- 1 week ago
Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
Category
🎈
FunTranscript
00:01the research process on homeland was how I got specifically the idea for this show I knew I
00:09wanted to do something sort of set in the foreign policy world right but an ambassador came in to
00:14talk to the homeland staff and I like opened my notebook and wrote the first line five minutes
00:19in she is a show really yeah so if that hadn't happened this would not have yeah come up it
00:27was
00:27that kind of like fate yeah talking to her and you know she gave me a list of 40 ambassadors
00:33to call
00:33yeah and it was COVID so everybody was willing to get on the phone
00:44she sent an Ohio class submarine big enough to put the Poseidon on board stop you made a secret
00:50plan with somebody last night was it her or me we'll talk about it on the plane she's gonna want
00:57you involved I'm already involved you used me to sell a lie to the prime minister when the Brits
01:03find out they will consider this an act of war so will the Russians they won't find out but the
01:08Russians will assume it's the Brits if they think the Brits stole their weapon they will attack the
01:15United Kingdom Kate welcome to behind the lens it's been a long time coming and I am such an admirer
01:26of
01:26hers and particularly all of these shows she's done consistently in this incredible career here in
01:34television and now The Diplomat third season seven count them seven Emmy nominations including two for
01:43Deborah Kahn writing and outstanding drama series congratulations yeah it's exciting it feels good it's it's exciting to get the
01:55writing nomination I think this year
01:56too because that at your heart you are and uh I mean the you know outstanding drama is the one
02:08that feels like
02:09okay we all did this we all did it together and it's really nice to be kind of recognized as
02:16a company yeah
02:18but the writing one doesn't hurt no it doesn't it doesn't because did not feel bad I mean you are
02:26first of all the creator of this show and showrunner and EP and and this is a big deal for
02:32you because
02:32you've worked on shows where they're you're you're answering to showrunners and creators and other
02:38things and uh here this is your baby and look what's happening the first season got one Emmy nomination for
02:45Cary Russell second season got two nominations Cary Russell and the drama series this season seven
02:52nominations the trajectory is impressive we like the trends we like the trend yeah and we have this
03:02incredible cast and it's just great to see so many of them recognized um I want all of them to
03:12be
03:12recognized but it is nice it's not just Cary it's Allison Janney it's Rufus Sewell um Brad Whitford
03:19that's right Bradley Whitford I mean amazing yeah so it's that that just shows that the industry
03:27is catching up to the series yeah consistently and and so you're instead of getting stale and going the
03:35other direction you know it's happening this is what happened with Schitt's Creek by the way
03:40really that's what happened to Schitt's Creek nothing Emmy-wise for you know two years three
03:47years and then all of a sudden boom explodes and wins everything you know so it's it's good I was
03:53really happy to see Cary Russell who's so good in this win the SAG Actor Award this year it was
03:59it was
04:00it was so great and so deserved and she's she's such a lovely humble person yeah uh and it it's
04:11just it's
04:11nice to see that happen and she's an incredible leader of that company she's an you know number one
04:19on the call sheet sets the tone and she sets such an amazing tone in terms of work ethic and
04:26sense of
04:27fun and not taking it too seriously uh yeah it's great um listen to this uh career you've had it's
04:37it's uh
04:37one show after another that's an iconic show okay so Homeland writer executive producer from 2018 to 20
04:47did the final two seasons of that show the West Wing classic show writer producer uh started on the
04:55fourth season all the way to the end um 2002 to 2006 grades anatomy which apparently never going to end
05:02you were a writer producer 2006 to 2013 that was almost right when the show went on the air I
05:11mean
05:11you were right near the beginning of that I came in in season three season three yeah I I like
05:18to come
05:18in when it's already a massive hit yeah well you were still with the whole mcdreamy of it all and
05:26all
05:27of that so I mean it's really remarkable that that show would just go on and I remember Shonda Rhimes
05:34saying she already knew what the finale was going to be before this started you asked me talk about
05:40landing the plane on a series where do we go in that case Shonda Rhimes actually was public insane
05:46I won't tell you what it is but I know how it ends what she didn't know is it's never
05:50going to end
05:51yeah then what do you do then what do you do yeah then what do you do what happens if
05:56you planned
05:56this story and then you've told it and time goes on yeah amazing well you've won two writers guild
06:03awards my my guild uh the for the Supremes which is a great episode of the West Wing and a
06:10show
06:11I loved Fosse Burden I just love that that whole Gwen Burden Bob Fosse story um extraordinary uh
06:22limited series and such an amazing team Stephen Levinson yeah who I don't know if you've done this with
06:29Stephen Levinson but he's such a great guy and such a wonderful writer yeah uh it was just a joy
06:35to work
06:35on and vinyl um I know Terry Winter um and which was also a joy that was uh it didn't
06:43go on that long
06:44but I felt like it was it was a big canvas and it was like a big thick brush and
06:51primary colors and
06:52uh Martin Scorsese is no slouch to be uh uh he's the kid has got potential that's all I'm gonna
07:01say
07:01about him amazing um and okay so your production company that you have is called let's not turn
07:09this into a whole big production that's a mouthful first of all they have to fit all that on the
07:14card
07:14but that's a crazy name yeah yeah it's what my mom uh would say when I was being as a
07:26child
07:27overly dramatic right and uh you know eventually she figured out that me being overly dramatic was
07:36a profession not not a not a I mean it was an irritating childhood feature but it grew involved
07:45into right that's wild I know a fun life and have you lived that mantra has it not turned into
07:52a big production you just go and uh steady as they go uh I I try I was just talking
07:58about this with a
07:59friend of mine the the process of being a showrunner right is uh there are a lot of different departments
08:08and they all deal with their own thing and when it gets to you it's because it's a kind of
08:12a
08:12complicated problem yeah so you go through the day dealing with a series of pretty naughty problems
08:18and they just kind of keep coming one after the other and that has all of the kind of cognitive
08:26and
08:26physical properties of being in a crisis yeah and sometimes it is a crisis but a lot of times it's
08:35just Tuesday and that's what the job looks like right so I'm always trying to remind myself like
08:40this is this is actually what it looks like when it's going well like you actually wanted this life
08:48oh my you asked for it you worked really hard to get it and now it's here like it it's
08:54okay it just
08:55is harried yeah and not mistaking harried for catastrophic right is a kind of cognitive shift
09:07that I always have to remind myself to make when did you decide you wanted to be the boss be
09:13the
09:13showrunner the creator your own show because look I mentioned all this stuff you know there's definitely
09:19connections between homeland and the west wing to this show there's unquestionably connections some of it
09:24very obvious yeah you know you have allison janney and bradley whitford and they're getting emmy
09:30nominations again on a show together and you know you're responsible for for creating this so it's
09:36kind of cool but they're they're the seeds of all of this have to come some way from that absolutely
09:41absolutely absolutely uh and and from graze frankly i i i feel like i learned on graze how to
09:53like pivot quickly if the story doesn't work how do you uh how do you quickly take the pieces of
10:01it
10:02that did work and turn it into something else um without uh without kind of getting too attached to
10:09the thing that was yeah um and also knowing that like the the stories that don't survive will often
10:15come around a couple years later somewhere else you'd be able to work them in i was going to ask
10:21you that about the structure of a season and how you do it on a show as complex i think
10:28as this one is
10:30so do you start and and you know exactly where you're going at the end and then you just fill
10:35in
10:36the dots going along i always know where i'm going and i always hope to have the writer's room beat
10:45that
10:46right and they always have really so i think it's important to have a direction uh and to be committed
10:55to it and then be prepared to recognize when something is better than that like that's what
11:02you're hoping the process is right you're sitting in a room with like all the smartest people you
11:07know that you could convince to come and work with you and giving them raw material and uh you know
11:18hoping to be able to watch them grow something like watch the the collective grow something exactly
11:26and uh it has happened it keeps working it has happened thus far
11:35knock on our table here
11:40it's all good um so how did this idea then come about of the diplomat the world of ambassadors of
11:48diplomacy as indicated by the title you know and and foreign service as opposed to but the west wing
11:55really was was of you know domestic here i remember sitting in my office at the west wing
12:03uh as it was wrapping up as the series was coming to a close and thinking well i want to
12:09do this
12:10about the world um i want to do this about foreign policy and international relations and
12:19i feel like there was a sort of a the west wing dissected something that was mysterious and seemed
12:29ominous and i think was more accessible to a lot of people once they kind of learned what the nuts
12:34and
12:35bolts were and like what are those people like what are the jobs like what does a speechwriter do all
12:40day
12:40long like what does that even mean to be a policy person yeah and the unmasking of that i think
12:48made me and i it like so many people went to go work for the government after watching the west
12:54wing
12:54right yeah so it it made it accessible in a way that um nothing really had certainly for me before
13:04and i felt like the dynamics you know what you hear about people who are negotiating uh intractable
13:15problems with people from other cultures over and over again you hear like but then we sat down
13:23and we had a meal and we talked about our children and our grandparents and suddenly like
13:31you hear it again and again and again right so the people who do this know that there is a
13:37dynamic
13:37of like how do you go to a place how do you sit down with people you don't know in
13:42a culture you
13:42don't understand and and find either common ground or paths of communication like the the ability to do
13:51that seems like a magic trick it totally is and they never get the credit for it in a big
13:56way you
13:57know what they do they're out there you know we're living in such a weird place weird time now you
14:02know like because these are good people i can't even watch the west wing anymore and i have the set
14:09with the white house that they put out and the whole thing because of what's happening now with our
14:16government and everything else and all the people being fired and you know slashed and jobs and getting
14:23rid of the good people that your show talks about yeah we're losing yeah and i you know maybe that's
14:32i'm i'm hoping that things will turn around so that when you get to your end game yeah you know
14:38we're
14:38not going to have to have a sad sad state of affairs but yeah we're trying not we we did
14:45not hope to
14:46create a historical document right but it's tough in a time where people are looking at what's happening
14:53here and then and what the west wing was about and having that guy and yeah the one good thing
15:00about the diplomat many good things about it but you've brought back cj and josh and they're not cj and
15:07josh but but they're married yeah although i don't think happily for those who don't know she's the
15:16president and he's the first gentleman it's been a huge gift having them come on to the show um i
15:24was
15:24nervous about it with when it was allison i was terrified to be writing for allison and was i going
15:32to
15:32find something that was going to kind of live up to her and what she can do yeah uh and
15:40then
15:43brad suddenly there was this role that was going to be a little tiny little role and then we thought
15:48but what if it was more than that and it was like a joke at first it's like oh we
15:54should get brad to do
15:54it yeah because he's up for guest actor actually this year not yeah but that didn't then in season
16:02four he's a regular right he's a regular yeah so it was um
16:10it was scary having both of them together and i
16:16you know i i learned how to write from aaron sorkin i had that that was an amazing experience
16:22being on that television show and it inspired so much and i i just didn't want to be like
16:30pulling too much from it that would make the our show kind of just be looking for that yeah and
16:38i should have just trusted like they're going to come on and they're going to make totally new
16:42characters and they're going to do something with their 20-year personal relationship of having worked
16:48together and known each other over decades that made it like add water marriage between these two
16:55characters that i'm sure good actors can act that with strangers but it was just so it just like
17:05clicked into place right away and seeing the two of them build this relationship based on like so much
17:12raw material that was already there which is great wonderful they're they're pros they are right you
17:20know they don't have all those emmys for no good reason you know no it starts to look like if
17:25there's some sense behind them getting off
17:29that's it and to have carrie russell who's just so great and my wife's personal favorite is hal
17:35played by rufus sewell he is a lot of people's personal favorite like she knows
17:40he's a bad boy but she loves him recognized yeah isn't that great i know i mean that that character
17:46can develop into you know this kind of a popular thing you know it's so i'm really impressed with
17:53the level of research you must do and everything into this world it's it's extraordinary and it this
17:59is such a dense kind of story you're telling it unfolds you know aircraft carriers and then submarines
18:06and and you really go in deep in in a lot of ways and i mean you just have to
18:13do a lot of research
18:14are you just super smart or no i'm not super smart but i know how to talk to people who
18:19are who are
18:20i finally got over asking stupid questions oh that's interesting uh i think like that's my greatest
18:28achievement is getting over my fear of asking stupid questions and uh once i dispensed with that
18:36like people like to talk about what they do um and what these people do is fascinating so it it
18:44makes
18:44it pretty easy but the research process on homeland was how i got specifically the idea for this show i
18:53knew i wanted to do something sort of set in the foreign policy world right but an ambassador came in
18:58to talk to the homeland staff and i like opened my notebook and wrote the first line five minutes in
19:04and she is a show really yeah so if that hadn't happened this would not have yeah come up it
19:12was
19:12that kind of like fate yeah and wow talking to her and you know she gave me a list of
19:2040 ambassadors to
19:21call yeah and it was covet so everybody was willing to get on the phone you know it made made
19:27a difference
19:27a lot of people a lot of people a lot of people were accessible who who wouldn't otherwise be yeah
19:32and we talked to a lot of people we also have people who we have uh consultants who read every
19:39outline and read every script and talk through every idea they're there for us on the phone anytime we need
19:45so that um we're you know we're certainly not queuing 100 to reality but my ask of them is
19:59tell me when we're doing something that makes you want to throw your shoe at the tv
20:05and we will do things that are incorrect but i want to have chosen that yeah and have a narrative
20:13need
20:13for it i don't want to just gratuitously get your whole world wrong exactly you know it's really
20:20interesting um the way this has been cast the way these characters are evolving and you know it's the
20:30kind of thing that makes a great television series to me is you know because you don't want to see
20:35the
20:35same thing week after week after week i i could not tell you where this show will wind up
20:41you know it's interesting i really thought like homeland was the model going in where you could
20:48go to a different country and a different cast of characters with your leads yeah and
20:56kind of reset the narrative obviously there was a there was a macro narrative on that show right but
21:04there were these different journeys into the different countries and the dynamics uh of
21:12intelligence work there and i thought we were going to do that i was like here's the deal we're going
21:17to start in london and every year we're going to go to a different country right but then
21:24we're telling these stories where one thing happens and we want to understand it from our point of view
21:32but our point of view is like millions of people right like americans don't agree on anything why do
21:38we think there's like an american point of view there isn't any and then there's a another country
21:43well they also don't agree with each other you know so to take enough time narratively to get like four
21:51different points of view on the american perspective right and for in in this case it was uh it was
21:56the
21:57british perspective getting a series of different points of view on the british side and seeing how
22:03all of those things interacted meant that we just didn't get through a lot of narrative yeah we kept
22:11breaking story for the season and then finding that we had to keep dumping big swaths of it because we
22:22were getting through it in a much more granular way than we had anticipated and in order to kind of
22:30keep
22:30the integrity of that yeah you couldn't like then also you know declare war on canada yeah you know
22:39you had to stick with this one aircraft carrier well that's what i mean i mean it's very you know
22:45it's
22:45very detailed and and what you do um but there is that kind of fun stuff too like you know
22:52selling
22:52nuclears and you know all of them yeah that that heart pounding stuff that goes on on these shows
23:00well netflix is a great place to work huh they let you do it i've had a great experience with
23:06them yeah
23:06they uh my executives there have been fantastic um jenny how has been with the show all the way through
23:16as even though she was and she's in a bigger and bigger role every day yeah uh and
23:24carrie russell was her idea allison jenny was her idea wow um she has she she kind of swoops in
23:31every
23:31now and then and like drops a piece of gold and then goes off the world somewhere else wow and
23:39then um
23:40um sahar vahedi and and tara flynn are the executives who are sort of in the trenches with
23:48us all the time yeah and i feel like they want to do they they want to make the show
23:57successful
23:57right but they want to make the show that i want to make successful yeah and so i feel like
24:03they
24:04kind of have an eye on they're like sort of the godparents who read the scripts and watch the cuts
24:14and say you said you wanted to do this you're not doing it anymore is that intentional like is that
24:21a pivot that you wanted to make yeah or is there a course correction that needs to happen so uh
24:27yeah
24:30it's it's so great well i don't know how many years you're going to do this show but uh i'm
24:36sort
24:37of curious as to once you're done where you want to go next because this has been a very interesting
24:42kind of lineup of a career so far i'm curious about that too yeah yeah we'll see yeah no i'm
24:51not like uh
24:51i'm not a person who's like oh well and then i want to do the show about the recycling plant
24:56and
24:56then i want to do the show about yeah i i don't have a lot of ideas a lot of
25:01big ideas i have a
25:02lot of like teeny tiny little ideas yeah yeah uh for moments but uh falling in love with a world
25:11like
25:11i feel like you've got to fall in love with the world because yeah anytime i've ever had anything
25:18that like i wanted to say with the show like anything that i you know some brilliant line that i
25:24heard from an ambassador and feel like wouldn't it be great if the world knew that and like i
25:28build a story around it and find a way to weave it in the sea it never ever survives okay
25:33like that
25:35piece always ends up out cutting room floor cutting room floor yeah and so
25:42you you have to just be finding a world that you're kind of interested in living
25:47in yeah and then like letting the garden grow wow uh because you can't control it that that tightly
25:56because you're going to get directors coming in who have a vision and actors coming in who
26:01craft the character in a way that you didn't expect and like for me i you know i was not
26:08a novelist i was
26:09not like a writer who liked being alone in a room and writing right i just like wanted to put
26:14on a play
26:14you know so that part of it for me is really fun like knowing i can lean on other people
26:20in the process
26:21to feed it and shape it and try and bring in as much from everybody else as is possible
26:32while still well my opinion you know so much about what ambassadors should do
26:38that i think you should be the next ambassador somewhere and i'm suggesting it to whoever our
26:46next president is check out debra khan check out the diplomat you could do a lot worse
26:52i accept okay i accept oh all right we'll hold you to it thank you so much for joining us
27:01on
27:01behind the list so much it's a pleasure meeting you i've watched you for so many years oh my god
27:10you
Comments