Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday, very special
Speaker 1: edition because I am sitting here, uh staring at the
Speaker 1: very friendly, handsome face of Mr Allan Ball. Hi. There,
Speaker 1: Alan Ball, Hi, how's it going. It's going great. It's
Speaker 1: so nice to meet you. And I know that here
Speaker 1: on the anniversary of six ft Under, you've been making
Speaker 1: the round some and I really appreciate you taking some
Speaker 1: time for us. This is a very very big deal.
Speaker 1: It is my pleasure. I'm very happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I guess I would love to kind of
Speaker 1: just go back to the beginning and talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the origins of the show, in the state
Speaker 1: of your career at the time, where you were, kind
Speaker 1: of the state of television at the time, because I
Speaker 1: feel like six ft Under, along with a very small
Speaker 1: handful of shows, kind of helped usher in what we
Speaker 1: now look at is the golden age of television or
Speaker 1: another golden age of television, And just a little bit
Speaker 1: about the beginnings of the of the seed of the show. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: I had signed a three year television development deal with
Speaker 1: the Green Black Chanilary Studio UM either a week before
Speaker 1: or a week after, I sold the script um of
Speaker 1: American Beauty to dream Works. Uh A little amazing and
Speaker 1: uh and so as part of American Beauty was came
Speaker 1: out UM at the same time, within a again, within
Speaker 1: the same week that my first show under that development deal,
Speaker 1: a sitcom for ABC called Oh Grow Up, premiered UM
Speaker 1: and after American Beauty came out, a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanted to meet with me, and uh, Caroline Strauss from
Speaker 1: HBO wanted a meeting, and I said, yeah, hell yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take that meeting. Because I had just discovered the
Speaker 1: Sopranos and it was like everybody else in America. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, wow, TV can be something completely different
Speaker 1: than we all thought it could be. So I met
Speaker 1: with Caroline Uh. We had lunch, and she pitched this
Speaker 1: idea to me. She said, I've always wanted to do
Speaker 1: a show about a family run funeral home and something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and something in my head just went click because I
Speaker 1: had spent some time in funeral homes when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, because there was a period where people in
Speaker 1: my family, A lot of people in my family died,
Speaker 1: so I had a real sense of that weird st
Speaker 1: wort of surreal, muffled environment that funeral homes are and
Speaker 1: um and I thought that would be such a great show.
Speaker 1: Um And I said, I really wish I could work
Speaker 1: on that, but I've got this TV show on ABC
Speaker 1: and and so I'm not available. Well, um, not too
Speaker 1: long after that, UM, ABC very graciously canceled my show.
Speaker 1: UM and I had yeah, and I had two more
Speaker 1: years left on my development deal, and everybody was coming
Speaker 1: at me saying, we've got this, you know, we've got
Speaker 1: this stand up com comic that you're the perfect person
Speaker 1: to build a show around, or we've got this horrible
Speaker 1: idea about a man who dies and is reincarnated as
Speaker 1: his wife's dog, that you're a perfect You're the perfect
Speaker 1: guy to build this show around. And I just was like,
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I can't. I gotta get out
Speaker 1: because I had spent four years prior to Grow Up
Speaker 1: working in traditional four camera sitcom um plus the half
Speaker 1: a season that um oh Grow Up lasted, and I
Speaker 1: just really I felt like I've done my time in
Speaker 1: that particular good lag. I cannot I gotta get out
Speaker 1: of there. So I wrote the pilot to six ft
Speaker 1: Under on spec just knowing that HBO was interested in
Speaker 1: a show like that, and Uh, I did it when
Speaker 1: I went home for the Christmas break. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: came back and gave it to my agent and she
Speaker 1: gave it to Bob and David and there was a
Speaker 1: moment where they said, can't could this be a network show?
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, no, it cannot be a
Speaker 1: network show. It has to go to HBO. And and
Speaker 1: we gave it to HBO and they responded to it,
Speaker 1: and um and the rest is history history. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: you're writing a pilot like this and you're sort of
Speaker 1: handed an idea that you, uh, that you respond to.
Speaker 1: When you latch on to what, uh do you literally
Speaker 1: just sit down and say, Okay, Who's who's in this family? Um?
Speaker 1: And is that more like where can I create the
Speaker 1: maybe potentially the best drama or is it who who do?
Speaker 1: Who do I want to be in this family? Just emotionally? Um?
Speaker 1: I think it's who do I want to be in
Speaker 1: this family? Just emotionally. I'm not My My process is
Speaker 1: is not particularly conscious. Um. I I sit down to
Speaker 1: write and sometimes I just get surprised by what happens
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's terrible. I mean I have,
Speaker 1: you know, stacks of scripts that I've started, not finished,
Speaker 1: or stacks of scripts that I've finished, UM that just
Speaker 1: don't work. But there was something about this particular environment
Speaker 1: and these particular characters that just sort of it's like
Speaker 1: they came out of me fully formed. UM. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that's any sort of mystical thing. I think
Speaker 1: it's just I do a lot of work on a
Speaker 1: subconscious level and then it just sort of spills out. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I it just felt right. And also I was
Speaker 1: at the time, I was grieving from my failed ABC sitcom,
Speaker 1: so I you know, I poured a little bit of
Speaker 1: that grief into the pilot. But I what I love.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of development because I've never
Speaker 1: had an experience in development where things actually got better. UM.
Speaker 1: I just and and so the fact that I was
Speaker 1: able to do this all outside of a development process, UM,
Speaker 1: I think allowed it to to to be very specific
Speaker 1: because a lot of a lot of times what happens
Speaker 1: with UM development is things get generic. Things, things are
Speaker 1: sort of pushed into a direction that feels familiar. Because
Speaker 1: that's you know, I think I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of times in development, people want to make things similar
Speaker 1: two things that have already been successful. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: um and I I'm glad that I was able to
Speaker 1: sort of figure out the world and the characters without
Speaker 1: um it being what's what's the right word, um, ruined.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say ruined, but but blanded out right sure
Speaker 1: like to appeal to the broadest spectrum or right, But
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that would have happened at HBO because
Speaker 1: they were very much about at that time, they were
Speaker 1: very much about wanting things that were very different. And
Speaker 1: you know that that's back when they're tagline was it's
Speaker 1: not TV, It's HBO, right, so they were. They gave
Speaker 1: you a lot of room then to just sort of
Speaker 1: do your thing. Well. When I gave them the script
Speaker 1: for the pilot, they asked for a meeting, and I
Speaker 1: came into the meeting and they said, basically, they said,
Speaker 1: we really like this. Our only note is the whole
Speaker 1: thing feels kind of safe. We're wondering if you could
Speaker 1: just suck it up a little bit more. And literally
Speaker 1: those were the words that they used. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this will never happen to me again.
Speaker 1: But this is like a This is like a writer's dream,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, And so I I did. I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, go in there and just gratuitously fuck things up.
Speaker 1: But I've tried to figure out ways in which, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you could tell the story that we're messy,
Speaker 1: messier and not as as um cookie cutter. One of
Speaker 1: the things I learned in my five years and sitcoms
Speaker 1: before I broke broke away and did six ft Under,
Speaker 1: and actually one of the reasons I wrote American Beauty,
Speaker 1: which was written fueled by a lot of anger, um,
Speaker 1: was the world that I lived in in as a
Speaker 1: writer in in sitcom world was a world in which
Speaker 1: basically the two notes we got from the network, all
Speaker 1: the notes we got from the network, could be consolidated
Speaker 1: into two thoughts which would make everybody nicer and articulate
Speaker 1: the subtext um, both of which are just you know,
Speaker 1: the diametrically opposed to good writing. UM. So I had
Speaker 1: to unlearn a lot of that when I started working
Speaker 1: on six ft Under, and at at the same time,
Speaker 1: six ft Under for me was in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways it was film school, because you know, I had
Speaker 1: only worked in theater or in um four cameras sitcom,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like filmed theater. And um, so
Speaker 1: single camera storytelling was new to me, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to direct and I wanted to produce, and
Speaker 1: so it was. It was film school and it was
Speaker 1: probably the best film school I could have gone to. Well,
Speaker 1: and you, uh, you directed the pilot, right, I did?
Speaker 1: What was that a hard fight? Or did you just
Speaker 1: kind of say I would really like to do this?
Speaker 1: I said, I would really like to do this, and
Speaker 1: they said okay. Um, And I think I had I
Speaker 1: had just won the Oscar for American Beauty, and I
Speaker 1: noticed that all of a sudden, everybody acknowledged what I
Speaker 1: had to say, as if it were right, you know,
Speaker 1: as if it were true. Whereas before, whenever I had thoughts,
Speaker 1: people would go like yeah, but they would start But
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of validation that comes from, you know,
Speaker 1: winning an Oscar and also having the movie that you
Speaker 1: want it for be a commercial success is people change
Speaker 1: and they start acting like you know what you're doing
Speaker 1: all right? And I'm not saying that I did, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just saying that all of a sudden, they
Speaker 1: I think, had that not happened that they might not
Speaker 1: have been quite so quick to say, yes, we'll let
Speaker 1: you direct. And I also heard that through the grapevine
Speaker 1: that people were like, oh my god, what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do? What if it's what if it's terrible? But
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, I think David Chase directed the
Speaker 1: pilot of Sopranos, and I was sort of using that
Speaker 1: as a as a model. Yeah, that's awesome. Um. On
Speaker 1: the writing, I'm kind of curious because I've written stuff,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of our listeners have dabbled
Speaker 1: in screenwriting. Is there a point where the characters it
Speaker 1: becomes a little less like what do I want David
Speaker 1: to do here? What should David do here? And less
Speaker 1: we don't really have a choice. David is a fully
Speaker 1: formed human. Now David's gonna do this, and we just
Speaker 1: need to facilitate that. Does that make sense? It makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense? Um? Yeah, I think Uh. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times characters will let you know what they
Speaker 1: want to do, And a lot of times in editing, especially, um,
Speaker 1: I find that the show or the movie or whatever,
Speaker 1: in editing, it's gonna let you know what it wants
Speaker 1: to be, and all of a sudden, you know this
Speaker 1: scene that you thought was so important and so great,
Speaker 1: you're like, it works better without it, and the movie
Speaker 1: is letting me know that this is what it needs
Speaker 1: to be. And I think that's true for characters. When
Speaker 1: you have characters that are very specific and and very
Speaker 1: specifically complicated psychologically and emotionally, you can't just pitch and
Speaker 1: go like, oh, David's gonna run for city council. You
Speaker 1: know he would never do that, David. So, yeah, I
Speaker 1: agree with you. Sometimes you just sort of I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes my job, especially once once you get a show,
Speaker 1: once you get the pilot done and the show is
Speaker 1: up and running, is to just figure out what it
Speaker 1: wants to be and get out of its way. And
Speaker 1: how soon does that happen? Well, in this case, how
Speaker 1: soon did these characters kind of take on their own path.
Speaker 1: It's interesting in in both uh, six ft Under and
Speaker 1: True Blood it happened on the fifth episode. Wow. Um.
Speaker 1: The fifth episode of six ft Under was when Nate
Speaker 1: met Billy, and I believe it was also the um
Speaker 1: the porn star died got an axtrocuted in her bathtub,
Speaker 1: and there was the porn star funeral. Yeah um, and
Speaker 1: that that was the episode where the show sort of
Speaker 1: went this is what I am and um and I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we will honor that. That's really cool. Uh So
Speaker 1: this show for me personally marked a really big sort
Speaker 1: of turning point because when it premiered in during its
Speaker 1: first run was when when I first met who uh
Speaker 1: is now my wife in Los Angeles. We lived over
Speaker 1: an Eagle Rock, and then through the show moved back
Speaker 1: to Atlanta to my original hometown together, and that's where
Speaker 1: the when the show kind of ended, and we ended
Speaker 1: up by haying a house kind of kitty corner from
Speaker 1: this family run funeral home with a big, giant, beautiful home.
Speaker 1: And I remember at the time we literally said, like
Speaker 1: this is meant to be. We're living across from the fissure.
Speaker 1: It's like this has got to happen. So it's been
Speaker 1: really My wife has seen it now three times all
Speaker 1: the way through. It's her favorite show of all time,
Speaker 1: and we just finished my second run her third. And
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to watch it at age thirty and
Speaker 1: then at age fifty. Uh really almost social experiment, interesting
Speaker 1: to see which characters I identified more with and how
Speaker 1: much more into Ruth I was this time around, and
Speaker 1: how much I would kind of laughed at Claire stuff
Speaker 1: a little bit, like oh that sweet kid, and how
Speaker 1: Billy more compassion for Billy, Like all of these like
Speaker 1: different endorphins are firing twenty years on in my life,
Speaker 1: and so I think this is one of those shows
Speaker 1: that did that for a lot of people, because everyone
Speaker 1: identify I had so much with these characters, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find a question in the air. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: maybe what you think twenty years on when you reflect
Speaker 1: on these people. Um. I hate to say this, but
Speaker 1: I don't really reflect on them that much because I
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, that's done, that ended, And I haven't
Speaker 1: watched the show since it Um, since it ended. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe I should, but that sort of feels like something
Speaker 1: I'll do when I'm in the old age. I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out the industry and where
Speaker 1: it is right now and how to get something on
Speaker 1: the air because it's super baffling. It's so different, Like
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know that that six under would
Speaker 1: get made now without some recognizable star attack. Um again,
Speaker 1: I don't know that American Beauty would get made now.
Speaker 1: It seems like everything, the decisions on what gets made,
Speaker 1: is all based on algorithms, and I just have a
Speaker 1: I have a hard time understanding how that works. One
Speaker 1: of the great things about those for those six ft
Speaker 1: Under in my experience with HBO in general, with both
Speaker 1: six ft Under and True Blood, was that there there
Speaker 1: wasn't a you know, layer after layer after layer of
Speaker 1: people who had to give their input and had to
Speaker 1: approve things. There was just one person, one or two people,
Speaker 1: and they would basically say, here's what we think. And
Speaker 1: most of the times, most of the time the notes
Speaker 1: were super helpful, and there weren't that many of them. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, But in my experience since then has been
Speaker 1: very very different. Yeah, and and quite confusing. And maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just too old to exist in this new environment.
Speaker 1: But it's really range. Yeah. Um, I'd love to talk
Speaker 1: about casting a little bit. I mean, it's um, it's
Speaker 1: one of those shows where you certainly can't picture. I mean,
Speaker 1: it feels like this family was a fully formed family
Speaker 1: and these siblings were siblings. And I've heard Peter krows
Speaker 1: To talk about this before that that when you when
Speaker 1: they even looked at the show, they felt like these
Speaker 1: are the three kids that Ruth and Nathaniel would have had.
Speaker 1: H And I'm just curious about the casting process, like
Speaker 1: how easy or difficult that was in in cert with
Speaker 1: certain characters. Um it was. I mean, I would say
Speaker 1: it was. It wasn't terribly difficult, although we we had
Speaker 1: a real hard time finding Brenda and Nate. M It
Speaker 1: took a long time to to cast those two roles.
Speaker 1: And basically I remember, really the only person that I
Speaker 1: went Okay, that's um, that I don't need to see
Speaker 1: anybody else was Franny Francis Conroy because when she came
Speaker 1: in she I mean, it was just like, Okay, that's her.
Speaker 1: What's yea, we can stop looking. A lot of women
Speaker 1: came in and they had um had had weird plastic surgery,
Speaker 1: and they looked, you know, surprised. They had that surprised
Speaker 1: look on their face. And I was like, no, Ruth
Speaker 1: would not have an eye job. She um Matthew st
Speaker 1: Patrick there were two African American men in America who
Speaker 1: would read for that role at the time. At the time,
Speaker 1: there was still a stigma about playing a gay character
Speaker 1: if if the actor was not gay in real life,
Speaker 1: And um, I think there was especially a stigma about
Speaker 1: playing a gay character in a relationship with a white man.
Speaker 1: So literally there were only two guys who read for Keith. Really, um,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of people uh come in and
Speaker 1: read for I mean, I remember back then. What we
Speaker 1: did is is we would take the top three contenders
Speaker 1: to HBO and we we would go into the HBO
Speaker 1: um uh auditorium and and they would and and and
Speaker 1: the top press at HBO would be there and the
Speaker 1: actors would read and I remember, Um Lauren read for
Speaker 1: Claire and um and afterwards there was some concern that
Speaker 1: she did that. It was the scene where she was
Speaker 1: on crystal meth and she finds out that her father's dad,
Speaker 1: and there was some concern that that she didn't that
Speaker 1: it didn't feel authentic. And I remember thinking, this girl's
Speaker 1: the girl. So I had to go out and talk
Speaker 1: to her in the hallway and I was like, you
Speaker 1: have to be just play the crystal meth thing a
Speaker 1: little bit more. And she's like, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to do that. I've never done crystal meth and I
Speaker 1: never will. What is it? What I said? And I
Speaker 1: had never done crystal meth either, So I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just like to be really jittery and and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even hope that was the real thing, but
Speaker 1: I think that's what, you know, they were looking for. Um.
Speaker 1: Peter Kraus originally was one of the finalists for David
Speaker 1: um um. But and then there was a guy we
Speaker 1: brought into play Nate, and we thought we had found
Speaker 1: the perfect Nate, but he just choked. He choked at
Speaker 1: the callback and um. So then we got Rachel Griffiths
Speaker 1: had read the script and she flew herself to America
Speaker 1: to read for Brenda. And so I had worked with
Speaker 1: Peter on Sibyl, the sitcom Sybil, and I said, will
Speaker 1: you come and read with her for this? And eventually
Speaker 1: that became his callback for Nate. And once the two
Speaker 1: of them were together, it was like, yeah, that's that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so key. There was an attempt to get
Speaker 1: a really big movie star to play Nathaniel, which I
Speaker 1: sort of fought against because I thought, no, because if
Speaker 1: it's a big movie star, you know, what do you
Speaker 1: you're gonna see like a big movie star And yeah,
Speaker 1: and that risks it being stunty too, probably given the role.
Speaker 1: But I was given pretty much pretty much everybody I
Speaker 1: UM I wanted to cast. UM I cast, and even
Speaker 1: though there was there was some concern in the room.
Speaker 1: There was some division in the room about um who
Speaker 1: should play David. There was another actor who was quite good,
Speaker 1: but I just felt like it should be Michael. The
Speaker 1: people at HBO felt like it should be the other guy.
Speaker 1: But what really surprised me was they said, but we're
Speaker 1: going to trust you. You get to make this decision.
Speaker 1: And that's just had I had never had that kind
Speaker 1: of experience before. I had had an experience when I
Speaker 1: was casting, Oh grow up, when there was you know,
Speaker 1: UM the top brass at ABC had a question about
Speaker 1: an action and I said, well, here's why I think
Speaker 1: she's great. And the look that came over the guy's
Speaker 1: face was like, what do you You're not questioning me?
Speaker 1: Are you really really? And I was just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well I guess, I guess I'm I should just keep
Speaker 1: my mouth shut. And did you start having those conversations
Speaker 1: holding your oscar after American Beet? I I did not
Speaker 1: have the I did not have the oscar at that time,
Speaker 1: so I bring it in before then said it on
Speaker 1: the table. I thought it might be fun. I've never
Speaker 1: done this before, but I thought it'd be fun if
Speaker 1: maybe I gave you the actor's name, and if you
Speaker 1: could give me, like just the first five or six
Speaker 1: words that come to your mind. Okay for that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's go ahead and start with Peter Krausa. Um. Okay, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is tougher than I thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 1: UM confident, uh, repressed. I'm sorry, this is Nate. This
Speaker 1: is not necessarily Peter Kraus, the man. I'm we're talking
Speaker 1: about the character, right, I mean, up to you. I
Speaker 1: was thinking more of, you know, kind of Peter Kraus
Speaker 1: and how he became Nate. But okay, well, then let's
Speaker 1: do Peter Kraus. Confident, funny, really funny, UM, committed, um, disciplined,
Speaker 1: UM wounded okay, Michael C. Hall complex, um big heart again, wounded, UM, brave, mhm. Fearless.
Speaker 1: I think that's another word you might use to describe
Speaker 1: Francis Conroy, because I've heard you say that before. So
Speaker 1: Francis Conroy fearless, UM, dear kind, um, ego less, ego less.
Speaker 1: I think I've heard you talk about in some interviews
Speaker 1: that she was just really ready to do whatever it took. Well.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes actors will look at the material they've been
Speaker 1: given the play and they'll go like, well, but I
Speaker 1: would never do that, at which point I'm always want
Speaker 1: to say like, yeah, but the character is not you,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But the thing about Franny. I you
Speaker 1: could say like Ruth, um, Ruth eats a puppy, and
Speaker 1: she wouldn't come to you and go like, what are
Speaker 1: you what are you talking about? Are you crazy? Ruth
Speaker 1: eats a puppy. She'd be like, Okay, I've never eaten
Speaker 1: a puppy, so I guess I have some questions. That's great,
Speaker 1: that must be great. Oh, it's so great. It's so great.
Speaker 1: I remember the scene in the from the Pilot where
Speaker 1: she's crying at Nathaniel's a grave and um and she
Speaker 1: like you know, snot was coming out of her nose
Speaker 1: and it was so so visceral and messy and and um,
Speaker 1: and I said cut. But I needed to get it
Speaker 1: from a different angle, So I said, Franty, can I
Speaker 1: are you up for doing that again? And she was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, of course, just right back in it. Huh,
Speaker 1: just right back in it. Yeah, amazing. I think we
Speaker 1: we call them Ruth freakouts when you know she would
Speaker 1: just snap And it's some of my favorite moments in
Speaker 1: the whole series is one of the roof has one
Speaker 1: of her freak outs and we would rate them which
Speaker 1: ones were the best on the Ruth skin. Those are
Speaker 1: always so much fun when you would just finally just
Speaker 1: lose it totally. Yeah, all right. How about Lauren Ambrose
Speaker 1: um innocent ah, open ah, charismatic, um ah, brave again brave?
Speaker 1: What about Rachel Griffith's uh complex, um powerful, ah, committed, disciplined,
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for? Um mercurial mm hmm. Yeah, Brenda,
Speaker 1: I mean, what a character to sink your teeth in
Speaker 1: so much. There was just so much there and so
Speaker 1: much that you know, it wasn't always pretty, often not pretty,
Speaker 1: And to really lay yourself out there like that into
Speaker 1: and to be um, to risk being a character people
Speaker 1: would would hate at times, and to go there anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just just amazing to watch. Mm hmm. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite characters because she's so complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but over the course of the show she kind of
Speaker 1: gets control of it. Yeah, I think so, um and
Speaker 1: you know, not just with Nate, her relationship with Billy
Speaker 1: and with her mom. Uh, it was just everything was
Speaker 1: fraught with complications. I think when when Justin Threawu came
Speaker 1: around as an audience, remember we're all rooting for that
Speaker 1: in a way, because you know, I think that even
Speaker 1: people that love Nate and did together could acknowledge that
Speaker 1: they probably weren't the best for each other. And then
Speaker 1: when Justin throw came around, it was kind of this
Speaker 1: is your chance, Brenda, like you know, keep on this course,
Speaker 1: and she just she just couldn't. Yeah, really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: What about um James Cromwell, um, decent um kind um, Uh,
Speaker 1: what's the word? I like, gravitas, m um open open.
Speaker 1: That was tough stuff too, because I think once you
Speaker 1: fall in love with Ruth as if viewer, you just
Speaker 1: want some goodness for her and and she finally gets it.
Speaker 1: And then like at times we were joking around, we
Speaker 1: were like, why does Alan Ball hate the Fishers, like,
Speaker 1: like it was so terrible to see that slip away.
Speaker 1: And then I guess it was season three when she h.
Speaker 1: I mean season three as a whole was was a
Speaker 1: tough experience to get through, especially that season three finale
Speaker 1: really tested the limits I think of, uh, what an
Speaker 1: audience member can can take in some ways, remind me
Speaker 1: what the season three finals in three finale was, She's
Speaker 1: I mean, I might start crying thinking about it. Lisa's
Speaker 1: death is confirmed, right right, right right, Claire meets her,
Speaker 1: her her baby and heaven who Lisa has taken care
Speaker 1: of now right, and Nate goes to Brenda. He gets
Speaker 1: his ass kicked in the bar. Just the most destructive,
Speaker 1: self destructive behavior. He is engaging in dangerous behavior. But
Speaker 1: there's that's when Ruth and George decided to get married, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm that kind of leads me to a question,
Speaker 1: which is finding the right balance in a show where
Speaker 1: you know, admittedly a lot of really tough stuff happens
Speaker 1: to people that you have made viewers love, and then
Speaker 1: throwing in nuggets of hope here and there, like, how
Speaker 1: did you work on that balance? Uh? Again, it's it's
Speaker 1: not very conscious. It's just I just sort of trusted
Speaker 1: my instincts about what felt right. Um, I had some
Speaker 1: The writer's room on six ft Under was so great.
Speaker 1: It was such a great room. It was such it
Speaker 1: was so great to be a part of such a
Speaker 1: collaborative process with these really gifted and smart and interesting people. Um,
Speaker 1: but there was there was always um. People were pitching
Speaker 1: pretty nihilistic things. Yeah, no kidding, And I found myself
Speaker 1: being the one who was like, no, we can't do that.
Speaker 1: We can't do you know. Uh. There there was even
Speaker 1: a pitch um that uh the last season would there
Speaker 1: would be a nuclear strike and it would take place
Speaker 1: in like a post apocalyptic waste land. And I was like,
Speaker 1: too much, we can't do that. Um uh yeah. I
Speaker 1: just sort of trusted my instincts. It's like um. And
Speaker 1: I also tried to keep the show as funny as
Speaker 1: it could be um in to sort of balance that
Speaker 1: stuff out, because I feel like in life, humor is
Speaker 1: part of what helps us deal with tragedy and and
Speaker 1: trauma and all the horrible things that have happened and
Speaker 1: are happening and will happen. Yeah. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that came. A lot of the humor and a
Speaker 1: lot of the just there the break from some of
Speaker 1: the tough stuff happened with the fantasy sequences, and that's
Speaker 1: really a very unique part of that show. When when
Speaker 1: was that born? Was that sort of in your plans
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Yeah, it was, um, I think you know,
Speaker 1: there were I think probably because that was the first
Speaker 1: major thing I wrote after American Beauty. There were fantasy
Speaker 1: sequences in American Beauty and UM and I, and there
Speaker 1: were fantasy sequences in the pilot of six ft under
Speaker 1: just the fact that Nathaniel was there talking to people. Um,
Speaker 1: those were definitely fantasy sequences. I never we never intended
Speaker 1: that to be like, oh, he's a ghost and he's
Speaker 1: actually talked. It was just like a It was a
Speaker 1: metaphor for conversations that the non dead characters were having
Speaker 1: in their head with him. Um, there's that great sequence
Speaker 1: where Nate imagines getting hit by the bus, uh, and
Speaker 1: he goes through the you know, he dies and goes
Speaker 1: towards the light and get sucked through the tunnel. And
Speaker 1: and to like a weird poker game where his dad's
Speaker 1: playing poker naked. It's like, do you mind? There was
Speaker 1: so much good stuff in the fantasy sequences. The uh
Speaker 1: of course, the weirdest one, David's egg donation with the
Speaker 1: demon baby puppet actually so out there and crazy. It
Speaker 1: was just what The reason it happened that way is
Speaker 1: because Lauren was doing uh she had she was either
Speaker 1: doing some time on a movie or she was in
Speaker 1: a play or something, and Lauren was unavailable. And so
Speaker 1: that's why we decided, like, well what if we had
Speaker 1: like a weird clear puppet and uh yeah behind the
Speaker 1: scenes nuts and bolts. Yeah, necessity is the mother of invention. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Um With Richard Jenkins, you know, I think he's such
Speaker 1: a beloved actor and given his role on the show
Speaker 1: is sort of this this you know, say age that
Speaker 1: would wander in and out. What was it like when
Speaker 1: he popped onto set, you know, uh, for his brief periods?
Speaker 1: Was that a lot of fun when when he came
Speaker 1: around As far as the rest of the cast and crew.
Speaker 1: First of all, he's a total sweetheart. Yeah, he's such
Speaker 1: a nice man, and he's got and he's just beloved,
Speaker 1: you know, beloved and with good reason. I was always
Speaker 1: happy when he was there because I got to hang
Speaker 1: out with him a little bit. Um because he's one
Speaker 1: of those people who just he's doing it for all
Speaker 1: the right reasons, you know what I mean, He's not,
Speaker 1: he just and he was involved with the theater company
Speaker 1: back in Uh. I don't know if it's Delaware or Maryland. Um,
Speaker 1: but uh, he's just such a dear, kind, incredibly talented person.
Speaker 1: So I loved I loved it whenever he would show up.
Speaker 1: It was a great cast. I mean it was really
Speaker 1: a great cast. And and everybody really, I think at
Speaker 1: the time we knew on some level how special the
Speaker 1: experience that we were being allowed to have was. Um,
Speaker 1: but nobody ever tried paid too much articulated that too much,
Speaker 1: because I think it's nobody wanted to drink sit But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, for five years, you know, to
Speaker 1: really enjoy going to work and to and to never
Speaker 1: really have an experience like you got to do this again. Um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare. Yeah, y'all shot over at Gower Studios, right,
Speaker 1: we did. Yeah. I was when I was living in
Speaker 1: l A at the time. I worked as a p
Speaker 1: A and every once in a while would have some
Speaker 1: sort of run over to Gower to do something. And
Speaker 1: every time I was always on pins and needles. I
Speaker 1: was like, am I gonna get a peek? Am I
Speaker 1: going to see Keith in the hallway or something. I
Speaker 1: was always so excited when I got to go over there. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: Richard Jenkins, you know, his role to come sort of
Speaker 1: in and out of the show. It was so key
Speaker 1: and I think so brilliant and vital to be able
Speaker 1: to interact with his family again. And he he always
Speaker 1: serves such a great purpose for each one of them,
Speaker 1: I feel like when they needed him. Um. But the
Speaker 1: one that really stands out was Oh goodness. When I
Speaker 1: still think about the scene, it just it just gives
Speaker 1: me chills. After David's abduction and sort of suffering through PTSD,
Speaker 1: when the scene with him at the window when he's
Speaker 1: talking about how he should be grateful and that he
Speaker 1: can do anything. He's still alive, and he says, what
Speaker 1: if you know it can't be that simple? And he
Speaker 1: said what if it is? And it's just crystallizes in
Speaker 1: one sentence, And that was one of those scenes that
Speaker 1: really made me and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: sort of take stock of their life and like, you know,
Speaker 1: we can get down and we can get depressed, but
Speaker 1: it's like, but we're here and you're not guaranteed to
Speaker 1: be here, so like, you know, get get busy living
Speaker 1: exactly such good stuff. I think we all remember, Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was just unbelievable. Um. As viewers, we always like
Speaker 1: to think that when when he pops on set that
Speaker 1: everyone's like Dad's here. It kind of was like that. Actually, really,
Speaker 1: I think all the all the actors loved him and
Speaker 1: looked up to him so much that when he was there,
Speaker 1: it was especially if they got to have a scene
Speaker 1: with him, you know, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Um, I'd
Speaker 1: love to talk about David and Keith a little bit. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, Ship's Creek gets so much attention and adulation
Speaker 1: for um, I guess quote unquote normalizing a gay couple
Speaker 1: on screen, and they deservedly so. They did a really
Speaker 1: great job. But my wife Emily are constantly just screaming
Speaker 1: like Alan Ball did this twenty years ago, like David
Speaker 1: and Keith were the proto gay couple as far as
Speaker 1: just and it's not even normalizing like they're day to
Speaker 1: day relationship you know, of course was just played straight
Speaker 1: and played normal, but also normalizing the gay lifestyle in
Speaker 1: this sometimes anonymous sex that David might have or that
Speaker 1: Keith might have, or bringing sergeant every now and then,
Speaker 1: and there was just no judgment at all. I think
Speaker 1: it was really important. I'd love to know a little
Speaker 1: bit about what that meant to you. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there was always a big push in the Rider's room
Speaker 1: to break them up, and we did break them up
Speaker 1: in the first season, and once they got back together, Um,
Speaker 1: people would say like, oh, but David could go on
Speaker 1: like really embarrassing dates, and I was like, that's you
Speaker 1: can get out of that. And that also feels like
Speaker 1: a sitcom thing to me. You know, it felt like, well,
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing on Will and Grace, and that's perfect,
Speaker 1: that's perfect for that show. But I don't want to
Speaker 1: see David going embarrassing dates. I would much rather see
Speaker 1: David and Keith try to maneuver there sometimes fundamental differences
Speaker 1: and stay in a relationship, because that's what I haven't seen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And um, so that's that's
Speaker 1: I remember. Actually, one of the notes we got um
Speaker 1: from uh Chris Albrecht after the first season was trying
Speaker 1: to make Nate and Brenda as interesting as David and Keith.
Speaker 1: Or maybe maybe it was more in terms of like
Speaker 1: trying to make their sex life as interesting and Keith. Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I I always wanted to for it to be
Speaker 1: like this is what it's like, you know, when two
Speaker 1: men get married. I mean, it wasn't marriage at the time,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, it was a it was
Speaker 1: a commitment that they made to each other. And the
Speaker 1: fact that they were both religious and they went to
Speaker 1: church and everything really interesting. Yeah, I I just wanted
Speaker 1: it to be uh And I didn't want it to
Speaker 1: be too sensational. And of course, you know, them being
Speaker 1: gay is gonna be a part of of what their
Speaker 1: story and their characters are all about. But I didn't
Speaker 1: want it to be the defining right, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, it wasn't, and it's a testament to
Speaker 1: both of them. Um, neither one of them are gay
Speaker 1: in real life. But they also you know, I said,
Speaker 1: I told you that. You know, there were only two
Speaker 1: African American men who would read for Keith, but also
Speaker 1: there were a lot of of Caucasian guys who turned
Speaker 1: down the chance to read for David. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I've already played gay and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know people to think that I'm you know,
Speaker 1: the gay guy and whatever. And I would hear that
Speaker 1: and I would be like, Okay, well, you're an actor.
Speaker 1: I'll never hire not brave or two words to exact U.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it. I know actors are forced
Speaker 1: to sort of think of themselves as commodities and and
Speaker 1: manage their career based on that, but it's so different now.
Speaker 1: Like every show I watch on Netflix, and I watch
Speaker 1: a lot of UM international shows, there's always a gay
Speaker 1: character always, and they always have a sex life that
Speaker 1: you see, which it didn't used to be that way. Well,
Speaker 1: I think thanks to you, you know, I think, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think it's just thanks
Speaker 1: to me, but it's UM. You had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with that. Well, thank you, UM, and it is
Speaker 1: a big deal, you know, it's UM. And I know
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about representation now and that just
Speaker 1: wasn't They're really part of the conversation back then, I
Speaker 1: feel like. Right, so you also had the benefit on
Speaker 1: this show of casting your weekly guest stars, because more
Speaker 1: so than many shows or maybe even any show that
Speaker 1: I can think of, the guest stars had a really
Speaker 1: big there were really big part of of the run
Speaker 1: of the show with the initial opening death sequence and
Speaker 1: then more times than not that would really play a
Speaker 1: kind of vital role in that episode there that storyline,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't just you know, come in here and
Speaker 1: do this guest thing, like some really really juicy roles
Speaker 1: for little known actors, and some of them went on
Speaker 1: to be big stars. But uh, Emily and I were
Speaker 1: having conversations about how many people that are just out
Speaker 1: of the business today that have this conversation at a
Speaker 1: dinner party. Well, I used to act. What did you do? Well,
Speaker 1: the biggest thing I probably ever did was a six
Speaker 1: ft under guest role And how many how many people
Speaker 1: have that badge of honor that didn't go on to
Speaker 1: be big star ours got to play a really really
Speaker 1: great part even so because they were just such meaty
Speaker 1: guest star roles, right, And what was the casting like
Speaker 1: that with that week to week? How how tough was
Speaker 1: that or how involved in that were you at that point? Well?
Speaker 1: I had a I mean, we had amazing casting directors
Speaker 1: in uh Livy Goldstein and Junior R. Johnston um when
Speaker 1: they were for this yeah, yeah, and for a lot
Speaker 1: of other things as well. Um, and they would just
Speaker 1: bring in really good people and it was it was
Speaker 1: always occasionally I would be like, we didn't we didn't
Speaker 1: see anybody that really feels right, can we keep looking?
Speaker 1: But for the most part, they just you know, they
Speaker 1: know that they know the acting community and they know
Speaker 1: which people are right for things, and they would just
Speaker 1: it was. It was really great because casting was one
Speaker 1: of my favorite aspects of being in production, because I
Speaker 1: love actors and I love as a writer. Also a
Speaker 1: lot of times when you when you watch casting, people
Speaker 1: will do it differently than you thought it should be
Speaker 1: done when you wrote it, but it's better. So you're
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, okay, I see that, And sometimes I
Speaker 1: would adjust the script because of things like that. Is
Speaker 1: it pretty gratifying to kind of break an actor like
Speaker 1: a like a Ben Foster, let's say, and to see
Speaker 1: what kind of work that he went on to do.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there were a lot of actors that, um
Speaker 1: like Christmasina too. Yeah. Um, I just it was it
Speaker 1: was great to sort of see them kind of become
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think because of their exposure
Speaker 1: on six ft under, maybe they got a little more
Speaker 1: opportunities then. I don't know, I hope so, oh of course,
Speaker 1: I think. I think Ben Foster, especially as Russell Ah,
Speaker 1: I mean, such an such a fun care her, I mean,
Speaker 1: kind of annoying in some ways, but you also rooted
Speaker 1: for him and he was you know, he was kind
Speaker 1: of a snobby art guy for a little while, but
Speaker 1: you also wanted him to to be better, and for
Speaker 1: some reason, he Russell was always just a character that
Speaker 1: kind of got in my own head, I think. And
Speaker 1: Ben Foster did just such a great job with him,
Speaker 1: such a good meatia role at a young age. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was, He's really good. I get annoyed when I
Speaker 1: look at the Emmy Awards list and you guys were
Speaker 1: nominated for I think fifty plus Emmy's. But the the
Speaker 1: lack of Emmy Awards for the actors is just pisces
Speaker 1: me off still when I see that. I didn't know
Speaker 1: awards are awards, But how does Peter Kraus and not
Speaker 1: get an Emmy Award for season three? It's just it's
Speaker 1: unthinkable to me. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: I do feel like everybody did awards worthy work, everybody,
Speaker 1: but there's only so many people who can win awards.
Speaker 1: There's always people, you know, it's gratifying. I think Francis
Speaker 1: Connery won a Golden Globe, Yeah, and didn't somebody else
Speaker 1: wins something. I feel like somebody wanted to. Rachel won
Speaker 1: a Golden Globe and there was a somebody won a
Speaker 1: SAG Award. I want to say, it's it's Franny as well.
Speaker 1: And you won one for directing, right, I won an
Speaker 1: Emmy for directing guests. I guess you can't win them all,
Speaker 1: but when I see the cast, I just feel like
Speaker 1: each of them should have gotten one at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, Um I should. I think they should be
Speaker 1: like participant Awards. I think everybody should get the award. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we've talked on the show about having having
Speaker 1: an ensemble cast award. I think this kind of overdue
Speaker 1: for something like that. Oh, we did win an Ensemble
Speaker 1: Award for SAG. Okay, so they do that SAG. They
Speaker 1: have a ensemble and we did win that one year.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Um. Aesthetically, um, just you know, the
Speaker 1: look of the show was very unique in that I
Speaker 1: feel like there were a couple of things that y'all
Speaker 1: did early on that really became signature aesthetic parts of
Speaker 1: the show, like the the deep framing with you know,
Speaker 1: the multiple characters in focus, you know, kind of stacked
Speaker 1: on one another. How how did those decisions come about? Well?
Speaker 1: That was probably um Alan Kay, So, so so are are
Speaker 1: director of photography. Um, I remember when we were we
Speaker 1: were shot listing for the pilot, and and um there
Speaker 1: were some shots of Ruth in the kitchen after she
Speaker 1: threw the pot roast, after she found out that Nathaniel
Speaker 1: had been killed, and those were his choices. I mean
Speaker 1: he would he would line them up and show them
Speaker 1: to me, and I said, oh, yeah, that's great, let's
Speaker 1: do that. And we, you know, we talked. My My
Speaker 1: approach to shot listing is, Okay, this scene is about
Speaker 1: this character feeling paranoid, So how do we tell that visually?
Speaker 1: And then I totally depend on the DP. Because I
Speaker 1: didn't go to film school, I don't know what lenses are,
Speaker 1: what and what, so I can tell you emotionally what
Speaker 1: needs to be happening in this scene. So I I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the credit for the look of
Speaker 1: the show would go to Alan Kayso yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we I know plenty of people had done that deep
Speaker 1: focus shot, but we we still call that the six
Speaker 1: ft undershot. But when we see that, because it just
Speaker 1: became so signature to the show, I think, uh and
Speaker 1: that's cool because not I don't feel like every show
Speaker 1: has a signature look. Uh m. Hmm these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, And you could always tell the six ft
Speaker 1: under episode just you know by looking at it. Mhm um.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's talk a little bit about the opening
Speaker 1: death sequences. You know. Was that an idea from the
Speaker 1: very beginning to use that as a sort of framing device? Um?
Speaker 1: It wasn't. I mean when I wrote the pilot, I
Speaker 1: basically just tried to open as many doors as I
Speaker 1: possibly could. But Nathaniel getting hit by the bus is
Speaker 1: such a great, great way to open the show. Um.
Speaker 1: I think once the show got picked up and went
Speaker 1: into production, I immediate was like, Okay, well, what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do? Well, we let's just kill somebody at
Speaker 1: the beginning of every episode. And because it just made
Speaker 1: it just made perfect sense. Because in a way, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a franchise show. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a cop show or or a hospital show with the
Speaker 1: case of the month or the disease case case of
Speaker 1: the week or disease of the week. We just had
Speaker 1: the death of the week. And um, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of things, a lot of decisions were made once
Speaker 1: we went from pilot to series, one of which was
Speaker 1: we can't we got to get rid of those commercials
Speaker 1: for the for the funeral products products that were in
Speaker 1: the pilot, because you're gonna run out of products really quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um so uh, it just it just seemed to organically
Speaker 1: evolved into that. Yeah. I mean it was fun for
Speaker 1: the viewers because there's a little bit of a you know,
Speaker 1: every every week you sit down and back then before
Speaker 1: you could bench stuff, which I really enjoyed, sort of
Speaker 1: that appointment television thing. You would sit there and you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, you know what's gonna happen this week. So
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of anticipation that immediately you have
Speaker 1: going into watching a six ft under episode and then
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who was it going to be,
Speaker 1: and then the fun misdirection that you guys were able
Speaker 1: to do. Um but it. But it wasn't just a stunt,
Speaker 1: you know it. It's so often really factored in to
Speaker 1: the episode and not just we need to give them
Speaker 1: something to do at the funeral home this week. It
Speaker 1: was they played vital roles sometimes in the story of
Speaker 1: the other of the main cast. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I have a brother and a sister. I'm the youngest
Speaker 1: of three. I have an older brother and older sister.
Speaker 1: So this show, the sibling aspect of it always really
Speaker 1: hit home. And uh, some of my favorite scenes are
Speaker 1: and there weren't a ton of them when it was
Speaker 1: just the three of them together. We're always very special
Speaker 1: scenes to me. And I wondered just sort of what
Speaker 1: your life was like. Did you have siblings? Did that
Speaker 1: inform anything in the show? Um? Yeah, yeah, yes and no, Um,
Speaker 1: I had three siblings. I have two siblings, two brothers
Speaker 1: fifteen and nineteen years older than me, so we didn't
Speaker 1: really we weren't really children together at the same time,
Speaker 1: so we don't have that sibling connection. And then my
Speaker 1: sister was eight years older than me, but she was
Speaker 1: killed in a car accident when I was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: so I had the sibling thing with her as a child,
Speaker 1: but then once once she was gone, I didn't really
Speaker 1: have siblings the way that the Fisher siblings are with
Speaker 1: each other. Um. So, in a lot of ways, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of what that stuff was was for
Speaker 1: me was maybe wish fulfillment, like if I had had
Speaker 1: siblings closer to me an age, maybe this is the
Speaker 1: relationship I would have had with them, or this kind
Speaker 1: of relationship. Um. But then again, it's also you have
Speaker 1: to remember it's not all coming from me, it's there
Speaker 1: were again, they were had a room full of really
Speaker 1: good writers, and a lot of a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: would would come from them, you know, in fact, as
Speaker 1: much stuff came from them as came from me. It
Speaker 1: was always just so real because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: how life works when, especially with siblings, in that at
Speaker 1: various times they're each taking care of one another in
Speaker 1: different ways. Uh. And it's not something that you get
Speaker 1: together on and two siblings go Okay, you know, Claire
Speaker 1: is going through some trouble, so one of us needs
Speaker 1: to really be there for her. It just always felt
Speaker 1: so organic and real, and it just felt like a
Speaker 1: real family. Yeah, it did. It did, especially Claire and Ruth.
Speaker 1: You know, their relationship was so complicated, and uh, you
Speaker 1: just you wanted Ruth to be satisfied with that relationship
Speaker 1: and with all of the relationships with her kids, and
Speaker 1: she so often wasn't. It was so tough to see.
Speaker 1: I remember that that moment where Claire and her friend
Speaker 1: Parker were on mushrooms and they made those hilarious clown pants. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then and then Ruth wore them and and it
Speaker 1: was so complicated. Claire's response was like, Oh, I'm glad
Speaker 1: she's wearing them, but I'm embarrassed that I made them
Speaker 1: for her. And oh my god, she's so dorky and
Speaker 1: my mom, I love her so much, but oh she
Speaker 1: embarrasses me. And ye boy, it was so good. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: when did you the the idea of David being abducted?
Speaker 1: Where did that come from? That was such a brutal
Speaker 1: moment of the show and really kind of dominated his
Speaker 1: storyline for a while after, arguably through through the end
Speaker 1: of the series. You know, he's still suffering from PTSD.
Speaker 1: Where where did that hatch? Well? That was in season four,
Speaker 1: and I felt like something really needed to shake David up.
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid. When I was a child,
Speaker 1: my oldest brother was dating a woman who was abducted
Speaker 1: and um, and a guy with a gun forced her
Speaker 1: into his car and drove drove the car out into
Speaker 1: a field. And then when he got out of the car, uh,
Speaker 1: and was going to come around and open her door,
Speaker 1: and god, and he knows what he had planned. Um,
Speaker 1: she locked all the doors and just started blowing the
Speaker 1: horn and he and he ran off, so nothing, nothing
Speaker 1: terrible happened to her, but still it's something that happened
Speaker 1: to somebody I knew. So I think when I when
Speaker 1: we were breaking um season four, when the writers had
Speaker 1: reconvened and we were just breaking season four, I pitched
Speaker 1: that because I wanted something really terrible and inexplicable and
Speaker 1: insane to happen to David, because I felt like he
Speaker 1: needed he needed something to shake him out of his
Speaker 1: his sort of uptightness and his sort of feeling sorry
Speaker 1: for himself, and and his his whole sort of approach.
Speaker 1: You know, he had been the good little boy his
Speaker 1: entire life, the little boy with a with a secret life. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just wanted I just felt like, we need
Speaker 1: to do something that will shock him. The intent was
Speaker 1: never to shock the audience, but to have something something
Speaker 1: to shock David into a new state. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of where that came from. Interesting, I Um. The show
Speaker 1: also features a trio of women that were some of
Speaker 1: my favorite characters on the show. Uh. And I always
Speaker 1: feel like you've really written strong women well. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that's with Kathy Bates, Patricia Clarkson, and joe An Cassidy,
Speaker 1: who I just I can't help but laugh when I
Speaker 1: think of Brenda's mom. M just hysterical on the show,
Speaker 1: outrageous and and just wrong in every way, but just
Speaker 1: such a funny, funny character. Yes. Absolutely, How was it
Speaker 1: working with him? I know Cathy Bates ended up directing
Speaker 1: some too, right, Yes, Um, it was great. I mean
Speaker 1: it was great. They're all three of them were amazing
Speaker 1: actors and fun to be around. And they really you know,
Speaker 1: they really just took the material and went with it
Speaker 1: and and it was it was really really good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's when Ruth was most herself too.
Speaker 1: Her happiest moments were when she was in Laurel Canyon
Speaker 1: at at her sister's house and hanging out with with
Speaker 1: that that great gang of kind of crazy ladies, even
Speaker 1: though that wasn't her scene at all, which was always
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting. It was much more clear scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ruth found her happiness there among these kind of you know,
Speaker 1: cookie artists. Yeah. Absolutely. I remember the episode where Kathy
Speaker 1: Bates and her shopping, and Kathy Bates is just like,
Speaker 1: we're invisible, we can steal ship and notice because women
Speaker 1: are aged, you know, are invisible. It's true. But you also,
Speaker 1: I think, had the courage to portray a woman of
Speaker 1: a certain age as a sexual creature, and that's something
Speaker 1: I don't think you still see a lot of It's
Speaker 1: the show Ruth, like you know, having sex and dating
Speaker 1: various men. Yeah exactly. No, I mean in in in
Speaker 1: TV world like after you know, women after fifty or
Speaker 1: just like you know it's it's uh, it's not happening anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with real life. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the end in season five.
Speaker 1: Going into season five, I assume that you knew that
Speaker 1: that was going to be the end of the show. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: how much how much consternation is there when sort of
Speaker 1: mapping out a final season like that. I mean, we
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be the last episode, so
Speaker 1: for the first time we really had to figure out
Speaker 1: what the last moment was going to be. And I
Speaker 1: can't remember which person pitch did It wasn't me, but
Speaker 1: the idea too for everyone to die. Originally it was
Speaker 1: pitched in a way like we should just kill everybody,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, that's too nihilistic. Whatever. But
Speaker 1: then once we did some more talking about it, and
Speaker 1: I realized we could just be with each character at
Speaker 1: their moment, when they're at the moment when their life ended. Um,
Speaker 1: it was like, well, of course, I mean, how else
Speaker 1: can you in this show? That's the perfect There's no
Speaker 1: other way, there's not there's it's not even worth considering
Speaker 1: anything else because that's so perfect. And then you know, uh,
Speaker 1: figuring out you know, Nate dying because we had laid
Speaker 1: the groundwork for him with his issues with his arterial
Speaker 1: venus malformation or whatever that's I always want to say
Speaker 1: a t M, but it's a v M. Um. So
Speaker 1: it was just working backwards from that point. How do
Speaker 1: we get there? What do we do to get there?
Speaker 1: And and it was pretty much like any other season,
Speaker 1: except that you knew that final episode was the last one,
Speaker 1: and it was really emotional. I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: know everybody when everybody was crying when Nate was dead
Speaker 1: and they were burying him, and that was all people
Speaker 1: were crying. People were emotional because it was it was real.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was real. It was very real,
Speaker 1: and we were all you know, something that we all
Speaker 1: loved very much, and it was very much a part
Speaker 1: of who we thought of ourselves. As that was coming
Speaker 1: to an end, and that's um, so there was a
Speaker 1: whole grief thing going on as we ended the show. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was really smart too, Um have Nate
Speaker 1: died two episodes before the end rather than in the end,
Speaker 1: because those last two episodes we're tough. I mean, the
Speaker 1: whole last season was tough, but um, those last two
Speaker 1: episodes were tough. But I think really vital to see
Speaker 1: everyone trying to put the pieces together, floundering, you know,
Speaker 1: Claire being drunk at work and it was just such
Speaker 1: a mess. It. It's like when I mentioned earlier my
Speaker 1: wife and I saying, like, does Alan Ball hate the Fishers?
Speaker 1: I think at age at age fifty we were both like, No,
Speaker 1: that's just kind of life. This stuff, this stuff is
Speaker 1: real and you you get a little a few years
Speaker 1: behind you and you see this stuff all around you
Speaker 1: happening and it's like, no, that's that's kind of realistic.
Speaker 1: It's not sadistic. It's real life. Yeah, um, it is life.
Speaker 1: Life comes at you or people still mad at you
Speaker 1: because of Keith in the security truck. Um, people were
Speaker 1: mad at me. Yeah. I just wondered if people are like,
Speaker 1: how could you have Keith murdered at the end. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I think people are people are still mad
Speaker 1: at me about David and the being abducted, David and
Speaker 1: the dog. Really yeah, there's a lot of people really
Speaker 1: were like very upset by that. Um. You know, but
Speaker 1: people die and and people die, and some people die
Speaker 1: because they're killed, and other people die because they got
Speaker 1: a disease, and uh, some people die of just old age.
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, that's just the way it happened. That's
Speaker 1: the way I think it was. It was pretty cool
Speaker 1: to see Claire lived. It was a hundreds and hud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really special. Um. I imagine it's pretty gratifying too.
Speaker 1: I mean, to be known as as having maybe the
Speaker 1: greatest series finale of all time because it's such a
Speaker 1: hard thing to do, it must be pretty gratifying too
Speaker 1: to get those kind of kudos. Yeah, it's very nice
Speaker 1: to hear that, you know, because um, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you want something to end well uh and and so
Speaker 1: many people have said that, you know that it was
Speaker 1: it was such a strong ending that that that's uh,
Speaker 1: definitely very gratifying. Yeah. A lot of other shows, a
Speaker 1: lot of other great shows have not been quite so lucky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean most there you can count on a couple
Speaker 1: of hands, like the Great Great series finalees and six
Speaker 1: Under is always there at the top. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: all right, if you have a few more minutes, I'd
Speaker 1: love to finish with a few listener questions. This is
Speaker 1: such a beloved show that I'm sure you've had people
Speaker 1: for the past twenty years stopping you on the street
Speaker 1: and telling you very personal stories. It's just one of
Speaker 1: those shows I think that means a lot to people
Speaker 1: emotionally and personally. Uh. And so when I put this
Speaker 1: out on our Facebook page to our to the movie crush,
Speaker 1: the movie crushers as we call them in I have
Speaker 1: a few more questions from them. Sarah Law says, what
Speaker 1: character were you closest to emotionally Claire Claire? M hm,
Speaker 1: the artist? Is that why? Or I think so? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And also being the youngest and and um growing up
Speaker 1: in a weird environment surrounded by death. Yeah. Um, let
Speaker 1: me see here. Kelly Conklin says, my daughter's middle name
Speaker 1: is Claire, named after Claire Fisher. Nate was extremely codependent,
Speaker 1: always seeking out women for validation right up to the end.
Speaker 1: If he would have survived. You think he would have changed.
Speaker 1: Was that last relationship, the one that could have saved him? Interesting?
Speaker 1: I don't know that he would have changed. It would
Speaker 1: have required some professional inter intervention and a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of hard work on his part. Um. I
Speaker 1: just don't think he would have changed. I just don't.
Speaker 1: I mean you could look at that and say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's tragic, or you could look at and say, well,
Speaker 1: that that's who he was. That's that's just who he was.
Speaker 1: I think. I'm with you. Yeah, I love Nate. I mean,
Speaker 1: what what a complex character. I think I love Nate too.
Speaker 1: But he was he was. He was not an old
Speaker 1: soul and he uh he he There's a lot of
Speaker 1: growth that could have happened with him that didn't, and
Speaker 1: that was part of the point. I think. I think
Speaker 1: that nails it. He was he was. He wanted to
Speaker 1: be the right man, I think, but that's not always enough,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Uh. Debbie Frangadaka says six ft under challenge
Speaker 1: the comfort level of viewers. Was there ever a scene,
Speaker 1: the death scene or otherwise that made you uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: didn't use it and it didn't make the show? I
Speaker 1: guess the nuclear bomb thing was one? Was there anything?
Speaker 1: Was there anything else? There was a lot of concern
Speaker 1: after Nate died. There was a moment where Brenda was
Speaker 1: very short tempered with Maya. Um, and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of concern from h b oh uh. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know, she's too mean, she she's a bad mother,
Speaker 1: and and I just felt like, no, she's not. Her
Speaker 1: husband just died and she found out he was having
Speaker 1: an affair with this other woman. And you know, just
Speaker 1: because she's a mother doesn't mean she's a perfect mother. Well,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you are a bad mother and a bad father.
Speaker 1: It's just absolutely yeah, absolutely so Um, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of but they didn't force me to do it,
Speaker 1: so I did not change it. I kept it in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the other stuff that we have an almost six
Speaker 1: year old daughter now, so the Maya stuff now just
Speaker 1: wrecked us. And when we were thirty, it was you know,
Speaker 1: we thought Maya was cute, but there wasn't until you
Speaker 1: have the kids, there's you can't really have that emotional
Speaker 1: tie there. That that stuff was very very tough for
Speaker 1: us to watch. Um. Megan Carol says, was Nate's death
Speaker 1: always in the cards from the very beginning or did
Speaker 1: it come around in later seasons. Uh, it was not
Speaker 1: in the cards from the very beginning. When I wrote
Speaker 1: the pilot, I didn't think this guy's going to die
Speaker 1: at the end of the show. Um, it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of organically evolved to use that term again, Um,
Speaker 1: especially once once he developed a potentially life threatening illness.
Speaker 1: Then it it was just something that was always there
Speaker 1: and eventually, I mean he had to die. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was his journey. His journey was basically running away from death,
Speaker 1: coming home, facing death, and then eventually succumbing to death. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think his viewer, once the brain thing was revealed,
Speaker 1: you kind of knew it was like, well, that's just
Speaker 1: lingering out there, and it's it's not gone away. It'll
Speaker 1: you know, it'll come back at some point. So I
Speaker 1: think we kind of knew it was coming, and that
Speaker 1: to me was part of the part of the interests
Speaker 1: of the show was in I don't say fun of
Speaker 1: the show, but um, like he almost like with the family, Remember,
Speaker 1: you know you only have so much time with yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, to sort of drink in those moments with
Speaker 1: these characters that you love. Yeah, well, Alan, this was great. Uh,
Speaker 1: I won't keep you here for three more hours and
Speaker 1: talk about every aspect of the show that this was fantastic,
Speaker 1: This is really fun. This is a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It's such a special show to so many people. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those shows, you know. It's just
Speaker 1: not your average show that people sort of watched and loved.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a show that is beloved and still
Speaker 1: is very much beloved, and I think one that people,
Speaker 1: uh really go back and revisit and rewatch like we did.
Speaker 1: We've heard from a lot of people that have the
Speaker 1: same experience, so thank you for that. Um. We're also
Speaker 1: very big True Blood fans by the way, but we
Speaker 1: can't get into that right now. We loved Your Blood.
Speaker 1: That was such a bunch show. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This has been such a pleasure. I really appreciate it,
Speaker 1: all right, Thanks a lot, Take care of course you
Speaker 1: two movie crash. It's produced and written by Charles Grant
Speaker 1: and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson,
Speaker 1: and scored by Noel Brown here in our home studio
Speaker 1: at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For iHeart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.