Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if this has happened to either of you.
Speaker 1: I got a letter in the mail.
Speaker 2: I have gotten a letter happened recently.
Speaker 1: Bring us in, Danielle, Welcome to POB.
Speaker 3: It was a bill for seven dollars and twenty five
Speaker 3: cents for me going through the tunnel in Virginia in May.
Speaker 1: So apparently a.
Speaker 3: Car that had a license plate that looked like the
Speaker 3: plate of my new car, which again I had already had,
Speaker 3: was ticketed. Not ticketed, but like gone through a tunnel
Speaker 3: in Virginia and now they were trying to bill me.
Speaker 2: Hold on, so wasn't I thought you meant like you
Speaker 2: were in a rental car?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Or no, this was not I wasn't in No, I
Speaker 3: wasn't there. I have no idea. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: my first instinct, what do you think nowadays?
Speaker 1: First instinct, this is a scam.
Speaker 5: This is a scam.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they they want me and there's like a
Speaker 3: QR code. I'm like, all right, so I scanned the
Speaker 3: QR code and they you know, and now my genetic material,
Speaker 3: they clone me and then I see myself all over
Speaker 3: the country something like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, they get you.
Speaker 3: That's how they get to you're not going to do it.
Speaker 3: So I'm googling like is this a scam? And then
Speaker 3: turns out to not be, and so I have to
Speaker 3: I'm on the phone for like twenty five minutes this morning,
Speaker 3: going I'm in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: See that's what I'm like. Seven dollars and twenty five right, Well,
Speaker 2: here's the thing, and I'm the chief skate of all
Speaker 2: of us.
Speaker 1: No, if you don't pay it, which I'm not going
Speaker 1: to pay it, I wasn't there.
Speaker 6: And they start to compound it you would have just
Speaker 6: paid even though you weren't there.
Speaker 2: I like the idea of I hate the phone so much,
Speaker 2: the idea and having to explain things to people over
Speaker 2: and over again.
Speaker 5: My way, we're going to just start feeling you for Oh,
Speaker 5: it's gonna be great for seven dollars and twenty five cents.
Speaker 5: I also would have just paid paid.
Speaker 6: Even though you know it was I will pay for
Speaker 6: parking out rushmore because that's that's yeah, that's really to get.
Speaker 6: But this like having to be on the phone like
Speaker 6: for forty five minutes, and then when they transferred to
Speaker 6: the next person, you have to reattene.
Speaker 2: That wasn't me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't in Virginia.
Speaker 3: I'm not paying seven dollars and twenty five cents to
Speaker 3: say I was in Virginia.
Speaker 5: I shan't. But I for seven dollars, I probably just
Speaker 5: to get it off my plate. I would have paid it,
Speaker 5: I did. I'm funny you're bringing this up. I just
Speaker 5: got a notification that I had a parking ticket. And
Speaker 5: did you guys know that in LA now they don't
Speaker 5: often leave the ticket on your window.
Speaker 1: You just oh, you just get it in the mail.
Speaker 1: You just get it in the mail. The actually parked.
Speaker 5: Correct, I didn't know what how do you argue with
Speaker 5: the right? Yeah, exactly. I had parked in a place
Speaker 5: in downtown LA, and I was kind of con used
Speaker 5: if it was a parking space or not. I was like,
Speaker 5: is this a parking space? I think it looks like
Speaker 5: it's a parking space. There was a car parked directly
Speaker 5: behind where I was parked, so I was like, this
Speaker 5: car is parked in a parking space.
Speaker 1: They make the signs needlessly confusing, and I.
Speaker 5: Was like, I'm pretty sure this is fine. And I thought,
Speaker 5: I'm also only going to be in this place that
Speaker 5: I'm in for no more than like fifteen or twenty minutes,
Speaker 5: So if it's not a parking space, what are the
Speaker 5: odds they're going to come by in those in that
Speaker 5: short amount of time? Anyway, So I got a parking ticket,
Speaker 5: no ticket on my car, just sent to my house.
Speaker 5: They ticketed me twice within fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: What so I because there's no ticket, so they can't
Speaker 1: have no ticket.
Speaker 5: So it must have been two different people.
Speaker 1: Are you going to call and complain or are you
Speaker 1: going to pay it?
Speaker 5: They call and complain because they're one of them. Is
Speaker 5: like one hundred dollars space.
Speaker 2: Parking tickets get high, but seven dollars for a toll.
Speaker 2: I would just be like across.
Speaker 1: The country when I wasn't there.
Speaker 5: Well, it's actually your license plate, Like the first.
Speaker 3: Picture of a license plate that then was for my
Speaker 3: new car, which I already had in California.
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, it couldn't have been that. So
Speaker 1: I'm on the phone.
Speaker 3: They send me to somebody else who's like, oh, the
Speaker 3: cameras get weird in the tunnels, And what happened is
Speaker 3: one of the letters of your license plate, Like it
Speaker 3: looks like your license plate, but when we made it
Speaker 3: clearer on the picture. What we thought was an L
Speaker 3: is actually an I totally our fault to ignore it.
Speaker 1: You're good to go, not your license plate.
Speaker 3: But all of a sudden, it was like I just
Speaker 3: got a bill for something like you you just get
Speaker 3: It's like, wait, this is I.
Speaker 2: Think this is the beginning of a cool, scary story
Speaker 2: where it's like you were there, like then they zoom
Speaker 2: in and it was like you see yourself driving and
Speaker 2: you're like, wait a minute, how is that? I was
Speaker 2: I have to go back and figure out, like what
Speaker 2: alternate universe double you have in the world.
Speaker 3: That's great, Yeah, well you know there's a new kind
Speaker 3: of a hayte Ai obviously, but there's this new kind
Speaker 3: of thing where apparently it's a prank going around on
Speaker 3: the TikTok machine where you can make it look like
Speaker 3: it's an actual newscast about like a local robbery or something.
Speaker 3: But then when they put up the picture of the suspect,
Speaker 3: it's like someone in your family, right, right, So it's
Speaker 3: people filming like like they think you're watching the local news,
Speaker 3: and it's like and here's what the person who lit
Speaker 3: the fire looks.
Speaker 1: Like, and it's like the nine year old kid. It's like,
Speaker 1: kid's freaking out, like I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: I didn't do anything.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's all I never know what's a scam anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's real and what's not in this world.
Speaker 2: I was teaching it Indie school, and his buddy, his
Speaker 2: best friend, Zev, was part of the thing that I was,
Speaker 2: you know, running the program I was running. And then
Speaker 2: he offered. He was so nice because I was starving.
Speaker 2: I hadn't eat any lunch, and he was like, do
Speaker 2: you want any of my lunch and he handed me
Speaker 2: like some carrots from his lunch. I was like, thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Zev, That's so sweet. And then after
Speaker 2: the whole program was done, it was the screenplayers thing
Speaker 2: that you did before, Danielle. And so after that was
Speaker 2: all done and we were clearing out the room and I.
Speaker 6: See his lunchbox.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: So I grab it and I take it home. I'm like,
Speaker 2: we'll just give it to him. So then I text
Speaker 2: his mom. I'm like, oh, We've got Zev's lunchbox. She's like,
Speaker 2: he's eating out of his lunchbox right now in the
Speaker 2: car next to me. I was like, why does.
Speaker 5: This feel like a horror film?
Speaker 2: The call is coming from within the lunch box?
Speaker 4: Who's lunchbox?
Speaker 3: Do I?
Speaker 7: Of course?
Speaker 2: Then I check and it has like, oh god, the
Speaker 2: beginning of horror.
Speaker 5: By the way, zeb was so kind.
Speaker 2: He gave me some lunch and I have his lunch box.
Speaker 7: But he's.
Speaker 5: Welcome upon me to world.
Speaker 3: I'm Daniel Fischel, I'm righter strong, and I wasn't in Virginia.
Speaker 1: I'm Wilfredell.
Speaker 5: When looking back on the show and recapping all seven seasons,
Speaker 5: we spent to the beginning of each recap detailing new
Speaker 5: guest stars. We gave listeners their names, what other projects
Speaker 5: you might know them from, and win applicable a little
Speaker 5: life update. Some of the more interesting check ins we
Speaker 5: heard over the last few months actually doctor Forbes. Riley
Speaker 5: has sold two point five billion dollars worth of infomercial
Speaker 5: products and has a buff husband. Andrew Levittos is an
Speaker 5: acclaimed artist. Marisol Nichols poses as young women on the
Speaker 5: Internet to bust sexual predators. And Glenn Merzer thought our
Speaker 5: show was at least better than Facts of Life, which
Speaker 5: was important, but it's hard not to wonder who exactly
Speaker 5: became the most successful member of our alumni. There's Bill Lawrence,
Speaker 5: a Hollywood powerhouse whose first script was an episode of
Speaker 5: Boy Meets World, and now he has an Emmy filled
Speaker 5: resume that includes Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Shrinking, and Cougartown. You've
Speaker 5: got Adam Scott, one of television's biggest stars in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty six, arguably making the best work of his long
Speaker 5: career in Apple's Severance and the critically acclaimed horror movie Hokum.
Speaker 5: Linda Cardellini has been a mainstay in Hollywood since childhood.
Speaker 5: She went from Velma and Scooby Doo to shows like
Speaker 5: Freaks and Geeks, Er Madman, and Dead to Me, while
Speaker 5: appearing in other movies like Legally Blonde, Avengers, Endgame, Broke Back, Mountain,
Speaker 5: and The Founder. And she will soon star in the
Speaker 5: new Friday the Thirteenth TV show called Crystal Lake. There's
Speaker 5: Carrie Russell, Ethan Supple, Minasuvari, Marla Sokoloff, Emmy winning writer
Speaker 5: Barbie Adler. The list goes on and on, but this
Speaker 5: week we are talking to a guest star who, in
Speaker 5: any debate, would find himself somewhere atop that list. He
Speaker 5: was a child actor whose career began on Saved by
Speaker 5: the Bell The New Class, where he appeared in five
Speaker 5: episodes credited as both Stanley and Noogie, and soon after
Speaker 5: he would join us for season three's The Heart Is
Speaker 5: a Lonely Hunter, where he played Arthur, Eric's overly qualified
Speaker 5: competition for the local newscaster internship. He'd have other stops
Speaker 5: on shows like Third Rock from the Sun, Seinfeld, and
Speaker 5: Gilmore Girls, but it was as Jonathan Levinson on almost
Speaker 5: thirty episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that most of
Speaker 5: our listeners would recognize him from, and though he never
Speaker 5: fully gave up on acting with appearances on Gray's Anatomy, Madmen,
Speaker 5: and Billions, it was behind the scenes that he solidified
Speaker 5: his Hollywood legacy. Hoping to write material for himself as
Speaker 5: a leading man, he opened his laptop and started writing screenplays,
Speaker 5: and his first successful foray into the profession was HBO's
Speaker 5: political drama Recount, which he may not have ended up
Speaker 5: starring in, but instead found himself nominated for eleven Emmys
Speaker 5: and five Golden Globes. He followed that up with Game Change,
Speaker 5: another fascinating look into American elections, but this time, not
Speaker 5: only was it nominated, he won the Emmy for Outstanding
Speaker 5: Writing for a Mini Series, Movie or Drama and also
Speaker 5: a Peabody. He'd go on to write the box office
Speaker 5: smash The Butler for Lee Daniels and Oprah Winfrey, both
Speaker 5: parts of the final Hunger Games movie. He co created
Speaker 5: the TV series Empire, created, wrote, and directed Hulu's Dope
Speaker 5: Sick that was nominated for fourteen Emmys and won him
Speaker 5: another peace Body. All while he wrote two musicals, Chess
Speaker 5: and Galileo for Broadway, and yet today he is joining
Speaker 5: us to talk about the one week he spent on
Speaker 5: the set of Boy Meets World, the true crowning achievement
Speaker 5: of his prolific career. I'm sure so. Welcome to the
Speaker 5: podcast the very talented and not related to writer Danny Strong.
Speaker 4: Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 1: How good?
Speaker 4: How good? Hey?
Speaker 1: You guys doing good?
Speaker 5: We thank you so much. We know you do not
Speaker 5: have much free time, and we are so honored that
Speaker 5: you gave us some of your time today because we
Speaker 5: claim you as alumni and now we're happy today to
Speaker 5: be able to prove it.
Speaker 4: That's right, Yeah, I'm an alumni.
Speaker 7: Yes you are I'm so congratulations on your massive success
Speaker 7: and this massive hit of a podcast.
Speaker 4: It's so cool.
Speaker 7: I've been hearing about it for pretty much since it launched, obviously,
Speaker 7: but I mean, it's just amazing what you guys have
Speaker 7: all achieved here.
Speaker 4: So thank you.
Speaker 5: We have harassed you a few times about coming on
Speaker 5: the pod and convincing.
Speaker 7: I'm also you know, I'm so all in when i'm
Speaker 7: when I'm promoting projects, but I kind of feel like
Speaker 7: when I'm not, I should just kind of disappear, So
Speaker 7: I usually and then I don't know, because I'm not
Speaker 7: promoting anything right now, like, and I think Adam Bush
Speaker 7: brought it up again.
Speaker 4: I'm like, let's do that. I'm just going to go
Speaker 4: do it. He's like, do it.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, thank you for joining us. I know
Speaker 5: you were a Manhattan beach kid, which, despite the first
Speaker 5: part of its name, is not thought of as a
Speaker 5: big city hub for the entertainment industry. This dream of
Speaker 5: becoming a child actor, how did you convince your parents
Speaker 5: to do it?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't.
Speaker 7: I don't really view myself as a child actor because
Speaker 7: I didn't have any success as a child. But I
Speaker 7: wasn't you know, and I wasn't only auditioning, and it
Speaker 7: was really I was able to get an agent in
Speaker 7: high school, but I never booked anything. I booked one
Speaker 7: commercial and then and then I was a theater major
Speaker 7: in college and had similar lack of success, although I
Speaker 7: did book a few episodes to say, by the by
Speaker 7: of the new class, okay, it was very exciting. And
Speaker 7: then it wasn't until I graduated, or I was about
Speaker 7: to graduate. I actually finished a semester early at college.
Speaker 7: So and then it was in that window, you know,
Speaker 7: before the official graduation that I started to book a
Speaker 7: few jobs, Boy Meets World being one of them.
Speaker 2: So how old were you when you were on Boy then?
Speaker 4: Twenty one or twenty two?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, we were still in high school, so you
Speaker 2: were playing a high schooler.
Speaker 7: I was playing a high school till you know, a
Speaker 7: few weeks ago. I literally I was playing college into
Speaker 7: my mid thirties. So yeah, but I actually had an interesting.
Speaker 4: You know for me.
Speaker 7: Booking Boy Meets World was sort of a big life
Speaker 7: moment for me, which I'm happy to explain that please.
Speaker 7: So I basically I had been auditioning, Like I said,
Speaker 7: I had an agent in high school and went on,
Speaker 7: but I didn't regularly go on auditions.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: It was maybe once a month i'd get an audition
Speaker 7: for something, but I never booked anything. And then I
Speaker 7: was a theater major in college and I never really
Speaker 7: booked anything, as I just said. So then when I
Speaker 7: was about to graduate, and I was in that period
Speaker 7: where I wasn't I hadn't graduated, but I wasn't in
Speaker 7: school anymore, right, I started to rethink what I was
Speaker 7: going to do with my life. And I got an
Speaker 7: internship for these producers and they actually offered me a job.
Speaker 7: So I thought, you know what, I think, I'm going
Speaker 7: to quit acting.
Speaker 1: And then I.
Speaker 7: Went on this what I viewed as my last audition
Speaker 7: was first show called Minor Adjustments.
Speaker 4: You guys remember that.
Speaker 1: I remember minor adjustments?
Speaker 4: Yes, where'd you do minor adjustments? Who doesn't remember?
Speaker 7: So I went and for Minor Adjustments and there was
Speaker 7: the audition sides, and I guess I didn't get them
Speaker 7: till I got to the audition. And then I thought
Speaker 7: what I had always thought whenever I was auditioning. And
Speaker 7: I don't know if this ever, if you guys ever
Speaker 7: thought this, which was what are they looking for you know,
Speaker 7: what are they looking for?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 7: And then I thought, well, it's my last audition, because
Speaker 7: I was told myself this was gonna be my last audition. Uh.
Speaker 7: And I thought, well, I don't care what they're looking for.
Speaker 7: This is my last audition, so I'm gonna do whatever
Speaker 7: I want. And I read the material and I thought, Oh,
Speaker 7: this kid's weird. I should play him sort of like
Speaker 7: Kramer from Seinfeld. So then I walked into the room
Speaker 7: and I did the audition, and I walked in the
Speaker 7: room sort of my version of Kramer, and they just
Speaker 7: started laughing the second I walked in. And then after
Speaker 7: all those years of auditioning, I booked the job.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 7: And so then my agent called me and said, look,
Speaker 7: you book the job, and you have an audition for
Speaker 7: Boy Meets World tomorrow. And I was like, and Boy
Speaker 7: meets World minor adjustments is I hadn't aired, I hadn't
Speaker 7: heard of it. Boy Meets World. That was a big deal,
Speaker 7: you know. I mean, I'm like, wow, this is that's
Speaker 7: a really cool.
Speaker 5: It's a real show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a real show. That's a famous show. Right.
Speaker 7: So I went into the audition and and then and
Speaker 7: again I didn't get the sides untill I got to
Speaker 7: the audition, and I thought, Oh, what are they looking for?
Speaker 7: And then I thought, wait a second, I ignored that yesterday,
Speaker 7: so I'm not I don't care what they're looking for.
Speaker 7: I'm just gonna do what I think is funny with
Speaker 7: the material. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna make the
Speaker 7: character very arrogant. I'm just gonna be very arrogant. So
Speaker 7: then I walked in and I did the audition, and
Speaker 7: then I got the job. And then the same thing
Speaker 7: happened a few days later, and I booked three jobs
Speaker 7: in one week after having not worked for almost seven
Speaker 7: years of auditioning so to me, and Boy Meets World
Speaker 7: was and the other show I actually hadn't heard of either,
Speaker 7: so that so it was literally but booking Boy Meets
Speaker 7: World was like, oh wait, maybe I shouldn't quit, Maybe
Speaker 7: maybe I.
Speaker 2: Should do this.
Speaker 1: It's work.
Speaker 4: So that was my.
Speaker 7: Big life moment, which was and it was a huge
Speaker 7: turning point for me, not just as an act but
Speaker 7: just in life. Right, not what they're looking for, but
Speaker 7: just bring what you want to bring.
Speaker 5: Okay, So here here's my follow up question.
Speaker 2: Then, yeah, did that play out in the in working
Speaker 2: on the job, Like, did you get to did you
Speaker 2: get to keep doing what you wanted to do on
Speaker 2: the set of Boy Meets World? Or were you then
Speaker 2: immediately told that here's what we're looking for.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, kind of did what I did. I'm
Speaker 7: glad and everyone was, you know, they really liked it.
Speaker 7: It was you know, and then I have to say,
Speaker 7: the three of you and everyone was so nice to me,
Speaker 7: and it was so memorable because you know, you're all
Speaker 7: very famous. I've barely done anything except for this episode
Speaker 7: of Minor Adjustments, which.
Speaker 4: I actually ended up shooting the day before I came
Speaker 4: to Wow.
Speaker 7: Really yeah, it was all booked at the same time, right,
Speaker 7: and it was you know, and I was all star
Speaker 7: struck by by the three of you and by Ben
Speaker 7: Savage and it was just, you know, very exciting to
Speaker 7: be there, and you.
Speaker 4: Guys were also nice.
Speaker 7: So it's very memorable to me, a very memorable sort
Speaker 7: of life moment.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: Well, at this point, Quentin Tarantino's employment at your local
Speaker 5: video Star Video Archives has become folklore in film history. Sure, you,
Speaker 5: as a young person befriended this clerk and talked movies
Speaker 5: all day with him. Tell me what that was like
Speaker 5: and how his passion affected the way you looked at movies.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So there was this avant garde video store called Video
Speaker 7: Archives where I grew up in Manhattan Beach, and I
Speaker 7: was I was sort of a movie buff since I
Speaker 7: was five six years old. I was watching grown up movies.
Speaker 7: I used to say, adult movies, and people are like,
Speaker 7: you're watching now.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 7: Actually, you know, rated R movies, you know, way too young,
Speaker 7: But nonetheless, I was just sort of what I was into, right,
Speaker 7: I wasn't into kids movies, and my mom fully embraced
Speaker 7: what I wanted to watch, right, So they opened this
Speaker 7: avant garde video store that assorted the films by director,
Speaker 7: So there were sections that was this director, this director,
Speaker 7: you know. And so I started going there and I
Speaker 7: and this was when I was nine or ten, you know,
Speaker 7: eleven ish, right, but I.
Speaker 4: Looked really young.
Speaker 7: And there was this video store clerk that just was
Speaker 7: so much fun and just wanted to talk movies with me.
Speaker 7: And he was in his mid twenties, I guess, and
Speaker 7: it was Quentin Tarantino. And I would just go and
Speaker 7: talk movies with him, and you know, he fully embraced
Speaker 7: my the films that I was watching at that age
Speaker 7: recommending nothing. But you know, adults had grown up alms
Speaker 7: all the above, you know, and so but I spent
Speaker 7: so much time in there. They would call me little Quintin,
Speaker 7: and so they'd be like, quit in, Little Quintin's here,
Speaker 7: and then I'd like go. And I just loved Quinton
Speaker 7: because he wanted to spend so much time talking to me,
Speaker 7: and my mom thought it was strange. She was like,
Speaker 7: why does this guy talk to you so much?
Speaker 4: Because he's my friend?
Speaker 5: Mom, Okay, I gets cool.
Speaker 7: Someone is talking to me about movies, because it's not
Speaker 7: as if I was having these conversations with my friends.
Speaker 5: At school year old friends.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they weren't watching Chinatown, right, right, So so that was,
Speaker 7: you know, sort of the I don't know, I guess
Speaker 7: the start of my film education was with professor Video
Speaker 7: Store Cork, Quentin Tarantino.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened to him, I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're just hoping
Speaker 7: he hangs in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Tough business.
Speaker 7: It's look, it's a tough racket. We can all light
Speaker 7: a candle for Coldland tonight.
Speaker 5: Did you ever keep in touch with him over the years,
Speaker 5: have you ever run into him again?
Speaker 7: So I didn't see him for many, many years. And
Speaker 7: then the first movie I wrote that got made was
Speaker 7: a movie called Recount about the Ford to recount great movie.
Speaker 4: Oh thank You, Thank You.
Speaker 7: And then out of the blue, I got a message
Speaker 7: from his assistant. And the film hadn't even come out yet,
Speaker 7: but it was on the brink of coming out. It
Speaker 7: was getting a lot of press and and she said, hey,
Speaker 7: Quintin is having.
Speaker 4: Some people over to Uh.
Speaker 7: It was this Mexican restaurant, and he just wants to
Speaker 7: know if you want to stop by. So I came by,
Speaker 7: and he had watched the movie already because he had
Speaker 7: gotten an advanced screener on DVD when people used to
Speaker 7: have those things. Sure, and he just was so amazing
Speaker 7: to me, and he gave a whole speech to He
Speaker 7: had you know, ten people there, and you gave a
Speaker 7: whole speech to everyone.
Speaker 4: He was like, you guys, don't scand this is little Quintin.
Speaker 7: Okay he used to come to and he told him
Speaker 7: the whole story about he He's like, and he's got
Speaker 7: a movie coming out. And so then over the years,
Speaker 7: you know, I would see him from time to time,
Speaker 7: and then he was he won an award from the
Speaker 7: video store Clark Association International, some video store. It wasn't
Speaker 7: the Quirks, but it was, you know, video I don't
Speaker 7: even know what it was, but it was in a
Speaker 7: big ballroom and he invited me and he gave this
Speaker 7: whole speech at the end, and then at the end
Speaker 7: of the speech he's like, there's someone here you all
Speaker 7: got to meet, and then he introduced me. He had
Speaker 7: me scand up and he said, okay, this is a
Speaker 7: little Quentin.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: And at the time of this movie, The Butler that
Speaker 7: had just come out, and there were billboards everywhere and
Speaker 7: my name was actually on the billboard written by which
Speaker 7: was very unusual.
Speaker 4: At that time. But they've been doing that more sense.
Speaker 7: And he's like, his name's on billboards and he goes,
Speaker 7: he goes. He used to come into the store. And
Speaker 7: years later I found out that he had become a
Speaker 7: screenwriter and that he was successful. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 7: thank god I did something with my life, because if
Speaker 7: Little Quinton was successful and I wasn't, I would blow
Speaker 7: my brains out.
Speaker 4: Thank you and good night.
Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was unbelievable and hilarious.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have a question then, because I loved Recount,
Speaker 3: great movie, Thank you, obviously had to do a ton
Speaker 3: of research.
Speaker 1: So did George Bush win that election? Oh?
Speaker 7: So, I can tell you because they did. They did
Speaker 7: an entire recount of the state of Florida that took
Speaker 7: place over eighteen months. And the results of that that
Speaker 7: recount exist, and I can tell you that it's incredibly confusing.
Speaker 1: So this is all the hanging chads and all that
Speaker 1: stuff like that.
Speaker 7: It's really confusing. But basically, when they were counting, so
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court famously shut the recount down, and finally,
Speaker 7: after thirty four days, thirty five days of battle, the
Speaker 7: entire state of Florida was finally doing the right thing
Speaker 7: and counting all of the votes in the state of Florida. Okay,
Speaker 7: And no one was doing the right thing at the
Speaker 7: start of this process. Al Gore had only requested recounts
Speaker 7: in four counties, not doing the right thing. He should
Speaker 7: have been requesting them in the entire state. Why didn't
Speaker 7: he It's actually pretty complicated, but the fast answer is
Speaker 7: there was no mechanism to ask, so you had to
Speaker 7: go to every single county. He thought that counties would
Speaker 7: start to say no and it would become a big
Speaker 7: disaster for him. Right, Bush was trying to count zero
Speaker 7: votes in the entire state of Forest. One candidate four counties,
Speaker 7: the other candidate zero counties. Finally, they're counting votes in
Speaker 7: the entire state. Supreme Court shuts it down. They have
Speaker 7: a hearing, and they basically run the clock out. But
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court rules against starting the recount over and
Speaker 7: thus George Bush becomes President of the United States. So
Speaker 7: what was happening on that final day. They were not
Speaker 7: counting certain types of votes called over votes. I told
Speaker 7: you this was confusing, But they weren't counting those votes.
Speaker 7: They were just counting under votes and all the other votes.
Speaker 7: I'm not going to explain what an undervote and overvote is. However,
Speaker 7: so when they did the final recount that took place
Speaker 7: over eighteen months, it was determined that if you had
Speaker 7: just recounted the undervotes, which was what they were counting
Speaker 7: on that day, George W. Bush would have won the
Speaker 7: election by any counting standard i e. Hanging chads or
Speaker 7: not hanging chads, by something like one hundred to three
Speaker 7: hundred votes, it was that's okay. However, if you included
Speaker 7: the over votes, so they were. If they were counting
Speaker 7: the under votes and the over votes, which is the
Speaker 7: true total number of votes in the state of Florida,
Speaker 7: al Gore wins the election by any voting standard, and
Speaker 7: it's and it's even smaller margin I believe. I believe
Speaker 7: it was like ninety to one hundred and eighty votes.
Speaker 7: Al Gore wins. So you could say, well, they weren't
Speaker 7: counting the over votes that day, so had they had
Speaker 7: gone further, Bush would have won the election.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: No, When the Supreme Court, right before they shut it down,
Speaker 7: a hearing was called to as the Democrats were trying
Speaker 7: to get them to count the over votes Wealth and
Speaker 7: the judge was on the way to the hearing when
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court shut the recount down and he was
Speaker 7: asked later, you know, when this all this information came out,
Speaker 7: would you have allowed over votes to be counted on
Speaker 7: the day, And he said, oh, yeah, absolutely, of course
Speaker 7: I would have because that would have been the true determination.
Speaker 7: So final recap if if that had happened and the
Speaker 7: Supreme Court had allowed this process to move further, would
Speaker 7: al Goore have been elected on that day.
Speaker 4: The margin is so small. Yeah, who knows? Because that
Speaker 4: those numbers.
Speaker 7: I was telling you that was an eighteen month methodical
Speaker 7: recount that was done by meeting on the day. Who knows.
Speaker 7: With margins that small, my gut who or probably would
Speaker 7: have pulled it out. But but the truth is thousands
Speaker 7: of more people on election day went to vote for
Speaker 7: al Gore over George W. Bush, but he ended up
Speaker 7: losing thousands of votes in three different counties, the most
Speaker 7: famous being in pomp Beach County because of the butterfly ballot.
Speaker 7: It was so confusing that Pap Buchanan got you know,
Speaker 7: something like six or seven thousand votes for people that
Speaker 7: meant to vote for al Gore because as the ballot itself.
Speaker 4: Was very confusing.
Speaker 7: It was sort of a comedy of airs, you know.
Speaker 7: It was a complete sort of perfect storm of disaster
Speaker 7: for al Gore. Who more people on election day went
Speaker 7: to vote for him than George W.
Speaker 3: Bush?
Speaker 7: For sure.
Speaker 1: God, that's crazy.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a crazy story. And anyone watching or listening
Speaker 7: to this Gon recount.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's great, But I want to I want to
Speaker 8: dive into it from your like the personal part because
Speaker 8: you did all this research because Recount was you had
Speaker 8: written scripts, but Recount was the one that, you know,
Speaker 8: really moved you from being an actor to being a
Speaker 8: writer director.
Speaker 5: So what was that process?
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, I've heard about it secondhand from Adam
Speaker 2: Bush that you were just like so angry about the
Speaker 2: election that you were like, I'm going to go down
Speaker 2: there and do all my own research and write a
Speaker 2: movie about that. Is that true? Is that what I It.
Speaker 7: Wasn't that dramatic, No, I mean, I was very I was.
Speaker 7: I was very angry about the election at the time.
Speaker 7: But I actually I even follow the recount when it
Speaker 7: was happening because I was so enraged. I couldn't watch
Speaker 7: and I just could not watch the recount. And then
Speaker 7: my anger, you know, grew during the Iraq War. That
Speaker 7: was very, you know, a sort of big life moment
Speaker 7: for me because I felt like, I don't really not
Speaker 7: an expert on politics, but I know Sadom Hussein was
Speaker 7: not responsible for nine to eleven yet, and yet you know,
Speaker 7: the President of the United States and his entire party
Speaker 7: is saying he is, and the media seems to be.
Speaker 4: Kind of going along with it.
Speaker 7: So that kind of I don't want to say it
Speaker 7: radicalized me, but it definitely, you know, inflamed me.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: So so then I was trying to figure out what
Speaker 7: I wanted to write next, and I'd been writing these
Speaker 7: comedies that weren't selling. And I saw this play called
Speaker 7: Stuff Happens that was about the build up to the
Speaker 7: Iraq War, which I had read a lot about because
Speaker 7: I had read a lot of books about it. And
Speaker 7: I saw how David Hare, the famous playwright, had turned
Speaker 7: all this research that I was familiar with into this
Speaker 7: stunning piece of drama that was electric. I mean, the
Speaker 7: audience was booing the actors. They were booing each other
Speaker 7: on certain lines of dialogue. And I was in the
Speaker 7: last seat of the theater because that was all I
Speaker 7: could afford with like eighting grins so wide, because I
Speaker 7: just was just this was just sort of everything I
Speaker 7: was about as an artist and you know, is just
Speaker 7: a citizen of the country.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: So then I walked out of the theater thinking, oh,
Speaker 7: that's what I need to write next. I need to
Speaker 7: write something like Stuff Happens, And within thirty seconds, the
Speaker 7: idea of the Florida Recount popped into my head, which
Speaker 7: is weird because I hadn't really followed the Florida recount
Speaker 7: and this was six years later, five years later, so
Speaker 7: it's not as if the recount had been on my.
Speaker 4: Mind for years.
Speaker 7: So that's how it came about, was that it popped
Speaker 7: into my head and I called my agent for my manager,
Speaker 7: and I said, you know, I know what I want
Speaker 7: to write next. I want to write the story of
Speaker 7: the Flida account. And he said, well, no one will
Speaker 7: buy that except for HBO, and HBO won't buy it
Speaker 7: from you because they only buy stuff from literally Tony
Speaker 7: Kushner and David Hare like they were at the time
Speaker 7: in this very kind of elite, you know, you know,
Speaker 7: a sort of overly snobby stage. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 7: I know, but it's so good because I'd already boughten
Speaker 7: a book and it does some research at this point.
Speaker 7: And I said, but the story is so amazing. I
Speaker 7: don't really care. I just want to do this. And
Speaker 7: then he said, okay.
Speaker 4: I mean it was like, literally, is that all right?
Speaker 4: I love?
Speaker 7: That's what I don't care about. Tell yet who, Well,
Speaker 7: I told you, you know, buy it and you really
Speaker 7: want to do it. And it was actually a good
Speaker 7: managing because he had a client he was passionate about
Speaker 7: a story, and and so he just said go for it.
Speaker 7: And then, you know, it was a long, sort of
Speaker 7: windy road, but I ended up, you know, several months
Speaker 7: later in the office of HBO to pitch the movie Recount,
Speaker 7: and I couldn't believe it. To me, that was the
Speaker 7: victory that I had just made it to that point
Speaker 7: because I never sold anything. I wasn't in the writers guild.
Speaker 7: And I turned to the producer that I was with,
Speaker 7: Lena Motto, and I said, I can't believe I'm sitting
Speaker 7: in HBO about to pitch this movie. And he said, well,
Speaker 7: it's a better story if you sell it. So and
Speaker 7: luckily it turned into a better story because because I
Speaker 7: did sell it, and it took him a few weeks
Speaker 7: to give me an answer, and when he called me
Speaker 7: and he said, well they bought it, I was terrified.
Speaker 7: I just was scared. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: I finally sold something. The first thing I never sold
Speaker 7: was a pitch, and now I have to write it.
Speaker 7: And I just thought, well, you know, this is my
Speaker 7: big shot. What if I blow it?
Speaker 4: And so that was that's but that's how that's how
Speaker 4: it came together.
Speaker 3: Wow, and vaguely was great in that movie, Fantastic. He
Speaker 3: was one of those guys that I remember he's his performance.
Speaker 3: I've always loved him, but his performance so stuck out
Speaker 3: to me in that film where I was like, man,
Speaker 3: he's he's like an under rated actor for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was really good in that movie.
Speaker 7: It was wonderful. And when he when they you know,
Speaker 7: his name came up for the part, I was like
Speaker 7: Ed Begley Junior because I thought of him as this
Speaker 7: comedic actor, right. And and then they showed me a
Speaker 7: scene from I think it was an episode of West Wing.
Speaker 7: It was a dramatic scene and he just tore it
Speaker 7: apart and it was he was clearly perfect casting for
Speaker 7: David Boys. Yeah, And I thought, oh, that's perfect, that's
Speaker 7: what you know. And I you know, and it wasn't
Speaker 7: my choice. It was the director's choice. But you know,
Speaker 7: the director was Jay Roach was a wonderful person, really
Speaker 7: listened to me too, you know, on my input and
Speaker 7: so and I just said, you know, I just think
Speaker 7: he's perfect, and Jay was like, well, good, because that's why.
Speaker 4: I want to cast. So yeah he was. And then
Speaker 4: and then Ed was fantastic in it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh he's such a cool guy too.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, sweet, yeah, really wonderful.
Speaker 5: I know you and writer have kept in touch a
Speaker 5: little bit over the years. Is boy Meets World the
Speaker 5: first place you met?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah. We were on a radio show. Yeah, sort
Speaker 4: of a live radio show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, The Thrilling Adventure Hour Zaccer and Acker and Blackers.
Speaker 2: So that brought us back. That brought us together. I
Speaker 2: mean that's really when we hung out. I mean, I
Speaker 2: you know, Boybe's World, like that was such a blip
Speaker 2: and the rear view mirror by the time because you
Speaker 2: had already done Buffy and so they brought us on
Speaker 2: to host together. Actually because normally they had like two
Speaker 2: actors that were always doing the hosting duties for The
Speaker 2: Thrilling Adventure Hour and they couldn't do it one week
Speaker 2: or whatever, and we had both guest starred on different shows.
Speaker 2: So they decided to have the Strong brothers and they
Speaker 2: created characters for us to go and do it. And
Speaker 2: that was like when we first hung out. And I
Speaker 2: think at that point had you even written recount yet.
Speaker 2: I think you were writing, but I don't think you would.
Speaker 4: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I think you still primarily like I thought
Speaker 2: of you as an actor at that point, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I remember we talked a little bit about writing,
Speaker 2: but that was yeah. And then it was watching the
Speaker 2: recount thing happen. I was like, oh my god, Dan,
Speaker 2: he's doing so well.
Speaker 3: So I don't think I'm wrong. Do you recall the
Speaker 3: last time you and I ran into each other?
Speaker 7: I mean I don't. I sort of feel like it
Speaker 7: was on set on Blamet's World. Is there another is
Speaker 7: there a story here?
Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Did we run into each other
Speaker 1: in the streets of Amsterdam?
Speaker 4: Whoa when was that? I mean, I've been to Amsterdam,
Speaker 4: but once.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I rounded a corner and you rounded
Speaker 3: a corner and I was with Jason Marsden and we
Speaker 3: stood in front of each other, went oh my god, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we just ran into each other in the red light district.
Speaker 2: Ninety eight would have been late nineties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, late nineties, yeah, late nineties.
Speaker 3: So that was I think the last time I saw
Speaker 3: you was on the streets of Amsterdam.
Speaker 7: Yes, and I was never in the red light district.
Speaker 7: Every One that claimed I am this tribunal was a false.
Speaker 1: Because you can walk through and not partake it. It
Speaker 1: is something that must be seen.
Speaker 7: To be still pretty filthy just walking through it. And
Speaker 7: I'm still showering from walk through the red light district.
Speaker 7: Been there, which I wasn't. I was never there.
Speaker 4: I only make me very clear, that was the.
Speaker 1: Last time I saw you just ro out of the corner.
Speaker 3: We were both like, oh my god, because I think
Speaker 3: it was the year you were envoy me twirl and
Speaker 3: so we just ended up just kind of there at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Really I think it was a few years later.
Speaker 1: But was it Okay, it wasn't a year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe it was just a year and a half
Speaker 4: lay or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was like, oh my god, standing, Yeah, did.
Speaker 5: You have like a young actor crew back then? Like
Speaker 5: we're all your friend's other young performers. We realized we've
Speaker 5: all had little boss's of other actors who've lived in
Speaker 5: and out of the Oak Woods, and yeah.
Speaker 7: You know, you know, I was never I was never
Speaker 7: sort of that much of an insider. I always felt
Speaker 7: kind of like I was kind of on the outside
Speaker 7: a little bit. But I was really close friends with
Speaker 7: Michael Bacall. I don't know if you know Michael baccall.
Speaker 4: He was an actor.
Speaker 7: He was in tons of stuff, and we often would
Speaker 7: would come down to me or him for parts. We
Speaker 7: became friends because we exchanged info to let each other
Speaker 7: know who got it.
Speaker 1: Because of his Oh, of course, of course I recognize him. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he worked a lot. And I started writing because
Speaker 7: Michael started writing and he sold a script and I
Speaker 7: was so jealous of him that and he was encouraging
Speaker 7: me too, like you should write too, you should really
Speaker 7: do this. That That was partly how I started writing.
Speaker 7: And he's gone on to have a very successful writing career.
Speaker 7: You just wrote The Running Man, the Edgar Wry movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Scott Pilgrim versus The World Street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's done some stuff.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, that's all Michael. So Michael and I were
Speaker 7: really close. I had another buddy named Blaine Weaver, who
Speaker 7: I just saw recently for the first time in years.
Speaker 7: But it wasn't you know. Me and Adam Bush became,
Speaker 7: you know, really good friends. And Tom Link we were
Speaker 7: sort of this trio on bucking the Vampire Slayer. But
Speaker 7: I didn't I didn't sort of roll in a in
Speaker 7: a young Hollywood kind of crowd.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was a little awkward. I was felt awkward.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, Manhattan Beach will kind of alienate
Speaker 5: you from you know, it's I lived in Manhattan Beach
Speaker 5: for a while. I love it there, but boy is
Speaker 5: it hard to get to Burbank from Manhattan Beach.
Speaker 7: Well I wish that was my excuse, but the truth
Speaker 7: was I grew up there, but then and then when
Speaker 7: I went to college, I never went back. So I
Speaker 7: was in Hollywood, you know, just right on you know Stanley,
Speaker 7: just right there street from a halfway house. Uh, I
Speaker 7: lived for a decade.
Speaker 5: And halfway house.
Speaker 7: Yeahs street from it. So it's called Villa Stanley. And
Speaker 7: there's another Villa Stanley on Melrose, Villa Stanley number two.
Speaker 7: So but yeah, I I uh yeah, I just never.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I never. I never kind of got
Speaker 4: super inside.
Speaker 5: You also appeared on we've mentioned Buffy now, but you
Speaker 5: also appeared on another cult classic, who Fans Will Never
Speaker 5: Let Die, and that's Gilmore Girls. Between Gilmore Girls Buffy,
Speaker 5: I mean in Boy Meets World, you're sort of in
Speaker 5: the holy trinity of fandoms.
Speaker 4: Pretty good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you yeah, what do you get recognized
Speaker 5: from the most.
Speaker 4: Gilmore Girls all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have fans, rabbit fans.
Speaker 7: I don't even know if you would call them rabbit fans.
Speaker 7: At this point, it's it's like it's just everywhere people
Speaker 7: are just watching that show. You know, mothers and their daughters.
Speaker 7: You know it it is. It's bigger than it ever was.
Speaker 7: And when it went off the air, it didn't you know,
Speaker 7: you didn't feel that at all. And then when it
Speaker 7: started airing on Netflix is when there was this massive
Speaker 7: cultural shifty Gilmore Girls. In some ways, it's like Friends,
Speaker 7: where it's you know, it's it's sort of that big,
Speaker 7: so that I get that all the time. I was
Speaker 7: also even though I'd stopped acting, I kind of kept acting.
Speaker 4: The things would just pop up.
Speaker 7: And I ended up on a TV show called Billions
Speaker 7: for six seasons, which is crazy. And then and so Billions,
Speaker 7: you did that Billions a lot.
Speaker 2: You did six seasons of Billions.
Speaker 4: It was supposed to be no idea.
Speaker 7: There was supposed to be two episodes, and then I
Speaker 7: ended up doing three or four a year from season
Speaker 7: two through seven.
Speaker 4: My best time.
Speaker 7: The part was so much fun and and and it
Speaker 7: was its in New York where I live, so I
Speaker 7: could just kind of run down there and shoot the
Speaker 7: scenes and go So, yeah.
Speaker 1: Which one do you prefer?
Speaker 3: I mean, now that you've got this incredible writing career,
Speaker 3: I mean, but you're also your acting career took off
Speaker 3: the second you decided you didn't want to be an
Speaker 3: actor anymore, which is seems to be the the way
Speaker 3: it works is like we always joke, if you want
Speaker 3: the audition, you you book a non refuninable plane ticket
Speaker 3: somewhere on the same day. Yeah, the second you went
Speaker 3: I'm done, your career kind of took off.
Speaker 1: Is there something you enjoy more than the other? Do
Speaker 1: you enjoy writing more than acting or acting?
Speaker 7: Well, writing, I don't really, you know, like I said,
Speaker 7: I don't pursue acting, so it's not even something where
Speaker 7: I'm actively trying to do it right. It's fun when
Speaker 7: I do do it. I really enjoy it, but it's
Speaker 7: it's you know, I have a full writing, producing, directing
Speaker 7: career that is consumes my days, you know, every day,
Speaker 7: and it's and that's what I'm steeped in. But but
Speaker 7: you know, when I'm when I am lucky enough to
Speaker 7: be on set, you know, acting in something, and I
Speaker 7: only do it now if it's something I really want
Speaker 7: to do. But it's not like the phones ringing off
Speaker 7: the hook either in front. I mean, it's just kind
Speaker 7: of every once in a while goes me from something,
Speaker 7: I guess, and then they reach out. So so it is,
Speaker 7: you know, I do enjoy it, but I'm you know,
Speaker 7: fully immersed in a very high stress writing producing career.
Speaker 5: Were you afraid that people wouldn't take you seriously as
Speaker 5: a writer because they knew you as an actor?
Speaker 1: You know it?
Speaker 4: Really I didn't.
Speaker 7: I wasn't because it seemed common for actors to become writers.
Speaker 7: And what was great about it because it took me
Speaker 7: seven years from writing my first script to selling that
Speaker 7: pitch for recount, right, So that's a long time to
Speaker 7: do something. But the first script I wrote, a few
Speaker 7: producers read it and they loved it, and I realized,
Speaker 7: it doesn't matter what you've done. They're going to sit
Speaker 7: down and read the script, and that's all that matters
Speaker 7: is the script. And I guess a lot of scripts
Speaker 7: are pretty tough to read. So when they read one
Speaker 7: that they really like, they're very excited and they're very
Speaker 7: excited to meet you. And I've never experienced within the
Speaker 7: industry any bias from being an actor on the writing front.
Speaker 7: In fact, it's sort of the opposite, where people in
Speaker 7: development that do this for a living of reading scripts,
Speaker 7: you know, have a long sort of history of knowing
Speaker 7: that when actors can write, the scripts can often be
Speaker 7: really quite good. And I've had a number of friends
Speaker 7: have their lives change by writing a script, right, And
Speaker 7: it's just they have a whole new career from it.
Speaker 7: And you know, as an actor, you're boxed in by
Speaker 7: your DNA to a certain extent, you know, and it's
Speaker 7: and you could be, you know, the greatest actor in
Speaker 7: the world, and a lot of times the material doesn't
Speaker 7: call for it, right. Yeah, So it's sort of and
Speaker 7: I know now from casting being on the other side
Speaker 7: of it, you know, I'm just trying to find the
Speaker 7: person who's right for the part that does that sort
Speaker 7: of does the scene the best, or well, who's also
Speaker 7: right for the part. You know, there's that element which
Speaker 7: is right for the part, the right type of whatever
Speaker 7: that character is right, and that all goes away on
Speaker 7: the writing. It's just doesn't matter what you look like,
Speaker 7: it's just the page. And I found that, you know,
Speaker 7: very liberating to this day. I find it very liberating
Speaker 7: that my DNA is not is not being judged.
Speaker 3: It's just it's Yeah, total, when you said it took
Speaker 3: seven years from when you started writing to Recount, then
Speaker 3: Recount comes out, Now you know your career is taken
Speaker 3: off in the writing, writing, and directing and producing kind
Speaker 3: of aspect.
Speaker 1: Do you get to now go back to the scripts
Speaker 1: that maybe you didn't.
Speaker 3: Sell in those seven years and go, Okay, now I'm
Speaker 3: going to go back and do some of the ones
Speaker 3: that I originally wrote that I wanted to do.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a really good question, because that came up.
Speaker 7: You know, Hey, go go to your old scripts and
Speaker 7: sell them and make them dough, you know. And I
Speaker 7: I went and read a few of them to see
Speaker 7: how I felt about it, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 7: this script belongs in this drawer.
Speaker 4: Even if I can monetize.
Speaker 7: It, I don't want to monetize it because I feel
Speaker 7: that i've you know, that my writing has grown. And
Speaker 7: when I wrote Recount, it was the first drama i'd
Speaker 7: ever written, the first true story i'd ever written it,
Speaker 7: and it was much more natural for me than any
Speaker 7: of the comedies that I had written up till that
Speaker 7: point and I just felt, oh, I've you know, maybe
Speaker 7: I've grown as an artist, or I found my voice
Speaker 7: as a writer, or I just felt that the work
Speaker 7: was much stronger than the work had been before. And
Speaker 7: I thought, why don't we just leave this? Uh, why
Speaker 7: don't we just leave this where it is?
Speaker 5: How long was it between Recount and then Game Change?
Speaker 7: Well, they were it was four years from when it
Speaker 7: came out when Game Change came out, but I think
Speaker 7: it was maybe two years two and a half years
Speaker 7: when I started writing it. And it was really interesting.
Speaker 7: When we had finished Recount, the director of it immediately
Speaker 7: thought there was a movie in Sarah Palin. And for
Speaker 7: those of you who don't know Game Change, it's the
Speaker 7: story of John McCain picking Sarah Palin.
Speaker 1: Scared the got to me that movie that scared out.
Speaker 4: Of it is.
Speaker 7: It is kind of terrifying, and it's the very much
Speaker 7: kind of the canary of the coal mine of the
Speaker 7: Coole mind of where we are today, right, you know,
Speaker 7: you see sort of the birth of the mega movement
Speaker 7: in this story. Uh. And Jay Roach was all over
Speaker 7: it as it was happening in real time. He said,
Speaker 7: I want to be in the rooms where they decided
Speaker 7: to pick Sarah Palin, and I said, that's the last
Speaker 7: thing I want to do. I really don't want to
Speaker 7: do another true life, modern day political story. You're a
Speaker 7: little handcuffed. You can't make stuff up. It's got to
Speaker 7: be super but down.
Speaker 4: And I was so.
Speaker 7: Attacked on Recount, and Recount was a very accurate and
Speaker 7: peck uply research, but it didn't matter. They just attack,
Speaker 7: you know, an attack of attack, and so I was
Speaker 7: a little gun shy. Then the book Game Change came out.
Speaker 7: And by the way, I had been offered the book
Speaker 7: before they had written a script. I'd been offered it
Speaker 7: a year earlier, and I passed. And the book came
Speaker 7: out and it was a sensation and I read it
Speaker 7: and I felt like such a fool that I had
Speaker 7: that I had said no to it. I just loved
Speaker 7: reading it. And Jay Roach, by the way, in that
Speaker 7: time period, kept calling me every six months about doing
Speaker 7: the Sarah Palin story, and I kept saying no. So
Speaker 7: when I read the book Recount, when I got to
Speaker 7: the Sarah Palin chapters, I immediately saw what the movie
Speaker 7: would be like. And I immediately thought Jay Roach was right,
Speaker 7: there's a great movie in here, and then I forgot
Speaker 7: about it. Then about six months later he called me
Speaker 7: and because they were developing an Obama versus Hillary movie,
Speaker 7: that's what they were trying to do. So Jay called
Speaker 7: me and he said, I've taken over game, changed the book.
Speaker 7: I'm throwing out their Obama Hillary script and I'm going
Speaker 7: to do Sarah Palin And You've said no to me
Speaker 7: four times, but I'm going to ask you one more time.
Speaker 7: Do you want to do it? And I said in
Speaker 7: the phone call, I said, I read the book, You're
Speaker 7: absolutely right, yes, I'm doing it. Yes, so I said it.
Speaker 7: So I said yes right there. And then there was
Speaker 7: this tricky moment where we actually had a small window
Speaker 7: to write the script and get it greenlit, because in
Speaker 7: order to get it out, you know, six months before
Speaker 7: the election, which is when they wanted to get it out,
Speaker 7: they didn't want it too close to the election to
Speaker 7: make it look like we were fearing. And then after
Speaker 7: the election there was a sense of no one may
Speaker 7: care anymore. So I had this kind of about two
Speaker 7: months to write a first draft to get them excited
Speaker 7: about it. And it was wild because I hadn't had
Speaker 7: a movie made since recount, and I thought, okay, I
Speaker 7: got two months, maybe I could maybe this will get
Speaker 7: you know, and then sure enough I wrote it, turned
Speaker 7: it in and then it started to get all this.
Speaker 4: Momentum and it ended up getting made. So that's how
Speaker 4: that one came me.
Speaker 3: Phenomenal another phenomenal cast. I mean, the cat whatdy? Harrelson
Speaker 3: and everybody in that movie were just they were so good.
Speaker 3: But that movie scared the hell out of me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really did.
Speaker 4: Harris as John McCain. I remember watching them with.
Speaker 7: Them because I had on recount, I had gotten to
Speaker 7: know a lot of Democratic and Republican operatives that work
Speaker 7: on these elections, and I've become very friendly with people
Speaker 7: in both parties. I really enjoyed, you know, I enjoyed
Speaker 7: them all, you know, not all of them, but you know,
Speaker 7: the people that I became friends with, and you know,
Speaker 7: in any party. And so there was one guy who
Speaker 7: was a Republican operative and I invited him to one
Speaker 7: of our screenings of Game Change to kind of test,
Speaker 7: you know, how how are Republicans' operatives going to feel
Speaker 7: about this movie? And the movie ended and he turned
Speaker 7: to me and he said, that was amazing. I loved it,
Speaker 7: and boy, that is terrifying. So he had the same
Speaker 7: response to you as insight.
Speaker 3: Well, because they had the Republicans in the movie, a
Speaker 3: lot of the Republicans were going like this is not
Speaker 3: this is not okay, like this is yeah, and even
Speaker 3: John McCain saying things like you got to be really
Speaker 3: careful what the future is going to hold for our party.
Speaker 3: I mean it was it seemed very balanced, which is
Speaker 3: the thing that I liked about it, but man, it
Speaker 3: did it scared the hell on him.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: You know, I interviewed so many people in the McCain
Speaker 7: campaign for that film, and they were, you know, they
Speaker 7: and they sort of fit into three different categories of
Speaker 7: they really despised Sarah Palin, they really liked her and
Speaker 7: thought she was treated unfairly, and then people that sort
Speaker 7: of kind of understood, you know, both sides of it,
Speaker 7: and I try to represent, you know, all the different
Speaker 7: points of views in the film. And what I loved
Speaker 7: about doing Game Change versus Recount is there wasn't two
Speaker 7: parties represented, so I didn't have to you know, be
Speaker 7: you know enough time to the Democrats the republic and
Speaker 7: make it feel the balance that way. It was literally,
Speaker 7: no Democrats are being consulted in the making of this movie.
Speaker 7: This is just Republicans. It's their story, it's what they
Speaker 7: live through, and how can I make it sort of
Speaker 7: as honest and rich and full as possible. And I
Speaker 7: felt like I wanted to show Sarah Palin's experience in
Speaker 7: a way that was honest and at times. At times,
Speaker 7: just in the research, I felt really sympathetic to her,
Speaker 7: and I felt she was in positions that weren't fair
Speaker 7: to her or that were just so much pressure for
Speaker 7: her life experience. Yea, and I wanted to to make
Speaker 7: sure I dramatized all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 5: I would love to sit in on one of your pitches.
Speaker 5: And I wonder do you think your acting skills help
Speaker 5: you in pitch meetings?
Speaker 7: Definitely, Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent, because I'm just very
Speaker 7: comfortable pitching. In fact, I enjoy it because it's sort
Speaker 7: of a one man show. It's just me and I've
Speaker 7: written the script and then I go and I do pitch,
Speaker 7: and it's usually it's actually quite a bit of fun
Speaker 7: for me and a lot of writers who don't have
Speaker 7: an acting background, the pitch.
Speaker 5: Is terrifying, exactly the worst part.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I hate this and they just kind of, you know,
Speaker 7: just kind of read the pitch, which, by the way,
Speaker 7: totally fine if you're a writer watching this. You don't
Speaker 7: have to have an acting background. People just want to
Speaker 7: hear what your pitch is.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: At the end of the day, and I tell someone
Speaker 7: I produce and I'm working with writers, I tell them like,
Speaker 7: don't worry about it. Just re read it. You don't,
Speaker 7: you know, it's it's the you know, the story's great
Speaker 7: that you've constructed and that'll come through.
Speaker 5: So so Recount goes on to become a massive critical hit,
Speaker 5: Game Change wins a Peabody, and you get an Emmy.
Speaker 5: Were you at that point just like, Okay, that's it,
Speaker 5: I'm a full time writer now. Or did you still
Speaker 5: think that you were going to have one foot in
Speaker 5: the acting world.
Speaker 7: No, I had after Recount. I hadn't been in la
Speaker 7: for a long time, okay, because I was well, I
Speaker 7: was in a movie before Recount went into production called
Speaker 7: Sydney White with Amanda Bynes. Okay, that's when I was
Speaker 7: thirty three. We were thirty two, playing a college students,
Speaker 7: and so I and then I we did Recount. So
Speaker 7: I actually was gone from LA for nine months, you know,
Speaker 7: for I was gone for a long time, came back,
Speaker 7: and then I moved to New York. And I moved
Speaker 7: to New York for three months as a trial, and
Speaker 7: then two weeks into the trial, I said, the trial
Speaker 7: is officially over. I'm staying here. I love it right,
Speaker 7: and part of me moving to New York was and
Speaker 7: I don't want to act anymore. So I stopped auditioning,
Speaker 7: and for two years I didn't go on audition. I
Speaker 7: had this really neat manager who had been with for
Speaker 7: years who's still my manager, and he kept calling me
Speaker 7: stuff over the years, saying, hey, will you go in
Speaker 7: for this that? And I kept saying no, And then
Speaker 7: finally he called and said, there's this raw on Madmen.
Speaker 7: Uh do you want audition for mad Men? And that
Speaker 7: was my favorite show. I went, okay, okay, I'll do
Speaker 7: that one. I'll do that one, and then I booked it.
Speaker 7: So then I booked the part and I ended up
Speaker 7: doing or recurring on mad Men. And I actually think
Speaker 7: all the it didn't work I've gotten since has been
Speaker 7: because people love mad Men, and you know, some of
Speaker 7: the I know, Billions for sure was from that. But
Speaker 7: but so that's when, and that was so that's after
Speaker 7: not auditioning for a few years. I have to say
Speaker 7: the two years I wasn't auditioning when I moved to
Speaker 7: New York may have been the happiest two years ago.
Speaker 7: Not having four months of pilot season. Will this audition
Speaker 7: change my life for twelve years? And it never did.
Speaker 7: I never booked the pilot, but every pilot season was
Speaker 7: torture for me. And so to have that go away,
Speaker 7: and I'm living in New York City and it's amazing,
Speaker 7: And you know, I was writing The Butler and Game Change,
Speaker 7: those were the first two movies I wrote there, you know,
Speaker 7: So I just was having sort of just you know,
Speaker 7: a wonderful experience and that was associated tied into not
Speaker 7: auditioning anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, how did you connect with Lee Daniels for The Butler?
Speaker 7: So I wrote The Butler. I was hired to write
Speaker 7: The Butler, which would never happen today, but it was
Speaker 7: they had this idea that they thought I would be
Speaker 7: the right writer for it. I loved the material right away,
Speaker 7: and then I wrote the movie. And this was all
Speaker 7: for Sony Pictures and her producer named Wura Zisken, who's
Speaker 7: a real legend. She passed away very tragically from cancer,
Speaker 7: but before she passed away, she started stand up to cancer.
Speaker 7: So then I wrote The Butler and then turned it
Speaker 7: into my agent, and then my agent called me.
Speaker 4: So I turned it in I.
Speaker 7: Don't know, maybe on a Thursday, and then to my
Speaker 7: agent and to Sony. So Monday morning I get a
Speaker 7: call from my agent and she said, hey, so, I
Speaker 7: don't know what's going on with Sony if they've read it.
Speaker 7: I don't think they have because it was not a
Speaker 7: high priority project for Sony, she said, but I gave
Speaker 7: it to Steven Spielberg and he read it and he
Speaker 7: thinks he might want to do it because one of
Speaker 7: the reasons of all, you know, Steven Spielberg is the
Speaker 7: King of Hollywood for a thousand different reasons, but he
Speaker 7: also wants to know what's going on with scripts before
Speaker 7: anybody else. So if there's a hot script that the
Speaker 7: agency thinks is a hot script, they give it to
Speaker 7: him first and he reads it immediately. So Sony gets
Speaker 7: the phone call, Hey, have you guys read The Butler yet? Oh,
Speaker 7: because Steven Spielberg has read it and he thinks he
Speaker 7: wants to do it. So now this script that's super
Speaker 7: low priority becomes the big prior already, right, And then
Speaker 7: I guess people in Hollywood all found out that Steven
Speaker 7: Spielderberg maybe wants to do the butt Were next, and
Speaker 7: so it was instantly a hot script. And then Lee
Speaker 7: Daniels read it during that period and he basically was
Speaker 7: waiting in the wings for Stephen to pass and so
Speaker 7: and then it was about four or five months later
Speaker 7: and then one of the reasons why Stephen backed off
Speaker 7: the project was he decided to do the movie Warhorse first,
Speaker 7: which was within his own film studio, DreamWorks, and he
Speaker 7: didn't want to slow the project down because he knew
Speaker 7: Wara Ziskin had cancer and he knew how was doing
Speaker 7: because normally he might have hung on to it a
Speaker 7: longer to maybe do it next, right, So he backs
Speaker 7: off the project, you know, very generously, and then the
Speaker 7: next day Lee Daniels was waiting in the wings to
Speaker 7: do it. And so that's how that's how that all began,
Speaker 7: was that was on the Buttler and so then Lee
Speaker 7: was on the project and and it took four years
Speaker 7: to get the movie made.
Speaker 1: Wow, nothing's fast in this town is now.
Speaker 4: It's a tough racket. Yeah, it's it's really a tough racket.
Speaker 5: You also have such a diverse range of genres that
Speaker 5: you have done. You also did Hunger Games. How do
Speaker 5: you how do you switch gears to be able to
Speaker 5: kind of go back to back to back with such
Speaker 5: different genres.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a goofy career, right, you know, I mean
Speaker 7: because I do film, TV and I do stage musicals.
Speaker 4: Right, So it's sort.
Speaker 7: Of all it's kind of all over the place, and
Speaker 7: it's it's literally it's just whatever I'm into.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: There's not a big sort of master game plan at all.
Speaker 7: It's it's literally just Oh that's that's you know. And
Speaker 7: I'm always guided by the same sentence, Oh that could
Speaker 7: be really good. I just get excited about something. I think,
Speaker 7: oh that could be really good, you know. So and
Speaker 7: then whatever I'm working on that day is just what
Speaker 7: I'm working on, you know, it's not a big it's
Speaker 7: not a big emotional shifting gears. I try to stick
Speaker 7: within one project for whatever phase.
Speaker 4: I happen to be in on that project.
Speaker 7: Right, So, if I'm outlining something, I try to finish
Speaker 7: the outline before I get pulled off onto something else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, constant.
Speaker 7: I'm usually writing three or four different things at one
Speaker 7: time in every different you know, genre is you know
Speaker 7: and so and so. I just try to complete whatever
Speaker 7: task it is. But I find working on multiple things
Speaker 7: is really helpful because then I set something down, I
Speaker 7: go on to something else, and it makes me completely
Speaker 7: forget about that pfect. So when I come back to.
Speaker 4: It, it's a fresh eyes.
Speaker 7: And that's huge because part of the biggest challenge for
Speaker 7: me is not being able to sort of know what
Speaker 7: to do with it at a certain point because it's scale.
Speaker 7: The more that the fresh eye, I can keep fresh eyes,
Speaker 7: but then at a certain point something just becomes stale,
Speaker 7: and that's and that's when I know it's time to
Speaker 7: hand it to something.
Speaker 4: Get some reads.
Speaker 3: Did you Did you have any trouble with Hunger Games,
Speaker 3: especially when it's something like, okay, we have to do
Speaker 3: a PG thirteen version of kids slaughtering each other?
Speaker 1: Well, like, how do you do that?
Speaker 4: Really on me?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 7: They so I did Mocking j Part one and two.
Speaker 7: They had already done two movies, right, you know, so
Speaker 7: they had already done the first Hungry Games, which I
Speaker 7: loved and I hadn't read the books. I had just
Speaker 7: seen the first movie, thought fantastic, yeah, and they yeah,
Speaker 7: Well I did eventually read them when they when they
Speaker 7: approached me, but so they they approached me for it,
Speaker 7: and I was incredibly flattered just to get to ask
Speaker 7: to pitch on it. And they told me we're going
Speaker 7: to ten writers. They were sort of very open, We're
Speaker 7: going to ten writers. We're trying to find one writer
Speaker 7: to do you know, part one and part two. And
Speaker 7: they were in the middle of shooting catching Fire at
Speaker 7: the time, or were just about to I don't totally remember,
Speaker 7: but so that was so as far as the tone
Speaker 7: of it, it had already been set. And it was
Speaker 7: one of those jobs where every job, every script, has
Speaker 7: its own set of rules creatively politics surrounding the production.
Speaker 7: You know, there are all of them that are their
Speaker 7: own ecosystem with their own sets of issues. And in
Speaker 7: the case of Hunger Games, it was the It was
Speaker 7: an adaptation in which everyone rightfully so wanted to stick
Speaker 7: as close to the book as possible because the book
Speaker 7: was so the books were so widely popular, they were
Speaker 7: so beloved, they were super hot. In that moment. It
Speaker 7: wasn't as if they'd come out a decade earlier. Right,
Speaker 7: They just were red hot, you know, with this passionate
Speaker 7: fan base. And Suzanne Collins, who wrote them, was a
Speaker 7: big part of the team making the movies, so it
Speaker 7: wasn't as if she wasn't She was in the swimming
Speaker 7: pool and was a key collaborator with them. So it
Speaker 7: was in some ways one of the more simpler jobs
Speaker 7: I've ever had, because they didn't want they didn't want
Speaker 7: anyone to come create a lot of stuff. They just
Speaker 7: wanted to stick really close to the books.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm asking, how do you pitch that? Isn't
Speaker 1: it just ten people holding up the book going I
Speaker 1: want to write this.
Speaker 7: That what you're asking is exactly what I went through
Speaker 7: and I was asked to pitch.
Speaker 4: I thought, well, how do you pitch this?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't really know how to pitch this, but
Speaker 7: I'll just I think I need to pitch it out completely.
Speaker 7: That was that was what I said, was I need
Speaker 7: to pitch this out completely. I'm just going to pitch
Speaker 7: them exactly what I'm going to do with the first movie,
Speaker 7: beat by beat, And that's what I did, and it
Speaker 7: was all straight from the book. You know, sort of
Speaker 7: like an editing job. I mean, in some ways, that's
Speaker 7: what that job was. It was an editing job. It
Speaker 7: was a pairing down and then sure enough they you know,
Speaker 7: maybe other people weren't doing that, maybe my skills as
Speaker 7: an actor helped the process. Is we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 7: but then it was me and one other writer that
Speaker 7: were the final two. I actually don't even remember who
Speaker 7: it was. And then we flew to Atlanta because that's
Speaker 7: where they were shooting the movie. So I flew to Atlanta.
Speaker 7: I did the pitch. They said wait here and then
Speaker 7: then and then the producer walked out and she said
Speaker 7: you got the job, and I was like, this is crazy, Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was.
Speaker 5: It was it was a feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so curious, Danny, because you've had such an
Speaker 2: amazing career and like, but I also feel like every
Speaker 2: everybody in Hollywood, like you get you end up having
Speaker 2: huge successes for stuff that you kind of like don't
Speaker 2: care that much about or you know, like you're your
Speaker 2: own version of success is often different than like the
Speaker 2: world's version of success. So I'm curious, like, what are
Speaker 2: you most proud of? Is it Spielberg reading your script?
Speaker 2: And liking it is it is there like a moment
Speaker 2: that you can say like, oh, this is this is
Speaker 2: my personal accomplishment that makes me feel great.
Speaker 7: You know, I don't know, it's sort of tough to answer.
Speaker 7: I mean, I try to, for the most part, work
Speaker 7: on projects that I feel have some sort of societal
Speaker 7: cultural impact, you know, that have something to say on
Speaker 7: a big macro level about something, you know, where I
Speaker 7: want to talk about something that I think is important
Speaker 7: to talk about. And and you know, for a few reasons. One,
Speaker 7: it's just as hard to write something that doesn't do
Speaker 7: that as it is to write something that does do that.
Speaker 7: So I find it a better use of my time
Speaker 7: to be working on something that I feel like is
Speaker 7: saying something important for me. That's what I feel like
Speaker 7: what art is for, although I think that there's lots
Speaker 7: of art that I enjoy that doesn't do that, and
Speaker 7: that's fine too. You know, some of it's just pure
Speaker 7: entertainment and it's funny and you know, scary, and there's
Speaker 7: not a big metaphor or something being told at the
Speaker 7: heart of it. But for me, that's what I personally
Speaker 7: really like to do. But I think there's something else
Speaker 7: at play too, which is I think it makes it
Speaker 7: a better movie or a better TV show or a
Speaker 7: better stage musical. I think it adds a level of
Speaker 7: depth and power to it that increases the entertainment value
Speaker 7: as well. So it's not just altruistic but I but
Speaker 7: for me, it's what I like. I just like art
Speaker 7: that does that. As an audience member too. You know,
Speaker 7: my favorite movie is or you know I you know,
Speaker 7: like when I mentioned Chinatown, that's one of my favorite
Speaker 7: movies of all the time, right, you know, Yeah, it's
Speaker 7: about corruption. You know, all the President's men, it's about corruption.
Speaker 7: I guess I like things about corruption. You know, these
Speaker 7: are just the different. So so one of the projects
Speaker 7: that I guess you know that I just had such
Speaker 7: a wonderful experience making, which is weird because it was
Speaker 7: so dark, but I had so much joy in making
Speaker 7: it was I did a limited series called Dope.
Speaker 1: Sick, Oh God, Michael Keaton.
Speaker 7: Michael Keaton, Yeah, I did a few of them, and
Speaker 7: so so I was incredibly kind of micromanaging hands on
Speaker 7: on that one, and I felt like it was a
Speaker 7: it was a massive piece of muck raking that I
Speaker 7: was exposing the actions of Purdue Pharma that was micromanaged,
Speaker 7: known being you know, it was owned by the Sackler family.
Speaker 1: Right, say it's a Sackler family's of Connecticut. Yeah, that's yeah, right.
Speaker 7: And it told the story of what happened beat by
Speaker 7: beat in a way that the general public, you know
Speaker 7: that had been in books, but that the general public
Speaker 7: didn't fully understand how the opioid crisis happened. And then
Speaker 7: it was totally manufactured by this company seeking profit. So
Speaker 7: that was that was That was a project I really
Speaker 7: loved making, and to be honest with you, was sort
Speaker 7: of you know, a little gun shy afterward of what
Speaker 7: to do next? Now, although I have written several things
Speaker 7: since then, but but you know, it was very much uh,
Speaker 7: you know, what do I do next? Because it was
Speaker 7: such an incredible experience for me. Yeah, yeah, making that show.
Speaker 7: I really loved it. And we shot it in the
Speaker 7: height of the pandemic, pre vaccine, you know, no vaccine
Speaker 7: in sight, so it was that was just an you know,
Speaker 7: there's so there were no executives there. The producers didn't
Speaker 7: come out. You know, one of our producers came out
Speaker 7: for a few days and he was like, I'm out
Speaker 7: so it was me and this line producer Jane bartle May,
Speaker 7: and we were just all alone on this set on
Speaker 7: a very very complicated production because it wasn't a bubble set.
Speaker 7: We had hundreds of principles, thousands of extras, you know,
Speaker 7: so it was it was a very intense, very intense
Speaker 7: process as well.
Speaker 3: Any any chance of going back to comedy.
Speaker 7: I try and infuse comedy and some of my dramas,
Speaker 7: you know, I don't know about doing a straight up comedy. Also,
Speaker 7: they're they're tough to get made now. It's it's a
Speaker 7: really challenging genre. I mean, Scary Movie had a huge
Speaker 7: opening weekend, so and it's doing really well, so maybe
Speaker 7: you know, and Jen Apato is making a big comedy
Speaker 7: with Glenn Powell right now, so you know, and.
Speaker 4: I hope that's really successful.
Speaker 7: So the comedy has been a tough racket for the
Speaker 7: last you know, four or five years, and so you've
Speaker 7: seen huge comedy figures or just you know, streaming TV
Speaker 7: and they're killing it and doing wonderful work.
Speaker 5: So yeah, well I want, I can't. We can't let
Speaker 5: this interview go without me mentioning that you collaborated with
Speaker 5: Lee Daniels again for a little show called Empire, which
Speaker 5: obviously became a phenomenon. Where did the idea of writing
Speaker 5: about the music industry come from?
Speaker 7: So, so that came from I was driving around Los
Speaker 7: Angeles and so I was back in LA and I
Speaker 7: was listening to the radio, which I never do in
Speaker 7: New York because you don't listen to the radio in
Speaker 7: New York, you know. You just listened to Spotify, and
Speaker 7: there was this news piece on the radio about Puffy
Speaker 7: Sean Comb's closing some huge deal, and I just thought, God,
Speaker 7: why isn't there some huge piece on hip hop? Hip
Speaker 7: Hop is so dynamic, you know, it's such a fascinating
Speaker 7: cultural force. And so that's how that started. I'm like,
Speaker 7: what about And then I thought what would I do
Speaker 7: if I were to do a hip hop story? And
Speaker 7: then you know, like sort of the recount, you know,
Speaker 7: anecdote I told you where the idea instantly came to
Speaker 7: my head. The same thing happened with Empire, where I
Speaker 7: instantly thought when I asked myself, what would I do?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 7: What about the line and winter in a hip hop empire?
Speaker 7: So the line of Winner is a play that's also
Speaker 7: a movie. That's about King Henry the Second and his
Speaker 7: three sons all battling who's going to take over his empire.
Speaker 7: And the whole play takes place when his wife that
Speaker 7: he keeps in prison, eleanorat Aquitaine, he lets her out
Speaker 7: for Christmas once a year. Yeah, he was such a
Speaker 7: good husband for Christmas and she just wrecks.
Speaker 5: Havoc as women do.
Speaker 4: Is that so? Literally? I thought, Oh, what about the
Speaker 4: wine and winter in a hip hop empire? Okay? So
Speaker 4: and then I just broke it down. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: so let's say you have jay Z.
Speaker 7: He's a little older, he has three sons, and his
Speaker 7: ex wife is in prison for selling drugs. But the
Speaker 7: drug money is what started the empire, and the movie
Speaker 7: would open with her getting out of prison. And that
Speaker 7: was literally what I thought. And then I thought, oh,
Speaker 7: that's kind of cool. You know I should I should
Speaker 7: tell Lee Daniels about this, because we were in post
Speaker 7: on The Butler post production, and all through post production
Speaker 7: Lee just kept saying, Danny, we're magic together, We're magic.
Speaker 4: Let's what do we doing next? We do next?
Speaker 7: And here I had an idea, So I and I
Speaker 7: worked out a little bit more and then I met
Speaker 7: with him and I pitched him, you know, this idea
Speaker 7: for a movie, and he called me a week later
Speaker 7: and he said, I can't stop thinking about it, but
Speaker 7: what if we did it as a TV show instead?
Speaker 7: And I said, you're absolutely right, because it's about a
Speaker 7: family at war with itself. Sounds like a TV show
Speaker 7: to me. And I said this could be historic, it
Speaker 7: could be like Black Dynasty. And he started screaming, yes, Darling,
Speaker 7: Black Dynasty, Darling, Yes, Darling. And so that was the
Speaker 7: beginning of a That was the beginning of Empire.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And I never I never thought it would get on
Speaker 7: the air. You know, the show, the movie The Butler
Speaker 7: came out and it was a really big hit, and
Speaker 7: I thought, oh, well, we could probably sell this. But
Speaker 7: I think this is a real long shot to get
Speaker 7: on the air because I don't think there had been
Speaker 7: a mainstream black soap opera right in nineteen seventies. Yep,
Speaker 7: you know. So I so, you know, we just we
Speaker 7: just took the project out and then sure enough it
Speaker 7: actually came together very quickly. And gotta you know, it
Speaker 7: was one of those things where it was the opposite
Speaker 7: of making the Butler, which took four years.
Speaker 4: It just it just happened really fast.
Speaker 7: And that was one where Lee and I were sort
Speaker 7: of kindred spirits and that we liked to do, you know,
Speaker 7: entertaining projects that also were infused with social issues that
Speaker 7: had something to say, and so Empire, you know, particularly
Speaker 7: season one was you know, it was all about homophobia,
Speaker 7: it was all about mental illness. You know, there were
Speaker 7: so many elements of the story that were really provocative
Speaker 7: subject matter for a broadcast soap opera, and we just
Speaker 7: leaned into it, and I think it really elevated the show.
Speaker 7: I think it's partly what made the show entertaining, because
Speaker 7: we had this bombastic hip hop musical, but also that
Speaker 7: was really in your face and social issues, and it
Speaker 7: added this sort of base of drama to it that
Speaker 7: I think, you know, just elevated the whole the whole thing.
Speaker 5: You are now focused on Broadway and musicals, another medium
Speaker 5: for you to conquer. What made you look to the stage.
Speaker 5: I mean, you've mentioned play, so you've obviously loved it,
Speaker 5: ye your whole life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So I had been I started as a stage actor,
Speaker 7: so I had been in fifty you know, plays and musicals,
Speaker 7: and what's impressive about all the musicals I've been in
Speaker 7: is have a terrible singing voice a disaster. I can
Speaker 7: dance a little bit. I'm when you cook, who moves
Speaker 7: you know? So I was, although now I can't do
Speaker 7: any of the above, but so I but I just
Speaker 7: so I love theater. I mean that was sort of that.
Speaker 7: That's how I that's where it all started for me.
Speaker 7: So when when I moved to New York, I wanted
Speaker 7: to see if I could get into the theater community
Speaker 7: and write a stage musical. And I was so it
Speaker 7: was something I was actively pursuing when I moved to
Speaker 7: New York. And then a friend of mine, who was
Speaker 7: a composer, lyricist, songwriter, he said, I have this idea
Speaker 7: about a musical about Galileo. And I knew a bit
Speaker 7: about Galileo because I had looked into doing a movie
Speaker 7: about Galileo. So and I instantly thought when he said
Speaker 7: I want to do a musical about Galleo, I just thought, well,
Speaker 7: that's a great idea. It should be a musical, it
Speaker 7: shouldn't be a movie. And I said, well, can I
Speaker 7: write it? And he went, oh, you want to write it?
Speaker 7: And I said yeah, I said, I haven't writen a
Speaker 7: musical before, but I'm such a fan of the genre
Speaker 7: and i've been in several I think I might be
Speaker 7: able to do it.
Speaker 4: And he said, okay.
Speaker 7: And that was fourteen years ago, and it's going to
Speaker 7: Broadway this November. Wow, fourteen years to get Galileo to Broadway.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 7: Please anyone listening or watching, please go see Galileo.
Speaker 5: Galileo on Broadway.
Speaker 7: And it's just called Galley.
Speaker 4: And the music's great.
Speaker 7: It's sort of kind of a kind of a rock score,
Speaker 7: but not purely a rock score, and and it's a
Speaker 7: powerful show because it's a powerful story. I mean, the
Speaker 7: Street of Galileo is a really epic, powerful tale.
Speaker 3: Well, you said you could you couldn't sing, But were
Speaker 3: you a musician at all?
Speaker 1: Do you play instruments?
Speaker 2: Do you?
Speaker 7: But I'm an anti musician. I have no musical ability whatsoever.
Speaker 7: When I was in musicals, I couldn't stay on pitch
Speaker 7: unless they plunked out my melody in the song. And
Speaker 7: even then I could barely stay on pitch, you know.
Speaker 7: I just had no feel for it. And then I
Speaker 7: took singing lessons for two years because I was so
Speaker 7: into it and and just you know, point you gotta
Speaker 7: it's just going because you know what, I don't think
Speaker 7: I'm gonna play for the NBA.
Speaker 4: I don't think. I don't think I got right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, you have entered such a cool phase of
Speaker 5: your career where you've been very successful in a lot
Speaker 5: of different fields and genres, and now you have complete
Speaker 5: control to pick and choose what comes next. So what
Speaker 5: is left? Is there anything haunting you that you still
Speaker 5: want to get done?
Speaker 7: Just this podcast, this one, this one, just want this
Speaker 7: to be well, You're welcome being haunted. No, this has
Speaker 7: been awesome, by the way. You know, there's so many
Speaker 7: It's kind of an endless list of things. And it's
Speaker 7: funny because I certainly can kind of pick or choose
Speaker 7: what I want to write. That doesn't always mean someone's
Speaker 7: gonna buy it, which sometimes they don't, but it does
Speaker 7: not mean it's going to get made. It is so
Speaker 7: hard anything made except for a few people and industry,
Speaker 7: and it's just this uphill battle. But I make it
Speaker 7: harder for myself by the things that I choose to do.
Speaker 7: You know, I sort of i've because I've gotten you know,
Speaker 7: a number of cool things made. I'm sort of now
Speaker 7: in a point and there have been times when I've
Speaker 7: worked on things for the paycheck right where I thought, Okay,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna do that one for the money, and I'm
Speaker 7: really trying to not do that anymore. You know, I
Speaker 7: feel like I'm getting older and I have less time
Speaker 7: to spend on I don't know, you know, maybe I'm
Speaker 7: being silly about it, but I but nonetheless, I'm just
Speaker 7: trying to be more really more laser focused on trying
Speaker 7: to do projects that I think I really love, that
Speaker 7: are really ambitious, and so that's what I'm doing. I mean,
Speaker 7: the stuff I'm writing, it's just a great slate of projects.
Speaker 7: I love them all. I think they're so cool and
Speaker 7: they're so hard to get made.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us about your favorite one, like the
Speaker 3: what's the one that right now, like you're all you're
Speaker 3: focused on, and it's, man, this, I need to get
Speaker 3: this this movie made.
Speaker 7: You know, I don't really have a favorite one. I'm
Speaker 7: just sort of whatever i'm working on that day. I'm
Speaker 7: writing a movie for Spielberg right now, which I love
Speaker 7: the project and I love working with Steven, and so
Speaker 7: that's exciting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's see.
Speaker 5: Hopefully we'll see that one someday. Hopefully that makes it.
Speaker 7: I wrote a movie for Scorsese a few years ago
Speaker 7: that was in pre production and then it didn't go.
Speaker 1: Oh no, and.
Speaker 7: It was I mean, we were deep in prep and
Speaker 7: all of a sudden it just didn't happen. I mean,
Speaker 7: that's just how hard this business is, right, that's.
Speaker 2: Crazy to me, Like, those are the two people that
Speaker 2: when you said like there are some people who can
Speaker 2: just get things, man, I'm like, really, those are the
Speaker 2: two that I would have thought.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think I think they can.
Speaker 7: The reason why and I can't go into the details
Speaker 7: on why the Scorsese movie didn't happen, but it just
Speaker 7: it was a real That was one of the bigger
Speaker 7: sucker punches I've had in a while, you know. And
Speaker 7: it's as we all know, right, it's nothing but disappointment
Speaker 7: in this business.
Speaker 4: And that was that was.
Speaker 5: Up there, that's very high up there.
Speaker 7: And Marty called me, you know, and was like, come
Speaker 7: to my office, and then and then you know, he
Speaker 7: told me he doesn't think it's happening, and I just, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 7: So it was a big bummer, but but an amazing
Speaker 7: life experience is getting to spend time with these guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, true, true.
Speaker 5: Honor well, Danny, that's very much how we feel about
Speaker 5: spending time with you today on this podcast. Thank you
Speaker 5: so much for taking so much time out of your
Speaker 5: very busy schedule. Your career and your success is so admirable.
Speaker 5: And yeah, thank you for giving us all this education
Speaker 5: today and telling us about what your life is like.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, it was a pleasure. And by the way,
Speaker 7: incredibly well researched. You hit all the all the all
Speaker 7: the all the top ones.
Speaker 5: We have great producers.
Speaker 4: Very good, they're very good.
Speaker 7: And and congrats again on your huge, successful podcast. And
Speaker 7: thank you again for being so nice.
Speaker 4: To me when I did Boy Means World.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's not a small deal to be an
Speaker 7: actor on basically your third show ever and to have
Speaker 7: the stars of the show be so lovely to you,
Speaker 7: and you know, Will, all my scenes were with you.
Speaker 7: It was so cool and I was just like, Will,
Speaker 7: this great guy.
Speaker 1: I just can't.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, absolutely absolutely so.
Speaker 3: Anytime you want to write like a Spielberg kind of
Speaker 3: film for me, we gotta do this.
Speaker 1: Please feel please feel free, Danny.
Speaker 7: Writing comedy, Me and You.
Speaker 5: Comedy, red Light District.
Speaker 1: I was never there.
Speaker 4: I was never in the red Light District.
Speaker 7: I don't know what Will was talking the first time
Speaker 7: he's thinking of Seth Green, that was that wasn't me?
Speaker 5: Thank you so much? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Is he the most successful guest star that has ever
Speaker 3: been on board?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you got Adam Scott, I know.
Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot of a lot of different
Speaker 3: people that in their fields.
Speaker 1: Spielberg and Marty Scorsese.
Speaker 2: It's like, and he's Stephen Stephen working with I'm like,
Speaker 2: that's I think is good.
Speaker 5: Top of that, Like you talk about, you know, he's
Speaker 5: had that level of success directing, he's had that level
Speaker 5: of success writing, and he's had that level of success acting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like, so so you're just the top at
Speaker 5: everything you do. It's unbelievable. Very cool, just very cool.
Speaker 5: What a great conversation I could I could literally talk
Speaker 5: to him, Yeah, for many more hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that he was He started just talking to
Speaker 3: Quentin Tarantino about movies. That's mine at nine years old,
Speaker 3: just gonna sit there and just have conversations with Quentin
Speaker 3: Tarantino about movies.
Speaker 5: I love thinking about a kid, a little kid who
Speaker 5: is like after schools, like, Mom, I'm going to the
Speaker 5: video store. And imagine the mom because he's like, my
Speaker 5: mom thought it was weird. Imagine if Adler was like, Mom,
Speaker 5: I'm going to the video store because this guy in
Speaker 5: his mid twenties likes talking to me about movies. I'd
Speaker 5: be like, Okay, I'm going to go there with you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I'm going to be involved in this conversation. Just
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's just what a cool cool souse.
Speaker 2: That's a cool meeting of the minds, right, Like I mean,
Speaker 2: because neither of them were successful at that point obviously,
Speaker 2: so they're just like but clearly there's something there, like
Speaker 2: there's some sort of passion for film that they both
Speaker 2: are exhibiting on a different ages and to connect and
Speaker 2: it's so cool.
Speaker 1: So cool, really amazing.
Speaker 5: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Speaker 5: Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Speaker 5: Instagram pod meets World Show. You can send us your
Speaker 5: emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com. And
Speaker 5: we've got merch.
Speaker 3: If this woman being one seventy two year old heartbeats
Speaker 3: away from the presidency doesn't make you want to buy merch.
Speaker 1: It should.
Speaker 3: Now most of you won't get that, but that's a
Speaker 3: line taken directly from Danny Strong. There you go.
Speaker 5: Wow, podmeets World Show dot Com. What what line was
Speaker 5: that is that from?
Speaker 1: It's from Game Change.
Speaker 3: There's a there's one of the one of the guys,
Speaker 3: it's one of the an actual footage of one of
Speaker 3: the biggest political analysts at the time saying if this
Speaker 3: woman being one seventy two year old heartbeat away from
Speaker 3: the presidency doesn't scare you, well it should. And it's
Speaker 3: like you remember watching the movie, just like, oh my god, yeah, crazy.
Speaker 5: Oh Man will send us out.
Speaker 1: We love you all. POD dismissed.