Speaker 1: From CurtCo Media.
Speaker 2: There's no place like Hollywood.
Jenny Curtis: Welcome to another stuck at home special episode of Hollywood
Jenny Curtis: Unscripted. I'm Jenny Curtis. And today, I'm virtually sitting down
Jenny Curtis: with showrunner, producer, and writer of some wildly beloved shows
Jenny Curtis: such as Friday Night Lights, Roswell, and Parenthood. It is
Jenny Curtis: an absolute pleasure to welcome Jason Katims.
Jason Katims: Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Thanks, Jenny.
Jenny Curtis: I actually want to start with Away, which is a
Jenny Curtis: show that you're executive producing and a writer on, and
Jenny Curtis: it is coming out on Netflix on September 4th. I'd
Jenny Curtis: love to hear more about the project, how it started.
Jason Katims: Sure. Well, I'm super excited about the show. It started when
Jason Katims: I read an article by Chris Jones for Esquire, an
Jason Katims: article that was called Away. And Chris Jones is a writer
Jason Katims: who's been writing about space for the last 20 years.
Jason Katims: And this article was really incredibly intriguing to me because
Jason Katims: of the point of view. It was about what the
Jason Katims: experience was like being away from home, what that did
Jason Katims: to people. It was like I don't really think of
Jason Katims: myself as the space guy, the guy who does space
Jason Katims: shows. But I read this article and I couldn't stop
Jason Katims: thinking about it. And actually, it was originally brought to me
Jason Katims: by a friend of mine who I worked with years ago,
Jason Katims: Matt Reeves. And Matt said, "Is this is something you'd like to
Jason Katims: work on with me?" And so we met with Chris
Jason Katims: Jones, got more excited about it, and that's how the
Jason Katims: project started. I mean, the thing that I find so
Jason Katims: wonderful about it is, to me, I felt like, " Oh,
Jason Katims: this could be a show about a marriage and about
Jason Katims: family and about nuanced human stories," which are all the
Jason Katims: kinds of shows I've always worked on, but against this
Jason Katims: incredibly exciting backdrop, this epic backdrop of space. That felt
Jason Katims: different to me and challenging to me and something that
Jason Katims: I got very excited about trying to tell a story.
Jenny Curtis: The show, though, was created by Andrew Hinderaker? Or how did
Jenny Curtis: he get involved? Did you bring him on?
Jason Katims: Yeah. So what happened was we optioned this story from Chris Jones.
Jason Katims: And then, so Andrew Hinderaker had been working with me
Jason Katims: on a couple of shows. So he's this amazing playwright.
Jason Katims: And worked at first on the show that I did
Jason Katims: called Pure Genius and then on The Path, which Jess
Jason Katims: Goldberg created. And Andrew took this article and found this
Jason Katims: incredibly personal way in, which is always the most exciting
Jason Katims: way to really dig into a project. He really told
Jason Katims: the story about how he had a long distance relationship
Jason Katims: with his long time girlfriend who had some pretty serious
Jason Katims: medical issues. And that was what he was using to
Jason Katims: tell the story about Emma being away from her husband and her
Jason Katims: family at a time when her husband, Josh Charles's character,
Jason Katims: has a very serious medical issue. And once he sort
Jason Katims: of came up with that premise, we all get very
Jason Katims: excited because we felt like he was leaning into what
Jason Katims: the potential of this story is. And the other thing that he
Jason Katims: brought to this, which is something that we're all really
Jason Katims: excited about, is the international crew. And the idea that
Jason Katims: while it's about this family, this long distance relationship, and
Jason Katims: really the ultimate long distance relationship between Hilary's character is
Jason Katims: trying to stay connected to her family, it's also about this new family forming
Jason Katims: in space and these people who all come from very
Jason Katims: different worlds and different religions, different philosophies, different ways of
Jason Katims: seeing things, reasons to be at odds with each other
Jason Katims: at moments. And yet the idea of these disparate people
Jason Katims: coming together to work together and ultimately form this new
Jason Katims: family together is also incredibly poignant. So the show really
Jason Katims: just works on so many levels. It was by far
Jason Katims: the most challenging show, from a producing point of view,
Jason Katims: that I've ever been involved in. I mean, every show has
Jason Katims: some visual effects. Parenthood had visual effects. Nobody would know
Jason Katims: it did, but it did. But this show was a new level. And they
Jason Katims: took so much time in preparation to figure out how
Jason Katims: to make the show and how to make the show
Jason Katims: feel real and accurate. It's not intended to be sort
Jason Katims: of science fiction in that way, like in a Star
Jason Katims: Trek way, it's supposed to feel like what it would
Jason Katims: be like if NASA put up or when NASA does send a
Jason Katims: ship to Mars. Our production designer, David Sandefur, actually got
Jason Katims: renderings from NASA, which is what he based our spaceship
Jason Katims: on. So it was very challenging to make it this
Jason Katims: story that was speculative fiction, but to have it feel
Jason Katims: real and not like sci- fi. What would it be
Jason Katims: like going on this journey to try to do this
Jason Katims: thing that nobody's ever been able to do before?
Jenny Curtis: And a journey to Mars is not going to go easy. There's a
Jenny Curtis: lot of drama.
Jason Katims: Yeah. A lot of drama. One of the things that
Jason Katims: we'd always talked about was that the drama of what
Jason Katims: happens on earth has to be as riveting as what
Jason Katims: happens in space. And that's the thing that I'm actually
Jason Katims: most proud of, of what Andrew and all of us did,
Jason Katims: and Jess Goldberg, who came on to showrun and partner
Jason Katims: with Andrew in doing the show. When you cut to those
Jason Katims: scenes on earth, you're not just waiting until we get
Jason Katims: back to space. It's really the opposite. It's like those scenes
Jason Katims: are as emotional to watch what it's like, what it does
Jason Katims: to Josh's character, what it does to Talitha's character, who plays Hilary and
Jason Katims: Josh's 15 year old daughter. Talitha's character actually, when we were
Jason Katims: in the writer's room, was the character that I gravitated to
Jason Katims: most because I thought it's so wild that this is going
Jason Katims: to be about a three year mission in success for
Jason Katims: Hilary's character by the time she sort of returns. And that's
Jason Katims: high school, that's all of the high school for her. And the idea
Jason Katims: of her being away from her mother and watching what
Jason Katims: happens to her and watching her grow up was so
Jason Katims: intriguing to me. To me, that was as exciting to
Jason Katims: me as the stuff that was happening in space. And I
Jason Katims: felt like the challenge was to make sure that as
Jason Katims: we made the show that those scenes were as riveting
Jason Katims: and even more so watching them try to stay connected
Jason Katims: and watching those essentially Zoom calls before I knew what
Jason Katims: the hell Zoom was. When we wrote them, essentially what
Jason Katims: they were trying to stay connected first by those video
Jason Katims: chats, and then eventually just with sound, and then eventually
Jason Katims: just by emails and texts that are delayed for longer
Jason Katims: and longer the further they get away. All this stuff just
Jason Katims: felt very emotional and moving to me. It felt like we could do the
Jason Katims: show and have a take on it that feels different
Jason Katims: to me than other shows that I've seen that are
Jason Katims: about space.
Jenny Curtis: Because she's young, going back to Talitha's character, it feels
Jenny Curtis: like we can connect most to her because she really
Jenny Curtis: wears her processing on her sleeve. Do you find that
Jenny Curtis: because you've also done a lot of work with characters
Jenny Curtis: who are in their adolescence, is that something you gravitate
Jenny Curtis: towards always? Or is that specific stories?
Jason Katims: I gravitate toward those stories. For some reason, I always
Jason Katims: have. Maybe I've been stunted in my growth or something.
Jason Katims: But I always have. The first show that I worked on
Jason Katims: was My So- Called Life. And Winnie Holzman, who created
Jason Katims: that show, became a mentor to me. And I remember her
Jason Katims: describing adolescence as an emergency. Everything is always an emergency
Jason Katims: in adolescence. And I thought that was just a great
Jason Katims: way to think about it. And of course, that suggests drama when
Jason Katims: everything's an emergency. It's a great time to write about
Jason Katims: because so much change happens in short periods of time.
Jenny Curtis: You mentioned My So- Called Life. And Edward Zwick, who
Jenny Curtis: was also on My So- Called Life, was on this
Jenny Curtis: project as well. Can you talk about the team that
Jenny Curtis: you kind of created from all walks of your life
Jenny Curtis: and how that kind of felt bringing in so many
Jenny Curtis: connected people?
Jason Katims: Yeah. On this show, I've worked with more people that
Jason Katims: span my entire career in doing this in a way
Jason Katims: that's never happened before. And I think in some way,
Jason Katims: it's because of the challenge of making the show. And
Jason Katims: coming to Ed, Ed hired me on My So- Called
Jason Katims: Life. And then I did the first show that I
Jason Katims: created, Relativity, with him and Marshall. And Ed literally found me, I was
Jason Katims: a playwright living in Brooklyn, and he found me under
Jason Katims: a rock in Brooklyn. He read one of my plays
Jason Katims: and called me. And out of nowhere, he literally gave
Jason Katims: me a chance to write on My So- Called Life.
Jason Katims: He introduced me to Matt Reeves, who's the person who
Jason Katims: I found this project with and started this project. There were
Jason Katims: so many other people who played key roles. David Boyd
Jason Katims: was our cinematographer who then became one of our great
Jason Katims: directors on Friday Night Lights. He was our cinematographer and
Jason Katims: producing director on this show. And I hadn't been able to
Jason Katims: work with them since Friday Night Lights. I hadn't been
Jason Katims: able to work with Ed since Relativity and My So-Called
Jason Katims: Life. I hadn't been able to work with Matt Reeves
Jason Katims: since The Pallbearer, which is a script we wrote together.
Jason Katims: And of course, then there's Andrew and Jess who I've
Jason Katims: worked with on The Path and Pure Genius. So it
Jason Katims: was an amazing experience. It's sort of what it took
Jason Katims: to (inaudible) the show because it was just having Ed involved
Jason Katims: in this, he was the perfect director for it because
Jason Katims: he's done all these incredibly huge, epic movies with this
Jason Katims: huge landscape, but he's done this intimate storytelling in television
Jason Katims: with Thirtysomething and Once and Again and My So- Called
Jason Katims: Life. And our show requires those two things with equal
Jason Katims: attention put on both the visual landscape and the grandness
Jason Katims: of it, but also the sort of tiny moments. So
Jason Katims: it was a thrill to get to work with Ed
Jason Katims: again, particularly on this project that was a challenge to
Jason Katims: all of us. And it became this amazing collaborative effort
Jason Katims: to make the show. So many people had such huge
Jason Katims: parts of this. David Sandefur, our production designer, who really
Jason Katims: came up with the sort of look for the spaceship
Jason Katims: and the moonscape where they launched from. It was very
Jason Katims: exciting and a bit overwhelming to take this on. And I'm
Jason Katims: really proud of the show. I mean, I did write an
Jason Katims: episode, which I'm really proud of. It was so much Andrew
Jason Katims: and Jess who sort of took this on and did
Jason Katims: the heavy lifting and deserve the credit for it. But
Jason Katims: I'm so proud when I watch the episodes that it's everything
Jason Katims: that we imagined and more. In a few weeks, I guess we'll see
Jason Katims: what everybody else thinks. But to me, I feel like
Jason Katims: it grips you emotionally, these characters' stories. And I'm excited for people to
Jason Katims: see it.
Jenny Curtis: A Moment of Your Time, a new podcast from CurtCo Media.
Speaker 5: Currently 21 years old, and today-
Speaker 6: I felt like magic descended from her fingertips down to the base of my spine.
Speaker 7: You have to take care of yourself because the world needs you and your voice.
Speaker 8: Trust me, every do- gooder that asked about me was
Speaker 8: ready to spit on my dreams.
Speaker 9: Her fingers were facing me.
Speaker 10: It can feel like your purpose and your worth is really being questioned.
Speaker 11: It ain't going to stop me from playing the piano.
Speaker 12: She buys walkie- talkies, wonders to whom she should give
Speaker 12: the second device.
Speaker 13: Pets don't love humans. We never did. We never will.
Speaker 13: We just find ones-
Speaker 14: The beauty of rock climbing is that you can only
Speaker 14: focus on what's right in front of you.
Speaker 15: And so our American life begins.
Jenny Curtis: We may need to stay apart, but let's create together.
Jenny Curtis: Available on all podcast platforms. Submit your piece at curtco. com/
Jenny Curtis: amomentofyourtime. Talking about the team, just to go back really
Jenny Curtis: quick, was it an active choice where you said, " I'm
Jenny Curtis: going to reach into my past for all of these people?"
Jenny Curtis: Or did it become kind of a reflex for you
Jenny Curtis: that suddenly you found yourself bringing in people from your past?
Jason Katims: No, it wasn't an active choice. It just happened that
Jason Katims: way. It started with Matt and I reading this article
Jason Katims: and getting very excited about it. So in a way,
Jason Katims: it did get started with somebody who I had been wanting to
Jason Katims: work with since I first worked with him. And life happens and
Jason Katims: you go in different directions. So we've always stayed connected
Jason Katims: over the years through friends and helping each other on
Jason Katims: projects that we worked on. And so that was very
Jason Katims: exciting and that's what started it. But then when looking
Jason Katims: for a director, we were trying to find who is
Jason Katims: the person to direct this? Because some things that I said
Jason Katims: of having to have somebody who could sort of take
Jason Katims: on space and also we felt like would get that
Jason Katims: this is really a show about the nuanced moments the
Jason Katims: characters had. And so Ed was just the person to
Jason Katims: direct it. And it was very exciting in talking to
Jason Katims: him about it once he read the script and decided
Jason Katims: he wanted to do it. What's great about Ed is once
Jason Katims: he is in, he's in. And it just like, he
Jason Katims: became as invested in wrecking this as he would be in
Jason Katims: anything that he had directed or features or I think
Jason Katims: anything that he's done. And it was really lovely to
Jason Katims: have that experience of working with him in that way
Jason Katims: and watch him take this on. And while I worked
Jason Katims: with him on My So- Called Life, I got a
Jason Katims: little bit of a glimpse into his process as a
Jason Katims: director. This gave me much more of a window into
Jason Katims: that. He's a master. And it was really great to
Jason Katims: be able to work with him. And it's like you can
Jason Katims: sort of see, when you watch the pilot episode, how
Jason Katims: much he took on to sort of create the aesthetic for the show and
Jason Katims: the look of the show and to get these wonderful performances
Jason Katims: from Hilary and the rest of the cast.
Jenny Curtis: Do you find that in this stage of your career
Jenny Curtis: you're still learning from people in situations like that?
Jason Katims: Oh, it's no doubt. I mean, look, it's no doubt.
Jason Katims: Every time you take on a project, you're challenging yourself
Jason Katims: in a different way. Everything has to be in some
Jason Katims: way something that you feel like you're just starting when you do
Jason Katims: it. It's more exciting when you do a show and
Jason Katims: you get a little scared when you're doing it. And
Jason Katims: can I do this? Or is this going to be where they
Jason Katims: discover that I'm a fraud? And this one more than
Jason Katims: others that I've taken on because it just was such an
Jason Katims: undertaking to do it. And you really just had to have
Jason Katims: such faith because it's also a visual effects show. I
Jason Katims: mean, so much of the stuff that happens in space. I
Jason Katims: mean, the spaceship was built, but all of the environments that
Jason Katims: were outside of that ship were visual effects. And of
Jason Katims: course, we were doing things like hanging people on wires.
Jason Katims: And especially the bigger set piece sequences, especially in the
Jason Katims: second episode, there's a huge spacewalk sequence. And when I
Jason Katims: watched the first cut and there was no visual effects
Jason Katims: in it yet, and I was like, " Okay, I'm just going
Jason Katims: to have faith that this is going to be good."
Jason Katims: And those visual effects, our team was amazing, but it
Jason Katims: takes a long time when you have a big sequence
Jason Katims: like that. It takes a long time for seeing what that
Jason Katims: exterior of the spaceship and the moonscape is going to look
Jason Katims: like. And it takes a long time so that the
Jason Katims: details are put in so that it actually feels real, it
Jason Katims: actually feels like the astronauts are walking on the moon.
Jason Katims: It's not until the very end when you put together
Jason Katims: the sort of details and the visual effects along with
Jason Katims: the sound effects, you can actually suspend your disbelief. So that was
Jason Katims: something that so many people that do what I do
Jason Katims: have been doing that stuff for years, I just haven't
Jason Katims: done those types of shows. And so it was exciting for
Jason Katims: me to do it. And it was a total learning
Jason Katims: experience. And working with Ed, it was a learning experience.
Jason Katims: Even though I had worked with him before, it was
Jason Katims: a different context. And I got to, on one hand,
Jason Katims: collaborate with him in a way that I hadn't before. But
Jason Katims: in another hand, I sort of got a sort of
Jason Katims: front row seat to watch him do what he does.
Jenny Curtis: The anti- gravity stuff wasn't just outside the ship. It
Jenny Curtis: was also inside. So does that mean you had the actors on
Jenny Curtis: wires for all of those scenes then when they'd pop
Jenny Curtis: in, say something sassy, and float out of the room?
Jason Katims: That's right. Yeah. So there was a lot of wire
Jason Katims: work. The actors had to go through sort of pretty
Jason Katims: intense training to do that, way more intense than they
Jason Katims: imagined. When we first sat down and met with Hilary
Jason Katims: about doing the part, we talked about the character and we
Jason Katims: talked about it. She was so excited about this show
Jason Katims: because it was her dream when she was an eight
Jason Katims: year old girls to be an astronaut. So she was
Jason Katims: all in from the beginning. And we sort of brought
Jason Katims: up, because it was important to bring up at the beginning that there was
Jason Katims: going to be wire work and there's going to be training, it
Jason Katims: was going to be intense. And she was like, " Oh,
Jason Katims: I'm all in. I'm ready." That's such a big part
Jason Katims: of her life. And we were like, " Oh my God." Very excited that she
Jason Katims: was up for it. But even Hilary, who in her
Jason Katims: regular life has an insane fitness routine, even she was
Jason Katims: a little bit challenged and overwhelmed by just how much
Jason Katims: it took for her and for all of them to
Jason Katims: do that. But not only the work that they had
Jason Katims: to do while you were wired, but to act while you're
Jason Katims: doing it. And so that was a big undertaking. But
Jason Katims: we had such an amazing crew and we spent so
Jason Katims: long prepping for this stuff. I do think the actual
Jason Katims: process of doing it was less chaotic and overwhelming than
Jason Katims: it seemed as we were planning it. And that has
Jason Katims: a lot to do with the team. Ed's work, preparation,
Jason Katims: David Boyd, again, our DP, that I've been trying to
Jason Katims: work with David since Friday Night Lights and finally lured
Jason Katims: him here between Ed and space, I got him. But
Jason Katims: because on Friday Night Lights, he was a DP who
Jason Katims: was so fearless and embraced the way we wanted to
Jason Katims: shoot that show, more than embraced the way we want
Jason Katims: to shoot it, he helped create the way we shot
Jason Katims: that show. That was obviously a very different animal. I mean,
Jason Katims: it was a lot about shooting handheld and with no rehearsal and taking
Jason Katims: the sort of down and dirty approach. This is a
Jason Katims: very different thing, but he approached it in the same fearless
Jason Katims: way. And it was just everything that we said, can
Jason Katims: we do this? Yes, but we're on a TV budget
Jason Katims: and it's got to look like this. He's like, " Yes."
Jason Katims: He sort of planned it out. And we had so
Jason Katims: much going for us once we actually started shooting.
Jenny Curtis: You've said that the isolation aspect of the story has
Jenny Curtis: become obviously more poignant during the coronavirus times. Are there
Jenny Curtis: parts of the show that you connect to now more
Jenny Curtis: than you did before?
Jason Katims: Yeah. The thing that was interesting is we shot the show
Jason Katims: and then it was that middle couple of weeks in
Jason Katims: March that were, I think for all of us, these
Jason Katims: surreal moments where we went from thinking we had a
Jason Katims: couple months left of post and we were already finished
Jason Katims: shooting. We went from thinking, " We're a small group here,
Jason Katims: we could finish up." And we went from that to
Jason Katims: literally in a 24 hour period realizing no, everybody has
Jason Katims: to go home. They have to go home right now. And
Jason Katims: we just basically, without even knowing how we were going
Jason Katims: to finish the show, we just sent everybody home. And
Jason Katims: then at this point, it was our editor, mostly our
Jason Katims: visual effects artists, post- production people, our mixers, all of
Jason Katims: those people. And of course, all of us are the sort
Jason Katims: of producers and directors who are still looking at cuts.
Jason Katims: And we just said, " We are going to just have
Jason Katims: to figure out a way to do this a little
Jason Katims: differently." And we sort of took out that sort of human connection
Jason Katims: aspect of it. And there was a lot of watching
Jason Katims: cuts on my computer at home, emailing notes or getting
Jason Katims: on Zoom and going back and forth with notes in
Jason Katims: that way. And suddenly, I was watching cuts while this
Jason Katims: was happened and all the episodes resonated in this way that
Jason Katims: felt different than they did before because it felt like,
Jason Katims: in a weird way, working together on this show, we were
Jason Katims: going through that sort of feeling of being away that
Jason Katims: is what the show is about. And of course, in
Jason Katims: a bigger way, all of us were being separated from
Jason Katims: our friends and, a lot of cases, our family members,
Jason Katims: and had to find new ways to try to stay connected.
Jason Katims: And we're dealing with the effects of what it feels
Jason Katims: like when you're isolated and when you're not connected. And
Jason Katims: that's the theme of the show. It's a theme that
Jason Katims: resonated us before this happened, but honestly, it just feels more
Jason Katims: moving to me, even more moving to me, watching it
Jason Katims: now in this context. So the beautiful thing about the
Jason Katims: show is that it's so uplifting and it's aspirational. That's
Jason Katims: really the beautiful thing about it. So when you're watching
Jason Katims: it, it's not like, " Oh, this is what it's like to
Jason Katims: be in quarantine." It's not that experience. I mean, the
Jason Katims: experience is one of a feeling of being connected, it says
Jason Katims: feeling of coming together and doing something for the greater
Jason Katims: good and testing the limits of what we can do
Jason Katims: as human beings. So it's got very high aspirations in
Jason Katims: that way, but it does feel, when you watch some of
Jason Katims: these scenes of people being separated, you connect sometimes in just
Jason Katims: a visceral way and sometimes in a literal way. I
Jason Katims: mean, when you see, in the first episode, Hilary trying
Jason Katims: to talk to her husband who's in the hospital and
Jason Katims: she can't be with him in the hospital. Well, that's
Jason Katims: a very literal connection that we can all relate to
Jason Katims: now having lived through this for over the last period
Jason Katims: of months. And so it definitely feels like the show
Jason Katims: has become something that I feel even more connected to
Jason Katims: than before this happened.
Jenny Curtis: The mission in the show is set to be three years long. Is
Jenny Curtis: that the plan for the show? Or do you have
Jenny Curtis: an idea of the arc of what the ideal length
Jenny Curtis: would be?
Jason Katims: We have sort of ideas about it. We've talked about it both among
Jason Katims: Jess and Andrew and I and the writers. We've talked
Jason Katims: about it to Netflix. We sort of think that the length
Jason Katims: of this mission does suggest what the length of the
Jason Katims: show might be, but we don't have any definite answer
Jason Katims: to it other than we definitely want to proceed hopefully,
Jason Katims: knock wood, beyond season one. We feel like there's a
Jason Katims: good story to tell over several seasons. The great thing
Jason Katims: that's changed in television since I started doing television, it
Jason Katims: used to be the goal was to do a show
Jason Katims: that was going to last 100 episodes. That was the
Jason Katims: only goal in shows in terms of just what the
Jason Katims: network wanted. That was what their business model was built
Jason Katims: on. And now with Netflix and Apple and Amazon and Hulu
Jason Katims: and streamers having such a prominent role in television, that's
Jason Katims: changed. And the good thing that's come out of that
Jason Katims: is that what really is happening now is people are
Jason Katims: saying the show should be how long the show should
Jason Katims: be. And that's a great thing. That's one of the
Jason Katims: reasons I think that television has continued to get better
Jason Katims: because it's not doing episodes for the sake of getting
Jason Katims: to a certain threshold where you can sell your show
Jason Katims: to syndication. That world is more or less a thing
Jason Katims: of the past. Now it's about what's competitive. It's like
Jason Katims: how do you make your show feel singular and important
Jason Katims: in the huge crowd of television shows out there? Compel
Jason Katims: people to watch it, right? And so one of the
Jason Katims: ways to do that is to have the show not
Jason Katims: drag on, not slow down, and to actually tell the
Jason Katims: story that's the right amount of episodes for that particular story.
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Jenny Curtis: You recently got the green light for a personal project
Jenny Curtis: that you are creating. I don't want to get this wrong, but was it Amazon?
Jason Katims: Yes.
Jenny Curtis: Okay. So Amazon gave you the green light for creating
Jenny Curtis: a project called On the Spectrum. And I'd love to
Jenny Curtis: hear more about that.
Jason Katims: Yeah. It's based on an Israeli format called On the Spectrum,
Jason Katims: which is an absolutely beautiful show. It's a wonderful show. And it's about
Jason Katims: three young adults who are all on the autistic spectrum,
Jason Katims: who are roommates together in an apartment. There is a sort
Jason Katims: of life coach who works with them. It's sort of
Jason Katims: a coming of age story about three 20- somethings trying
Jason Katims: to figure out all this stuff that you would imagine
Jason Katims: they would figuring out about friendship and love and jobs
Jason Katims: and all of that stuff with the added complication that they
Jason Katims: all have autism. And it's been a wonderful show to
Jason Katims: work on. We cast all three leads have autism. We
Jason Katims: shot the pilot and it was just a wonderful experience
Jason Katims: working with them. There's just something about the show that's been very, very special, and (inaudible) has
Jason Katims: been fantastic. And the only thing to hope now is that at
Jason Katims: some point we'll be able to shoot them.
Jenny Curtis: Finding the leads for it, was the first time they met
Jenny Curtis: in a chemistry read? Or how did you find them?
Jenny Curtis: How did you make sure they would get along? And
Jenny Curtis: what was the process in casting the show?
Jason Katims: Once Amazon gave us the go ahead to make the
Jason Katims: pilot, I said, " I'd love to see whether we can
Jason Katims: cast these characters authentically." And they were very excited about
Jason Katims: the idea. But I didn't know what the talent pool was
Jason Katims: going to be out there, honestly. So I called [inaudible 00:24: 39],
Jason Katims: who's a casting director I've worked with many times. And
Jason Katims: I know she has a child with challenges. I knew
Jason Katims: this idea would be really exciting to her. So I
Jason Katims: called her and she basically said, " Great." And she did
Jason Katims: both all the traditional things of just sending out a
Jason Katims: breakdown to agencies, but she also scoured the country and
Jason Katims: just started calling acting programs that she could find that
Jason Katims: had more diverse actors in them, and schools, and just
Jason Katims: anybody that she can think of. And she'd call me
Jason Katims: I think a week or two after she started doing
Jason Katims: this. And she said, " I've just had the best two
Jason Katims: weeks because this community has been so amazing." Because it's
Jason Katims: like she'll try to reach somebody and they would say, "
Jason Katims: Well, I don't know anybody, but you know what? You
Jason Katims: should call so- and- so and all this." And it became this
Jason Katims: grassroots thing. And we wound up casting three actors who
Jason Katims: are all on spectrum. They're all wonderful. Very different than
Jason Katims: the characters that they play, but still having their deep
Jason Katims: connections to the characters that they're playing. And that part of it
Jason Katims: has just been this very exciting part of the process
Jason Katims: to work with them. And when we were shooting the pilot, we were trying
Jason Katims: to make sure that we could accommodate in any ways
Jason Katims: that we want to accommodate. And some things were really important,
Jason Katims: like trying to keep the set quieter. And we were
Jason Katims: sort of thinking ahead, would this be challenging? And it was so
Jason Katims: smooth. And these actors were such pros. A lot of
Jason Katims: crew members would come up to me and say, " Oh, I have
Jason Katims: a brother who has autism or a child or my
Jason Katims: friend's kid." You just find that there was so much
Jason Katims: good will on the show who felt this kind of connection to
Jason Katims: it. And one of the things I love about writing
Jason Katims: about these characters is they have no filter. So they
Jason Katims: say what's on their mind. And that's just generally funny.
Jason Katims: It's also very emotional. We're not shying away from the
Jason Katims: hard things that they're going through. I have a son
Jason Katims: who's on the spectrum. And I first started writing about this in
Jason Katims: Parenthood with the character of Max. And I remember when
Jason Katims: we first started doing that, I was talking to network about
Jason Katims: the idea of making a character with Asperger's on the
Jason Katims: show. And at the time, there weren't really any, and especially
Jason Katims: on a network, a character with autism where they said
Jason Katims: they had autism. And it was really important for me that
Jason Katims: if we were going to tell the story that we
Jason Katims: were out there with this is what it is. And I
Jason Katims: remember one of the things they said was this is
Jason Katims: something that you could tell lots of stories about. And I was like, "
Jason Katims: Oh yeah, there's plenty of [inaudible 00:27: 06]. We're not going to
Jason Katims: run out after episode seven." In a way, it's this
Jason Katims: beautiful thing for me to do this show because everybody's
Jason Katims: doing these new versions of 90210, a new version of these shows.
Jason Katims: So people would say like, " Would you do another Parenthood?"
Jason Katims: And when I would think about that, what I kept
Jason Katims: thinking about was Max, that character. And I was thinking, "
Jason Katims: Oh, I would kind of like to see what it
Jason Katims: would be like to see Max as a young man."
Jason Katims: And so in a weird way, I'm doing that in this show.
Jason Katims: The reason why this came up for me and why
Jason Katims: I wanted to do this show was my son is now 23.
Jason Katims: At the time when I started doing this, he was probably
Jason Katims: 21, I guess. And so I was kind of starting to
Jason Katims: think about, " Well, what's the next chapter of his life?
Jason Katims: What will it be like?" And I remember I did
Jason Katims: a PSA a few years ago and I found out
Jason Katims: this statistic that 85% of people with autism who have
Jason Katims: a college degree are unemployed. And I was like, " Well,
Jason Katims: that's not right." There are people who are obviously very
Jason Katims: capable who are not being put in a position to contribute
Jason Katims: to the world in a way that they should. And
Jason Katims: that's a story that needs to change. So I'm very
Jason Katims: excited to be sort of telling the story, because I think
Jason Katims: that's a story we sort of see less of. I
Jason Katims: think a lot of times when we hear autism, we
Jason Katims: think of children with autism. And those children grow up.
Jason Katims: And my son was part of a early wave of
Jason Katims: when a lot of people started getting diagnosed with this,
Jason Katims: and it's only gotten more prevalent since then. So a
Jason Katims: lot of those people are sort of coming of age
Jason Katims: now. So I think it's a timeless story to tell.
Jenny Curtis: When you added the storyline to Parenthood, I read somewhere
Jenny Curtis: that you originally were really nervous about it because you
Jenny Curtis: weren't sure if that was too personal. Did that change
Jenny Curtis: how you feel now, or is the importance of telling
Jenny Curtis: the story overshadowing the fear of being too personal?
Jason Katims: Yeah. The idea of putting the story out there in
Jason Katims: the world overshadows my fear of loss of privacy over
Jason Katims: it. There's the Israeli show that it's based on, so
Jason Katims: this is not a show that's based on my son. Not
Jason Katims: that Parenthood was based on my son, Max was his
Jason Katims: own character. But still, this is even more so I'm
Jason Katims: basing these characters on the original characters. Obviously, I'm going
Jason Katims: to draw from my own experiences as you always do as
Jason Katims: a writer, but I'm sort of not concerned about that
Jason Katims: privacy thing because this is from a format of characters
Jason Katims: that were created not by me or original form. The
Jason Katims: other thing is I'm so excited about the show that
Jason Katims: not only did we cast three characters on the spectrum
Jason Katims: to be the leads, but that those three actors are
Jason Katims: willing to be open about that and are embracing it.
Jason Katims: And I feel like this is the next stage that
Jason Katims: we need to get to with autism. I remember reading
Jason Katims: about Hannah Gadsby and how she sort of came out
Jason Katims: and talked about after she did that incredible piece that
Jason Katims: wound up going to HBO, I think.
Jenny Curtis: I think it was on Netflix, yeah.
Jason Katims: On Netflix. But after she did that piece, I was so blown away by it.
Jason Katims: And afterwards, she came out and saying, " Oh, I've been
Jason Katims: diagnosed with autism." And she started talking about it. And
Jason Katims: I was like, " This is amazing that she's doing this."
Jason Katims: And it struck me as this is a very important
Jason Katims: thing right now to see a character on the spectrum wanting
Jason Katims: to date or being on a job. In the pilot,
Jason Katims: there's a scene where Jack is in a meeting with his
Jason Katims: boss and a bunch of team members. And he sort
Jason Katims: of inadvertently says to his boss, " You have inferior intelligence."
Jason Katims: And it's like you don't really say that to a boss,
Jason Katims: but it's like this is what he says. And I think
Jason Katims: what's interesting is that, not that I want to promote
Jason Katims: people being mean to their bosses, but I do want
Jason Katims: to promote the idea that there are people who have
Jason Katims: these sort of quirks to their personalities who have a
Jason Katims: tremendous amount to offer the world. And I think if
Jason Katims: we can get past those quirks a little bit, we can
Jason Katims: see what they have to offer. We could see what they have to bring
Jason Katims: to the table. Not just in work, but in relationships
Jason Katims: and friendships and all of these many, many things. I feel
Jason Katims: excited in that way to be telling this story, demystifying it,
Jason Katims: and just showing people who are on the autistic spectrum
Jason Katims: who have jobs and relationships and friendships.
Jenny Curtis: So a lot of your work comes from some kind
Jenny Curtis: of source material, as this came from an Israeli show,
Jenny Curtis: Away came from an article. What is it about a
Jenny Curtis: piece of source material that sparks for you, that makes
Jenny Curtis: you say, " This is what I want to create something about?"
Jason Katims: It's a weird combination. Well, first of all, the reason
Jason Katims: why I would do anything is because I have a deeply personal connection to it.
Jason Katims: And my job, if I don't have a personal connection
Jason Katims: to it, is to find that personal connection. When they first sort of
Jason Katims: brought up the idea of having me do Friday Night
Jason Katims: Lights, I was like, " This is not a show for
Jason Katims: me because I'm a baseball guy, not a football guy."
Jason Katims: I had never been to Texas. And it's like the
Jason Katims: idea of small town life. It's just, this was not
Jason Katims: me. I grew up in New York City and I
Jason Katims: was a baseball fan. And so I was like, "No, no, no. Why
Jason Katims: would I do this show?" And then I started to see
Jason Katims: the source material. I was like, " Oh my God, this is the greatest
Jason Katims: thing in the world. And this could be an amazing
Jason Katims: show." And so you start to find ways to develop
Jason Katims: yourself inside this world and these characters and find your
Jason Katims: way in. I remember when I was brought on to
Jason Katims: be the showrunner of the show, I had to do
Jason Katims: press for the show and I hadn't yet done anything to the
Jason Katims: show yet. And I'd never been in that experience before.
Jason Katims: So there's all this pressure on me. And at a certain
Jason Katims: point, one of the executives from the studio took me
Jason Katims: aside. And for whatever reason, they were concerned in some
Jason Katims: way that I was going to be able to do this. And
Jason Katims: they were like, " Jason, are you going to be able to do this?
Jason Katims: You have to do this. You have to be able to take this on." And
Jason Katims: I was like, " Oh my God, I feel like Coach.
Jason Katims: I'm just like Coach coming to Dylan, Texas, taking on
Jason Katims: this shitty team, and people expecting to bring home a
Jason Katims: championship." You know what I mean? It was like the greatest
Jason Katims: gift that was ever given to me because I was like, " This is
Jason Katims: how I relate to the show." And of course, the thing about
Jason Katims: Friday Night Lights was it wasn't about football, it was about
Jason Katims: family. It was about a marriage. It was about surrogate
Jason Katims: parenting. It was about coming of age. It was about trying to
Jason Katims: live a better life than your parents live. And your parents
Jason Katims: wanting that for you. And it was about all the things that
Jason Katims: were just about life. And then I had people to
Jason Katims: help me talk football. And then you really love football, go
Jason Katims: figure, you know? And so you sort of to try
Jason Katims: to find ways in. In Parenthood, I decided I wanted
Jason Katims: to do an adaptation of Parenthood, which was a movie that
Jason Katims: I really had loved. And at the time that I
Jason Katims: was going to do it, it had been 20 years
Jason Katims: since the movie came out. And I went to Ron
Jason Katims: Howard and Brian Grazer and pitched them my take on
Jason Katims: it. And I was very worried about going to Ron
Jason Katims: Howard and saying like, " I'm going to do your movie,
Jason Katims: but I'm going to change it." You know? And at the
Jason Katims: end of the pitch, Ron's ... He was so nice. He's
Jason Katims: just the nicest guy in the world. And in the end, he
Jason Katims: was very encouraging to me. And he said, " Jason, I
Jason Katims: just want to tell you, the things that I liked most
Jason Katims: about what you just said to me were the things
Jason Katims: that were completely different than what was in the movie. I did
Jason Katims: the movie. I'm happy with the movie. I don't need
Jason Katims: to see that movie again. What you need to do
Jason Katims: is bring yourself to this." And that is the kind of wisdom that you get
Jason Katims: from Ron Howard. And I think that is what adaptation
Jason Katims: really is all about. It's about whatever the story is
Jason Katims: that you're telling whether you relate to it from the
Jason Katims: beginning or whether you have to find your way in.
Jason Katims: Sort of like in Friday Night Lights for me. No
Jason Katims: matter what that source material is, it's about making it
Jason Katims: sort of deeply personal to you and making it your
Jason Katims: story. I mean, that's critical.
Jenny Curtis: So yesterday, I was having kind of a crummy day. I was in a
Jenny Curtis: terrible mood. And I decided last night that I was
Jenny Curtis: going to put on Friday Night Lights and just rewatch a few
Jenny Curtis: episodes because we were going to talk and why not?
Jenny Curtis: And I love the show. I get to the first
Jenny Curtis: moment of clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. And it's
Jenny Curtis: just like everything melts away. What does it mean to you
Jenny Curtis: to have a career where you are literally changing people's
Jenny Curtis: days with the work that you're creating?
Jason Katims: Thank you so much for saying that. It's really humbling
Jason Katims: for you to say that. Of course, I don't experience
Jason Katims: my life that way. I experience my life as a
Jason Katims: writer, like every writer, and we're all just reps trying
Jason Katims: to craft stories and (crosstalk) hacks and movers to
Jason Katims: some degree, and frauds. But I appreciate that. Obviously, Friday
Jason Katims: Night Lights is a show that connected and it certainly connected
Jason Katims: with me. I'd be in the editing room watching cuts and
Jason Katims: I'd start crying in the editing room. And then all the
Jason Katims: editors would be like, " Oh my God, you're just like [inaudible 00:35:28]. Don't be such
Jason Katims: a jerk." But I couldn't help it. And then of
Jason Katims: course I tried to suppress my crying because it was
Jason Katims: embarrassing to cry in front of the editor. And then all these
Jason Katims: weird sounds started to come out of me, these kind
Jason Katims: of terrible sounds that were really embarrassing. And so I think
Jason Katims: the greatest compliment is when people say that those characters
Jason Katims: become part of their family. I mean, it's amazing. And
Jason Katims: really, actually the greatest compliment that I've gotten and I've
Jason Katims: gotten it a bunch of times is when people say
Jason Katims: they watched it together as a family. And I've gotten
Jason Katims: that a lot with Friday Night Lights and a lot
Jason Katims: with Parenthood. And that, I don't know, there's something about that
Jason Katims: that means so much to me, the idea of a
Jason Katims: family sitting together and watching and having that be something
Jason Katims: that they do together. I mean, how can you not
Jason Katims: be touched by that?
Jenny Curtis: Jason, I could talk to you all day, but we're
Jenny Curtis: unfortunately out of time. So I guess my last question,
Jenny Curtis: I want to bring it back to Away, what do
Jenny Curtis: you hope people get from the show as they start
Jenny Curtis: to watch it?
Jason Katims: We were just sort of talking about how some of
Jason Katims: the shows that I've worked on, people have gotten emotionally connected
Jason Katims: to the show and its characters. And that's what I'm
Jason Katims: hoping for this show. God, I love the space stuff and
Jason Katims: I love the look of that. And I think that's so
Jason Katims: amazing. But the thing that I really love about the
Jason Katims: show is the relationships, the characters, the family that Hilary is
Jason Katims: trying to stay connected to on earth and the family
Jason Katims: that's formed between these astronauts in this tin can that
Jason Katims: they're stuck in together for a really long time. And
Jason Katims: so I'm hoping that people feel that kind of connection
Jason Katims: to the show. Having watched these episodes many times now,
Jason Katims: and no matter how many times I've watched them, I
Jason Katims: do feel that connection. I'm hopeful that they will feel that.
Jenny Curtis: The show is available on Netflix on September 4th. Jason
Jenny Curtis: Katims, thank you so much for joining me.
Jason Katims: It was great talking to you.
Jenny Curtis: I really appreciate it.
Jason Katims: Okay, bye.
Jenny Curtis: Hollywood Unscripted was created by CurtCo Media. This special episode
Jenny Curtis: of the stuck at home series was hosted and produced
Jenny Curtis: by me, Jenny Curtis, with guest Jason Katims. Co- produced
Jenny Curtis: and edited by Jay Whiting. The executive producer of Hollywood
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Jenny Curtis: stuck at home. Stay safe and healthy. And thanks for listening.
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