218 | Lessons In Chemistry, The Office, and Jury Duty: Lee Eisenberg's Multi-Genre Screenwriting Career

How does a TV writer go from working on a classic sitcom (“The Office”), to a deeply-felt immigrant dramedy (“Little America”), to creating a hidden camera show (“Jury Duty”), and most recently, creating an Emmy-nominated female-driven workplace drama (“Lessons in Chemistry”)? Hard work. Despite his mega-career, Lee Eisenberg doesn't believe he’s in the upper echelon of Hollywood's most talented writers, but he does believe he outworks almost anyone else in town. Tune in to find out how you can, too.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Lorien: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna and Meg isn't here today, but with me is producer Jeff. And today we are very excited to welcome Lee Eisenberg to the show. 

Jeff: Lee Eisenberg is a BAFTA nominated, Peabody Award winning, and eight time Emmy nominated writer of TV and features.

He got his start writing on The Office, eventually rising in the ranks to directing, EPing, and acting in the show. He went on to create Hello Ladies for HBO, a show I love very much, I must admit, Little America for Apple TV+ and Jury Duty for Freevie, which is another show I really love. 

Lorien: Most recently, he created Lessons in Chemistry for Apple TV, which was nominated for 10 Emmys, including 5 Primetime Emmys.

As a feature writer, he co wrote Year One, Bad Teacher, and Good Boys, which he also produced alongside Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Hi Lee, welcome to the show. 

Lee: Hello, how’s it going?

Lorien: So good. 

Jeff: We're thrilled to have you. Thanks for being here. 

Lorien: I can't wait to talk about Lessons in Chemistry and how I wept through the whole thing. So, I don't know if you've had that.

Lee: A good cry. You know, I've heard that a few times. 

Lorien: Yeah. But I was really surprised. So, you know, it was kind of those, the kind of tears that catch you off guard. And then they wouldn't stop. So that was fun, fun for me. So, we're really excited to talk about Lessons in Chemistry and other projects you have going on.

But before we get to that, we're going to do adventures in screenwriting or how was your week? So Jeff, you're going to start. How was your week, Jeff? 

Jeff: Yeah, you know, I've been working on a feature that's been fun and I feel excited about, but I'm sort of like doing a total overhaul, sort of like page one, sort of like, different take on the initial idea that got me excited.

So I did a table read with that version with some actors I really respect a couple weeks ago and they really liked it, which was great. And I feel like they liked the world and I got good feedback, but they had those notes where they're like, I think this is like really small, like this shouldn't affect too much, which is like a very actor-y thing to say.

But of course, like each note as the table read goes on is like a pin prick in a deflating balloon and I think sometimes the, this is just a small note feedback you get from non writers is a much larger note than they necessarily realize. So it's been interesting. At the very end of the call, I got like a different kind of take on the idea in the world that I was, that I've built and kind of like a different character perspective from like a different sort of component of this world. 

And unfortunately, I really liked the idea. So I feel like I, it's one of those things where like, it gets pitched to you and you're like defensive and you're like, I don't know, but then you can kind of feel the movie writing itself as you like, play that premise out in your mind.

So I've actually been writing that version and it's been kind of fun. And it's, you know, you can feel the engine chugging along as you're like moving through act two, which doesn't always happen. So, it's good. I feel like I am missing some things about the first version, but I'm hoping like the essence of those things can carry through to this sort of like very different take.

And I'm just trying to grind through that draft so I can rewrite it again. 

Lorien: That sounds super easy. And I love a movie that writes itself. 

Jeff: Yes. I know.

Lorien: Let me know where you can get that. 

Jeff: I'm not an act 2B yet. So I feel like that's probably where it'll inevitably fall apart, but for now I'm cooking. So we'll see. 

Lee, how was your week? 

Lee: My week was. Good so far. I'm trying to think. I am working, I've never written a thriller before, so I've been working on a thriller movie spec. I had the idea about probably eight years ago, and then I started writing it on my own and started feeling very self conscious, like writing things like, you know, officer down, we need a, you know, we need a medic over here, like that, like things I had never written before, and like car chases, and like, What type of like ammo the gun would take.

I just, I felt like I was, I felt like I was I don't know, playing dress up a little bit. So I decided to find someone to co write with me who has written these sorts of things. So I found this amazing writer, Gordon Smith who is Emmy nominated, who worked on Better Call Saul. And I’m just kind of pitching the idea and we just, we broke it together.

And now hopefully we're going to have a full draft I think by Friday. So yeah, I'm really excited. Very different from things that I've done in the past. So I've just been kind of going through, I've been going through the first half, Gordon's working on the second half and then we will exchange our pages and then share it with others and then start crying. 

Lorien: Of course, that's the process, right? 

Lee: A lot of tears. 

Lorien: A lot of tears. 

Lee: I would say, I mean, for me, it's just a lot of I would say like in comedy generally, not that I feel confident, but I feel experienced enough where I'm like, okay, this, yeah, this feels I think that feels like a funny, I think like, I get very anxious when I'm working with anyone who has like absolute certainty and feels a little bit like a red flag.

Lorien: Wait, you know a writer who works with absolute certainty? Tell me 

Lee: I'm thinking of producers. I'm thinking of producers. 

Lorien: Okay, okay. 

Lee: God no, no writers, yeah. 

Lorien: Who are these people because they sound amazing.

Lee: But I think that the you know, in comedy I feel, I guess I feel comfortable just because I've been doing it for a long time, and as I kind of dip my toe into these other genres, I'm very, I'm someone who like really wants feedback at every step of the way, like, I'm not precious with my ideas, so I'll like just start pitching and pitching at an early stage just to kind of get a sense of it, so that's, this thriller's been very much long gestating.

And I remember where I was when I pitched to this person and they like suggested this idea and I went, it would change that direction. So anyway, so I've been working on that and then I do a lot of producing. So there's a lot of like, a lot of zooms. I'm taking out a I'm taking out a, like a talk show right now. I'm working on a game show. I have a–

Lorien: The market requires all of us to diversify right now, right?

Lee: Very very true. I started, I don't know if you know, I started a linen business. So I was working on my, I was working on my linen business, my bedding business earlier today. So basically I dropped my daughter off. She's three. I drop her off at her school at nine. And then it just like phone call, phone call. And then I kind of have my assistant kind of carve out hours for me to write within it. 

Lorien: Yeah. What I love about your week is you have had a really great career. You are having a career. Lessons in Chemistry is wonderful. And you're writing a feature spec in a genre that you've never written before and I just think it's so great whenever we hear stories like this because there is no sort of made it for a writer where you don't have to write original stuff anymore or like generate your own work, like, I'm sure you're getting lots of calls to, you know, come do things and you're invited to pitch, but there's no like guarantee that now you're going to work forever. You know, like, you’ve got a job.

Lee: I think that the problem, not the problem, the hard that, the hard thing about being a writer that I think only writers understand. is in success or failure, all that anyone asks is like, what else are you working on? 

And so it's like, we wrote and directed Good Boys. And then it's the number one movie in the country. And I was like, all right now, like, get ready. Like the scripts are going to start coming in. And like, all we need to do is just like read something and then it's off. And it's like, nope, that's not the way it works at all. I guess it's easier because I have more experience. 

But my wife always says, like, the worst version of me is, like, the one, like, I'm not good in the quiet. I have writer friends that are like, oh, it's like, now there's infinite possibility. And I think that I overschedule and I, the reason I need to have, like, 10 or 15 projects going at once is because if I have, like, two hours of, like, idle time, I, like, it makes me feel really bad about myself. So I don't allow myself to have two hours of idle time.

And so I'm just constantly kind of jumping from project to project. 

Lorien: No, I get it. And that is how my week is going. I'm working on a script that I love and I'm having so much fun and it's making me laugh out loud and I can't wait. And then all of a sudden I got to this point where I was like, eh. 

I was like, okay, I need to, what's wrong, you know? Okay. So, you know what? I have this other idea, this other project. I've worked on that for a while. So much fun, love it. And then, eh. 

I was like, okay, somehow I'm the problem here. It's not these projects. So what I realized is that I was getting to the point where I had to really commit to this and it was the hard part, right? Like that it's not just this easy, fun, haha writing. It's like, oh, I have to figure out a lot and I have to really dig in. And I realized that the way my schedule is set up right now. Like you said, I have too much free time where I can– not free time, but like, I'm not focusing enough on the things I'm doing.

So it's where, like, I know how to write a script. I know what it takes to write a script, right? I'm professional. I've been doing this for years. And yet, because stuff like stuff of the eh is happening in my personal life, it's bleeding over into my ability to like commit to– it's just this weird, uncomfortable place I'm in right now where I have too many things going on, but I'm not committing enough to things like, like you're saying, like you have this assistant who's like, here's your time. Here's what you're doing here, all the projects to focus on. And I'm not able to do that right now. 

And so I feel really disrupted. Unfortunately. So what I have to do today, this afternoon actually is pick. And commit, and I'm going to write this thing through to the end and finish it and push through the hard work of it and the pain of it.

And just, and just do it. Yeah, the meh thing feels bad. It's like all the writing is bad. I'm bad. All the negative self judgment, self loathing stuff comes in. And I'm like, I don't have time for that. I really do not in my life and anything. So, Yeah I love that you have an assistant. I imagine that will solve all of my problems, but I don't think it will.

I 

Lee: think that the, I mean, at the end of the day, it's all, it is just somebody sitting at a Starbucks trying to write try to, you know, try to figure out like what the midpoint is and then like Googling, like what's a midpoint in case I wasn't sure of it. 

Lorien: It's the what is story? What is word? How do talk? Right? You become some kind of like infantilized version of yourself where you're like, wait, what? What's plot? I forget. 

Lee: Yes. I do, the one thing I will say is in my experience, I, my productivity is not correlated to how many hours I have free to write. And so there have been times I remember particularly earlier, early in my career, even before I was working professionally as a writer, where I was temping and I'd be in between jobs and have like, you know, a week off.

And I'd be like, Oh my God, eight hours. And somehow the eight hours, like, that was crippling to me. And then I remember I started off as an assistant at HBO and everyone would leave around seven and I would just stay till nine. So for those two hours, it was just an empty office with all the Diet Cokes you could drink and all the Clif bars. And it was just me writing my, you know, writing my TV specs at the time. And I was really productive then. 

And I, you know, now that I have a daughter and, you know, wanting to spend as much time as I can with her, you find these pockets and I find myself. Like, okay, I'm going to write, you know, I'm gonna write Wednesday from 12 till two 30 and it's not that I become a faster writer, but I have, I. My time is more valuable and so I value it. And I really take advantage, I take advantage of that. And I'm very, in all kinds of parts of my life, I really look for efficiencies. And I think that like, if I have any skills, that's one of them, I think that's what makes me a good producer.

And I think I know where I'm needed and not needed. Whether it's on set or in the edit or in the writer's room or in a production meeting or whatever it is. And so, you know, on Lessons in Chemistry I created it, I show ran it, but the schedule for that was so fast that I, the most important thing was for me to write.

And I had such confidence with the people surrounding me to be on set. And when I was on set, I think I made things better. I think that I have experience and I obviously had a point of view on it, but if I was weighing all of the different things. I felt like no one else could really write the show fully. I had, you know, there are other people who worked on the show as writers, but I ultimately, the buck stopped with me. 

And I guess I could have sat in costume meetings with Brie Larson and Mirren Gordon Crosier, our amazing Emmy nominated costume designer. But like, what was I going to do? Was I going to say like, hey, could you move the buttons over by like three centimeters? So like, I never once, I loved everything that they showed me and I never once questioned it. So that was something I could take off my plate. 

And as much as I can take things off of my plate, then I think that I can kind of, I can kind of demonstrate maximum value, whether I'm writing something or I'm producing it, you'll get the best version of me because all the other things, I think like I said, like maybe if there was a real problem with the costume designer and me and the costume designer weren't getting along, then that's where I would have, that's where my focus would have been.

But if things are working well, hire smart people, hire people that are smarter than you, hire people that are more knowledgeable than you. In every part of it, not just that. I mean, like, my executive, Natalie Sandy, is so good with story and like, it's basically like having kind of a non writing writer sitting in the room with you. And that is, that's incredibly useful for me. 

So, and when we're developing things, she might meet with a writer eight times, and then I'll come in after that. But I know that things are moving forward, and I know that Natalie and I share sensibilities enough and we've worked together long enough that she knows what I like, and it doesn't mean that I might not throw everything away, but like, I know that they've explored it in the right way.

Lorien: Right. So I imagine you didn't always have this amazing skill. Do you think, you know, or maybe you did, maybe you've always been like this, but do you think that becoming a parent changed how you prioritize your time or how you're delegating or disrupted it in some way. I found that to be the case when I had my daughter.

Lee: I think that I always, I think there are just certain writers that are preternaturally comfortable sitting in a room by themselves and writing. And I think there's others that are more entrepreneurial, some that are more business minded. And I think that I, If someone asks me what I do, I say I'm a writer. I don't say like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm a line producer at all. And I don't really look at budgets in, in a meaningful way. 

I think that I always had an interest in understanding the business. And I mean, I try to like have like my gut in terms of what projects I take on and how much I can take on and what my role should be from project to project.

And so I think having my daughter, like the, I, when I was single, you know, the desire to go come home was not like, was not that high. And now it's like, oh, why am I like, I don't want to work with a writer that I think is either not talented or annoying or not listening to my notes. I don't want to work with an actor that is annoying or unpleasant to be around.

And so you're, you, and I've done this long enough. Like I would say, it's never gotten easy, it's gotten easier, and I think that I have enough, I think I have more confidence to pass on things and to have hard conversations. And know that, like, something else will come around, whether that's somebody sending me an idea, which happens sometimes, or it's me generating my own even in those times where I'm like, I have no idea if I'm ever going to be able to write anything again. If I can shut that kind of–

Lorien: It's good to hear that happens to you too.

Lee: Oh my God, of course. And by the way, it happens to, I, you know, but I think if I can kind of shut that negativity down and read and listen and observe and have confidence in my ability to kind of take in what the world is offering and somehow turn that into a fictional piece of work or a non fiction piece of work, that's great. 

And also I think that I have like enough credits in the bank where, again, the things I'm getting are not like oh, Steven Zalian wrote this thing, and he doesn't have time to direct it, but like, he'd love for you to direct it. Those are not what's being handed to me, but it, you know, like, We Crashed was a really, was a great story, and it like, had enough of a hook for me that I was like, oh, I really want to dive into that.

Lorien: So you're making better choices for yourself and your family, because you're more conscious of how you want to spend your time and your energy. It's much more limited now. No, I think that's a fair assessment of paradigm. So you don't burn yourself out. 

Lee: Yeah. I also think that like, you know, I used to work when we, you know, when we were on The Office, we'd work till 10 at night, till midnight. Not every night, you know, but it was like, it was kind of around five o'clock, you know, they'd go, the PA would come in and say like, are you having dinner tonight? And it was like, everyone just waited with bated breath. And then, and it'd be like, yeah, I think we're gonna have to stay for dinner. And it was just like, okay. And so you stay for dinner three or four nights a week.

And again, at the time I was single, I loved everyone I worked with and we were making The Office. It was so fun. And it was a show that people were talking about, you know, while we were making it, it was really, it felt like you were part of something. And I was totally comfortable working those hours 

Now for me, and again, like, I learned a million things from Greg Daniels that I apply every single day. For me, I don't think the best version of me running a show or me writing on my own is working 10 till 10. Like I don't have the stamina for it. I think at a certain point, I don't know that the ideas are necessarily improving.

And so I think that I found that, that like, my interest lies in in kind of, hearing everyone's ideas, synthesizing it, spending the time kind of early on to really, and then part of it too, is, you know, bouncing back and forth between drama and comedy, I think is very different comedy. You're constantly punching up. You're trying to find a new version of a joke. You want a million options in the edit. 

And one of the reasons that I didn't spend as much time on the set of Lessons and Chemistry as I have on other things is you're Brie Larson doing this, like knockout performance. I'm like, what am I saying? What am I saying to Brie? Hey, can you try one where like you breathe in a little like, you know what I mean? Like she was taking words that I said and making them sound better than I had in my head. 

And again, in the same way that I felt about the about the wardrobe conversations, like, you know, I would talk to Bri and I would give her, I would give her my thoughts, but so much of the conversations that Bri and I had were kind of at the script stage rather than on set.

And I would talk to the directors. And so all the work was kind of front loaded. And I really trusted Brie and I really trusted Louis and Asia and I trusted our directors. I'd worked with one before and then the others were all new to me, but we went through pre production and they were so involved in kind of the development of those scripts and really making it their own and I come from such a place of collaboration that I really if I don't need to, and sometimes I need to like, I don't want to stand over, I don't want to stand over on someone's shoulder and like question things that they're going to, you know, end up doing in take three anyways. 

Lorien: Right. Well, let's talk about lessons in chemistry and how you decided that this was the right project for you. Like, how did all that come together that you were the right person for this particular project?

Lee: I mean, you know, one of the, one of the themes of lessons in chemistry is to allow yourself to be open to surprise and that, you know, you kind of, you're heading down one direction and that like life doesn't go the way you plan. And it's only when you're kind of looking back on it, that it all kind of makes sense.

And it's like, Oh, I, you know, I was supposed to fly to New York for this huge opportunity, but then, you know, the plane was delayed in LA and I missed the thing. And then that's how I met my wife. That's not what happened to me. But that's, you know, like that. 

Lorien: I was like I oh my god, that's a great story. Are you writing that rom com? That's amazing. 

Lee: Let's develop it guys. 

Lorien: Yeah. 

Lee: And so then of course it's like, oh my god, then that's what, like, what amazing way that you met your wife. Like, and it feels inevitable. Right?

Lorien: Right. 

Lee: And like. But like, if you missed that giant meeting, that would be just a disaster. And, you know, and if you felt like you were putting all your chips in that.

And so I and I've had, I mean, I can tell you, I've had so many experiences like that in my writing. And in my career, I mean, the first job I got hired on, I got hired to be, to write a freelance episode of JAG, the military courtroom show, the classic JAG. 

Lorien: I remember JAG. Yes. 

Lee: Yes. You didn't mention it in my credits because I was fired while I was writing.

Lorien: I want to talk about being fired. I love these stories. 

Lee: Great. I love talking about being fired. And so, you know, I'd been out here and I'd been We'll get back to Lessons in Chemistry, but my point is, I was I really wanted to be a drama writer. 

And so I'd started off in comedy. I was living with Gene and we were writing a little bit together, but not too much at the time. And I really wanted to be a drama writer. I had all these, I had a Soprano spec, I had a Shield spec, I had a Niftuck spec, all the classics. 

And I got hired on Jag and I was like, I think everyone from my, you know, from Boston who assumed that I was going to, you know, leave LA at some point as a, you know, a failed writer. I was telling everyone, I was like, I got hired on the show. 

Lorien: Was it a, how you like me now moment? 

Lee: Kind of. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I was, and you know, I was so excited and I quit my day job and the people at my day job when I was working on the Orlando Jones show, the talk show, they were like, don't quit, you can write, you know, I was the writer's assistant. And they said, you can write, you know, at nights or like, we'll give you time. But you shouldn't quit your job because it's only a freelance script. I said no, I need to commit to writing. 

And so I quit. I did, I started developing the JAG script and I really, there was not a lot of guidance on that show looking back on it. And I also didn't know a lot about the military. I'm not particularly adept in law and I really felt, I kind of really felt in over my head. And I wrote an outline that I was, I thought kind of worked and they gave me notes. I tried to rewrite it and then I got a call and they just said yey, it's not going to work out. Like we're letting you go. So I got paid, I don't know, 10, 000 for like, you know, that the script, I'm sorry, the outline. 

But like I didn't have a job and I mean, I just remember, I remember like calling my dad, just breaking down on the phone. I mean, it was like, I went to my cousin's wedding. Everyone's like, oh my god, how's JAG going? And so I just, you know, the, that was like, that's where my career was headed. And by the way, the moment I got hired for JAG, ironically, both JAG and NCIS both wanted to hire me. And they read my script. 

JAG was kind of in its. Final years. It was NCIS’s  first year. And so there's a version also where the, but the NCIS guy was less, you know, he was more junior than the other guy who wanted to hire me. So the other, the more senior guy got me, but, and then fired me. But like, there's a version where I get hired on NCIS. I'm in the writer's room of NCIS.

And then like, I create NCIS New Orleans 15 years later. So like, that's one sliding door. But what happened was I got fired from JAG. And it was just like, maybe I should go to culinary school. Like, I didn't really know what my life was going to be. And Gene and I started writing together because of that.

And had I become a, had I become a drama writer, then I don't know where my career would have gone. Maybe I just would have been doing CBS procedurals like, you know, back to back. And so–

Lorien: I mean, you would have been getting a lot of residuals right now had that been your path. I mean, there is one–

Lee: Really nice residuals.

Lorien: Really nice. 

Jeff: But then don't forget he worked on the office, which–

Lee: I worked on The office. I do get some residuals. But anyway, so it was kind of one of these things where it's like, I couldn't imagine what could possibly happen. Like I felt like I'd exhausted every opportunity as a writer and as a writer's assistant.

And then within a year of that, I was, Jean and I sold a pilot, that pilot got us hired on The Office. And so. Getting fired from Jag was a blessing. I'm, I love my career. I'm so proud of it. I've worked with like the funniest, most talented people. And every day I get to like, I mean, my job is basically just to say what if.

And with confidence and with experience, I like, I'm not only doing comedy and so I, I had an idea for a game show and now I sold the game show to Amazon. Like, I love that. I love that I have, I'm able to kind of. I love television. I love movies. And I love that I have the opportunity and the possibility of saying, like, I'm going to write a thriller and my agents aren't like, what? You know, like, why aren't you writing a, you know, Kevin Hart Rock, the Rock comedy or something, you know, like that sort of thing. 

Lorien: What if your agents had said, don't write a thriller? Would you still have written your thriller? 

Lee: Probably I, they'd have to give me a pretty compelling reason to not. And that's not really my relationship with them.

I mean, I love my agents and I've been with them for, you know, almost 20 years, but I'll tell them my ideas. I'm really happy to share them and I want them to like it and they, they read my scripts and they give me feedback. Like at the, at kind of the earliest stage, if they said your idea for a thriller is exactly like a thriller that Scott Frank is writing, then that would probably dissuade me from doing it.

If they said like, I'm not sure about that idea, I don't know that I would care. If 10 people told me that they didn't like the idea, then I would probably be dissuaded. But I, you know, one of my jobs is to, I'm not like, I'm very comfortable being wrong. And I'm very comfortable having someone else's idea kind of win, but I'm hired and paid to, to kind of have like the courage of my convictions a little bit and to at least bet on certain things.

And so, like, I know my thriller idea is a great idea. I can't tell you confidently that I executed it to the level that like I have in my head. But I do know if an excellent writer were to have written this, and I hope that I'm an excellent writer, and I hope that Gordon made me a better writer, but I know that the idea, I've pitched it to enough people where I'm certain the idea is good.

So then it's my job as a writer to have like executed it to the appropriate level. 

Lorien: That's awesome. Okay, so what was the sliding door that got you to–

Lee: Lessons in Chemistry. 

Lorien: Lessons in Chemistry. Yeah. 

Lee: Oh, yeah. I mean, so I I finished We Crashed and that was kind of a different thing than, you know, things I've done in the past and I was really, I really enjoyed it and I was really trying to figure out, okay, like, what's next? I have a deal at Apple and, you know, what can I bring them? What do they want? 

And started to go down the road with another idea and it just, I pitched them a few things. They didn't say no, but they, you could just, you feel and by the way, like, I'm one of those ideas I'm pursuing, but a few of the others I'm not. So like, it wasn't like they were turning down my, you know, my A plus things. And I was kind of, it was more, I was in kind of that murky thing where like, I didn't know what was next. 

And my wife, we're on our honeymoon and my wife read the book and she said like, this is a series. You should find out what's going on with it. And I was like, well. You know, it's at Apple and, you know, if you're reading it now, it's like, you know, it got sold like, you know, years ago and sure enough it had.

But I reached out to my executive at Apple, this woman, Michelle Lee, who I've worked with for five years, who's incredible. And I just said, you know, if there's anything to do on Lessons in Chemistry, it's like, I'd love to be a part of it. I'm obsessed with this book. And they were looking for a writer at the time. And Michelle and I just started talking about it and kind of talked about it what she loved about it, what I loved about it, and she is someone who's, you know, whose opinion carries a ton of weight for me.

And she really, she's an executive, but really in a lot of ways functions as a producer, as she's so kind of hands on her projects. And within a few days, I was on a Zoom with Brie, who was in London at the time, and she was flying back. And we just decided to, you know, we just hit it off. And you know, within a week, the deal had been made and we were just kind of off to the races.

Lorien: Wow, that's crazy fast. 

Lee: It was, yeah, it was really fast. Yeah. 

Lorien: Everything happens really fast or really slowly. 

Lee: Correct. I have, there's most of my projects, it's like, wow, that thing It's like, how long have you been working on that? I had a show a reality show called Goat that came on Amazon a few months ago. I've been working on it for five or six years. 

Lorien: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had deals at BA go on for so long that I forgot about it. Like it just got out of my, and then my reps call and they're like, oh, so we're in these. I'm like, wait, what? Hold on. I gotta, right. Cause you know, something doesn't happen.

Lee: That's a great feeling. 

Lorien: You can't hold onto it. Right? Yeah. That's a great feeling. Like, oh, it's been so long. I forgot this was the thing. So Brie was involved. How long had Brie been involved before that? Had she, was she the one that went after the book rights originally?

Lee: I think the book initially was found by Michael Costigan who's Jason Bateman's partner at Aggregate who's fantastic. And I think Michael kind of started putting together with Brie and Susanna Grant. And then Susanna ended up getting a movie. And so she kind of moved off the project. 

Lorien: That's awesome. I love the show so much. 

Lee: Thank you. 

Lorien: I love the style of it right away. I was hooked in with the style and the storytelling and the directing was so evocative and the writing was brilliant.

Of course, Brie’s performance. The intricacies of it were so breathtaking. There's a, there's pieces of the show that spoke to me so much specifically about being a mother, right? That I thought, oh, for sure. Like only women worked on this show. Right. So, which I know isn't always the case, but there were such beautiful specifics in it.

And specifically about being a woman in a work environment where she's at the station and they say coffee and she's, she wanders to go get it. Like just these little microaggressions we do to ourselves sometimes. That it's hard to unlearn those things. And so I know you had women and women writers in the room and women directors.

Maybe this is a dicey question. I don't know. You're a man, right? Like you're running this beautiful show and you did an excellent job. What was that like for you? Like, did you feel like you were going to get this question a lot? 

Lee: I did. And actually, interestingly, I didn't. The question really didn't come up.

I think people should write whatever speaks to them. I, the show was very you know, all the directors were women. All the, so many of the department heads, I mean like, were women and I, that was incredibly important to me and not like in a kind of virtue singly way, the story, I wanted to get it right.

And so, so many of the conversations, I mean, we had a one year old while–

Lorien: I mean you can tell that people with kids with that work dynamic, like, what do I do, that is applicable to men and women and non-binary, right? It's 

Lee: Oh, completely. And so I think that for me, it's I you know, the other writer on the show is Alyssa Karasik, who I'd worked with on We Crash and we've developed a bunch of things.

My wife, who's a best selling author, co-wrote two episodes with me. It was her first foray into TV, but the pace of everything was so fast that I needed, I just needed help. 

And and so many of the conversations were just really just sitting in the writer's room, talking, you know, Alyssa doesn't have kids, Natalie Sandy doesn't have kids, and I, you know, so we were all kind of taking, we were talking about loss a lot.

And you know, that coffee moment that you mentioned I wrote that, and I, you know, I I love that moment, I was so proud, I'm so proud that you mentioned it. It was really It was kind of all those things, right, like when I came up with it, I like kind of ran into the room. I was like, what if, you know, what if she assumes, you know, that sort of thing. 

And you know, I think being a writer is being an observer and know that I didn't do it alone. And I think that's one of the kind of the themes of the show is, you know, you find your village and Elizabeth, when the show starts really has these walls up and she doesn't allow, you know, in the kind of the science vernacular, like doesn't allow outside contaminants in and you have to.

And you know, if I sat around, Lessons in Chemistry would not be what it is if I sat in a room by myself and then said like, this is great, shoot it. And by the way, it's possible that would have been allowed because the show was, you know, we had Brie for a certain amount of time. She had other obligations and the show, you know, it was getting ready to be shot. I guess I could have done that, but I have no interest in that.

And I had instincts of what I wanted to accomplish. And I was just dozens and dozens of conversations with Bri and talking to all of our consultants and really having people share really personal experiences. And I think for me, writing is so much in the specifics and it's those tiny moments, like what you're mentioning.

And so all I want is to make someone feel. That's all I, that's all I take away from TV. And if I can pull that off and that you, a show endures or that you tell your friend or that it moves you to tears or that it surprises you and you laugh, like. That's what moves me.

And it's all kind of in the, it's me just kind of, you know, being an observer of the world and just trying to kind of put my own spin on it. 

Lorien: I thought it was beautifully done. Congratulations. I mean, I loved it. The, you know, in every show, those specifics are going to hit different people in different ways, right? All audiences are going to react differently. Like I said, I wept. I didn't just cry. 

Lee: Wow. 

Lorien: Things would hit me in a way, like the moment. And I've talked to this on the, about this on the show, you know, not connecting to the baby you've given birth to right away. It's such a specific thing that doesn't happen to everybody, but it happens to more parents than you think. And that we don't talk, and for that to be just out there and talked about and shared on the show.

And there's so much grief and loss in the show too, which, you know, I do a really good job of keep buried deep, deep, deep down. And then when I watch shows, that's when I'm allowed to have my feelings. Right. So for me, it was a gift because I got to sit for, I don't know how many hours did it run?

You know, eight, eight hours, I got to process my own pain and delight and joy about being a woman and being a person, being a creative, having dreams, you know? So I loved it. And I was so excited to have you on the show for this reason. So I could tell you all these, I have like a list of all the things I want to talk about.

I'm not going to do that. I don’t want to embarrass you. But, and also I didn't read the book and I heard, you know,  before I watched the show, there was well, there's this part with the dog talks. And so it was like this and I was like, all right, I'm in. So, but I thought it was lovely to introduce the dog's voice when you did at that really bummer of a moment. Right. 

Cause then you like. You get to have a, it's because so much of the show for me was about how you look at a thing too, right. And whose point of view it is and everybody's experience of grief and loss and joy and love is so different. And so I loved that perspective. For me, that wasn't a yikes moment. It was like, Oh, cool, what's that? You know? So.

Lee: I was just going to say that, you know, I was the beneficiary of, you know, such exceptional source material and I obviously put my spin on it and there are things that I departed from the book in bigger ways. 

But I mean, I remember reading when I was reading the book and the experience of kind of moving to the dog's perspective was so incredibly moving to me and heartbreaking and I have two dogs and, you know, as an owner of a dog, it's, you know, it's like a child and you're kind of staring into their eyes and what do they feel in any given moment and you kind of project onto them and really hearing the dog's perspective is so important. And then it's just the logistics of how do you, how are you accomplishing that in the show and are, how many episodes are you doing that for, are you doing that at all.

You know, there's the dog in the book, I can't remember, you know, knows thousands of words and is going to visit Calvin at the cemetery. And. Some of those things, you know, when you start thinking about it in practice and how that's going to feel, it just I think it cuts differently than it does in the book.

And so it really felt what I try to do in everything, you know, every show that I do is really having kind of distinct episodes that are very declarative. And so that you can say, like, the one where the dog, you know, the dog is narrating, like, you know, the one where Calvin dies, like, this is the flashback episode to, you know, like, yeah, this is the one where supper at six begins.

And I think that's really important to me. And particularly in something like this, where it's, you know, you're really kind of creating chapters. It felt more impactful to do it for one rather than kind of, you know, to do it over the course of four. So. 

Lorien: Is that how you break a show in the room? Where you're like, this is the one where like, where does supper at six start, right? You have to.

Lee: Yeah, because it was based on a book and the book laid out in a really lovely way. And again, things, you know, it wasn't, it's not one to one at all. There are real kind of signposts for things we wanted and it's like, okay, Calvin dying. When is that going to happen? Should that happen at the end of episode one should happen that the end of episode two and should happen at the end of episode three.

Well, if it happens at the end of episode three of all this other story we want to accomplish after it, are we not going to be able to do that? Because, are we gonna have to speed through other things and so Calvin dying was a big signpost or starting at separate six is a big signpost, Mad being born, you know, that's episode four and so, as you start kind of laying these things out, it starts to, it start, there's a rhythm to it a little bit, you know.

Episode seven is really is something that I kind of created whole cloth inspired very much from the book and there were passages in the book about this kind of letter writing back and forth between the characters of Wakely and Calvin. 

And I was like, part of it was, I had the experience as we were shooting to see Lewis Pullman playing this role and I was like, Oh my God, I, this, he's extraordinary. And we only have him for three episodes. Can I call his agent right now? I selfishly, like, it needs to make sense story wise, but if there was a way to do it, could we do it? And I really enjoyed in Lessons in Chemistry, seeing perspectives from other characters. And it felt very much within the kind of the rules and the tone of the show.

And we had seen an episode from Elizabeth's perspective, and so much of the show was kind of about this mystery of who Calvin is. And to kind of dig into that backstory. And by the way, like when you tell your line producer, like, oh, okay. We're actually not just doing the fifties and the sixties. We're going back into the forties. Oh no, actually we're going back to the twenties and the thirties, you know? And we need a boy's home and we need like, you know, all these extras.

And you're doing these things really fast. It was on the fly by the way, you need, you know, Lewis needs to learn how to row and Brie needs to learn how to row. You know, all that stuff. I mean, it just. So much of it is the conversation and the creativity of, okay, well, how can we pull this off? But I really and episode seven is just filled with these montages. 

And it's like, it wasn't that the script was long, but it's like, it's not, it doesn't matter how long the script is. It's like how many scene headings there are. And, you know, when you start breaking down a thing, and I really wanted to feel like the span of time and that this friendship really blossomed between these two men. 

And, Tara Mealy, who I'd worked with on Little America and we, who had come up with me. We were both assistants in the year 2000 and her career has just been incredible. She knocked it out of the park. I mean, I think that episode is so, so, so soulful and moving and really just gives you a complete, it's bookended by, or it's not bookended by Elizabeth, but you feel Elizabeth throughout it, but it's really Calvin's episode and that, you know, I called it the book of Calvin.

Lorien: Yeah. It's beautiful. I mean, every episode for me had something really stunning in it and specific, like you say. Right. I love the, you know, when she's walking with Mad on the way home from school and she's talking to her specifically about the food and– 

Lee: Yeah.

Lorien: That's a mom thing to do, but such a smart way to do it. I was like, I might, that's something to use, right? Like, track somebody, you know, like it's. 

Lee: I think that was from the book. I can't remember, but yeah, that was, yeah, it was great. 

Lorien: So you talked a little bit about pitching too, about pitching. Do you have like a best and a worst pitching story? 

Lee: Oh God. I mean, pitches are the worst. I think I'm like a, I think I'm like a like a B pitcher. Like I think I'm fine. And cause I've worked with writers that are that are excellent pitchers, not and I think it's so stupid because it's not like I've, some of the best pitchers I've heard are not my favorite writers. And so, and there are writers that I think are brilliant that it's like, oh no, you should just read them.

Because they're not dynamic in a room, you're not hiring them. Like the whole thing, like my job, all of us became writers because if we were meant to be car salesmen or agents, then that's the role that we would have taken. So this idea that like, I'm going to do a song and dance and then I'm going to seduce you. It's so antithetical to what writing is. 

Lorien: And you have to memorize it and bring a deck. 

Lee: I don't memorize it. I'm like a fifth grader. I'm like looking down like

Lorien: I have my paper. I do my paper. I do my show. But like, I can't memorize that stuff. 

Lee: No. I, so I yeah, I mean, I've done terrible pitches. I mean, I pitched a movie, Jean and I pitched a movie in 2005 or six and we were pitching it. And the guy interrupted us. I have two pitches where I was interrupted. 

The first one was the, whether you like the idea, it was about a it was about a guy who becomes a he was a father who was a stay at home husband, and he ends up becoming the 40 year old intern.

Is that a good idea? I don't know. There was a movie later with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn called The Internship. Ours was before that, and it was different. So we're pitching the thing, and we're kind of doing the wind up, and the guy goes, so he's a 40 year old intern, And like, he, like, that was our, that was the punchline.

Like we, he interrupted us like, and I feel sometimes when I'm pitching and then he just was like, okay, I get it. And just turned away. Like he was proud of himself that he figured out what our pitch was that wasn't hidden. It was probably on like his email earlier that day. And it's like, I feel like when you're pitching I'm doing a standup routine, right. And shut the fuck up. 

Lorien: You got heckled.

Lee: Like it wasn't even heckled. It was just like, it was just like, you don't need to talk. Like at the end you can ask questions. It's like, I'm doing a thing, like I prepared this thing. That's the agreement we've all kind of entered into. You will sit there quietly and you can politely laugh or I can surprise you and you can really laugh. And then at the end you can ask questions and you can decide if you want to buy it or not, but like, at least let me get through it. So that was annoying. 

And then there's another time years later where we were producing something and we started pitching and we were, the guy interrupted us about two minutes into the pitch and said, I just want to tell you, we have something really similar. And I actually don't think we should continue hearing this. Cause I don't want, I don't want to step on it. I don't want to waste your time. 

And so we're like, okay, thanks. And then we just left, you know, we had our whole song and dance that one, we had like a big poster and all that stuff. And we just carried our poster out and that was that.

I think with all these things, it's like, Jury Duty no one wanted, except for you know, Amazon Freevie. And all these places, you know, now are like, why don't we have our Jury Duty? It was like, well, you could have had your Jury Duty. You chose not to have your Jury Duty. And now you're like, we want our Jury Duty.

It's like, oh yes, of course you want it now. Like you could have trusted, you know, us at that time. And so it's all like Bad Teacher. We wrote on spec. It was not a pitch, but Sony was the only place who came in and you know, that it worked out well for them and it worked out really well for us. And I'm really proud of that movie.

But you know, so some of the things that I've worked on that have, you know, that have had quite a bit of success or critical acclaim. Little America, I was convinced I was like that show at that moment with the team that I put it together, I was like, and the show was really the stories we had when we were pitching it I thought were just so beautiful. And all of them ended up in the series. 

And we were going into pitches and people were crying. And then Apple is the only place who made an offer. So it's just, you know, I literally took something out the other day and the guy said, this is the funniest pitch. I was not pitching. I was a producer of it. So, he said, this is one of the funniest pitches I've ever heard. And I walked out with the other people and I said, Oh, we're dead. He's not going to buy it. 

I was so angry that he said that I was like, cause then he's going to say, look, I loved it. You know, unfortunately I had to talk to my other colleagues and like, they just didn't quite see it the same way. And so like his enthusiasm made me really nervous for a pass. 

Lorien: I've done that. There's no questions. That means they hated it or they're going to go buy it. I'm going to get a call 15 minutes late in my car, like you never know in a pitch. Jeff, you had a question about jury duty. 

Jeff: I hope this is a fair thing to say, but it's not shocking that people didn't jump at the bit to buy Jury Duty. Cause it's such a, well, you guys invented a genre with that show. Like it feels like it'd be a huge risk and obviously unsurprisingly, it ended up being a huge hit, but I guess I'm curious, like what was development for that like?

And how did you go in with so much confidence when so much of it was unscripted, so much of it was experimental, and you guys were kind of essentially inventing a genre. 

Lee: The one thing I would say is there's definitely not a lot of confidence. We, the team that we had in place was really experienced in the hidden camera genre.

So, Dave Burnett and Todd Shulman you know, are the producers of the show and they're good friends of mine. And they came to me and Jean and said we want to do a hidden camera show. And we want to kind of extend over the course of a season. And they had the idea of a jury duty. We had developed a jury duty show years earlier.

And so part of it was kind of thinking like, okay, we can kind of take these ideas that I had always loved in the scripted version and now apply it to this hidden camera version. And for us, it was really kind of learning as we went, you know, how you write and develop a hidden camera show or a hidden camera movie, like, you know, what Sasha Baron Cohen does or Eric Andre.

It's a really different it's a really different skill set than writing a scripted comedy. And it is just, You don't know. I mean, you know, now everyone's like, Oh my God, Ronald, like, you know, how did you find him? He's incredible. And we love Ronald. But like, what's great about Ronald is that he's decent and he's kind. And he was open. 

But those aren't like if I were writing a comedy, those are not adjectives that you're looking for your main character. You're like, they have a, you know, what are their misbehaviors? They're complicated. They, that’s not to say, Ronald's not complicated, but like for the purposes that show we needed someone who was kind of receptive to the experience.

And that is just not the way that you construct something. Like in some ways, Ronald is a passive main character, which is like, that would be a note that you would get. And so that was really, that was the tricky thing was finding a way of making the show kind of, you have to activate him to participate.

But you really don't know from day to day. And so you know, you kind of come up with these premises, you come up with these movements and, you know, in a jury duty, you feel very confident that like, okay, everyone's going to the break room, you know, to the deliberation room to eat lunch. You know that Ronald is going to join them for lunch, right?

Like you feel confident that he's not like, I'm gonna, you know, he wasn't allowed to sit in his car, you know, like he had to go to the thing and you're being corralled by a bailiff. You don't, I've been at jury duty a few times. Like, you're not saying no to that stuff. 

So, you know, he's going to move to that room and you can kind of, you can kind of fudge where he sits because other people have taken the seats first or whatever, so, you know, I can force him to sit next to you, but like, is he going to say like, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to, I want to take over the lunch ordering or, you know, you know what, I don't care. And well, if he doesn't care, then how does that work? 

And so you're constantly having to adapt. There's a control room and you're really doing it on the fly. It's a very, there's a live element to it. And you control as many variables as you can, but you just don't know what's going to come. 

So you really, so the, you have confidence in the sense that you put together the best team, that you've tried to kind of game it out as best you can, and then you just have to constantly be letting, allowing it to evolve, and really thinking fast on your feet throughout. 

Lorien: I'm gonna give you another compliment. So, when Jury Duty first came out, Jeff emailed the team, Jury Duty, this is an amazing show, you guys have to watch it, you have to watch it, you have to watch it.

Every episode he watched, You have to watch it. You have to watch it. It's the best thing I've seen. It's the best thing I've ever seen. Like, this like, constant stream of how amazing this show was. It was like fine, we’ll watch it. Oh my God, Jeff. But he like was so like, I don't know how many times it actually happened.

Jeff: You know, what was fun about the show was there's precedent for hidden camera shows and like, I love Nathan Fielder. I love what he does. But yeah, it's funny. And I don't know if I want to keep this on the show or not, but as I've grown as a writer and a person, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with like the exploitive elements of hidden camera stuff.

And you managed to create like a really sweet version of what's normally kind of a cruel medium. And I think like that was kind of a magic trick. 

Lee: Well, I think that was something that we talked about from the beginning is, I think a lot of hidden camera can be punching down. And so you're oh, look at this stooge, you know, look how dumb they are, look how ignorant they are. And me with my, you know, 15 writers in my earwig are going to, you know, destroy this person. 

And that was never our interest or our intention. And I mean, I literally went back to our pitch pages for it. Looking for something, and that's what we said, you know, we really wanted to be a hero's journey. We wanted you know, I think what we said initially was, you know, we wanted someone who was a wallflower and to become in the jury form and really kind of almost like a 12 Angry Men sort of way, you know, getting the other jurors to see what's right.

And the joke was really never at Ronald's expense. And, you know, that's really kind of our guiding light. In terms of the pursuit of that show was, can you do, can you kind of do a half hour comedy where there's one real person existing in a fictional world, but without the joke being like, you know, oh, he's silly.

Like I legitimately like, I really like Ronald. I would say everyone who worked on the show are friends with him still. I saw Dave Bernard yesterday he was like, oh, I gotta text Ronald about something. It's just a, he's our coworker. He's our colleague. Like we, you know, we're fans of his. When I see him at a party, I'm thrilled to see him. He's really happy to see me. Like there's no, and that's because we wanted to kind of show the best in humanity, not kind of not punch down. As I said.

Lorien: Well it worked. It was lovely. What advice do you have for other writers?

Lee: I have a few pieces of advice. I think I think a lot of writers try to, like, game things out too much. And I just think, like, just write. Like, there's only, that's the only thing you can control. So you can make excuses for not writing. And you can you can keep your lists of, like, which agents you want to, you know, be signed with or, you know. There's a lot of busy work that you can do that is procrastinating from the actual thing. And so try to avoid that. 

I really, when I read writers, I I'm lazy and I'm busy. And so like it, I mean, unless it's a friend or I'm like utterly gripped, I think I read five to ten pages of a script and I'm like, okay, I get it. Like. I either like you, or I don't, or you're not right for this show, but interesting for something else.

And I have people that, you know, are reading more people than me, but I encourage the people who work for me not to read full scripts, because it's just not efficient. And so, if someone can't write a good first act, I don't believe that I'm going to, like, be like, no, but the third act, like, you wouldn't believe where this thing. And I think a lot of writers write with a lack of specificity.

And so it's about, I want to be surprised. That's all the things I was saying that I attempt to do with my own writing, I want to feel in someone else's writing. So it's like, how am I meeting a main character? And it's very easy. And I, when I'm watching movies, I'm like, I have no hair anymore, but like pulling my hair out, just like, that's what you chose? Like all of this time and just like–

Lorien: Is that why you don't have any hair anymore? Cause you watched so many movies where you’re pulling your hair out?

Lee: I watched all these movies and I kept pulling my hair out. No, but I think that like, I want to meet a serial killer and then discover that like, they're a dad or I want to meet a dad and discover they're a serial killer.

I think it's less interesting or surprising to see someone killing someone and then be like, they're a serial killer. It's like, yeah, no shit. I just saw him kill someone. You know what I mean? 

And so it's like, how are you introducing the character? Is there a joke that kind of knocks my socks off? Like, does it feel like, oh my god, this person must have worked in like the poultry industry because I've, I didn't even know that's how like chickens were slaughtered. And I, so I want it to feel visceral. I want it to feel alive. I want to be transported.

And there's there's a writer on We Crash, this writer, Mark Stosenko, if Mark is listening, and Drew Crivello, who created the show with me, said you have to read this script, you're gonna read four pages in, and you're gonna be like, we gotta hire him, and I read, I think I ended up reading, just because I was curious, I think I probably read to page ten, but page four, I texted Drew and said, yeah, he, we gotta hire this guy. And it was just like, oh, I'd never seen, he wrote a pilot about about Enron and I was just like, oh, this guy is an unbelievable writer and it was so funny and so surprising.

And I was just like, yep, easy, like done. And I have no idea if that script went off the rails on page 20. I don't care. 

Lorien: He didn't even finish the script. I love that so much. 

Lee: No, I never finished the scripts. I never finish. Like, I would say I finish, I would say I finish like one out of every 40 scripts.

Lorien: Oh, wow. Do you think that's common for other–

Lee: I don't know. I just like, I like, if I'm really like, I would read all of Mark's script because I was so enjoying what I had read. But my job to me was not to enjoy a script. My job was to hire a writing staff. And once I knew that, I was like, great, I found someone I love. That's awesome. Onto the next one. Oh, I don't like this one. I don't like this one. I don't like so like.

To read a full script might take me an hour. To read ten scripts, to read five pages of ten scripts might take me an hour. And so that, again, it's just an efficiency thing. If I continued reading it, I wasn't going to change my mind because I saw the brilliance of his writing. And so then I would just be doing it just for my own pleasure. And that was not what I, that was a work time, that was not a pleasure time. 

So, I don't know how other people do it. I can only speak to the way I do it. And again, like, five pages I think is generous. Like I think I know, you know, from about a page or two, whether I think that you, that I will respond to your writing.

And there's, you know, particularly in comedies, like I look at joke structure. I'm not like analyzing it, like I'm a scientist, but I'm just saying that like, I know, like, I want to be surprised. And if I see jokes that I've seen in five other scripts, then like, okay, you're not for me that you should, I hope that you have a long and illustrious career, but like, we're not going to work together because I want jokes that I've never seen before.

Lorien: Love it. 

Lee: And I want Mr. X, and I want to think that I'm watching this thing and I'm actually watching this. And I read, I will read scripts. I, you know, I'm working on this thriller, like I am devouring the Heat script, which is incredible. I have read Prisoners you know, that I've read that script, various versions of it, like four times, like. 

I read I like to read and I like to be entertained. And I want to see how someone's doing something. I want to understand how, you know, how you create tension. I want to see what a car chase reads like. I've read Bourne. You know, all that sort of stuff. But when I'm hiring, when I'm reading young writers, when I'm reading experienced writers and I'm looking to staff someone, I'm looking to put someone on a feature, you know, that I'm producing, you need to separate yourself from the pack.

And it also like, and I'm not interested in someone who's separating themselves from the pack in kind of a crazy way that's like, Oh, I see. You're just, you're being sensational for the sake of being sensational, you know? So it's really hard. I mean, my agents and my reps give me a lot of shit because I'm a very hard reader.

But like, I'm a writer and a producer, so if all I did all day was just read scripts and develop, I would probably have two or three times more development. Right. But I don't have that time because I write for so much that when I choose a project I need to, it really ma– Like both when we're, you know, actually in development on it and also with my staffs or anything like that.

Like I really, there's so much curation because. I don't have the time to, to kind of like work with a writer, you know, from, you know, for four hours because I, that will take away time from other things. 

And then the other thing I believe which maybe is disheartening for writers is I think that I think I'm a good producer because I, you know, I write and so I can sit and help you break your story. I think as a producer, I think the best producer can change a project one letter grade maybe. 

Lorien: I agree.

Lee: Like, at most. And so, we've made the mistake of hiring writers that like, had a pilot that was like a B- or a C+ but with an idea that we love, and then somehow were angry when they like, hand in a B, and that we couldn't get it to an A.

And it's like, no, that's our fault. Like, they showed us what they were. Why did you like, they weren't lying. We convinced ourselves of something as producers that we’re so talented. But ultimately, I think sometimes writers are lazy. I think sometimes it just, they don't have it. 

And I mentor writers all the time. I love, I remember so vividly who mentored me and who didn't take the time and so it's really important for me to carry that forward. But that's very different to me than like my job. And so my job is to make things and to pick and kind of bet on the right horses. And so we become even more for our company, that's me and an assistant and an executive and that's it.

We just don't have, we don't have, I don't have 10 people that work for me where it's like, Oh, let's take a flyer on this. Let's, that's a fun world. Let's explore it. When I take something on for better or for worse, you're going to get me and like, I'm going to be in it. And so I have to make sure that it's worth my time because it's going to take, it's going to pull focus from something else.

Lorien: Well, it's what we talked about at the beginning, right? You're making choices that serve the big picture for you, for your life as your career, your life too, which I think is a really smart way to think about things and not to get tunnel vision and focus on things that are a distraction. Like you said, like, like a lot of emerging writers, I have to get a rep. It's like, no, sell something. Then you'll get a rep. 

Lee: I think the issue is always the writing, or I would say not always, but I would say primarily the writing and not all of the other nonsense. And the other nonsense is like, if you have a great script, I believe, I know a lot of working writers whose work I don't love.

I don't know. And I, my office and I have been doing this for 20 years. I don't know a lot of, I don't know any non working writer who just is sitting on like an Aaron Sorkin, A Few Good Men. I just, that's not been my experience. And by the way, like I would be thrilled. I would be thrilled to read that person. I would jump on it. I would get them signed by whoever, and I would, you know, get their script made and stuff like that. 

I just think that like, I think that people are really focused on that part of it. And just like, it's about putting in hours and writing and writing, and everything else just, it just matters less and less to me.

Lorien: Which is why I have to go back to that script after this call. 

Lee: I agree. I agree. 

Lorien: Dive back into it and not allow myself to roll around in the meh. Like I can't afford that. Yeah. I have to just write, I have to write myself out of the meh. 

Lee: Yeah. 

Lorien: I have to write through it every time, right? Write through the meh.

Jeff: Yeah, there's that quote that's like, if you chucked the best script ever written off the top of a mountain onto the 405 into traffic, it would be in theaters in six months. Cause it's that good. It's like people will, if your material is good enough, people are desperate for brilliant material. So yeah, I agree.

Lee: No, that's exactly–

Lorien: Just be a brilliant person.

Jeff: Yeah just be brilliant.

Lee: No. By the way, like I, but I, just to be clear, like I am not brilliant. I work harder than everyone else. I believe  that to be true. And so like, I think that I have, I didn't think I started at a place, I don't think I started, like where I wasn't able to write and now I write well. There are more natural writers than I am. 

The only thing that I can do to change my destiny is I can outwork you. I can, that's the only thing I can control. And I can be smart about how I outwork you. But like, I will, I can tick off all the people that I think are so much more talented than me. And the only thing that I can control is reps. Right? It's like, so, I'm just a gym rat. But it's not, I'm not a gym rat if I'm, at all. But I'm a, that's what I do. 

I like, when other people are doing other stuff I'm listening to a podcast because I want to develop it as a show or I'm reading writers and I'm reading 10 writers when you're reading one or I'm it's Saturday night and I'm rereading my thriller. Like that's the way you get ahead and everything else–

I don't know anyone successful who does not work hard, you know? And so that to me is the most important thing. And if you have talent, well, great, like amazing. And you will need that. I don't think hard work on its own can do it. But the difference between like, not having a career and having a career or having a career and having a great career, I believe is hard work.

Lorien: And that's why that meh moment was so alarming to me because I'm a hard worker. I work hard and I allowed myself to get the like, write the, I'm getting, I just let myself off the hook. And I really didn't like it because I needed to do it. And so some, but sometimes that's going to happen, right? I can't always be the freight train, right? I got a little derailed. And so now I have to get back on just one train for a little while until I finish the damn script. 

Lee: The other piece of advice, sorry, just as I think about this is like, I talk to writers sometimes and they say like, oh, I don't think like, this isn't like, this isn't to get made. This is just like, I'm writing this for me. 

And I'm like, Oh, what? No, why? Right? Like I think writing is so hard, like everything that I do and by the way, from the time that I was 22, like, I only thought about it, like, is this viable? Could this happen? How would you put it together? And so I, like, Iit doesn't, that does like, like writing a script just takes so long and to do it well and to rewrite it and hone it is so much time and kind of creative fuel and investment.

So like to do something that's kind of a lark or, Oh, I'm just doing this for my friends. It's like, I like, that doesn't register for me. Like, again, if you, if like, if screenwriting is not what you want to pursue professionally, then great. Like that's a completely different, that's a completely different thing.

I assume that the people are listening to this, their desire is to kind of break into a business or to find ways of, you know, of you know, kind of improving their business. So I think that's really important is being really thoughtful. And that doesn't mean like gaming the system. That doesn't mean like going on deadline and seeing that like, you know, five horror movies sold. So now I'm gonna write a horror movie and I've never written a horror movie. Like that's not what it is.

But I do think that like writing your personal story, that like, You know, could only be cast with one person that will cost 180 million. But also like just those sorts of things. I think you just have to, what's the vision of it a little bit. And I think sometimes people lack that when I talk to younger writers about their ideas. 

Lorien: It's tricky because you have to write something thinking this will get made, I believe in it, but also knowing that maybe it will get read and get you a meeting, right? But always with that bigger picture in mind, or are you suggesting just with a bigger picture in mind?

Lee: I just think it's like, I think you just need to have a plan. And I think the plan is, like I said, I don't think the, I don't think the solution to kind of a writer's writer started off is to have like, well, I have a comedy and I have a horror and I have a, you know, I have a genre thing. Like, I don't think that's the, I don't think that's the right way to go.

I think that like, I honed my craft as a comedy writer for years and years, and then I started developing confidence and I had other interests in terms of writing, and then I was able to pursue those other things. I think that kind of jumping, jumping from genre to genre from. Again, there's writers who have done that, but I think that it's all hard. And I think it's like, what do you love? 

Are you like, I like horror, but I don't love horror. And so I don't know that I'd be the best person to write a horror. I think I could do a pretty good job producing one. I think I could be additive to someone, but if you don't like horror, but you think that's what people want, I don't think that's the right plan.

And if your goal is to be a late night joke writer, then like, I don't think you should write a, you know, drama sample about, you know what I mean? Like, I just think like, what's the path? And like, how can you become a kind of a, like an expert in your in your field a little bit?

Lorien: I love that. Write what you love. 

Lee: Yeah. 

Lorien: Right. Yeah. So it's been awesome having you on the show. We ask all our guests the same three questions at the end. So here's our first question. What brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing?

Lee: That's a great question. Like the first week of being in a writer's room. Like I love sitting around with other really smart people and you don't quite know what the show is going to be yet. And you're just like, it's this possibility that it just, it feels kind of alive. 

And then things slowly start to say like, oh my Good, wait, that's the end of episode three. And now you're writing towards something you're writing, you know, what's coming after, you know, it's whatever. And those kind of Eureka moments that kind of come in the loose before there's dialogue and before anything that it just feels like everything is on the table. It's, you know, it's so blue sky.

Lorien: Love it. Jonathan has a second question. 

Jonathan: So on the other side of things, what pisses you off about writing? 

Lee: These questions are really triggering me. What pisses me off about writing? I can get dark. I feel a lot of self loathing. So I think that, like, the end of a day of, What did I accomplish or reading something back and thinking like what would a good writer do because you are not a good writer and you didn't do the thing.

So I think it's I try to give myself grace and that's a moving target, but I think that it's yeah, I think that there's a lot of self doubt, a lot of self loathing, and and a lot of frustration because we all know what's, like, we all watch Goodfellas, or when Harry met Sally, and are like, or Star Wars, and you're like, ah, this is great.

So we're all aspiring. Whatever the genre is, you're aspiring to do that, right? You're trying to do like your version of like, Oh my God, I want to write the funniest comedy ever. I want to scare the shit out of people. I want, you know, I want to move people to tears and then you're doing it. And in your head, you're like, oh, this scene could feel like that thing.

Or, you know, and then you start writing it and you're like, oh, I can't do, I can't do the thing. I'm a better viewer than I am a writer and that upsets me. 

Lorien: Yeah.

Jeff: Relatable.

Lee: Yeah. 

Lorien: Before you ask your question Jeff, so I was at Pixar for 10 years working in story. 

Lee: Oh wow. 

Lorien: And I met Meg while we were, while she was brought up to write it, and I was in story.

And so it's always a little. I don't want to say frustrating, but alarming when people pull out Pixar scripts and they say, this is how you write a good movie. Those movies take years and years rolling around on top of itself. And like, there was no script that was like beginning, middle and end written like that, that got, you know, it's like it's evolving.

So again, it's like, I'm going to write a movie like Inside Out. It's like, Great. Just so you know, that took years, you know, to write. 

Lee: I remember when we first got hired on The Office we got hired for the beginning of season two, so this show had been on for the first season, which was six episodes, and I had all the six scripts of the first season that I wanted to read to kind of just understand how they were written and whatever.

And it was my first, it was my first writing job, you know, this is post JJAGack. And I read the scripts and I said to Gene, I was like, we can't do this. These scripts are like, like every line is like the funniest joke I've ever read. Like. They're so intricate. It's small, but like giant and like the Pam and Jim story was so moving.

And I remember saying to Greg afterwards, I said, you know, did you, he said, did you get a chance to look at the scripts this weekend? I said, yeah. I said, they're excellent. And he could see, I think he saw my face, like whatever, like the most fear that a person has ever had in front of another person. And he said, you know, those are like, those are the shooting drafts.

Like they those evolved over months. And he kind of just like, he kind of talked me down from it. Because I was like, you can't do it. And what you realize is when you have that, when you have that level of talent, the way that the season one and, you know, and forward of something like the office, it's like the first draft, sometimes we're great.

Sometimes we're less great, but then, you know, you have this assemblage of people coming together and it's like, you have this dream team of writers. It's like, Everyone should be so lucky to have Mike Schur and Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak and Justin Spitzer and Paul Lieberstein and Jen Salata, like, like, even just giving you like one thought, not spending, you know, three weeks like every day, like, combing through every single line of your script. And so it just changes it, you know? 

Jeff: That's great. Yeah. Ira Glass talks about like the reason we become creatives is because we have amazing taste and we have this aspirational level of art that inspired us to make it. But the hard thing is there, there's years of craft and hard work until we can even get close to that bar.

So that can be like a very painful existential experience for an artist of knowing what's great because that's what inspired you to do it and having to work so hard to even get close to achieving that. So it's a yeah–

Lee: I think that's exactly right. It's like, What is it like Amadeus and like Solieri or whatever?

It's like, there's only like, I was talking to my wife. We're watching, rewatching Breaking Bad. She'd never seen it. And I was talking about the directing and she's like, well, no one thinks about it the way you like. And it's like you do and you don't like, you experience it. And I don't know that everyone talks about directing and talks about certain shots, but like things give you a feel.

And so it's like anyone who has written two screenplays, you know, enough that like you're in you've like crossed the, you've crossed like the border, right? Like you're now a writer–

Jeff: And you can't go back. 

Lee: And so it's like, you can't, so, you know, what's possible. And then your entire life's pursuit is to attempt to reach what you've seen others accomplish that you love.

And you wish that you could emulate. Totally. And that's, and like, at any level, that is like, such immense frustration and that's where you know, you see self loathing.

Jeff: So well said. That's exactly right. I've, you've given us a lot of time, so thank you so much. This is the last question. The last thing we ask is, and you've kind of answered this, but if you could go back and actually have a coffee with your younger self, maybe right after you were fired from JAG, what advice would you give to that Lee?

Lee: Oh, boy. Well, I'd probably like hand him a box of tissues because there was a lot of tears. 

Jeff: See self loathing. 

Lee: Yeah, exactly. I think that there's a, I think grace is really important. I think it's so easy, you know, the voice inside your head that everyone has, I think for writers is like magnified by a million because all you're doing all day.

I've had other jobs. Other jobs are also very difficult and taxing in different ways. But nothing is quite like writing, and, it's, you know, as much as I love working with other writers, so much of my day is solitary, and, it's really hard to not beat yourself up over it. And then I would just say like, don't, you're not going to write eight hours a day. I don't know any writer who writes eight hours a day. So if you give yourself eight hours and you don't write eight hours, then you're gonna be mad at yourself. 

So give yourself something achievable. Say I'm going to write five pages a day, write five pages a day. You have a script in 20 days. That's pretty fucking good. Like that feels manageable. If you can't write five pages a day, I would look at what, why, you know what I mean? And by the way, maybe that means that you're. Like, I think I've worked it out for me, and I have written faster, I think, in the math of it, for me, I think I average a page an hour. That is like, producible.

It's not always producible, but like, I think, because some of my things get produced, I think that's kind of what it works out for me and like I said, I've written way faster than that, but generally speaking, that's what it is, so I just know that to be true. So, okay, how am I going to do that? 

So, I try to do between five and ten pages a day. And some days like it is, I'm on page two for six hours and I'm like, what? Oh my God. What is happening? And sometimes there's deadlines and sometimes it's self imposed deadlines. Or I know that Gordon on the thriller that we're, you know, we're sharing pages tomorrow and I need to get through the scene, there's all different reasons. There's all different deadlines, but I think it's really important to set goals for yourself. And I think it's really important to hit them. 

And then I think it's really at any level you need to find, you need to find three to five people that you trust. You don't need 10 people to read your stuff. You don't need to wait until someone finally likes it. And I think it's useful that they're at your level. 

You know, I say to writers all the time, you know, when I meet with writers, I say, because everyone asks for me to read something, and there's always, there's, and we were talking about it earlier, like, whenever a writer says, like, well, I have four scripts that I love, so like, I could send you this, or I could send you this, or like, four scripts you love? 

Like, I don't have four scripts I love, and I've been doing this 20 years, like, I don't, like, I don't, like, that's a huge red flag for me, like, I do not believe that, like, you're sitting on four amazing scripts, and like, you know, it's my job to decide which one I want to read, like, you should have one script that you feel, like, pretty good about.

And then I say, like, I will, I don't know you, like, I don't have time to like, develop with you. So if I like your script, I'll help you get a rep. I'll help you. I'll, maybe I'll produce it. Like good things could happen, I think. But if I don't like it, like this is the end of the conversation. So this offer will never expire, but like, I encourage you not to take it up right now.

I encourage you to wait two years. And I know that seems like, and I was so, I made the mistake when I was coming up. Like. I was so kind of, enthusiastic and, like, wanted my stuff read and I was really good at getting my stuff read. My stuff wasn't good. So, who cares? Like, you want a pass from me? Like, no, you want me to like it.

And so maybe the script you're working on right now, if you have an inkling that it's not quite there, believe me that like my assistant or my executive will feel that. Because all they do all day is read stuff. But wait two years and maybe you'll have something even better and like, so find the people at your level that like you can go through the process with. And I think that's really important. 

Start a writers, you know, start a little writers group or have those, you know, have your parents or your best friend from growing up that, you know, it's just a great kind of gives you that feedback so that when you get to someone that like, you know, you're getting it to an agent, you're getting it to a manager, you're getting it to a producer, your parents connect you with, you know, that weird relative that actually is in the business.

Like you have to decide how you're going to deploy those people. And you just don't want to do it too soon because you're not going to get, like, you're not going to get the follow up, like, I'm not going to be in it with you because I have my own friends that, like, I read their scripts and they read mine, like. I have my friends, like, and I also have my job, and I have my projects, and so, if I, every single person that I met with, I read and gave them the time that they would hope for, I wouldn't be able to do anything else. 

And so, but I would, look nothing, I can make money from you. Like there's like selfishly, like, there's nothing I'd be more excited about than that. You know, that taking the time to do a zoom with someone. And at the end they say, will you read my script?

That the closest I'll give it to you is one of my friends for years was saying, I won't, I don't want to send something to you until I'm ready. I don't want to send something until I'm ready. And it kind of got to the point where I was like, I don't think he's ever going to send me anything. And it was fine.

And then I'm not exaggerating. I think it was four or five years. He finally sent me his pilot. I flipped for it. I loved it. I love this pilot so much. I got him a manager, like within days. I mean, I was like, I was just like, I sent it to my management company. I was like, this guy's incredible. You need to hire him.

He's gotten work as a writer. I still with the same manager. And, you know, he like, His career, he's had some ups and downs, but like he has a career. It's not because of me. It's because he has talent. Like if it wasn't me, somebody else would have read the script. But I was like, Oh my God, like that, what a great. 

That was so exciting to me that he really had patience and restraint. And then when it finally came my way and not just to me, it was sending to other people, but like, it was just excellent. Like there was laugh out loud jokes. I was telling other, like it was all the things I was talking about earlier he had in his writing. And so, there's nothing more exciting than that. 

Lorien: I love that so much, but we'll end that on a happy note. Let's end on a happy note. Everybody, that could be all of us, right? It's been so awesome having you on the show. And thank you so much for your career. And especially for me, thank you for Lessons in Chemistry.

Lee: My God, thank you so much. By the way, like the these kind of long form, like interviews with other writers is like, this is like heaven to me. Usually it's like a journalist and you're just like, they're asking a question. It's like 10 minutes. Like, oh, it's like,oOh my God, we've talked for so long. Like this was so, the questions were great. And you guys were so insightful and inquisitive in the best way. It's great. 

Jeff: Thanks so much to Lee for joining us on the show. 

Lorien: And remember you are not alone and keep writing.