199 | The New Look Creator/Showrunner on Finding Empathy for our Characters (ft. Todd A Kessler)

Todd A Kessler's newest show, Apple TV+ THE NEW LOOK, is one of Meg's favorite of the year. The show, which chronicles the rivalry between infamous fashion designers Coco Chanel and Christian Dior tracks their rapid ascent against the tense backdrop of WWII Europe, and for Meg, the way the show explores art, survival, and the risks we take to be great, speak to that time as much as they speak to today.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve, and today I am thrilled to be chatting with Todd A. Kessler, who recently created and showran the Apple TV Plus series The New Look, which I am an avid, rabid fan of. I'm just so excited that he's here. It's a historical drama exploring the rivalry between iconic fashion designers and designers.

Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. Todd has an impressive resume in TV writing and producing on shows like The Sopranos and eventually co creating and show running two hit crime dramas, FX's Damages starring Glenn Close and Netflix Bloodline starring Kyle Chandler. Hi, Todd.

Todd: Hello.

Meg: Thank you so much for being here.

Todd: It is a pleasure to be here, although, you know, I'm in Brooklyn and you're in Los Angeles, so the the podcast has brought us together.

Meg: That's right. The, why I've done it, just so you know, we can bring us all together. We're going to talk to Chad, Todd here in just a second, but first he has agreed to talk about his week or what we like to call adventures in screenwriting.

I'll start kind of a big week for me because we had the premiere of Inside Out And it was super fun. The audience seemed to like it. Thank God. And the trick is though, here's what's weird for me. Like, you would think you have your premiere of a movie you've worked on for, like, four or five years.

People seem to like it. People are smiling. They're not trying to avoid you after the movie, which is always a good sign. We have an after party in which Amy Poehler actually remembers me, even though I'm just the writer. Like, all of it! You could have checked the list! It was all great. And this morning, I feel really sad.

And I was like, am I sad? What is this? I feel kind of this heaviness or is it anxiety? Is it sadness? I've just been, I took a walk and I was like, what the heck is this? Like, I'm almost embarrassed to admit this because this is not what you would, like, if you were writing the character, you would not write.

And then she got sad. Like, what the heck is happening? And I think, number one, I think it's relief. Like, I think, I've been on this movie for so long because animation takes so long. You know, it's at least four years. It was pre pandemic. I started just to give everybody a context and you're doing a sequel on a movie that I wrote the first one.

And there's so much pressure on sequels and there's pressure on that. I think to just have it out in the world is such a relief. I can't even tell you now there's still a little anxiety, you know, driving here because the reviews come out tomorrow, blah, Like it ain't over, but it is, it kind of is over.

And so I think there's also a sadness to that. I, it's a very strange experience. There's tension that has released. And so I feel this breath and weight kind of relief that's happening. Almost like I've been holding my muscles for four years. I don't even know. Uh, but, I, so, I'm just letting it be. I'm just gonna let it be and let it pass through.

I'm not gonna try to overthink it, even though I'm really good at that. I it just is and it's kind of weird. And I don't know, Todd, if this has ever happened to you, when you finally had something come out. I mean, you know, running a show, wow, that's even bigger. Has that ever happened to you? Or am I a weirdo?

Todd: Well, I can't speak to the second part of that, but the first part, cause I just met you, but the first part, I think, absolutely. I mean, it's an experience of working on something for so long, pouring so much of yourself into it. All of the curve balls that are thrown at you along the four years. I've worked on the new look for seven years and you know, when something comes out, the emotions, it's almost like the dam is Is whatever you call it down or broken through and there's, whether it's emotions around that moment or whether it's emotions around three years ago, when something happened or five years ago, or who knows, this can be a flood of emotion around the...

Meg: because like you couldn't react those three years ago.

Right. And you just kind of stuffed it and kept going and you didn't realize you stuffed it. Like I literally caught myself. Tearing up for, I don't even know what's happening. I don't know why I'm feeling weepy, but I just feel like it's all these old things or just stress or happiness, happy tears too, or yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Well, I can tell you I have a four and a half year old son who is very much looking forward to Inside Out

Meg: So sweet.

Todd: Last week we went on, cause he was convinced it was available. And I was like, I don't think that's out. No, it is out. And then. I didn't have to be right because, you know, it was clear that it says coming soon.

So there's a lot of anticipation and a lot of excitement for that.

Meg: There is, and that anticipation of course starts to make you tense too, right? So when, to have an audience like it, and there's a lot of fun for him. There's a lot of fun for him. I don't know that he'll get all of it, but that's kind of the fun of the movie too.

Absolutely. There are some scary bits. For a four year old, I think. For a four year old.

Todd: He'll go to cover my eyes, or he'll go to cover his eyes. What comes up I think is really alive. Like there's a real, and it's amazing that you're sharing that. Cause I haven't heard that talked about before, but I think it's very relatable to me and especially those kind of emotions of, I don't know if this is happiness, it feels like a lot of sadness, but somewhere under there, there's a sense of relief and some that it's, um, it's a unique experience for sure.

Meg: It's very unique. It's very unique. How was your week?

Todd: My week was pretty Well, when you first started talking I was thinking, Oh, it's kind of the high and the low, That you had this experience at the premiere, And then you're just out by yourself, And it's like, just last night I had this whole world around me, And now I'm back to myself.

Meg: Exactly, back to the grind.

Todd: I, in this past week, I returned from Edinburgh, Scotland, where Dior the fashion house had a fashion cruise line show Drummond Castle and the Dior company has just been incredible. Incredibly helpful in opening their archives so that I could do the New look and they've been inviting me to their fashion shows Which is a world that I had no experience in prior to starting work on the new look and what's unique about the show in scotland is that it was in a location where dior had a fashion show When he was alive in 1955 so Dior passed away in 1957.

And in 1955, he had a show in Scotland and had always been inspired by the fabrics and patterns of Scotland.

Meg: Oh, wow.

Todd: So they invited me to come and it was just. So beautiful, and the way the Dior company curates these events, there were about 700 people there at Drummond Castle, which I'm not that familiar with Scotland, or not familiar at all with Scotland and so beautiful, the grounds, the castle itself.

There was a lunch the day earlier that day at the scone palace, which I didn't even know ...

Meg: I must go there.

Todd: And anyway, just amazing. And then, you know, what happens after 48 hours of that kind of experience is as kind of could be looked at as the high, is then to come back home and be alone and writing and feeling that low of like, Oh, wait a second this is back to in fact, I don't live in Drummond Castle.

Yeah. And so, but the experience was more, which is why I was hoping to be able to go is that it's so inspiring to see creation. And not only of the designs and the clothing, but just how it's put together and the emotion that they strive for and delivering an experience to all the people that attend.

And so for me, you know, part of the new look. There's a line in the first episode, which is then repeated later on, that creation is survival. And that was Dior trying to figure out how to get through the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II. But for me, that feeling of reaching for that inspiration and Dior delivering, you know, last week that inspiration.

And then for me to come home and be working, I'm working on a movie now, just for myself which is set in the 20s in Paris. Which I'm very excited about, but it's just taking a lot of time to research and try to get right for myself. And so these, what I think of as like a shot in the arm to have that inspiration and then come home and be like, oh, right, it is possible.

I wrote and researched The New Look.

Meg: Right, right.

Todd: Brought me into that world of Dior, which I, you know, seven years ago. Never would have imagined that, you know, I would be very entrenched in this. And I think that's one of the amazing things about writing is you can write your own. future in many ways and explore things that are inspiring and same with Bloodline where we set that show in the Florida Keys was a place that I thought I had been told about, but then when I was a teenager and that was why I selected the location for it, it fit many reasons of the story.

I spent the better part of three years down in the Florida Keys, and when I finally met up with a friend, Who I thought had told me his father had moved down there. This is back in like the late 1980s. He told me this and I said, I have you to thank for the location. He said, I have no idea what you're talking about.

My dad. So to this day, I have no idea why the Florida Keys came to mind.

Meg: The fates decided, they flipped it.

Todd: But I did find myself living down in the keys and had an experience, which was totally unique, just like making the new look in Paris and it's again to reach for that inspiration and follow it.

So that, that was my week.

Meg: Oh, I love it. I love reach for inspiration. I love, you know, you're creating your own life. You are, you're creating worlds on the page, which then can create your experience out in the world and. You know, reaching for inspiration. I so loved that in the show. I loved that moment where he thinks he has, or he's not sure he's got his designs going, but he knows he doesn't quite have it yet.

You know that, and I want to talk all about his creative process and your creative process. But first let's just talk about what did inspire you to do this show. What inspired you to do Dior versus That versus and Coco Chanel.

Todd: Yeah. Well, it's a very circuitous route in many ways. I first came across the Dior story in 1997 when I read an article, I think in the New York times celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dior launching his fashion house in 1947.

And I realized that I knew the name Dior. I didn't know anything about fashion, but I had absolutely no idea of the lives that these designers lived and that they were, there was a movement really afoot during the Nazi occupation of Paris. And then shortly thereafter. Which launched the careers of Dior and Balenciaga and Balmain.

Balenciaga was a little bit known prior to the war. He was in Spain, but then was in Paris during the war. And Chanel. And so it just was, left a huge impression on me that here are names that have been around for my, that I've been aware of for a long time, but didn't know anything about the people.

They were brands. Then I was turning 25. I just got then got my first job writing in Los Angeles on a TV series and promptly forgot about the idea or just that moment of history just kind of came across my mental screen and then left. And five years later, four years no, less than that.

Three years later, I was writing and producing The Sopranos and became very close friends with Jim Gandolfini who played Tony Soprano. And we became friends through work, but then outside of work and spent a lot of time together. And my mom was a teacher and tutored his son, Michael, who's now an actor.

And I got to know his father before his father passed away. And anyway, our lives were entwined. Out of that, I got to experience through Jim. His worldwide fame, which was very unprecedented at the time for a television series, and it was before HBO was fully HBO. And Jim stepped into his fame around the age of 40, which is relatively late for an actor, and had no desire to go on talk shows and promote the show.

So he never went on Letterman or Leno, to my knowledge. And because he was very different than Tony Soprano and thought that it would take away from the audience's experience if he was himself on the show. But as he became more famous, And we were out in New York city. People really wanted, because they didn't have access to him.

They really wanted to, they felt like they were meeting Tony Soprano. And he felt increasingly trapped by the role anyway. So Jim ended up passing away several years later and it was right. He ended up dying while he was on vacation in Italy. And he had just turned 52. And he was he had a daughter, young daughter.

And right before he went on that trip we had met for dinner, and he was telling me that he finally felt free of the character. And he was looking forward to the next chapter of his life, living with an understanding that he could go into this moment of more time with his family, and produce some things that he was interested in, and for me, it was a great moment of relief that it was starting this new chapter.

So he died and I wanted to write about that experience of someone who had success and in many ways their success killed them and feeling trapped in that success. And it wasn't until two and a half years later that I was in a store and saw a book with Dior on the cover. And started reading it and wondering what was that idea that I had all those years ago that I came across about Dior and in 45 minutes of reading the book, I saw that Dior stepped into his worldwide fame in 1947 and he was in his early 40s that he had a 10 year run of success and that 10 years in he published a memoir called Dior and I.

Meaning two different people. And he talks about how there was the extrovert salesman and the introvert creator within him and the extrovert salesman had no patience for the introvert creator who wanted silence and the ability to draw and dream. And the introvert creator just hated the extrovert salesman who was out there selling shit that he didn't have to create, but that the introvert side had to create and putting more pressure on him.

And in the memoir, he says that it's taken him 10 years to understand that both parts of his personality are needed.

And, again, he was a huge overnight success. I mean, the likes of which the world had never seen. And he publishes the memoir, goes on vacation three months later to Italy, and dies of a heart attack at the age of 52.

Meg: Oh my gosh.

Todd: And so in that moment, I realized that maybe in exploring the Dior story, I could tell a story that would affect me in my, from my heart around my good friend, Jim. And so I started to research it and before going out to sell it, I spent two years reading about the time period, reading about the designers to see if there could be a series in it.

And And what was amazing is that we ended up filming the first season 25 years after I read that first article. So it was now the 75th anniversary of Dior. And we turned his fashion house is still in the same location when it opened in 1947 or 46. And we turned the exterior of that location back to the way it was in 1946.

So it was a really amazing moment.

Meg: Wow.

Todd: To be part of that history.

Meg: Amazing. So I love that. I really love, and I can feel it in the show, that there is something deeply personal to you in this show. Cause another creator could be like, well, it's Dior and Coco Chanel and all the kind of outside sugar that you could play with.

But you can feel the. Authenticity of that personal journey that you're making with this show.

I mean, there's so many themes in the show. Again, I'm a huge fan. You know, I see you playing with hope and picking up the pieces. And women in the industry and creation and survival and beauty. And I think you've mentioned before, I've read about leading the world back to beauty. So, all such powerful themes.

And I guess my question is, because you do all of them so beautifully. All of those thematics are running through and they're never competing. They're always supporting each other, which I think is a hat trick and just the sign of a genius writer. So my question for you is, we talk a lot in this show about engines for series.

And often those engines are thematic, of course because it's a hard thing for emerging writers to grasp, or quite honestly pro writers sometimes when you start a new show. Like, what is the engine of a show? And so for you, in creating this show and knowing it's got the legs to go eight episodes or multiple seasons, Was it thematic for you?

Was it Coco and Dior and their tension? What was kind of the base of that engine?

Todd: Well, it's a great question and it's one that for me I sometimes it's a feeling more than necessarily a thing that I can articulate. And what I started in, when I started really getting in deep into the research, I realized that these lives that were lived are so full and people had to make decisions about how to survive in a time that was one of the darkest of the 20th century, if not the darkest and one of the darkest times of the world and world history.

And so I felt for me, the engine was to try to get as best I could. As knowledgeable as I could be about these people and the decisions that they made while not judging them and to try in many ways to put myself in their shoes and hopefully have the audience enter into that same realm of what would I do if I was in that situation?

And so when people hear about the show and then watch it. I think many of them are surprised that it's not about fashion.

Meg: Right.

Todd: It's like, well, you have Dior and Chanel, why isn't there more fashion? Or, they really didn't do much about fashion. It's like, well, this is the origin story. This is the first season.

The second season is about Dior's success. There's a lot more about fashion. But this is about survival at a time where there's an oppressor. And, you know, we're all in, you know, unfortunately, there are way too many themes that are resonant in our lives today of what's going on in the world with wars and oppression and even in ways COVID of what COVID did that affected all of us and brought mortality into the spotlight for all of us that no one's actively trying to kill us with COVID.

but we're all susceptible. So for me the engine was to pursue my feeling. And I could, I had writers on staff early on that were like, yes, but what is the show? And it has to be, it's either a, or it's B, it's either a biopic or it's a show about fashion. I'm like no, it's neither of those.

And all of them at the same time, which is, Kind of a not helpful thing to say to anyone.

Meg: And a thriller almost, and a thriller. Like it really, it becomes quite intense.

Todd: Yeah. And I, you know, that's brought by the war and the sense of there, but by the grace go I of grace of God go I that, you know, the Nazis were not particularly friendly.

And the French had a history with the Nazis that, you know, it's not often written about that they did not like the Germans after World War I. So now the Germans have taken over their capital city, and it's just awfulness and they're trying to figure out how to survive. So what's been interesting for me in the experience of the show is that it touches on a lot of these themes, and there are many people who go along with the ride and are Seemingly engaged with it.

And other people bring a lot of projection about what it should be, as opposed to what am I experiencing that's in front of me. And so that's been the first time I've had that as feedback.

Meg: But I wonder though, I mean, of course, if you come in expecting this to be, you know, pretty dresses only it is going to be a wake up call and ask you to be more deeply connect with it, which is why I love it and why I think it's genius Because I also love that when you say kind of survival and what would I do, you present both characters, let's just use Dior and Coco as the center.

And all of the characters have this, but both of them are making, are forced into making choices that maybe we would think would be wrong. under pressure you might make. Like, you're kind of finding out who you are. I don't know if that's exactly what you're doing, but it's what it feels like. Like, you can't judge them.

Even Coco, who honestly, a couple of episodes, I was like, my God, I think she's a sociopath. And then it would flip and you'd be like, no, she's human. And she's having this incredibly painful, experience in trying to save the life of somebody. And yet, wow, I wouldn't, wow, she just really went pretty far. Like, you just keep, they keep surprising you in their choices.

And yet, they're always so authentic. And I think you're asking such interesting questions about being a human being under those kinds of, not just being a human being, being an artist. under those conditions and the choices they had to make. Were you, did you construct it so that you were thinking of that kind of back and forth?

Now, they're not always talking to each other. Sometimes it's parallel. I guess it's balancing those parallel stories is my question.

Todd: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. That was one of the challenges. And also as artists, they're very different types of people. So do your sketched obsessively and didn't like to touch the models when he was designing clothing.

And he, as he launches on fashion house, he would use a pointer to point where he wanted alterations made. He didn't like to put his hands on the fabric while someone was wearing it and Chanel never sketched. and designed her dresses on the models themselves. So she would take fabric and design.

They also had a very different design aesthetic. Chanel, who rose to fame in the 1920s, was looking to free women from the corset. And if you think of like the flapper dresses that are basically like slip dresses with no form, that was her desire to create beautiful clothes in that style so that they were more modern and women could ride bikes wearing the dresses.

And then Dior came along with the new look and put women back in the corset and the dresses could weigh. Between 12 and 15 pounds and the women were not really able to move, but there was a, it was an expression of beauty that he was trying to bring back into the world. And the designs were inspired by the shapes of flowers that he learned from his mother when he was a child and spent time with her in her garden.

And there's a whole story about that in the season. So what was interesting to me was to be able to I can't think of another moment in my life or something that I've even seen where there's two artists that are in the same story who are not only have different design aesthetics but have very different approaches to creation and then take very different sides during the war about how to survive.

So, it was deeply engaging and inspiring material to...

Meg: and they come from different, completely opposite worlds, too. Like, he's coming from a kind of bourgeois family that maybe hit hard times, but, you know, you, and gardens and that time, and she's coming from desperate poverty, right? She's coming from So, she's trying to scrabble up, and he's trying to hold, and yet it's, the family dynamics, And I know we don't meet Coco's family, but with her best friend.

And that past that she had and then his with his sister, who I don't think it's a spoiler to say, you know, was sent to a German camp and his guilt about that with his father. I mean, gosh, it's so rich. I don't even know what my question is. I'm just telling you your own show because it's so rich.

This show is so rich. And I've talked to my friends about it for hours. We just love it so much. So. How, let's just talk about Coco for a second because I love Dior and I love the actress portrayal of him. I think it's amazing the subtlety of, that he's finding in the subtlety of your characterization.

Whereas Coco. She has so many faces and she's making the almost impulsive. Like you talk about the difference when Dior boy, she's impulsive and in her choices. And I love that you've set up these two characters that are kind of light and dark, but at different times, and they have different ways of being.

So it really creates a great tension in the show, just for my emerging writers in terms of this incredible tension that you're creating, even though they're not in the same scenes, it doesn't matter. It doesn't ever feel parallel. So in terms of all, how do you. Talk to your actress, who is a genius, Julia Pinoche, about finding Coco, because she's changing on a dime sometimes.

Like, literally, in the same scene, she will flip faces. How do you approach something like that with an actress? Did she have a lot of questions? Did she do her own research? How did you help her find that?

Todd: Well, Juliet is really an astounding person and her desire to enter as deeply as possible into character and history.

One of the things that I found really inspiring about Juliet is that she's able, she did a lot of research on her own. There's certain books, there's a lot written about Coco Chanel. There's certain books that are only in French and aren't translated. So it was beneficial that Juliet speaks French. So she was doing her own history.

I gave her some suggestions. I think I read a total of maybe 18 books about Chanel. One thing that I'll get back to Juliet in a second, but one thing that was also really interesting in making the show is that there's a lot out there about Coco Chanel. But the French laws are different than American laws about slander and libel.

So everything, Apple hired a French attorney to help guide us through, because I don't know the French laws and everything had to be double verified. So there's certain things that I saw in more than one book, but then the source goes back to only one book. So I wasn't able to use those details. And there had to show up in more than one source.

So there've been some articles written about. The portrayal of Chanel that it doesn't go far enough. And I know the books that they're referencing, but I wasn't able to use it because I'm not just writing a book. It's putting something out there where lawsuits are potentially... ,

Meg: right.

Todd: And so I'm in no way a keeper of the elements of, you know, what the world should and shouldn't know about Coco Chanel wanted everything, you know, it's amazing.

And whether it's true or not, the feeling is let an audience decide and do your own research and see, but I, everything had to be double verified. So with that in mind, Juliette, Approach to the research. It becomes very apparent when one starts reading about Coco Chanel. I think that she's a survivor.

She was an orphan. Her mother died and her father took her and her sister in a wheelbarrow and dropped them off at a convent when she was 10 and she was raised in that convent and had nothing. And what's incredible about even moments like that is reading about the convent. There was a color palette. On the wall that was very muted and pale whites and white is pale but pale colors, whites and yellows that influence her design aesthetic from the time she was 10 through her entire career.

So think if she wasn't brought to that convent, would she? Have ever been a designer. Would she have ever been exposed to those colors that she saw that she wanted so desperately to get out of the convent? And anyway, all of those details.

Meg: No, but she has the convent and he has the garden. It's so smart.

It's so smart.

Todd: And so the experience for you were asking what is it like to communicate with Juliet, Juliet took the lead for herself. And then in discussing scripts with her and story, the feeling was we want to portray the history that we're reading and yes, events have to be condensed. And yes, we can't tell every event.

And as I just said, there are things that are. incredible story that we're not allowed to tell because of the laws in France. But through it all, the feeling was we want to do it in a nonjudgmental way and portray a person who is, we're all many people. We're not just one and put us under duress and we become people that we may not even recognize as a way to survive.

So, when you say that she, in the same scene can flip and take a different point of view, or takes a surprising turn I think those are her survivor instincts. You know, she was much more an extrovert survivor than Dior was as the introvert. I think, in many ways, the Dior introversion is what led to his, him dying at 52 of his third heart attack.

Where Chanel, as a survivor, Her skills were honed much more specifically from the time that she was 10 to survive, and that's what she did, you know, throughout her entire life, remembering that she lived through World War I, World War II and successes and failures and business business dealings that left her with far less money than what she wanted in the first season.

She sues the, her co owners and all of which was true. So there's just a much more of an animalistic instinct to survival in her.

Meg: And she has that beautiful and Juliet does it in such an amazing way of, and one moment she is truly a victim. She is being sued and her perfumes being taken away from her.

And you know, the, a woman in this industry and. And what she needs to do and yet then she can to survive flip to the other side and do something that you're like wow I can't believe she just did that to survive how far she'll go and you didn't let Dior off the hook either he might be an introvert he might have his morals but you pushed him too as a character to do you want to have this fashion house what will you do to have it will you take all the seamstresses from your friends you Yeah.

You know, you're also giving him very hard choices. And I think that's what's creating such beautiful tension in the show is watching them each get pushed in this way. Now you talked about so the Dior, so Coco Chanel you had the books and you had the limitations of what you could do on Dior in terms of the research, that sounds like the house.

Allowed you to go to the archives. I'm just wondering about the research process and any advice you'd have for any of our listeners pro or emerging who are maybe diving into such the depths of this kind of research, anything you've learned along the way?

Todd: Well, one, yes, definitely. I mean, what I've learned, whether it's useful advice or not, I think I just tried to read as much as I could, much as what was available.

I didn't want, the Dior company did not put money into the show. They didn't sponsor the show. I couldn't have really done the show without them because I needed, I, in order to tell the story, this is before you know, Apple even got involved. I realized I needed to know more. And so one thing with research is it can be endless and you can feel I felt at times like, I don't know when I will know enough to start writing and maybe I'll just read one more book and maybe I'll just read one more article.

And the internet can be both very helpful and also very daunting and paralyzing and a a great inspirer to procrastinate because there's always more to read. That's right. I was just listening to an interview with Michael Lewis, the author who was explaining how his process is to interview and just write everything.

And sometimes he'll write 200, 000 words of interviews and the book is only going to be 100, 000 words. I mean, I have no idea how many words, it seems like a lot of words,

But that there emerges a pattern. I mean, he's written over 20 books. He's like, there just emerges a pattern that research tends to take like a year and a half to two years.

And the writing process tends to take between like six and eight months. But to really. For me to feel like I know enough, it's slightly different in this because I started to hear the voices of the characters because in writing in their voice or writing, I mean, I don't know what they. You know, dialogue can be invented, but there were also interviews with them.

So it's important about how they actually structured their dialogue in real life versus the story that I was telling. But I think for me, the feeling that I have about research is it is much better to have a handle on the research before going to sell something.

Because once you sell something, there are many other people in the mix, and they can move you off of what you might just discover on your own to follow your own interests.

And that's something that I was really trying to protect along the way.

Meg: Wow. That's a great insight. Did you, as you were researching, ever start to write scenes or outline, or did you really just let it remain?

Todd: I don't think I wrote scenes. I did think about outlining of like where to start. Like, you know, there's a whole idea in storytelling of where you put the parentheses to, you know, start the story and the characters lives.

So for me, I, it started to come to mind of how to structure not only the first episode, but what the first season could be like.

And then what other, what subsequent seasons could be like you know, for Dior he dies. And then there's a handoff to a young designer that he had hired that everyone told him not to hire, but he saw his drawings and that he really thought he was talented, but that young designer was awkward and made people uncomfortable, which was the quote, which is intriguing to me.

Anyway, he hired him immediately. He hired him at 19, and by 21 it was Yves Saint Laurent, and Yves Saint Laurent, when Dior died, was 21 and took over the fashion house. So at 21, taking over the world's most successful, profitable, influential fashion house. So that, that provided a structure of what the series could be in success.

To have a handoff then lives and has an incredible story himself. And then following the Chanel storyline. So as I got further into the actual research of Chanel and Dior and the two houses. It laid out very, really kind of to use a bad pun about a fashion show seamlessly to have five or six seasons of the show.

Meg: Yeah, because it is some of the hardest work and what I think you've done so beautifully is choosing those moments and those parentheses. Now I have another craft question and then we can move on. You're balancing a lot of storylines. There's Dior's life, the World War II background and history, the rivalry with Chanel, his sister, and that storyline, which involves his father and his brother, there's his friends, so it's a lot, right?

Did you outline to help you see the weave of that? And like, when you could, you know, You know, be with your Chanel and how you were going back and forth. Did that happen in the room with your writers? Did you kind of have a sense of that before? How did you approach all of those different storylines?

Because they're seamless in the watching.

Todd: Well, thank you. I, yes, I mean, it's a tribute to the writing staff, the researching. I had many researchers that I was working with fashion historians What I tried to do when I first started, this is going back many years now because the show took many years to make, but in 2021 writer writing staff came on and I assigned the writers.

I think they each got two designers to do their own specific research in because I had done a general research in the Balmain, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Pierre Cardin. Many of these designers have memoirs, there's articles written about them. What my hope was that each writer would become the quote unquote expert in the room on the history of these characters.

I mean, on the history of these people, because that we would then use as characters. So then they would come back and I said, you know, really try to highlight the stories that are inspiring to you and then present them to us as if we were at a cocktail party. And it's like, could you believe that this happened?

And you know, in the background, I was getting all the books that they were reading and kind of also sorting through them. And just for myself because I was interested, but What it really emerged was to get the highlights of these lives and how the characters interacted with one another. And then there was Catherine Dior, who plays a prominent role, played by Maisie Williams and Lucienne Lalonde, who's Dior's boss, played by John Malkovich.

And then trying to just figure out the story, the best way to craft the stories and the episodes. But my process in all of that is one where. It's, I really enjoy the experience of having writers, not just outline, but to come in and like, tell us the story, just tell us like verbally, not a pitch.

Like there's no under no time pressure, but just as if you were telling someone a story and in the act of telling the story verbally and realizing, oh, I kind of want to move through that part faster because I want to get to this other part. You learn a lot about where the story is because maybe you don't need that part that you need to move through and get to the other part, just get to the other part, or maybe the part that you realized as you were thinking of it didn't seem that interesting, you're spending more time talking about it to describe it just to get it right, and you feel there's a nervousness that you're not getting it right as you're telling it, that there's to me a huge value in, again, it has nothing to do with pitching or putting a time pressure on it, Or the how it has to be presented, but just tell the story and in many ways, it's back to that.

Idea of we're all around a campfire. Who's going to be the story, tell the story that you don't want to go to sleep. You know, that's right. That's going to, and that you want to tell the next day, like, can you believe what I just heard?

Meg: And of course, if those writers can hold the other writer's attention, not in terms of pitch, but in terms of the story.

Story 'cause it was something they felt passionate about. It will work for the audience too. I think that's genius and I'm stealing it because it's really smart and I love that approach. Would you say this is a question that's just come to me? Yeah. Is your creative process closer to di yours and very practiced and organized and, you know, he studied architecture, kind of engineering?

Or is it more cocoa? Very impulsive. Textile gut.

Todd: I think it can be parts of both. I mean, unfortunately the business aspects of running a tele, creating and running a television show require from executives, usually they respond more favorably to the, it gives them more confidence but in the actual creation one of the things that I've also tried to pursue for myself, but in, in other writers that I work with and directors is that in the beginning, the stages are, you're just dreaming and allow yourself to dream.

And that it doesn't have to be anything. Same with actors. When I'm directing actors on set, any preconceived notion of what you think it has to be. Like leave that in the makeup trailer and come out and let's just see what we feel in the moment and trust that the guides will find it, right? It does not have to be anything.

One of the really inspiring things when I set the first day with Ben Mendelsohn on bloodline, you know, we had never worked before and he did a first take and he just looked at me and he said, okay, well, that's the first pancake. We flipped the first pancake. No one ever wants. To usually eat the first pancake, but we got that out of the way and now let's dig in.

And one of the things that was really inspiring about that is the feeling of like, yeah, it's just, we have this moment to create this thing and any expectation, let that go because that may be handcuffs and trust that we'll find it. So I think that's...

Meg: You've got to have a lot of trust then, right? That creativity will arrive as a group activity.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. And to me, that energy that's created is really inspiring and is almost like the narcotic that when it works, you want to have more of it. You know, the rat hitting the water bottle idea or something so...

Meg: And it's palpable, I think when you watch your shows it, And the new look too. It's palpable that creative energy is happening right in front of you.

There's creation happening right in front of you.

Todd: Oh, well, that's the, that's how it gets made. And then also the feeling is I don't want to fail. Like I certainly have no desire to fail. But the feeling that I'm doing something where I don't know exactly if it's gonna work really inspires me. If I'm like, oh yeah, that absolutely will work, that's less inspiring, and I'm usually wrong.

And usually the times where I'm like, this is interesting, let's see what happens, is where the greatest fulfillment comes.

Meg: That's very close to what happens at Pixar. Their only motto is fail fast. Because they want you out on an edge, right? They want you trying things you're not sure are going to work.

Because that's where the magic happens. And they know you're going to fail because that's, you're on the edge. And things will not work out sometimes.

Todd: But I've tried something with music that I've never done before. In in the new look. Which was that I, instead of just having

I worked with the same composer that I had worked with on Damages in Bloodline, Jimmy Levine, or James Levine. And I said, you know what, I want to take, for each episode, we're doing 10 episodes, I want to take a song from the period. That was popular at the time. So from the 20s to the 40s and let's have the song in mind.

We'll choose one song per episode. So 10 songs and let's deconstruct the song. So at the beginning of the episode, even though an audience today may not know the songs 100 years old, they may not know it. But they'll hear part of a melody and for Dior around your part of a melody around Chanel. You think that those are their quote unquote themes and build slowly the song and end the episode with the song coming together.

And then I partnered with Jack Anton off. And Jack produced modern day covers of those songs. So the episodes end with the modern cover of the song. So in a way, the whole episode has been preparing you for that. What you talked earlier on about a release that the releases, Oh, you finally get to hear this song.

That's been kind of in parts deconstructed and then developed throughout the entire episode. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize on Apple is that they'll, you know, give you four seconds of end credits and then it goes to something else. So you have to...

Meg: It's such a good idea!

Todd: ...use the feature of watching the whole credits to get, you know, we had Lana del Rey singing a song and Florence from Florence and the Machine in the 1975 and Jack Antonoff sings one with his band Bleachers and Nick Cave.

So many talented artists doing these songs that are, you know, 100 years old or 80 years old.

Meg: Is that record coming out?

Todd: Yeah, the album is out. I mean, you can get it on you know, any Spotify or, right.

Meg: That's great.

Todd: And I think that they're putting out an actual vinyl and you know, doing a release, but I haven't checked on that in a little bit, but that was one of those ideas as well of like, I don't know if this is, can work.

I haven't seen anyone anyone do it before, but it's inspiring. And then to work with Jack, you know, was incredible. And to have him bring his artistry and talent to producing these modern covers were, was just a really inspiring experience.

Meg: Well, you're really trusting as a showrunner, all of these people you've brought on board to be their own dreamers, their own creative self right there in the moment, right?

The actors, I'm sure you did it with the production design and the music, which is so, it's such a great lesson for all of us, even just in our own work. What is some of the biggest lessons of show running? You've run multiple shows, you know, people ask us all the time, you know, what are the lessons of show running that we need to learn or think about?

What would you say to somebody who maybe is going to run their first show or stepping into that role?

Todd: Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been doing this for a couple of decades now. And I realized that when I first started in, in television I learned a lot from seeing other people do it. And it's not necessarily learning things that I.

Wanted to thought made sense a lot of it is learning things like I don't know why that's going that way That doesn't seem like the most beneficial way to do something And I think that there are a lot of people who are running shows that haven't seen it done And so to kind of give advice If you've never been around it or experienced it, that's like trial by fire.

You're jumping into something where there are so many parts and people will come where there's so many crisis each day that are, have to be dealt with or what people present as crisis. And it's like, that may be a crisis for you, but that's not a crisis for me. So that just goes in the, Column of that have to get done but bringing on other people's energy or taking it their word for it that this is, you know This is crucial in this moment when you don't feel it's crucial in the moment And being able to honor what they are experiencing but not have it take away from your own job Is a is like a high wire act that In many ways, I benefited from watching other people do it for both the benefits and the experiences of saying like, that doesn't, that didn't seem to work.

So to go into it without having had any experience or without seeing anyone else do it, I think you'd, one would benefit a lot from seeing someone else do it.

Meg: Do it, right. Which is what the WGA was fighting for the strike, right? That if you eliminate all those roles, nobody's being trained up to do this.

Incredibly complex job.

Todd: And then what happens is more, and you'd probably be able to speak to this more, have writing features is that you become writers, writer, creators become disposable because just like in features, they'll just hire someone else to do it and then go through a bunch of different writers that's been happening more and more on TV series.

I hear about executive producers hired and then fired showrunners, hired, fired, hired, fired. And it's like, well, that may be a lack of experience that may there are many reasons for it. That could also be they're not doing what the studio wants them to do, so they'll just replace them. In this kind of show, everyone is always replaceable.

It would just be very challenging for someone else to come on and have the knowledge of seven years of research into the world. Of course, it's not, I'm not the only person that can tell this story. Okay. But for me, I'm the only person that could tell the story the way that I want to tell the story.

Meg: Exactly. It's so your story. It's just impossible. And I think that's what makes the show so special and my favorite of the year because you are in, you are so of it. It's of you. And no, you could not just bring somebody in and out of that. Absolutely not. You are the center of it. We're almost out of time, but I did want to ask you one Sopranos question.

You know, Part of the writer's life or any artist's life, I would think is like we talked about. Fail fast. There's going to be failures creatively. And we're all of us, including myself, have been fired. Though my husband literally just this morning was like, don't use that word. Is that really the right word?

You know, for you and the Sopranos you didn't move on after a certain season. That's, use it that way. What, could you mind sharing what that experience was like for our listeners? Because I, we find so many emerging writers don't write and follow their dreamer because they're so afraid of that moment, but you survive them.

Right. And they become part of you and part of your writing experience. So I'd love if you could talk about that, if you're comfortable.

Todd: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's, you know, it's absolutely. And I think that you know, I came on to the Sopranos and was started working on the second season before the first season had fully aired.

Started writing a script and I had interviewed to work on the show for the first season, but wasn't hired. I was 25 when I interviewed to work on it and then got hired when I was 26. And so I, I came on the second season or writing the second season and, you know, I just brought me back to New York, which is where I wanted to be living and was working on a great show.

And it felt like. I was learning a lot and having an experience that I had dreamed of that television could be, which is as good as we could write, the actors would make the material better. And the directors and just the whole experience. And it was HBO early days of HBO for that kind of thing. And there were no commercials and it just felt like an immersive experience.

It's like reminding an audience of what that time period was. It was unlike anything that had come before it. And so I. Really, my entire life was the show, for better or worse. And at some point you know, I was writing the show, and producing the show, and was in Los Angeles, and David Chase was kind enough to invite me to sit in on editing.

And because I had been on set so much, I, this was at a time where directors wouldn't print every take. And so we would be in editing, And because I had been on set a lot, I would know that there was another take that I would remember, which we would get reprinted and then David would see it and like a certain reaction in that take.

And then it would be included in the show. And the show was absolutely his show. There's no way that I could have it's not my show. It was in service of David. And at some point in the second, my second season on the show, which was the third season, David just decided, I guess, for whatever reason, that he didn't want me around anymore.

And there's a lot of story around what that could be. Speculation. I don't know. I mean, he accused me of having lost the voice of the show. But the last script that we had written had just been nominated for an Emmy. Which was the second season finale. And on that day of the Emmy nomination, he called me into his office and said that he thought it was time to end the relationship.

Meg: Wow. Talk about a high and a low.

Todd: That was a high and a low moment. And it was just, and we were working on the third season, but it was just, it was devastating. And I was also pretty young and hadn't had that experience before because I. I realized that I, it was my entire life, as I said, for better or worse, there was no balance.

And when I took the job on The Sopranos, I had known a writer and had worked with a writer named John Falsey. This may be more of a story than what you want, I don't know, I'm fine to go over the time.

Meg: No, it's okay, great, I love it.

Todd: But there was a writer named John Falsey who created Northern Exposure and I'll Fly Away and was partners with Josh Brand.

And he had hired David Chase to run his show Northern Exposure. And so I was working on a series to create a series with John Falsey. John has since passed away, but David called and asked me to come work on The Sopranos and I was torn because I wanted to work with John. And John said no, you should go work with David.

It's you know, The Sopranos, this is the first season was just airing. He said, it's a good show and you'll learn a lot from David. But it's important that you leave before his personality will permanently affect yours. And I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't know David. And so that was always in the back of my mind.

He's like, he's wildly talented, very entertaining person. But you're very different people and I'd like to see you preserve your sense of self. So when I didn't realize this until just a couple of years ago, that. David ended the relationship and I was devastated, but I don't think I ever would've left if he didn't end it.

And I realized that when he did end it and I had worked on the second and third seasons, I was then ready to create my own shows. But the show went on for a six years after that. And I probably, if he would have had me, I don't think I ever would have walked away. And in those six years, I created Damages, which ended up going for five seasons.

Co created Damages went on to co create Bloodline. And so I realized just like, two years ago that John Falsey's advice of, like, the trick is going to be get out before he permanently affects your personality. He gave me that as a gift. By letting me go. It didn't feel that way at the time for sure.

You know, I was devastated and was really an emotional wreck around it because I wasn't ready to have the relationship end, or I didn't think I was, but professionally I was ready to have it end.

Meg: The muses wanted it to end because you had your own stories to tell.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, there were many aspects of experiences that I had in the entertainment industry.

including David, but also other people that I had worked with and for that I poured into Glenn Close's character in Damages. And so I wanted essentially that show while she plays a high stakes litigator and a young attorney in Rose Byrne goes to work for her and it's a mentor protege relationship.

It's fundamentally about my experiences in the entertainment industry, working with ruthless, paranoid, narcissistic, People of which there's no shortage of but I didn't want to write about the entertainment industry and we put it into the legal world. And then Glenn Close. joined us and Rose Byrne to play those two characters.

And, you know, Glenn joined to play a role on The New Look, which was really sensational. Oh, she's so good. But anyway, so my point is, like, the securitist route of one's life, where I was in no way ready to leave The Sopranos. I was very close friends with Gandolfini. And also just really loved the show but it was time.

And it took me many years to understand that time. Whether subconsciously consciously or unconsciously may have also been evident to David. So, I look at it now as a gift and at the time I looked at it as the end of my my spirit. So.

Meg: Thank you so much for sharing that because I think it's so helpful for both the emerging writers and pro writers to hear because we're all going to go through it and there can be larger creative arcs happening for the dreamer and I do think for our emerging writers who might be saying, well, I'm not writing on a show yet.

Yeah. But you're going to have scripts that end and you were so sure this was the one and then it just hits a wall or it falls apart and you need to move on to something else. It's okay to move on to another story, to move on to a different piece of creation and maybe go back to that later or not. It was just a stepping stone to get you somewhere else that you needed to be.

Iteration, and you're talking about that on the set even, that there's a trust to the creative iteration process that is so, Bountiful, if you can do it. It takes a certain level of bravery to do it, I think.

Todd: I'm just reminded of a, I worked, I did a series with Michael Mann years ago that was inspired by his movie called Heat.

This was back in 2002, so it's a long time ago, but at one point I remember Michael saying that, you know, it's really not how many times you get knocked down, because that's gonna happen. It's how many times you're willing to get up again. And, you know, that experience over a career over decades with Michael and now I'm, you know, able to say decades of my own career is that it's exactly if you think about why you're writing.

Why you're inspired to be alone when other people are going out when other people are having very different lives what is motivating you? And if this was the last script that you would ever write, would you still be working on it? And if the answer is no, then I would encourage you to find a different script to be working on.

Because you know, your time is so precious and it's going to require so much of your life and energy moving forward. If it's going to move forward. That to really make the decisions and not be precious about it. That's not what I'm talking about I'm just saying to find things that inspire you whatever that could be that can be a Any genre it doesn't it's nothing to be precious about but how you're going to persevere Because there will be plenty of people who will say no and throw challenges in your way

Meg: And yet , through that you have created this incredible show, so it all is fodder for the creativity.

Thank you so much for being here. We always end with the same three questions, so, I'll ask you the first two and then Jeff, our producer, will ask you the last one. The first is, what brings you the most joy when it comes to your work? It could be as a showrunner, as a writer, what brings you the most joy?

Todd: I think that Experience of thinking it's going to be one thing and in the moment, realizing there is, that was the tip of the iceberg and now we're deep in the iceberg and it's totally surprising and inspiring and alive.

Meg: I love that. I need to trust that more myself. Okay. What pisses you off about writing for Sherwin?

Todd: Am I limited to just one thing? No. I'm kidding. I think that think the amount of time that has to go into convincing people that there's a feeling here to be protected and that there's a, an energy around it that they may not understand, but that it's there. I can feel and so instead of cutting it off too soon, let it just breathe for a minute and see what's there.

So to say it's pisses me off as maybe a little too strong, but I feel that it's spirit killing. To hold it very gently without, you know, it's that whole thing of like, I don't know if it's holding a young bird or something like you have to hold it. So that it doesn't you can't hold it. You can't squeeze it too tightly.

They kill it, but yet you can't hold it too gently that it will fly away or something like that, that it's finding that balance. And oftentimes there's like a sledgehammer that is brought to your ideas before they're realized. They may not be an idea that it moves forward, but at least let it be realized.

Meg: Cause it might take you somewhere else.

Todd: Yeah. Right.

Meg: But you need it to go. I love that. All right, Jeff. Really wise.

Jeff: That's really wise. Our last question we asked Todd is if you could go back and have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give to that TA Kessler?

Todd: Play more tennis.

Jeff: I love that.

Todd: I think what it means is you know, grinding it out isn't always the way sometimes I mean, I've experienced this over and over again. It's like, all right, I just got to take, I just, you know what, I have to put the garbage out and then putting the garbage out. It's like, oh, the idea just came. I just figured it out.

Like the sense of finding those other avenues and not just saying, okay, I'm going to stay until I figure it out to, to let it breathe a little bit.

Meg: Beautiful. Thank you so much for being on our show. Like I said, I'm a huge fan, so this is a very special day for me. So thank you so much for joining us here.

Todd: Well, it was a real pleasure and I look forward to Inside Out 2 as does my son.

Meg: Yes, opening weekend. It's very important.

Todd: Of course. Thank you all very much. And it's really a pleasure to have a moment and to discuss these things and the insights. And questions are, you know, I'll be thinking about after this, which is always a great sign for me that it's been time well spent.

Meg: Oh, wonderful. Well, I will be too. I am, I wrote things down. I'm just going to be percolating on them. So thanks so much for sharing with us. Thanks so much for tuning in to The Screenwriting Life. Join our Facebook group for more support and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.