216 | Only Murders In The Building Showrunner John Hoffman: "Write What Delights You"

John Hoffman is the first to admit his surprise at just how comfortable he felt directing Meryl Streep on his set for “Only Murders In The Building.” She's not the only legend to have appeared on the show... Steve Martin, Martin Short, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nathan Lane: it's a murderers' row. And yet, it's been decades of hard work, ups and downs, passes, "almost-greenlights" and visits from Moetta, John's imaginary muse, that have earned him the confidence to showrun one of TVs most beloved comedies. Learn how he built that confidence in today's lovely conversation.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve. 

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna. And today we're super excited to be talking to John Hoffman, whose long writing career includes plays, features, television, and most recently, showrunning Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. 

Meg: The show, which he co created with Steve Martin, follows an unlikely trio whose obsession with true crime wraps them up in the middle of the night.

The cases. The first three seasons have garnered 49 Emmy nominations with hundreds of other industry noms and the fifth season was just announced. So hello and congratulations, John. 

John: Thank you. What a lovely day to be talking with anybody about anything regarding screenwriting, but particularly Only Murders in the Building.

Meg: Yes, a new season. I'm so excited for it. We can't wait to talk about the show, but before we do, we're going to take a moment here to talk about Adventures in Screenwriting. Basically, how was our week? We'll let Lorien go first. Lorien, how was your week? 

Lorien: It started off with a big ol fat pass on something I really wanted.

It was my second pass in August. Which kind of blows the industry being what it is, and, at least I'm out there, and at least people are talking to me, but it's a little demoralizing. And I asked my manager what the hell am I supposed to be writing right now?

TV, should I work on an animation project, should I be developing or writing a script? So we decided that I was just going to write this feature. So on Monday I started writing this feature, and I don't have an outline, I know what the movie is, I know what it is emotionally. I know what the theme is.

I know who the characters are, did I ever say that? So I start writing Act One, Scene One on one document and I'm just gonna, and I want to get through Act One as soon as possible so I can get to Act Two because I don't want to get hung up on all that juicy, delicious, how they meet and the funny lines they say and how this is going to pay off later.

I'm just trying to get through it. What I'm noticing is, because this is a big comedy with a big setting and big characters, I'm having all these ideas pop, so in order not to stop me from the momentum of just Page 1 ing it all the way through. I have a second doc, second document open that might be cool later.

And so I'm just jotting things down without getting too deep into them. Which is a challenge because I like to get deep into the details so I'm really trying to keep a high level over there on things that might be cool later in the document and then on the script itself. Moving from scene to scene, making sure all Characters are active and I'm pushing it forward, and I'm not just hanging out listening to them talk, which is my favorite thing to do.

So I'm trying to go fast and hard through act one to get to act two. And it is, it's keeping me focused and I'm laughing out loud at some of the hilarious stuff I'm writing. So at least I'm having fun. I don't know what it's gonna turn out to be, but it's after the passes and where the industry is.

It's back to the writing. I could have sat around and eaten chips and cried for another week, but it wasn't gonna keep me waking up every morning. So that was my week. John, how was your week? 

John: Oh my god, Lorien. First of all, I relate. And brava to the rebound. That I, I know these feelings so well, and I love your honesty in that, in sharing all of that, because it really connected for me because I, I'll talk about my week, I know, but I have to just say, because you really touched some interesting things that we all deal with, obviously and in every way.

And God knows that sort of the biggest challenge can be to do what you're doing starting this past Monday. That's really impressive and I love the way you're working. That's my challenge too. I like to get deep in the details and I like to take everything almost curated through this process and to sometimes crack that open and break it open.

I've just recently been writing in that way. I'm also simultaneously doing a limited series right now that I'm working on with a writer's room that Apple is doing on Siegfried and Roy. And I find myself looking, every minute of paralyzed fear over how to get started is the challenge for us all, at least for me.

In my experience, I think breaking through that, however, you break through that, however, you just let yourself go and write and do new forms of the way in which may feel uncomfortable at first, but surprise you and you find yourself laughing out loud at what's happening.

And just what you said about pushing. The characters feel what I've come to learn is the more you do it, the more you are working with brilliant writers in a room or on various different scripts with various different genres and tones. The gut instinct about when to move a scene forward and where to feel like the energy of propulsion in a storytelling venture every scene, but feeling that you really feel like, where does that come from?

It comes from experience. It comes from your own God given ability to tell a story and I just really relate to it. This week has been a balancing act for me of That project and Only Murders and the lovely announcement of season five going, but we've had a writer's room open for two weeks.

And anytime it's always that challenge you bring up, which is starting fresh and, but leaning into the underlining of fresh and really asking yourself along with, if you have a wonderful group of people, as I've been fortunate to have in these last few years, Checking yourself on it and having them check and we check ourselves together on it and go been there, done that.

Let's keep rolling. Keep rolling. I like the idea. Is that the way we want to do it? All of those questions. That's been very much what this week has been about. So I appreciate your story very much. 

Lorien: And I will say just to add that I did cry a lot the day I got the pass. It wasn't just like I was like, okay, I couldn't stop it, just the exhaustion and everything.

I cried and I didn't want to talk about it. My manager was like, Hey, I was like, Nope, I'm processing. We're going to talk later. And it wasn't like I was beating myself up. It was just sad. I started to imagine myself in that job and all the things I would get along with and the people I would get to work with and what I'd learn.

And then that's the fear, right? You want to have hope, but also balance it with realism. And I, so I cried.

John: I honestly, and not to dwell, but I but you must know I spent, and I'm happy to talk with all of you about screenwriting and my history with screenwriting, playwriting, everything else.

Before this particular show that is on now before this, I very much was feeling like, wow, I've had so many people tell me this is I've come this close to getting something produced over and over again in the crushing throw your heart and soul into something for years.

And those passes. I can only tell you, I feel, and there's no bomb here, but I think To feel it is the thing, what you're doing, and to from my experience, to really know that it's there, you've done it, it's there, you never know the path something will take, and it could very well come back around.

I find now with this lovely opportunity I'm having, people want to know what I have that I'm passionate about, what have I got that I love. And. Reviving things and sending things off and going, Oh my God, that little beautiful thing I've always loved is now being read and considered over here now.

So that's just blah, blah, blah.

Meg: I love it. I love it. My week is a combo platter of everything we've been talking about in terms of on one hand, inside out too, is still going. And Dave and I got An award at the Hamptons film festival. So we're going to get to go there and party and take lots of fun pictures.

And I can't wait. It's the reward for all of the hike up the mountain that we'd all take. At the same time, I had another project die, like dead as a doornail die. So I had to have that morning process, though. I will admit part of me might be relieved. I'm not sure. But that's part of you that has to be like, wow, that really isn't going to happen after all of these months and months of work and care and effort.

It's not going to happen. And then at the same time, I have a TV spec out being read to maybe, hopefully, let's knock on wood, or this formica, that it would go? I don't know. In fact, writing is so crazy, because either you're like, I have nothing, that just turned to dust, or tomorrow, I'm going to be the busiest I've ever been in my entire life.

It swings so incredibly. Who knows? The show may not go. We're writers, right? You always have to have the next thing that you're working on because if everybody passes on this show, what are we doing? And I never want to, I like to be, always have something else bubbling so that even after, if I cry or whatever I'm going to do, I have something that I can step into.

It's scaffolding. I'm always scaffolding the next thing. Sometimes my husband's stop. You have you're planting a million seeds, like stop. But so what we're doing is I'm writing it with my husband. And as you said, John, I went back to something that I wrote in the past and my husband are going to rewrite it and it very, so it's that love that project that I love and I want to bring it back, but it is very much about, I wrote the words down that you said, propulsion and fresh, because I think that is actually why it needs to be rewritten.

It doesn't feel fresh anymore. It's still the core story that is there and is worthy and I love it, but somehow in the execution, it doesn't feel fresh anymore. And something is happening in the middle that the propulsion isn't happening, as a story, like it's getting mushy in the middle.

And when I wrote it, I was a very young writer, so I was just lucky that I had a second act to rehearse with you. But now, with the wisdom of all these years, you can see it so clearly, so clearly, I can see it. No. I don't know who I was when I wrote this, but you can now be like, yeah, no, that's not even going to be fun to shoot.

Like who would want to, act in that or be like the propulsion just goes. 

Lorien: But that script got you a job, right? That's what's so strange is I have a script just like that and I read it now. I'm like, Oh, but it's, there's enough there, right? There's enough there, right?

Meg: But to actually want to sell it and maybe get it made, it's just a different bar. And I think a lot of emerging writers don't understand that. That your script could get you into, win a contest, get you into a lab, let's just go up the chain. It could maybe be a great sample, maybe it's getting you interviews for staffing, but does it, is it gonna get made? Like it's just another bar sometimes to jump up to. I don't know, John, do you agree with that or not? Do you feel like there's, yeah? 

John: Yes, I love this. I completely agree. And I say it too, we have young writers and a writer's assistant or script coordinator here that are hungry and talented. And I'm like, God, how do I even begin to, and it's those things that I'm talking about with them all the time and saying, you really cannot ever know.

What it is that's going to get you clicked into some new level for yourself in your career. It can be so random and it sometimes is not based on those things that feel like electricity in the way you're writing them. It can do great things. We will always recognize our best stuff and whether that's now or when going back, that's such a lesson, isn't it?

To go back and look at your old work and say, God, it is good. All right, hold on a second. And get into character. 

Meg: It's not that it's bad, it's just not good enough. You know what I mean? It's not sparking, the relationship isn't moving. And it's helpful that my husband's writing with me, because he's very clear eyed.

A couple of times I was like, Wait a minute! I think it's fantastic! Okay, now you're a big shit. But you don't know, what's so funny is, whether you're an emerging writer or a pro writer, you don't know where you are in your total trajectory of ability. Does that make sense what I'm saying? You only see and know what you know right now, and the more experience you get, which I also love, John, that you're talking about, the more experience you get, the deeper and broader that understanding of storytelling becomes, and to the point you can't even explain it to somebody.

You just know that when the scene is. Propulsive or not like it's music somehow. 

John: Yeah, like I think of it like a hand on top of the hand is all of the experience and everything else that's going to create those words on the laptop that like will flow and come out and underneath it is the terror and the panel 

Lorien: Turn your hand over then.

John: I know right but it's there I like to know it's underneath because it's driving you and it's also you know Asking you to be better. As best as you can be I think you know it that helps me at least I don't know. I think that fear of I don't even know where to begin and I Paralyze myself many times and then it just bursts out.

Lorien: I think this is such a great conversation too for emerging writers and even professional writers who don't spend so many years on one project, right? Because then you'll just rewriting it and you're adding your skills and your depth of experience to this one script and it's like sometimes it just needs to be written and it's done. 

And then you can read it five years later and be like, wow, I'm a better writer now. But it's that I've seen a lot of writers do this where they get stuck on one script, one project. And it's actually five or six projects in there, so finish it.

Meg: That's a great segue because John, we always ask our guests how they broke into the industry. And I'm really specifically interested that you've done so many plays and features and now television and before this television. That's such a depth of experience. So even more than how you broke in, I'm interested in what you're bringing from all that other experience with plays and features now to television.

Do you see the impact of having had that experience? Or is it just such a different duck that it doesn't impact? 

John: It impacts everything. Everything has an effect. I can only point to so many whacked out things in my career. If you look at my resume, I don't make any sense.

I really don't. And I really mean that like everything from. The building of our last season of only murder season three, which delved into musical work and with Meryl Streep and everything that would be utterly intimidating felt deeply comfortable to me in some way, because of an experience I had as an actor back when, in my twenties on a TV show where we had to do Four musical numbers for it was a kid's TV show and we had to do four musical numbers and I would end up helping to choreograph and put them together and shape the scenes physically and help block them and everything else.

And we were pounding those out a hundred episodes. We made that show for musical numbers each time. And then lo and behold, come back, all of these years later, and I'm talking decades kids, but like you, you get to here and I'm standing on stage feeling comfortable and at ease talking to Meryl Streep about a blocking of a musical scene in our show.

And I don't know why I feel comfortable doing that until I remember, oh, it's that. Experience that's still living inside of me that gives me just that little kick. It's always for me. It's a little kick of confidence, and I think back and you know What started how? You know it's a mix right?

It's again two hands. It's the one hand. It's the innate sort of interest and Talent, I would say because I do recognize that there is something there, but it's interesting too and work and hard work and all of that. But I can point to when I was just talking to my cousin a couple nights ago about me when I was five at Thanksgiving dinner with all of our family and holding court at age five of this whole Thanksgiving table.

Telling a story and really recognizing what sold, what kicked the laugh in, what, starting to put all that together. And it was just, that's innate. And then, but if you trust in that sort of interest and that understanding of your own viewpoint on how to tell a story, That to me is everything.

And lo and behold, as I say, my resume is crazy as an actor, as a writer, as I started writing because I was looking for a good part for myself as an actor. So I wrote eight of them in one play and everyone was doing their own one man show, one woman show in New York at the time. And I was like, okay, that's working for some people.

And they seemed to be getting recognition when no one was waving at me. And so I thought the one thing I can do differently is make it a play instead of a series of characters or something like that as a showcase. I thought I'm going to write an actual play. And that play then became a screenplay that I wanted to see if we could adapt it.

That screenplay was produced. Television movie starring Diane Keaton produced with her. I was in it with her. It was a learning experience. Like no. Another but it all began with out of a need for me to try and move myself forward That's always the thing and it's always very hard there's the balancing acts of knowing when you can trust that if you keep at this and if you keep following your gut and heart and talents and interest that it will be recognized.

You may not know how, you may not know when, with what project, but it will be recognized. It's just challenges until that moment. You have to keep at the work, keep at it in every way that is full hearted and full throated. And then not fall into that thing that is, if only that person would give me something.

If only that thing would happen to me. If only I get dubbed. Why does he get dubbed? Why does she get dubbed and I don't? Afterwards, I think my thing is better. It's very easy to get caught in that cycle, I think. And I did at times, various times, I'm sure the real thing is as writers I think we, we have to always go inside and really ask ourselves the hard questions about how we're looking at our own lives and how we're, we can help make that change for ourselves in our lives through the continuing of making it better on the page 

Meg: You really follow what delights you. You know you lighted to tell that story at Thanksgiving and see, you know Who is it when and you're delighted to do this play and for yourself? And you know that if you let yourself fall into the room the kind of Mulling why not?

Why me? Why not me versus you know What's bringing you delight? Are you just, you guys are having so much fun on this show. I can tell it just delights you. It delights everybody involved. I love that. 

John: And beyond that, just on the personal side with this show, I'm with some of the greatest raconteurs, right?

And so I find myself at dinners, but what I, instead of being a lump in the corner, which I really can't be, I do have this now collection of a lifetime of stories. And inevitably those brilliant raconteurs are being really funny and you have to hit the ball back a little bit. I have a collection of stories that like, I know that they'll get triggered and I'll be like, oh there's one.

And you have this sort of almost like a stand up, which is terrifying to me. I would never do it, but admire it. But I have that sort of Joan Rivers filing cabinet. of stories that I don't know to pull out, but they get triggered. And there's nothing better than the delight of knowing I know I can sell this guy, you can really bring that in and it lands in the room with these amazing people.

And then you just start, again, it's all about the delight and the confidence in what you've built over as many years as you've been doing something. 

Lorien: So let's talk about one of those raconteurs. Raconteur? Raconteur. Killer. Steve Martin, how did this show and Steve Martin and you 

John: I was the very lucky benefactor of interest for this particular project by Dan Fogelman and Jess Rosenthal.

And they had been talking to Steve about If he'd ever want to do television, they had lunch with him. He was about to leave the lunch and said, I have one idea. And he pitched three people in an apartment building in New York city, all interested in murder mystery. And there's a murder in the building and they start investigating it themselves.

And that was brought to me because I was working on Grace and Frankie with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. I was on that show for six delightful seasons and was very close with the creators, Marta Kaufman and Howard Morris, and learned so much from them and was on set with Jane and Lily and Sam and Martin and loving every bit of that.

So it had become Sort of second nature to me both in the writer's room and on set so that, I only really like to work with legends. I guess Dan and Jess realized that. I don't know what the hell lucky star I was born under. 

Lorien: That really is like only will work with legends. You must have been nominated or have gotten this many Oscars in order to work with John Hoffman. 

John: Thank you. Yes. Someone finally said, " No, it's so insane but yeah, it gave me like the auspices of That I didn't have before then and so I got presented this idea by Jess and Dan, a Jess I had known years ago, and Dan I hadn't known. And then we had dinner with Steve Martin, terrifying, again, for me, just I'd never met him.

And here I was going to pitch him on my ideas. And we were in Beverly Hills. We sat down at one of his favorite restaurants. He immediately told me that he would leave halfway through dessert because he didn't want to finish his favorite dessert in Los Angeles. But he would have two bites of it and then he would go and please don't be offended.

That was the first thing he said.

Lorien: Is that how he gets out of paying the bill? 

John: Yeah, that. Exactly. Yeah. 

Lorien: Thank you, Steve Martin. That is excellent. This is about my health.

John: It's incredible, right? Yeah, it's a good one. But it's also for me, it was a great bubble burster. Cause I'm Dan and Jess said that later, he said, I couldn't get my head around that.

I'm like, Oh, I felt such comfort after that odd story that I, and I think he knew that. So it just made it much easier to flow into sharing my ideas with him. This classic meets modern tale that we could make. I had been dying for, the dream for me was always a show in New York City.

And I've been telling everyone that for 10 to 15 years before this show happened. And when the pitch came to me, I just, My brain just exploded with ideas, including, incorporating a podcast. So this classic old building and potentially a very unexpected trio at the center of it all. And an intergenerational story and then ...

Meg: Wasn't it first three older people who how did it go? How did it get to because she's such a great character. I love her character. 

John: Isn't she fantastic? Yeah, she thank you. She and all due to the alchemy that they each individually bring, which no one could have predicted, really.

We just crossed our fingers and watched them sail. That was what was the miracle of the show. That moment I'll never forget. But yeah, I think that came about, Dan Vogelman had the idea that like, let's shake it up and do something a little more unexpected. So we started a random group of people that could make sense with Steve and Marty, and again, going back to that classic meets modern thing, which felt like this sort of big tent over the whole show.

Two classic comedians and the most modern of young women, right? So then who would that be? And it didn't take long to land The delightful Selena Gomez, who was also a true crime fanatic. She had been to CrimeCon with her mother about a month before. And I'm like, how did you go to CrimeCon? And she said, yeah, they didn't know what to do with me there, but we couldn't help it.

We had to go. We had to get some swag. I was like, what? I love it. But yeah and then just. The part of her that came that I wasn't, I honestly wasn't fully aware of, which is the sort of particular specific comedic voice that she has, and the way in which she comes at something, and when you put the three of them together and watched her completely disoriented and undercut in the most lacerating, funny, quiet way to their mania it just really sang in a way that made it very easy to write in certain ways.

I was going to ask, did you start 

Meg: to write towards what they were, the chemistry you were seeing? I'm always interested if, we're all the, a majority of the show's written and you're going back and rewriting for them, or are you writing as you go? How did that happen with that chemistry?

John: In that one, we were shooting the first season of the show deep in, The early days of the pandemic. And so it was not until two weeks before we started shooting and we did a zoom table read of episode one, we had never heard Selena Gomez with the two guys, and we'd never heard Selena read anything, but either any of them read this script and I will, that's the moment.

There are these key moments, but even on that Zoom, none of us knew what to expect, and all our phones were buzzing and lighting up right after, and everyone saying, my God, she came to play. Wildly funny, right in, right from the start, and then started informing everything we had set up, but boy, she was in the pocket of what we were hoping to do, and then she only made it better. 

Meg: Is there an overall? As a creator and the showrunner, do you have an overall thematic for the whole show, no matter what season you're in, or do you really pick a season thematic and I am just a fan, and I say this, but I see this theme of messiness. And that kind of messy humanity is always beautifully present, but I don't know. Is that intentional? Is it you know, is it a theme you use a lot in your work?

John: It's annoying for many people. I mean it really is I'm very intentional about theme and themes of the show and seasons and all of that. So I love that question. Yes, I think You know, I have to do it, and constantly remind the writers, remind myself, what we're writing is a show about three lonely people in the biggest city in the world, looking to connect, and the way they connect is by something that they're just drawn to innately, and the interest in bringing justice, in some way, to an unjust situation trusting their own instincts, And getting each other's help to trust in each other's instincts.

And it feels like we landed at a moment, obviously, when we started shooting it, when There were two things happening. Everyone was really feeling disconnected and lonely and terrified that the person down the hall might step outside at the wrong moment and kill you because of a terrible thing happening.

And so all of that was part of the process of writing. I will say also I've talked about this before, but in this half hour comedy, I got the gift of people trusting that we could talk about. And this came from Dan Fogelman too, when I told him the story, but the year before this opportunity came to me, I had been in a personal situation with a friend of mine who ultimately would be discovered, they were murdered.

The, my dear, best friend from childhood and I had grown distant from him and hadn't known what his life was like and there, it was a situation that made it look like he might've shot someone and committed suicide. And I could not get my head around that. And I had spent a year going to Wisconsin and investigating that on my own and meeting his family and trying to find out what happened.

And by the end of that year, the police report came out. And despite the injuries that pointed one way, It was that he had actually been murdered. That was a cathartic moment, personally tragic for everyone involved, obviously, most importantly, but that was underneath everything as I started to write this comedy.

At the time we were writing it, so it would have to resonate, I think, that I could never have predicted, but I leaned into. And fortunately, everyone involved in the production said, yes that should be a part of it too. And that rarely happens, but what support can do, I'll tell you it, that, that really buoyed me.

Meg: I really remember watching the pilot and I was having so much fun. And I was so intrigued, and then at the end when you find out he was part of the Hardy Boys, I was like, oh, this has resonance, this, he's talking about something. Very deep. And I think that you just pull off this incredible hat trick with that.

John: Thank you so much. Yeah. I wish I could have, I wish I could help share a story that could have predicted any of that. That, but you, but I found myself doing what I certainly can't do. In real life, the ocean is riding the wave. Literally I've had a surfboard.

That's a dining table, basically out in the one. I cannot get up. So forget it. I will never be able to do that. 

Lorien: The door from Titanic on which there was plenty of room. 

John: Yeah, very good point. Very good point, but I rode the wave of that and trust it, and and got, as I say, an amazing amount of support and help.

Lorien: So you share this very tragic personal story, it's deep and resonant and tragic. And then you've. You have the show that is comedy and murder mystery and you know the genre and the tone like how do you translate your personal experience and that sort of pain around that but turn it into this Show that, like Meg said, has all these, has like the perfect recipe of tone and genre.

So how do you translate that and maintain it? And also, how are you communicating that in your scripts and to your, that is, that tone. And the writer's room, all those different tones. How do you tell a writer's room about those different tones? 

John: That was the challenge and the show is doing a real balancing act with tone here, obviously.

And it's what you said, Meg, it's messy. Embrace the messy and embrace the mess. I think Cinda Canning says it in Season one. And it. And it really is that. I think that's the place I'm most interested in, in getting to the humanity. And I don't find anything funny unless it's recognizable as human.

Truthfully, I'm not a joke guy. I'm not a guy that comes in and bup. But if someone does something in a situation at a funeral, I tend to be gut laughing in a way that I just don't normally. And someone told a story the other day about someone, a friend who had heard that someone's cat died and hadn't seen them for four or five years, but knew the cat was very important to that person.

And they were having a service, like a funeral service. And so he thought, you know what, I'm going to go. And that's nice because I know he cared so much. And then he goes and the person says, thank you so much for coming. Would you mind saying a few words? And I, and to me, that's where I like to live the prospect of the challenge of a very deeply human moment that's sitting on the edge of emotion and fraught with treachery for.

Lorien: You're on the cliff of inappropriate, but you're not going to jump off. You're like, right there, one foot off, maybe I like to be there. 

John: Yeah. 

Lorien: Maybe, gonna look over the edge. Okay. That's it. 

John: And we're talking murder. It's crazy that this is a comedy and we're trying, finding that, but I do think, it's very cliche to say, but it's a show about murder that's very much about life and you are made more precious just because of the understanding of how fleeting life is.

Meg: I also think you got, you and the writers team are doing an incredible hat trick because you're charting a murder mystery over a season, which alone is incredibly hard in terms of writing. Then you're having multiple character development and storylines that are very personal to them that have to intersect with the murder mystery. It's becoming three dimensional chess. that I think is incredibly hard to do and yet you make it look so easy. So it's not easy. 

John: No, thank you for saying that it looks easy. 

Meg: How are you doing it? Are you charting out in the writer's room? Okay, this is the murder or does the murder change? depending on what you want the character emotion to how are you doing it? 

John: Watching and thank you this is so heavenly to talk to writers and have these conversations because i really don't get the chance to and yet i'm with them all day but they're working on it you know and i'm working on it with them so we it has been fascinating to watch the process of inviting writers into this crazy thing that, I've set up with many tones and many, mix of things and a mystery at the center of it all that also needs comedic set pieces that also needs, character arcs that feel connected and real and have room for all of that across the to watch writers come into our writer's room and realize that, how and what we have and what we have to do and how we have to work.

It's been fascinating to watch it go from daunting into messy, could we, what no, and finding that and then watching this sort of Muscle that is built over seasons. This is the beauty of getting an opportunity to make a show that has enough seasons and you watch them realize, Ooh, and then they're thinking about it in a new way on the break.

And then they're back in and they're thinking about it overnight. I've often said this show like none other is I've got one. Things that I do as like I tell young writers as a tip because inevitably you're at a point where you know you'll rack your head on the wall And not come up with how the hell am I going to hide the fact that this person killed this person?

Or how am I going to twist it over here? And we always start backwards to forwards To build our mystery. We have to know exactly what happened and then work backwards and twist our way the whole way back that is how we've done it But when I'm at those moments and I can't think of what the hell we should do and the whole room is sitting quietly I don't know how we got out of this one, nothing.

I will do a thing that is ridiculous, but everyone makes fun of me now for it. Basically, one tool that's helped me is to look at the thing you're going to write where you've stopped and what you're thinking about what you want to do. Look at that next couple of scenes in your mind of what could be in your story that you're working on the night before you go, right as you go to bed.

Look at it, go over it, think about it a little bit, go to sleep. And then the key is for me, this sounds crazy, I sound like a crazy person, but it's routine for me. I wake up and I do not get out of bed for 10 or 15 minutes, I will not do it. And I just sit, and I'm at my most open. And something's been happening while I've been sleeping.

And if anything, I just sit and I don't even think, I feel like it's more receiving. And you have ideas. I've had ideas on this television show in this process that have solved the thing over and over again in those 10 to 15 minutes every morning. Or at various mornings. And sometimes the room now they gave it a name.

They gave it a name, but they said, they call it a Moeta moment. Because at one point in this 10 minutes, I think I was between dream and awake. And I felt like some woman named Moeta was talking to me. And I explained, so now they call it a Moeta moment, but I walked into the writer's room and I had the whole room going in a panic that we don't have to solve.

And they look at me like anything from Moeta and I'm like, nothing today. 

Lorien: I'm deeply invested in Moeta. I just want you to know I loved her. I connected with her. 

Meg: Yes, we need her TV show. I'm pretty sure she wears a turban. Yeah, it has to. 

Lorien: And it's all very wild and colorful. She's got hair coming out the bottom of it. Big chunky earrings. No shoes. 

John: I want everyone to borrow Moeta and what she's given me. Please. 

Lorien: She's already visiting me. She's already here. 

John: Let her in. Let her in. 

Jeff: She just showed up on the Zoom. I can let her in if you all want. 

Lorien: What I love about this story is that you found something that works for you and then you've really committed to that.

I think a lot of writers, all of us are like, if only I could do it like this other person. So if Muera works for you, it doesn't mean Muera is going to come to me and work for me. Cause I have terrible insomnia and I stay in bed too, but for other reasons. So cause I'm tired and I hit snooze.

But I think it's like that thing of fully leaning into and committing to what is working for you in the moment, and we're always, this is my little rant, we're always like, how is it broken? How is it not working? What do I need to fix? And I think that puts us in this really weird Terrible mindset of we're broken.

We need to be fixed as writers. So it's like figuring out what's working for you. What's good? What generates ideas that make you feel good and do more of that? And that's why writers rooms are always so great because you've got Everyone with different skills and experience all bringing their best to it every day.

So Anyway, obviously, when I get back in a room, you can tell I'm writing this feature by myself with multiple documents open. These are my pretend conversations when, anyway, 

Meg: You have your Moetas. Come on. You've got them. They're in all your documents. 

Lorien: Yes. All my documents. I love that it's a character though, because Meg has this great idea that she's talked about before, which is when you're letting anxiety or fear drive you, you say thank you so much, but you have to go sit in the red chair in the corner.

John: Oh, that's so good. 

Meg: I, like you were saying earlier, the guest stars alone would have fear and anxiety driving pretty hard, either writing for them. directing them. You also have your co writer, co creator as an actor. You're the showrunner and the director. It's so much, John. I'm so interested in it, I'm going to break that into different questions.

The first is how do you approach writing for these guest stars? Is it something in your mind or are you really just writing characters and not worrying about that kind of juicy part for those great actors? And once you get on set as a director, Does it shift over? Are you now, I'm a director on set, I'm not worried about the writing?

John: I love that question. This is the greatest talk I've had in so long. Thank you. Thank you. And congrats on Exide Out 2, my god, I haven't even said it, Barry the lead congrats. Then I've realized that, yes, all of those things are true. I have been wildly intimidated. When Meryl Streep said she was going to do the show, I was like terrific. I don't know. I hope we've got something good. But I, 

Lorien: She heard about how you only work with legends. So she was like, hello, I've been waiting for your call. 

John: Yeah, I know. And that Oh, okay. So I have to look at what would be interesting. And I hope she likes it. One of those that are terrible, it could be really paralyzing in certain circumstances on this show, handing Steve Martin and Martin short.

And Selena Gomez, your first comedy script and crossing your fingers. They think it's funny, really, there's a lot that goes into it, but you really have to move past that. I would say again, it goes back to the same thing with these guest stars and with everybody else. You go back to the thing that you know, you go back to the thing you trust and you've done.

And you have a little base foundation of I've done this. So when I talked to you about my very first thing, I wrote being a one man play, and I played eight characters, two of them were women. And I'll never forget Jackie Mason, the legendary comic that I brought to the show that I did. on a little 99 seat stage theater in Hollywood way back in the day.

And Jackie Mason came up to me after the show and I'll never forget. He says, I'm going to tell you something. You do women better than women do women. And I was like there I will never need another review in my life. But in that way, I think it's, I'm not a mimic or anything like that, but I have had a facility to through acting through writing mix of all of that to swing ages and characters and build.

Build, as we all do this, but it's in some way, I think the acting thing takes me to directing more easily too. So I can have that conversation. It also informs the writing in some way that I can read a line that feels like how to augment it a little bit to make it feel more real.

Or, the funny, which is just, that's. More conversational dinner party stuff that like, let it flow, let the comedy flow and anything you're thinking too hard about sometimes is reading that way. 

Meg: Do they improv on set? Are you as a director encouraging improv or do you as the showrunner really want them to stay on what you wrote?

John: I honestly, I'd be happy for them to improv more and they're not comfortable doing it. They really come in so focused on the script and the and what they want to do with them. I, it's like I told Marty that, he walks in sometimes when I've got a good comedic thing for him to do, I said, it's literally, he's 74 years old, 75, 74, and he walks into that set that morning when he's going to do this thing.

And it's like I'm looking at an eight year old kid on Christmas morning, looking at the big package in the corner, how he's going to approach that big package. There's a lot of, few other presents before then, but he's eyes on that big package. And he's got nerves about it, and he has the way in which he's going to unwrap it, when and timing, all of it.

They both do that. Selena does that quietly in her own way. I see it all the time. And I'm just like, I love that. So it's that energy that I really lean into with them on set and But really, that comes from the delight of working with people who like your scripts. And they are not afraid to say that, and they're not afraid to say, this feels off here, this feels off here to me.

But the generosity that way, to lean in and trust, has been there from the beginning, and has only grown. They really want to fulfill the scenes that are on the page, and we want to give them everything we can give them to make the most of it. 

Meg: And you must really know your story, right? To work with these big actors, and I don't just mean stars, the caliber of actor.

For them to start questioning. I don't know. Part of my brain is like Meryl Streep was like, I'm not sure this feels authentic. I don't know what I would do, but if I knew the story deeply and I knew that character deeply, it probably wouldn't throw me because I work on things where people have questioned me and I don't really know.

And then it just completely. I'm like, why am I writing this? Because I don't know. Has it been that way for you from the beginning? From the very it must be what you told us the story of your friend. 

John: Yeah. 

Meg: Oh, you know it. 

John: If I know what I'm aiming at, I will defend it, and I will work to get it. And I do trust in that, and I know that's my job, truthfully. It is my job to guide everyone in the direction that I feel they'll be most proud of at the end, and trust in that. So I aim toward that, and they do trust me on all of that, but I'll be honest that nothing thrills me more when I can say, I don't know and I, and you have to be able to say in my experience, you have to say, I want to be both the person that is answering all the questions on those sets and saying, this is what we're doing.

No, we can't do that. We have to go here. And be that person answering all the questions, which I am. But nothing is more heavenly than having someone say, Oh, but I recognize this. And it's you've made it better by that question. And immediately I can say, I have no idea, but I'm going to help you. Or what do you think?

Blah, blah, blah. Meryl had a couple of moments like that. I was terrified to direct her. But I, when I did, I loved, she has a great way of popping her own bubble around her and feeling immediately comfortable with you. And the minute you, I had a note, I was like, Oh my God, I have a note.

I have a note on day one. I have a note. I've got to go tell her. And I just snuck over and we'd done three takes of this thing. It was a small bit. And I thought, I'm not going to go beyond three or four takes ever with her, because this is crazy. And so I just went over and went over and I said and she said, I said, I don't know if we should, I'm thinking we should do one more, but I have a, and I didn't even get the word thought out and she goes please.

And then I told her what it was, which was, I'm going to be honest, this is a moment where. It's so simple, but she was arriving at a party and Charles was going to open the door and greet her and it wasn't his apartment. And so this isn't even in the cut, the final cut, but it was on set. And so I said, we've done it three times.

I'm like, something's wrong. Gave her the note and she said, what's the note? And I said you don't know Charles is going to answer the door. And she was like, I'm an asshole and she went and then she went back to the door knock, opened the door and then I'm back at the monitor. I'm watching her have just the most sublime, of course, perfect reaction to letting it in, letting it happen that oh, it's you. And then start into the conversation. 

Lorien: So good. 

John: It's just the greatest. 

Meg: Oh my God. 

John: It's a dream.

Lorien: I have a question about voice, right? As a writer, we develop our voice. We have our voice, storytellers, directors, showrunners, point of view. Do you, how do you feel about, cause staff writers, right?

They have to write in the voice of the show and the showrunner, but also bring themselves to it a little. Which comes first? It's a chicken or the egg thing for you. I know you were a playwright, you were developing your own voice, but as you're moving into different mediums in entertainment Like, how are you learning those different skills I guess I'm asking. 

John: Yeah.

Lorien: It's a tricky question. Help me articulate what I'm asking you. 

John: Oh and I want to, I don't know if it's helpful, but I will say the honest answer for me, which is I've never done, I've never done it any other way. So it has always been in my voice. And that has probably prohibited me from more work getting produced.

But for many years, and I'm talking screenplays that are visual and very deep and very But it's my voice and I would put them forward I had deals at all these studios because they could recognize something good about what I was doing but I was putting my voice out there and it was Getting reactions like oh my god.

I love and then no it's what we talked about earlier on It's like those moments are just and it was a real decades long struggle for me, but I was holding forth to that and also really scared of going into a writer's room and fearing that I wasn't going to be able to hit someone else's target.

I really thought I didn't know how to do that thing. Go in and have, tell a story in some way that they're going to, it's that point of view and I had been developing many years with HBO, and as pilots, and pilots that came this close to getting going over and over again, as we were saying, and, but all in my voice, so really I just, all that I've done.

In that way has been driven that way and there was only in one moment when I took a first television job working on someone else's show and it was at HBO and they had grown to understand me and trust me, I had seen the show pilot that was made and I loved the guys that were working on it and they were brand new and weren't coming in with It Like a history of experience and needed help and needed further point of view and voice.

And so I helped in that way and grew to love realizing, Oh, the benefits of a writer's room when you're not dealing with that issue and we all find it together. And then Grace and Frankie was another one I was scared to join because those are very experienced showrunners and not, but then finding my way in to help and do what I can do to help shape it a little bit more until, that set me up to have a show that, Everyone said okay to what I was wanting to do.

And so that's my experience with that question. I hope it helps in some way, but It's not typical because I don't have the experience where I really feel like I learned how to write for someone else's brain. It's a very challenging thing. I admire that when I see people doing how have you done all of these? How have you worked on those shows? 

Lorien: I think it's such a great answer because if you're a staff writer or you're staffing or you're writing with other people it's The note really is keep writing your own stuff in your own voice, which is hard to do when you're working right but it's different skills, and both are very admirable and important but continue to develop your own voice.

Meg: Yeah. 

John: Big time. 

Meg: John. This has been such an amazing time. I could go on for another hour or two, but you have to go back to two writers rooms. So I know you may not get you anymore. We always end with the same three questions. So we're going to ask you what we ask everyone. The first one is what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing or directing? Let's call it creating. What brings you the most joy when it comes to creating? 

John: It's honestly whether it's the look in the eye of a writer or an actor or anyone you've struggled with a bit, And there is the moment when you feel like, Oh here is what delights me. Just going back to what you said.

Here's what delights me. And if you offer it up and you see the recognition of a glint that happens and you watch them get excited to either perform that moment now to write that scene or moment now. And. The deliciousness of that moment in between two people struggling to find the answer or find the best way there.

That's the greatest joy in every minute. And it happens a lot recently and I, but I really it's my drug. 

Lorien: I love it. All right, here's the second question. What pisses you off about creating, writing, directing? 

John: It's my own ailment. It's my own way in which I get in my way and struggle with starting and wanting to have all of the answers earlier.

All of the ways in which I beat myself up and feel like I can't do a thing. And yet evidence points to everything else, but it's my own internal stuff that I think you're always battling, but I think it I know it informs the humanity underneath, and if it's going to connect, you have to lean into some of that too, and inform your writing that way too.

But it pisses me off how quickly I can drop down the drain. for having such a lovely time. I was dropping down the drain 20 years ago when this show wasn't on and having nice nominations of things and stuff like that. So that pisses me off that I'm still dropping down the drain with myself every now and then because I'm like what changed?

Nothing, but much has it. Yeah. 

Meg: The creative brain just exists. 

John: That's it. Yeah, that's it. 

Jeff: It's when Moeta is not showing up, I think, is what you're talking about. 

John: It's usually because I got too drunk the night before, so I woke up and I had to get out of bed faster. 

Jeff: No room for Moeta. 

Lorien: Moeta has no time for your hangovers.

John: You're right. That's right. And I support the snooze button, all of it. 

Jeff: That's amazing. John, the last question we ask is if you could go back and have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give that, John?

John: I do think as we all do and in this business, I think particularly you have a dream of telling your story out in the world. So I did have that dream for a very long time, and I found ways to make it happen in small ways. Again, many disappointments would come, many chances at that would come and go.

And to the younger self, this is probably the most cliched answer, but to the younger self, stay the course, be patient, trust delight. That would be the best thing to say.

Lorien: Easy peasy. Done. Easy peasy. 

John: Why is it so hard? 

Meg: I still need to trust. Thank you so much for being on the show. It was utterly delightful to have you here. You are infectious. You are infectious. 

John: Thank you so much. Really. What a treat. And to get to talk. Watch you guys and really have this kind of conversation. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be so wonderful. So thank you. And I hope to do it again soon, really.

Meg: We'd love to have you back. Maybe for your new show, but you're in the other writer's room, 

John: Please cross your fingers on that one.

Lorien: Very exciting. Yes. I am delighted by you and this has made me feel even more inspired to get back to that hilarious feature I'm writing! 

John: Get in there! Exactly. 

Lorien: Thank you so much. 

John: Thank you guys so much. It was so nice to see you all. 

Meg: Thanks so much for tuning into The Screenwriting Life. For more support, check out the Facebook group.

Lorien: And remember, you are not alone. And keep writing!