WEBVTT - Rodney Barnes 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.200 He hired me as a punch up writer for one day. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.880 I just kept coming back. This was pre not eleven days, 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.480 and I got to notice security guard at the gate 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.600 at ABC, and he just saw me coming every day, 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:15.000 so he'd let me in. And you know, I'm not 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.720 trying to get that guy fired now, but I don't 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.160 know if he's still there. But every day I kept 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.520 coming in and not just going the writer's room and 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.919 sit on the couch and just keep pitching jokes and 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.440 pitching jokes until Don Rio, who was our showrunner, Uh, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.680 he said, you know what, sit at the table, and 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:38.360 that was the beginning. Hright. My name is Rodney Barnes. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.480 I'm an executive producer and writer on the hit show 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.000 Winning Time on HBO, and I write a bunch of 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:55.360 other cool stuffs. Hello, friends, welcome to another episode of 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.560 Off the Beat. I'm so glad you're here. As always, 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.280 this is your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today, as you just heard, 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:08.440 I'm going to be speaking with writer producer Rodney Barnes. Now, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.160 who's Rodney Barnes, you might ask, Well, he is a man, 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:17.360 a writer who has mastered almost every genre. I mean, 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.160 I'm not exaggerating He's worked on everything from sitcom's like 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.960 Everybody Hates Chris Too, satirical cartoons like The Boon Docks, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.840 which by the way, won him a Peabody, and sports 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.399 dramas like the new hit HBO show that I just finished, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.080 Winning Time. Trust me check that show out if you haven't. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.120 It is worth it, whether you're a sports fan or not. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.520 Oh and when he's not doing all of that, he 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.680 also writes graphic novels. So yeah, no big deal. Listen, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.440 if you're looking for some inspiration for some real talk 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.960 about show biz, you have come to the right place today. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.720 I mean Rodney. He literally left the writer's room for 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.160 season two of Win Time to come here and to 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.160 talk to us. We're gonna walk through his incredible career 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.760 from being a production assistant on a first name basis 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.280 with his childhood heroes to learning to tell the best 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.320 story he can no matter what room he is in. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.280 You know what, I'm gonna let the man. I'm gonna 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.880 let the master speak for himself. So here he is 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:33.360 Rodney Barnes. Everyone, Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:39.840 and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker. Cook at every month left 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:53.200 over from the night before. What's up, Rodney, How are 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.160 you sure? I'm all right? How are you doing? Doing okay, 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.440 doing okay, just okay today. Yeah, so we has worked. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.560 There's a lot of stuff going on at the same time, 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.320 but it's all good stuff. Well, good, well, thank you 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.720 for taking the time to talk to me. First off, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.959 I have to say congratulations on your huge smash hit, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.120 which I finished a couple of days ago, now winning 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.440 time on HBO. I'm very excited to talk to you 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.200 about that. But I wanted to start going back a 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.440 little bit for our listeners and for me, like how 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.840 you got to where you are now? You grew up 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.200 in Maryland, right, Annapolis, Maryland? Annapolis, Maryland is where I 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.200 grew up. You grew up, you were born and raised, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.400 you lived there for your youth. Yeah. I was born 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.760 at the U. S. Naval Academy. My father was in 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.120 the military, lived there, stayed there for twenty five years. 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.480 I went to college in the area. Sort of figured 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.320 my life was just gonna be regular Annapolitan for lack 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:57.520 of a better word. Every job that I have was 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.680 in the area and never really could sider being in California. 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.280 One day and then um. When I went to Howard University, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.800 I started to work on movies and TV shows Pelican Brief, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.600 Clear Present, Danger, Quiz Show, Forrest Gump, anything that came 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.440 to the area and I could get a gig on 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.680 would be a production assistant or an assistant director. And 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.479 then eventually I worked on a movie, Major Pain, with 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.400 Damon Wayams, and he took an interest in me and 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.120 gave me an opportunity to work on his movies. And 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.680 that sort of led me to l A And I'm 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.080 packed up my stuff, moved out and left in my 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.520 car for a while. That famous l A story, you know, 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.960 scratching and scraping and try to make your way. And 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.440 I did that and here we are here, here we 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.040 are before I want to talk about the car. But 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.440 when you went to Howard, as you said, when did 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.640 you start to sort of think this is what I 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.720 want to do. I want to be involved in entertainment 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.000 or I want to be a writer. Well what happened 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.680 was I went to when I first went to college, 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:05.680 a bunch of journey colleges and different colleges. It was 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.320 to play sports, and probably a third of the way 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.320 in I realized I wasn't good enough to make a 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.279 living at being an athlete. But I kept doing it 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.120 anyway because I didn't have a plan. B There was 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.320 nothing else really there, um, you know, for me to do. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.520 So I kept doing it because it was something to do. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.360 And then eventually, UM hit a wall and said, you know, 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.320 I'm going to run out of time, and a friend 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.479 suggested I go back to school for real, and I 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:42.240 went back to Howard focused on the film and television business. 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:44.640 Still had no idea how it was going to work. 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.400 I did not know what the bridge from the East 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.240 Coast to Hollywood, you know, how that worked. Didn't understand 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.240 the business at all, but slowly but surely, and I'd 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.680 say being a production assistant was a huge part of 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.159 it because I got an opportunity to see how it 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.560 all sort of came together and slowly but surely make 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.919 my way in it. Now. Writing was another thing. It 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.960 was more of. I knew I wanted to write, and 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:10.640 I knew I wanted to be in the business, but 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.480 I pretty much knew no one was going to hire 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.440 me just being so green and just buy a script 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.360 from me and make a million dollars and everything was 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.840 going to be great coming out of the box. So 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.280 I looked at being a production assistant and working in 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.680 production as a way to keep a roof over my head, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.200 you know, while I was figuring out the writing part two. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.120 So the first part sort of supported the second part, right. 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.920 You know, it's so interesting. I've talked to so many 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:42.400 people and we've talked about the value of just on 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:48.040 set experience, just being around a set, seeing how things work, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.040 whether you're working in exactly the area that you want 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:56.000 to be. How valuable that just that experience is. Well 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:57.800 what I think a lot of people I talked to 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.279 a lot of writers, they don't want to go through 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.320 that process. They want to do the thing they want 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.000 to do, which is understandable. But if you come from 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.080 the conventional working world, which ninety nine point nine percent 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.520 of us come from, it works its own way. But 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.200 the entertainment business works another way. It's a way we talk, 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.520 it's a way at the pace at which it moves, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.280 the expectations, the emotional psychological development that you have in 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.080 order to be able to deal with constant rejection, all 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.760 of that stuff you typically don't get in the conventional world. 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.480 If you work at a regular government job, like you know, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.720 my family did. They are boundaries that you work within. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.200 You you know what they are. You get a reviewed 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.559 every year, you get raised, or you don't get a raised, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.560 and it's very conventional, and in Hollywood it's sort of 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.679 like the circus. You know, every month, two months, three months, 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.640 you could be moving on to the next place, and 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.560 you've got to figure out how you're gonna make it. 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.680 In between, there's a lot of rejection, or could be. 0:07:57.840 --> 0:07:59.720 I don't know anybody that hasn't, but I'm trying to 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.160 be out to miss it. Certainly in my career has 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.040 been a lot of rejection, and you have to mostly 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.000 be able to continue to get back up off the 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.360 horse when things don't go the way that you wanted 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.760 to go. Maybe you don't have that mental toughness. This 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.240 is gonna be a really hard ride for you. And 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.400 so I think having those jobs gave me an opportunity 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.120 to learn stuff, to get those muscles ready. Living in 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.200 my car, just a lot of things that I had 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.239 to do to get to this place that I didn't 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.120 realize at the time. I always use the analogy of 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:33.720 when you're in the gym, you have the machines and 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.600 you have free weights, the machines do some of the 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.440 work for you because they balanced the weight that you're 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.319 lifting and you're just doing the movement. But when you're 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.040 doing free weights, you have all those little muscles to 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.240 balance it that you're doing yourself, that you're utilizing to 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.480 lift in the weight. That's sort of what I look 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.360 at working in production is because there's so many little 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:57.400 things that you're getting about how to interact with other 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.760 people within the business and learning what to do and 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.440 what not to do. You know, I've never had mentors 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.719 in the conventional sense of the word that someone put 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:07.679 their arm around me and said, sonen, come on, I'm 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.080 gonna show you how this business work. But I've been 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.120 blessed to be in rooms with some really high level 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.520 people and how they conducted themselves and how they dealt 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.160 with stress, and how they you know, we're leaders, and 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.240 just to be able to observe was the biggest thing. 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.920 If I had had success in my twenties or you know, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.480 even early thirties, I would have blown it. I know 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.080 I would have blown it. And having the opportunity to 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.440 take a step back and just learn is invaluable. Yeah, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.440 you know, everything for me is not about the office. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.800 But I will talk about Greg Daniels, our showrunner, who 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:48.400 talked about for him, which makes so much sense. Oftentimes, writers, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.959 particularly young writers, are writing and a void without really 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.800 understanding how television or movies are constructed. Whereas when you 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.000 hear a p A and when you're on set, you 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.440 know you can't write some things. I used to joke 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.520 with him, I'm not Homer Simpson. There are things that 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.320 a writer can write for Homer Simpson and and an 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.640 animator can animate that. My body is not gonna do that. 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.120 There's no way to shoot certain things. And so I 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.040 think as a writer having that because oftentimes they're right, 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.840 you're stuck in a writer's room. You're not really on 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.120 set on a day to day basis. Being able to 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.880 understand that is so important. The greatest boot camp for 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.680 me on My Wife and Kids, which was my first 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.680 show sitcom, was that I had the opportunity to you, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.000 after you're a million percent right, that you believe, when 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.800 you're sort of in the comfort of your own mind 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.760 and space without anybody evaluating the work, that you can 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:49.839 just write about anything. You can say anything, you could 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.520 do anything that no boundaries. But when you start to 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.480 learn how to write producible scripts within the budget that 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.319 you're working with, within the constraints of a net worked 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.720 if you're a network on a network show or what 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.960 have you, you realize when you're actually in production and 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.280 making a thing, now you're really writing to something versus 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.160 just your imagination and your desire to write. And I 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.560 can say for me, the first ten years of my 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.080 career were really all about that thing that you what 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.960 you just mentioned, It was learning how to be a 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:28.400 professional writer and learning how to be a professional you know, 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.600 mentally and emotionally in both situations. Like like I said, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.720 I'm glad that I had to go through the process 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.880 of being a staff writer twice the story editor. I 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.000 jumped up a couple of levels because I was on 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.800 some shows for a while, But I needed that initial 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.960 training in order to get from zero to one, or 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.040 I doubt that I would have. You know, some of 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:51.800 the good things that have happened to me later in 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.040 my career wouldn't have happened if I didn't have that 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.560 foundation to go back to. Yeah. Yeah, so you meet 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.720 the wayans their supply word of of you. Yes, you 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.079 decided to make the jump to Los Angeles, and then yes, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.520 as you mentioned, you were living out of your car. Now, 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.840 how what did that do for you or to you 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.360 in terms of it would have been very easy to 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.720 give up at that point. Yeah, I was fortunate about 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.200 the whole living in my car thing. You know, certainly 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.600 when you say it through the years of Today's listener 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:27.400 and they go, oh my god, you lived in your car. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.199 You were homeless. It must have been the worst thing 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.320 in the world. And it wasn't. For the two years 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.960 that I was following Dame and around the country. He 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.120 wasn't putting me up in hotels. I was living in 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:42.319 my car then too, But there was something about being 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.560 close to the thing that I wanted to do. I 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.320 knew everything in my hometown. I knew what life would 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.200 be if I went back there. I didn't know what 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.520 it would be in Hollywood. And I've got this guy, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.960 and he's given me jobs and the mom sets every 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.800 day and I'm meeting the right people. I'm learning a lot. 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.560 You know, it didn't feel like homelessness. It didn't feel 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.800 painful because in my mind, Okay, I would be in 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.000 my car at night, but I would be on set 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.560 like six seven in the morning because that's what the 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.520 p's you know, come in. They come in first. I 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.000 could eat and craft service all day. I probably actually 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.280 gain weight because there's endless there's an endless plat food. 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.079 I got along with the transport guys because so they 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.000 gave me gas. I could go into honey wagons and 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.320 take a shower. I started a garbage business with my 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.160 truck where at the end of the night they would 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.040 give me a buck fifty a bag to get rid 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.040 of the catering the locations. Folks would like here, get 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.160 rid of this, and I make a hundred bucks, which 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.880 at that time was huge with my dollar a day salary. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:49.960 You know, it wasn't bad. It was work a boy. 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.760 It wasn't like I was a guy doing nothing. It 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.800 was just I didn't have enough to sustain myself in 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.880 the way that I'm sustaining myself. Yeah, that you took 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.520 it as this is just what life is, and I'm 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.760 looking for this next opportunity. But I'm in l A. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.320 I'm working, I'm I'm doing it. Yeah. Blade was my 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.920 first movie that I worked on in l A. I 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.920 love comic books and a comic book guy, so I'm 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.000 on set every day. Wesley Snipes knows my name. He's 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.160 in the Blade outfit. Steve Norrington is telling me stories 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.080 about when he was a special effects guy and the 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.640 chest Burster and alien Like. I'm around some really cool 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.840 people doing really cool stuff. I'm learning l a because 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.680 every day we have a different location. You know, it's 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:37.560 kind of cool. Yeah after that, Uh, you mentioned it already. 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.880 You you work with the Wayans. Your first writing job 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.120 right on my wife and kids. That was your first 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.680 staff writing job on television. Yeah, Damon, Uh, Damon and 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.280 I we weren't around each other for a hot second, 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.400 and then I got an opportunity to work on my 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.320 wife and kids. He hired me as a punch up 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.280 writer for one day. I just kept coming back. This 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.480 was pret not eleven day. And I got to notice 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.640 security guard at the gate at ABC, and he just 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.640 saw me coming every day, so he'd let me in. 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.080 And you know, I'm not trying to get that guy 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.800 fired now, but I don't know if he's still there. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.680 But every day I kept coming in and not just 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.880 going the writer's room and sit on the couch and 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.720 just keep pitching jokes and pitching jokes until Don Rio, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.320 who was our showrunner, Uh. He said, you know what, 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.360 sit at the table. And that was the beginning. And 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.640 once I got at the table, it was like, Okay, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.200 I'm gonna keep doing this thing. Now I'm sitting at 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.440 a writer's table. I'm a writer. And they hired me 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.200 to be a staff writer the next season, and that 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.400 sort of was the beginning. Television, particularly that type of 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:47.320 television coming from films is different, right, I mean the 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:51.560 presentational style. Did that present for you any challenges or 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.880 were you just full on enthusiastic about just being a writer. Yeah, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.080 I was enthusiast. I was terrified about being a writer. 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.400 This is that them talking about the emotional psychological stuff. 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.640 There was a lot of imposter syndrome. There was a 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:09.800 lot of knowing what I didn't know. I thank god 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.760 that Done was my first guy because he was patient 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.960 with me. He saw whatever he saw and allowed me 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.560 to grow. And so it was really a thing about 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.720 a lot of times folks come to me and they say, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:24.320 you know, I just want to work for you so 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.560 I can learn. I just want to learn. And I'm thinking, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.240 this isn't college. You know. I don't say it out loud, 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.520 but I'm thinking, but I did get an opportunity to learn, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.160 but I also contributed as well. There was this duality 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.880 of walking with both realities. That being in the writer's 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.640 room with someone who had a huge amount of experience, 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.200 it was invaluable, but I had to earn it every 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.480 single day when I went in. I had to do 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.640 what I could to answer your question. I didn't really 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.320 have professional chops in the way that I think I 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:20.879 do today, but I gave what ahead right. What attracted 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.160 you from an early age to graphic novels? What what 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.200 was it about that or comic books that that that 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.600 you really responded to? Well, I could tell you. My 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.560 mother was a school teacher and she used to do 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.399 her lesson plans at the public library. This is pre 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.480 they weren't computers. All she had was paper and pen 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.680 during those days. Being a single parent, she would take 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:44.680 me to the public library with her, and they had 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.119 this little pen where they had the kids books in 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.159 and the Curious George's and Dr Seuss and all of 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.000 that stuff. But under those books was a box, and 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.920 then that box were comic books. And I knew what 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.679 that box was, and I pulled him out and this 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.560 love affair was born that to this day still grips 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.480 me in a weird kind of way. I think it 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.119 was the nature of the stories challenged me in a 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.960 way that the kids books didn't. It's like the kids 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.159 books were clearly for kids. If I had nothing, I 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.840 would read them. But there was something about like I'm 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.480 gonna name folks I don't know if anyone knows who 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.919 they are. But there were guys like Jim Starling and 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.720 Neil Adams and Mike Rell and a bunch of great 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:34.520 creators who wrote what I would call early Star Wars 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.280 or early you know, Star Trek or any of the 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.000 things that would push the envelope. They would talk about 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.879 social issues, they would talk about you know, good versus evil, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.800 life and death, all of this stuff. And it wasn't 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.399 literature in the classical sense of the word, but it 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.159 was preparing me for all of those things that I 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.920 would encounter later. So they didn't feel intimidating if someone 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.800 had me read Shakespeare, because these guys had already taken 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:03.600 a piece of the things that they do and put 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.880 them into Superman, Batman, green letter books. That sort of 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.400 was a great bridge from me to the more adult 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.359 fair that I and in too earlier but I was 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.119 just in tregue. I love the art, I love the stories, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.400 and I'm I was an only child. Even though I 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.800 have a lot of half brothers and sisters, I spent 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.400 a lot of time by myself as a kid, So 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.679 comic books were sort of like a friend that I 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.480 could depend on. Yeah, this doesn't fully relate. I am 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.240 wondering if my daughter has kind of a similar fascination 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.719 my sister. This happened last night, not a joke. My 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.520 sister sent a bunch of books from her Her kids 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.320 are older, my daughter's seven. She reads every night. She 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.240 just reads, reads, reads, reads, and she's been getting into 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.360 this box of books. And she said to me last night, 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.320 as we're going up, she said, I read this cool 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:00.600 story last night. The woman died because got bit by 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.680 a snake. But then the the man died too because 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:08.280 he got bit by a snake. And she starts talking 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.840 and I'm like, what is she reading? Where did she find? 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.560 And it was a kid's adaptation of Anthony and Cleopatra. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:17.879 She I go, where is this book? I've got to 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.879 see this book and it's just, you know, totally for kids. 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.719 But like she doesn't she doesn't want to read Dr Seush. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.879 She she is fascinated by what you're talking about, like 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.159 bigger stories that, even if they're told in a simplistic 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.840 way for kids, clearly had a huge impact on her. Yeah, 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.639 and you know Stephen King walks along the lines of 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:43.840 that as well. I remember as a kid when you say, 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.879 have paperback books on a spinner, and I had to 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.560 reach up. So that tells you how old I was 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:51.880 to them. Six eight now, so I've been like six 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.440 ft tall since I was probably thirteen years old. And 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.359 I remember getting carried. I remember the cover of the book. 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:01.600 I remember where I was when I bought the book, 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.080 and I don't know why I grabbed my eye. I 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.040 don't know why I caught me, but I was just 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.800 spending and spending and spending, and it stopped right there, 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.919 and I bought carry and I remember opening up the 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.200 book and I saw all of the reviews. They used 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.760 to have them in the I don't know if which 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.360 publisher it was, Penguin or whoever, but I saw all 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:23.240 of these reviews. I was like, Wow, this must be 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.800 really good. All of these people like this book, and 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.080 I didn't know how it worked back then with the 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.360 press and not to say that it was obviously I'm 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.440 still a fan, and then he did tell him slot 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.720 then he did the shining, and I was right there 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:39.240 just going basically doing the same thing I was with 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.080 comic books. I was building a relationship. And you know, 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.160 I'm in my fifties now and I was a teenager then, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.960 and I just built this relationship with an author that 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.520 I came to depend on the consistency of a guy 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.160 like a Stephen King. You know, in my mind when 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:58.720 I think about being an author and writing comic books 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:01.720 and novels as well, it was like, how could I 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:06.360 build up a lifestyle that would house that type of 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.400 discipline to where I could be prolific in that way too, 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:11.840 to where you know, I'm writing television, but I'm writing 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.280 comic books, and I'm writing novels, and I'm writing movies 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.879 and I'm doing all these things. But that requires a 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.560 certain type of structure to your life, because no one's gonna, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.679