like, this is not really like the genre of show that I would normally watch. But then when you're in the room and you're just talking about like the characters and the relationships and the like the fighting that's happening between the sisters on the show and like all those different other characters that are around in that world, um, I was like, Oh yeah, you you get on board. Um yeah, because that's what it's that's what it's about. So okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:11

So before we get into the neighborhood, has anything surprised you like in your journey of working in TV? Has anything surprised you that like your learning process about how act TV actually gets made? Or you go, yeah, that that makes sense. That seems that seems to make sense.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Um, nobody knows what they're doing most of the time.

SPEAKER_06 40:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Um even the people who are brilliant. No, I mean people definitely know what they're doing, but it is it was sort of like that tonight show example where you're like the show's been on forever, like they know what they're doing, and yet I guess they were like, Oh, we didn't vet this person properly or whatever. Um, we had so the most interesting thing that happened when I was a page was um Greg Daniels, who was running the office, um, called our office on a Wednesday morning. The show aired on Thursdays, and he said, uh, we have shot a scene two different ways that airs like 30 hours from now, and I don't know which version to use. And like The Office was a very popular show at this point. It was in season four. And so we're like, you think, oh, this stuff has been planned out for months, and they know exactly every little detail because everybody was talking about it. Um, it was a very pivotal scene in the series um where two of the main characters get engaged, and so uh, but they had a version with sound and without sound, and he was like, I don't know which version to use. So they pulled a bunch of us into a room to watch it and like give our take on it. Um, and a bunch of people were like, do it without sound. Like that's kind of quirky and it sort of fits the style of the show. And I watched a bunch of times and I was like, No, I think you want to hear them say the words because we've been waiting like three and a half years to hear this moment, and they were like, Okay, sounds good. And then everybody just went off, and they, you know, the next night the show aired, and they, you know, you heard him talking in the scene, which was amazing. Um, and I don't know how many other people he asked. Um, but yeah, it was just surprising where I was like, Oh, like little, I don't know, you think that everything like makes sense in this big world in terms of production, like every they have everything meticulously planned out, and it's all gonna, you know, nothing ever can really go wrong. And then it's not even stuff going wrong, it's just sometimes people are like, I don't know, have an opinion, change their mind.

SPEAKER_05 42:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Even I went to a WGA screening and there was a very well, like established writer there. Um, now I'm blanking on his name, which is terrible, but he wrote Schindler's List. Um like the Irishman.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

Oh wow, so big big player, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Um somebody asked him in the audience, they're like, How do you what's your what's your process? And he was like, I just start writing and hope that it doesn't suck. That's that was his.

SPEAKER_05 42:58

Okay, first of all, a sitcom with eight seasons, I feel like is really impressive considering how quickly shows get canceled or just don't get renewed for this, that, and the other thing. Single-handedly with your two bare hands wrote the episode called Welcome to the Things We Do for Love. Tell me about that experience.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

So that was the one that aired most recently.

SPEAKER_05 43:18

Yes. And then what was the other one called?

SPEAKER_01 43:20

The other one, I think it was the longest title in the history of the show. It was called uh uh Welcome to the Signature Service Loyalty Rewards Program.

SPEAKER_05 43:29

Who's gonna remember that?

SPEAKER_01 43:31

I think most people never know what the episode title is of a show anyway.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

So yeah, truly.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

A lot of times it's we had an episode of Stitchers that in our first season was taking forever to figure out how to break. We just could not figure out the story. And we finally got it and it had taken weeks and weeks. And somebody just said, What do we call the episode? And I said, Let's call it finally. And Jeff goes, Sounds good. So that episode is called Finally. It has nothing to do with the episode.

SPEAKER_05 43:58

You're like, Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah. I have co-written though. I co-wrote episodes of Stitchers. So that was like a co-writing process.

SPEAKER_05 44:06

That's cool. It just seems interesting to have like two. I don't know what it's like to be in a writer's room, but I'm imagining you all are coming in with the same kind of idea of how to formulate things. But when you're writing, I don't know, maybe it's like the same thing in my head. But just seems it seems like it could just be a difficult process to collaborate with people because I think I think what it is is I'm thinking back to how awful college projects are.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_05 44:31

But now you're doing it professionally for lots and lots of eyeballs and getting paid. So is it still stressful?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

No, I don't really care what the outcome is. If the check clears, that's really I just fun. Cool.

SPEAKER_05 44:46

Um, congrats on writing two episodes for the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Yeah, no, the neighborhood. I mean, again, every show is different. So, like on Stitchers, the writer would write a story doc. So, like a couple of pages, just sort of a basic like A, B, and C story. And then the writer would write the outline for the episode, which by far took the longest. Um, every scene and you know, a paragraph or two describing the scene. So our outlines would be, you know, 18 or 20 pages or something. And then on Stitchers in particular, the writer would take a couple of acts, and then a couple other writers in the room would also write an act of the episode based off of the outline, and then the writer would assemble everything, and that would be like the first draft. On the neighborhood, the writer would write the story area and the outline, and then the writer's room wrote the entire script together. So we literally sat in the room line by line, and somebody was typing, one of the showrunners generally, and we had it on the script on the screen, and we were literally writing the entire episode as a as a group. So the writer didn't go off on that and like write the script.

SPEAKER_05 45:52

Yeah. Okay, wait. Question Is it hard to stay tone? I'm maybe you're getting hired to work on the show because your writing is in the same tone and personality and voice of what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

Right? Because I'm like, it's interesting, it's just interesting how any anything works. That's it's collaboration, but it's like you think and write differently, but it's close enough to how everybody else does it. So you can't tell that the writing is different on this episode versus this episode. Does that make sense for my brain's?

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah, I mean, interesting thing about the neighborhood in particular is it had three almost entirely separate writers' rooms over the course of eight seasons.

SPEAKER_06 46:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

So it had Jim Reynolds, who created it, and he did the first three seasons, maybe, with his group of writers. And then there was a showrunner for season four. She had her own room, and then season five through the end was a completely separate room. There were a couple of people who stayed on like throughout that process. One guy in particular was a writer named Malik S, who is also a stand-up comic, but he's very close friends with Cedric, the entertainer. So he he knows Cedric's voice really well. Um he was on from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_05 47:04

You write a lot of other people's work. Is there a balancing act that goes on in your head to decide if you want to try? Because you've also been writing for like a while now. So are you think had do you ever think about do you want to try and go and sell your TV or do you want to keep rising up in a room that isn't your creation?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

No, I would love to sell something. I'm constantly working on stuff and um yeah, it's uh it's tricky to do, obviously. It's very competitive, but um uh yeah, every that's another reason again when I say like going back to the spec thing, it's great to have original stuff. First of all, because that's your voice, it's nobody else's, it's what sets you apart, but also, you know, it's something that you could potentially sell one day. So yeah. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:57

Hell yeah. I am very excited to jump into you getting started in magic, how you got it, what was the casting process to get into the magic castle and the Chicago Magic Lounge? Like, tell me this whole like the whole journey.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Again, this goes back to always imply that you're carrying a weapon of some kind because that will that really moves the needle.

SPEAKER_05 48:18

You could do some damage with a playing card. Now you see me, you can do some damage.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah, now you don't see anything. Um I first I was like a child, I did theater as a kid. I grew up like I started performing when I was five years old, and so I was always on stage throughout school doing like school stuff, but also community and like local, like regional theater stuff. So I always loved performing. And then somebody said, Oh, you should try like there's an open mic night at this comedy club in Seattle. So that got me started sort of on the stand-up route, but I was kind of trying to figure out my voice and who I was as a performer outside of like scripted theater. Um, because you know that's just you on stage, like sharing your voice and opinion. Um and then I moved when I moved here, I did it a few times and I was just sort of like I don't know, it's a lot, it's a lot of effort to like go to a comedy club and get stage time and do all that. Um and I had fun doing it, but I just sort of lost my mojo. And then I some I went to the Magic Castle for the first time with a couple roommates, and I was just like blown away. I was like, Where are the cards coming from? I don't understand. I was like, what's going on? I have to know what's happening in this place. And so I went to a magic shop in Studio City.

SPEAKER_06 49:44

Oh, I was like, that's my inn.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Um and they said, Oh yeah, we have a guy next door who like run does he's a magician. He like had a big stage show in Lake Tahoe for four years, and um, he does magic lessons. So I started taking lessons with him. Wow, and I like found a magic forum on the internet that I joined and met people through that, and they got me more involved, and I just started meeting a bunch of people. I had a great mentor who was Johnny Carson's magic teacher, and he appeared on the tonight show.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

Wow. And and then you just were like, I'm actually good at this, or were you training?

SPEAKER_01 50:20

So No, I'm not I'm not good at it.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Okay, um again, you gotta be good at it enough to to be at the Magic Castle.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Yeah, um, yeah, my my mentor helped me to like put an audition act together because I said I want to do this, I want to join the castle, and so I did that, and I uh I uh got in, which is very exciting, and then um yeah, I just kind of rose up from there, and then um that's insane.

SPEAKER_05 50:51

For anyone who doesn't know, the magic castle is an invite only. I don't even know because I've never been, but I know that it's invite only and there's dinner and there's magic, and it's really cool. And when they have show nights, I don't know how many times a week they do this, but there are lights. Wow, yeah, it's it looks really cool and magical and spooky. It gives hocus pocus house vibes when they're like doing stuff.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

It's like I describe it as it's like walking through a game of clue. That's what it's like inside. Like a big Victoria Man Victorian mansion, and everybody's very strict dress code.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

Yeah, fancy, nice. Uh, it's just okay, which is more nerve-wracking, having to either pitch a pitch a writer's room, jokes, a bit whatever, writing a script, or performing magic live.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Uh, at the start of my performance week, the magic thing is scarier, and then you get more into it and you're comfortable, and then I would go to the pitching of joke in the writer's room thing.

SPEAKER_05 51:52

Okay. I would say I see where the confidence lies. Yeah. Also, did I read somewhere that you won frozen steaks on a game show once?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Where are you finding this stuff?

SPEAKER_05 52:03

I'm really good at research.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

That was literally in my intro back in Magic Castle last week.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Did you eat them all? Were they good? Did you experiment with different spices? And how does that rank on your list of Hollywood accomplishments?

SPEAKER_01 52:18

So I've done three, I've done some reality TV shows. So I've done three game shows and then I was on the show House Hunters.

SPEAKER_05 52:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

And I didn't uh I mean I got a house while on House Hunters, but they don't pay for the house. Oh they just follow you around and give you free granola bars as you tour houses.

SPEAKER_05 52:36

Okay. I was an RPA on Let's Make a Deal.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

I was not on Let's Make all the game shows I've been on are like Game Show Network.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

Well Chinese But hey, you won steak. Seems like it was a lot too.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

I did. I did a show called People Puzzler with Leah Remini, which is like the people magazine crossroad puzzle. That one I got a tiny bit of actual money, which was nice. Then the most recent one I did was with a host named Melissa Peterman, who was on like Reba.

SPEAKER_05 53:01

Yeah, I was like, no, the blonde one?

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 53:04

Yeah, she's funny.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Uh she's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

Really good golden retriever energy. Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

That's absolutely that is a hundred.

SPEAKER_05 53:13

I am Golden Retriever Energy, so I recognize perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Um, yeah, so I won a gift card for steaks on that, and then I forgot that I had it, and like that was like three years ago.

SPEAKER_05 53:24

And then your wife's like, excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Well, the gift certificates said it was only good for a year, and I was devastated because I'd it'd been like three years, and then I put in the number on the it I put the number in on the website, and guess what? A big box of steaks showed up.

SPEAKER_05 53:40

So the one-year warranty or whatever expiration dates are a lie.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Yeah. So there's still uh some bread pudding and uh some mahi mahi in the in the freezer.

SPEAKER_05 53:52

Okay, bread pudding is a win, it's not just steak.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Um my wife doesn't eat red meat, and she was like, We should get a dessert. And I was like, Yes, absolutely, we should. Why don't let's get all desserts?

SPEAKER_05 54:05

I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tirmasu and bread pudding. Um, incredible. Well, thank you so much, Andrew, for joining me. This was really, I'm actually a little bit, I have to admit, I'm a little bit surprised how funny you are. Like, obviously, you can write in your good with words, but like the joy of this for me is meeting people, not knowing what their personality is gonna be like, and I have such a good time and I learned something, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

We gotta find the funny in life.

SPEAKER_05 54:32

Yeah, that's why we do this.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

This very quickly, um, because uh it's been four hours since we started this, but I um I'm always looking for the joke in any situation, even if I'm trying to take it seriously. So I don't know if you saw this, I got sick last year. Um I was diagnosed with uh cancer.

SPEAKER_06 54:52

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

And when I got diagnosed, the first thing that came to mind was uh I'm gonna make a really funny bit about this to talk about on stage. And so now I talk about it on stage when I'm performing, uh, because I was like, if I'm gonna be handed this horrible thing that I have to go through, which I went through and like my hair's back, so we're good. Um, but it was terrible. But I I was like, I'm gonna crack jokes about it because uh that's what you do. So that becomes another part of the narrative. Anyway, all that is to say, are you okay?

SPEAKER_05 55:28

I have to ask, are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:30

Will you be okay? Okay, who I think I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Uh yeah, I went through like chemo and yeah, my all my hair fell out and I uh had surgery.

SPEAKER_05 55:36

Congratulations on beating cancer. That's hey, thanks. That's in that's actually incredible. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

I got to meet a great therapy dog named Ollie. Yeah. So uh it's a win. But uh okay, yeah, so you gotta you gotta find ways to uh make it funny because otherwise everything's terrible all the time.

SPEAKER_05 55:53

Yeah, and I guess for some last some last ending, because I'm trying to think of a good way to like end these, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

I just wanted to bring the mood down.

SPEAKER_05 56:02

No, of course, yeah. I support that. Let's get all negative about it because that's what gets you know people clicking faster. But people are like really into the negative, and the part part of this is bringing back the like what's working, what's joyful, what's good. So for you, you know, in a sentence, like what is working for you with your career right now? Is it just continuing to put yourself out there? Like what's what's working?

SPEAKER_01 56:29

Um, yeah, I like I'm performing a lot of shows right now just because my the neighborhood ended. And so while I figure out my next writing gig, it's like finding ways to be creative in any regard, like just being creative with whatever you're doing. Because I I like to keep creating stuff. So for me, that's like the positive thing these days is just like I get to keep telling stories and making people laugh, which is what I love to do.

SPEAKER_05 56:57

Thank you for joining. This was incredible. Thanks for having me. Um, yeah, happy uh five dollar sushi Wednesday. So excited.

unknown 57:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Wow, that must have been a good interview because I could not stop hearing you laughing from outside the door.

SPEAKER_05 57:14

That's how I know it's a good conversation.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Absolutely. I can't wait to listen to it finally. I really need to start tapping into this feed whenever you guys are going.

SPEAKER_05 57:22

Yeah. If you want to laugh, go listen.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

I will, and I'm so happy all of you were a lot able to go and listen. Thank you so much for watching andor listening. And we hope to see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_05 57:33

And if you want to be on and talk about your cool career and what's bringing you joy and what's working for you, surviving, thriving, pivoting in Hollywood, we want to hear from you.