Christopher Soto, the founder of the Center for California Literature.
Los Angeles is, historically, a haven for writers and poets. In its city sprawl and California light, L.A. has fostered legendary writers from Joan Didion to Octavia E. Butler, created countercultural literary communities like the Watts Writers Workshop, and inspired Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.”
Despite Los Angeles’ contributions to a rich literary history, the literary community struggles to stay rooted in place as writers’ spaces and financial support move elsewhere.
Take the National Endowment for the Humanities, which canceled over $10.2 million in humanities and arts funding to already-awarded projects in California. Or the devastating Pasadena and Altadena wildfires that decimated historic libraries and cultural archives.
For writers across the city, L.A. can feel like shaky literary ground. That’s where Christopher Soto has stepped in.
The Center for California Literature is Soto’s hopeful initiative for connecting writers across L.A. through readings, conversations and advocacy. In a period in which writers feel unsupported and concerned about the state of the arts, Soto says that the center is needed in L.A. more than ever.
The inspiration came about after Soto was commissioned by the L.A. Times to write a piece titled “Writers on Loving and Leaving Los Angeles,” about writers having to move out of L.A. due to a lack of opportunities. He says right as he was working on the article, it was decommissioned. The reason? The books editor who would have worked on it was laid off and subsequently had to leave L.A.
“It was so ironic. That article and the research I did for it really led me to see that there is a need for a structural solution. People shouldn’t have to choose between having a thriving arts life and having to leave their home,” Soto says.
Soto knew that waiting would only exacerbate the literary loss; if he wanted change, he said he needed to make it. He reached out to inspiring writers in his community for their support and found that people were searching for a place to gather and organize themselves. Roxane Gay, renowned author of the New York Times bestselling novels “Bad Feminist” and “Hunger,” is one of the center’s biggest supporters.
“There’s a lot of stories that literature is dead, or that literary communities are dying, but clearly they’re not. They’re alive and they’re well and we have to remember that,” Gay says. “Writing is a very solitary endeavor, but while we might write alone, we don’t exist as writers in the public sphere alone. We need community, whether it’s people to share our work with, people who understand our frustrations, or having people who will read our work.”
Soto and Gay imagine a future where the center is shaped by writers’ needs. With community as a centerpoint, the organization aims to serve poets and authors by giving them a platform to share their work, attend workshops and create connections among peers.
Gay joined a collective of notable speakers the night of the center’s official launch, which took place at Central L.A. start-up gallery Giovanni’s Room and was co-hosted with the Los Angeles Review of Books. Outside the launch, pupusas were sizzling and poets and book nerds stood in line for a bite or a read from a nearby Libros con Alma pop-up book cart.
The long line approaching the door was full of chatter and reunited friends, who stepped into the lobby and talked closely over the music mixed by DJ Izla. Although the gallery itself filled up quickly, growing warm and pupusa-scented, the energy was one of excitement and anticipation for people’s favorite authors and for a new beginning in the L.A. writers world.
In a corner of the gallery, in front of a paper backdrop and lush potted plants, Grammy-nominated contemporary poet aja monet stepped before the mic to open the night. She was assertive the moment she spoke, clarifying the pronunciation of her name (ah-ja) and simply introducing poems from her time as a political organizer in Florida.
As monet delved into her work, her voice was serious, contained and bursting with emotion. With every stanza, she settled into a musical rhythm that was satiric and bitingly honest. Her poems ranged from swampy oppressive memories of Florida to the nature of poetry to musings on hypocritical activists.
“A poem can rinse, reflect and reveal us / I give thanks for the intimacy of planting poems / the living that brings poems into being,” monet read.
The crowd hummed and swayed in agreement and cheered in recognition of the feelings that she captured. After her moving set, Viet Thanh Nguyen picked up right where she left off. Nguyen is best known for his debut Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer,” which discusses the Vietnam War’s impact on the U.S. through the lens of a Vietnamese American immigrant who navigates Hollywood social politics, integration and racial tension.
In the section Nguyen read that night, the main character challenges stereotypes of Vietnamese characters in a film, an attempt that is quickly shut down by a Hollywood executive. Nguyen chuckled as he finished — “The Sympathizer” was adapted into an HBO show, placing Nguyen into the very Hollywood spaces he criticized. He acknowledges this and affirmed that “after spending a lot of time in Hollywood, nobody has disputed this characterization.”
Author, actor and television writer Ryan O’Connell added to the conversation with a lengthy reading of “The Slut Diaries,” explorations of rediscovering sexuality in his 30s as a gay man with cerebral palsy. His reflections on sex and dating through the lens of gay and disabled identity, and the hilariously vulgar encounters that ensued, drew hoots and hollers from the crowd.
Camille Hernandez, a writer and poet laureate of Anaheim, was among O’Connell’s laughing audience.
“I love being from here, and I want to lift up the literature from here. It is really beautiful that you could be from some place with such a rich literary heritage, but it’s such a travesty that not many people know about it, so efforts like this are so important to uplifting writers like us, who can be funny and honest like Ryan O’Connell or inspiring like Roxane Gay once they have the community to support them,” Hernandez says. “We deserve this.”
As Gay closed the night, her brief statement encapsulated the promising energy of the center’s first gathering.
“We deserve the material and creative resources to practice our craft. We deserve an abundant community that is mindful of the past and active and engaging the present and able to imagine a radical and expansive future,” Gay said. “And so I hope that everyone here will join us in that work.”
As authors, poets and hopeful writers filtered out into the crisp night, conversations abounded about what was next. Some were excited for an afterparty rumored to feature Erykah Badu. Others projected a next reading presided by an even bigger crowd, feeding the hunger for the literary arts that the center aims to feed. Whatever comes next, the literary community of L.A. has a new home to gather in.
On the day that Michele Mulroney was elected president of the Writers Guild of America West, writers won a significant victory. After writers protested ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for days, the network brought the late-night show back on air.
“Our currency is words and stories, and the freedom to be able to express ourselves is really important, and so our members could not feel more strongly about this and of course we will be speaking out and lobbying and working in any way we can to protect this fundamental right,” Mulroney said in a recent interview.
Mulroney, formerly the WGA West vice president and a writer on the 2017 “Power Rangers” movie and 2011 film “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” enters her new role at a time when the industry is facing significant challenges.
Those include major consolidation in the industry as studios look to cut costs and move TV and film production overseas because of hefty financial incentives. The climate has been tough for many writers who have struggled to find work after enduring a 148-day strike in 2023. After the walkout, writers did secure groundbreaking protections for AI in contracts, but they are still confronting AI models ripping off their work without compensation.
As the guild gears up for contract negotiations next year, Mulroney said she plans to build on earlier gains in AI and other areas, and aims to convince the studios to pay more for WGA’s health plans amid rising healthcare costs.
“It’s going to need some support from the companies,” Mulroney said. “Their drastic pullback in production and employment led to a pretty severe industry contraction that has contributed to some strain on our funds. We’ll be looking to them to help fix that with us.”
When asked about whether she thinks there is appetite among WGA’s members for another strike, Mulroney said “it’s way too early to speculate about that.”
“It’s really hard out there in the industry for all industry workers and for many of our members, but our members have shown time and again that when they have to, when it’s necessary, we are ready to fight for the contract we deserve,” Mulroney said.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment, but in an earlier statement said its members look forward to working with her “to address key issues for WGA writers and to strengthen our industry with fair, balanced solutions.”
A studio-side source who was not authorized to comment said that the WGA health plan faces “complex financial challenges that require a balanced approach to align with market norms and ensure long-term stability.”
To keep costs down, studios have been moving more productions to the U.K. and other countries offering significant financial incentives, shrinking job opportunities for entertainment industry workers in Southern California. Some have had to move out of state to look for jobs.
Unions including the WGA lobbied for California to boost annual funding for its film and TV tax credit program and succeeded in raising that amount to $750 million, from $330 million.
“This was a real bright spot of good news in an otherwise really bleak and tough time for our industry,” Mulroney said in an interview last week. “Now there needs to be federal action on this, too, so we’ll continue working with our allies to try to keep production in the U.S., and specifically in Hollywood, in Southern California.”
Mulroney declined to comment on President Trump’s renewed threat to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films.
Another big worry for writers has been artificial intelligence. The WGA has been outspoken about wanting studios to sue AI companies that writers say are taking their scripts for training AI models without their permission. Earlier this year, studios including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery took legal action against AI companies over copyright infringement.
“We were glad to see some of the studios come off the sidelines and file lawsuits to protect their copyright from these AI companies that are stealing our members’ work to build their models,” she said. “I think we will probably be dealing with AI and wrangling that for the rest of our lives, right?”
Mulroney, 58, ran uncontested, receiving 2,241 votes or 87% of the votes cast, according to the union. CBS series “Tracker” writer and co-executive producer Travis Donnelly became vice president, and TV comedy show “Primo” executive producer Peter Murrieta became secretary-treasurer.
Mulroney grew up in the U.K., the daughter of a factory worker and a janitor. She’s served on the union’s board of directors for four terms and as an officer for six years prior to being elected president.
Mulroney’s background was in theater and theater directing, but she had always dabbled in writing. In her 20s, she worked in development for a British TV and film studio where she read a lot of scripts, which led her to think, “Maybe I could write one of those things.”
Her first writing gig was for a PBS children’s show called “Wishbone,” about a Jack Russell terrier who imagines himself as a character in literary classics. She’s been a screenwriter for 25 years and is based in West Hollywood with her husband and writing partner, Kieran.
Mulroney succeeds Meredith Stiehm, who led the union during the 2023 strike.
Kimmel coming back on air was a parting gift to Stiehm, said Mulroney, adding that the union is still watching the situation.
“We’re still monitoring,” Mulroney said. “I somehow doubt this is the last instance we’re going to see where censorship and free speech are going to be a topic.”
In Hollywood, something shifted in the six days between the time that Walt Disney Co. dropped “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “indefinitely,” following Kimmel’s comments about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and the late-night comedian’s return.
For many, Kimmel’s rebound appears to be a win for free speech and a testament to the power of boycotts against powerful corporate interests. However, for other writers, particularly comedy scribes, who view the events that transpired in the darkest, most McCarthy-esque terms, the fight over comedy may have just begun.
“There’s fear and outrage at the same time,” said Emmy-winning comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who for years was the head writer for the Oscars and “Hollywood Squares” and has written jokes for comics including Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.
“Ever since ‘woke’ started before COVID and George Floyd, comedy became a minefield. And then, last week, it became a nuclear garden,” he said.
Indeed, the day after Disney announced Kimmel’s return, President Trump told reporters that TV networks critical of him are an “arm of the Democrat Party,” and said, “I would think maybe their license should be taken away.” Angered that Kimmel was returning to the airwaves, he took to social media to threaten ABC and called for the late-night scalps of NBC’s Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon.
Such ominous threats have cast a pall in writers rooms across the industry.
One showrunner currently developing multiple series, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that many of her colleagues have started to become more cautious about incorporating certain elements in their stories, something they didn’t do before. Others are having discussions privately rather than posting them on social media.
Several writers and showrunners who have worked on late-night shows, sitcoms and films declined to share their thoughts on the matter with The Times, citing fear of reprisals.
The cascade of anxiety comes at a time when Hollywood continues to struggle to get on solid footing after the pandemic lockdown, the dual labor strikes in 2023 and cost-cutting across the media landscape.
“Artists are already very concerned about our consolidated media ecosystem. A small shrinking number of gatekeepers control what Americans watch on TV, and these conglomerates are now being coerced into censoring us all by an administration that demands submission and obedience from what should be a free and independent media,” said television writer Meredith Stiehm, who is the outgoing president of Writers Guild of America West, during a rally in support of Kimmel outside the El Capitan Theatre last week.
“This cowardice has not only put the livelihoods of 20 writers, crew members and performers in limbo,” she said. “It has put our industry and our democracy in danger.”
Political satire has long held a mirror to human folly while challenging power with humor.
More than 2,400 years ago, Greek playwright Aristophanes’ biting, satirical comedies such as “Lysistrata” ridiculed Athens leaders during the Peloponnesian War. Many of the English nursery rhymes that are now viewed as sweet stories of princesses and fairies began appearing during the 14th century as veiled swipes at the monarchy. Rather than a lovely children’s melody, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is said to be a critique of the wool tax imposed by King Edward I.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the brilliant satirical singer-songwriter (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer skewered taboo topics of the day such as the Catholic Church, militarism and racial conflict in America through parody songs.
In the early 1970s, George Carlin’s controversial monologue about the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” set off a landmark Supreme Court case that broadened the definition of indecency on public airwaves and set a free speech precedent for comedians.
Every presidential campaign season has become must-see TV on “Saturday Night Live.” Think Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush, Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin or Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.
But now the political climate has changed drastically.
“It’s a dark time for comedians and, by extension, for all Americans,” said a statement put out by hundreds of comedians under the banner Comedians4Kimmel in the wake of his ouster.
“When the government targets one of us, they target all of us. They strike at the heart of our shared humanity. They strip away the basic right every person deserves: to speak freely, question boldly, and laugh loudly.”
What’s different now is that where once market and cultural forces placed pressures on comedians — see Ellen DeGeneres and Roseanne Barr — the squeeze is now coming directly from the government. (Barr, who was fired from her eponymous reboot in 2018 after she made a racist tweet about senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, has accused ABC of having a “double standard.”)
“That’s just called censorship,” said Vilanch. “This is the government actually intervening in the most capricious way.”
It’s not just late-night comedy that is deemed offensive, Trump has made public a rolling perceived enemies list, and he is going after them with vigor.
Just last week, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted, and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said that she would “absolutely target” people who engaged in “hate speech.”
This month, Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion, claiming that the paper and four of its journalists had engaged in a “decades-long pattern … of intentional and malicious defamation.” A federal judge dismissed the suit. In July, he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion, claiming defamation. That suit is ongoing.
What’s deemed funny or offensive has shifted through the years. Comedy writers have long pushed that line and adjusted. But after the cultural wars and trigger warnings of recent years, where writers adapted to audience sensitivities, they are now facing an era where offending the president and his administration itself is considered illegal.
”So much was going on before,” said a veteran late-night TV writer. “It just feels like another brick in the wall of the world that I have worked in for the past 35 years no longer exists.”
The uproar over Kimmel began after the comedian seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.
Last Tuesday, after Kimmel came back on air with a defiant defense of free speech, several writers sighed a breath of relief, seeing his return as a victory.
“It would have been scary if this actually ended in his firing,” said the former late-night writer.
But the culture and free speech wars are not over.
“I think [comedy] will get sharper,” said Vilanch. “It will get sharper and probably meaner because people are angry, and they want to fight back. And that’s always what happens when you try and shut people down. They come back stronger.”
More than 100 members of the Writers Guild of America East and their supporters jammed the sidewalk in front of Walt Disney Co.’s Lower Manhattan headquarters Friday to protest ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
The late-night program has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced in a terse statement that it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The move followed decisions by two major owners of ABC affiliates to drop the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Members of the union, which represents TV and film writers, marched with signs calling the move an attack on free speech and accusing Walt Disney Co. executives of lacking backbone.
Among the messages: “Disney and ABC Capitulation and Censorship,” “Always Be Cowards,” “Absolute Bull— Cowards” and “Disney/ABC Bows to Trump Extortion.” There were chants of “Bring Jimmy back.”
The demonstration reflected anger building in the creative community over Kimmel’s removal, which Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr called for during a podcast interview that aired on Wednesday.
On Monday’s show, Kimmel seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican. He said MAGA supporters “are desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The remarks prompted a widespread conservative backlash on social media, including demands for Kimmel’s firing. Kimmel, who has expressed sympathy for Kirk’s family online, has not yet commented on his removal.
President Trump has also said that late-night hosts who are critical of his administration should be banished from the airwaves. Trump cheered ABC’s decision, as he did the recent cancellation of CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
Kimmel remains off the air and has had discussions with Disney executives about how to bring the show back on the air. But his future with the network remains uncertain.
Greg Iwinski, a late-night TV writer and council member of the WGA East, said the threat of pulling a broadcast license is a dangerous weapon that can be used on any program and ultimately chill free expression.
“You can use that for any broadcast network anywhere,” Iwinski said. “Any late-night show, daytime show, game show or sitcom — any show you don’t like. Everything is under threat that is on network TV.”
Iwinski warned that ABC’s actions will only invite the Trump administration to exert more control over the broadcast airwaves.
“What if a relationship on a drama doesn’t fit the values of Donald Trump?” he said. “What if it’s not racially representative of what he thinks — ‘Well, we’re going to pull your licenses’ — all of that is on the table.”
The WGA East members were joined by local government officials supporting their cause, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Statements of protest over ABC’s moves are coming from all corners of the entertainment industry, including from Michael Eisner, the former Disney chief who preceded Bob Iger’s first run in the job.
“Where has all the leadership gone?” Eisner wrote Friday on X. “If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?”
Eisner said ABC’s action is “yet another example of out of control intimidation” by the FCC.
“Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’” Eisner added. “By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
Disney did not immediately comment on Eisner’s post.
Damon Lindelof, the Emmy-winning co-creator of the hit ABC series “Lost,” said in an Instagram post Wednesday that he would no longer work for Disney or ABC unless Kimmel is reinstated.
A major Republican voice weighed in on Friday as well, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) saying the FCC chair’s threats are “dangerous as hell” and compared them to organized crime tactics.
Carr, who has been in lockstep with Trump on matters concerning the media, has said that stations have the right to pull the show if owners believe the content conflicts with community standards.
“Broadcast TV stations have always been required by their licenses to operate in the public interest — that includes serving the needs of their local communities,” he wrote Thursday on X. “And broadcasters have long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities’ values. I am glad to see that many broadcasters are responding to their viewers as intended.”
When you gather the creative minds behind six of the most entertaining and acclaimed shows of 2025, the conversation is destined for narrative intrigue. The writers who took part in this year’s Envelope Roundtable touched on social media blackouts, release strategies, runaway production, even the wonder of Bravo’s “The Valley.” How’s that for a twist?
This panelists are Debora Cahn of “The Diplomat,” about an American foreign service officer thrust into a thorny web of geopolitics; R. Scott Gemmill of “The Pitt,” which focuses on front-line healthcare workers inside a Pittsburgh hospital during a single 15-hour shift; Lauren LeFranc of “The Penguin,” a reimagining of the Batman villain Oswald Cobblepot as a rising Gotham City kingpin, Oz Cobb; Craig Mazin of “The Last Of Us,” an adaptation of the popular video game series about survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic; Seth Rogen of “The Studio,” a chronicle of the film industry’s mercenary challenges as seen through the eyes of a newly appointed studio chief; and Jen Statsky of “Hacks,” about an aging comic’s complicated relationship with her outspoken mentee.
Read on for excerpts from our discussion.
The 2025 Writers Roundtable: Lauren LeFranc, left, Jen Statsky, Craig Mazin, Seth Rogen, Debora Cahn and R. Scott Gemmill.
Lauren, you’re making a series that is tethered to source material that’s really beloved by fans. I’m curious what the conversations are like with DC, or “The Batman” director Matt Reeves, when your series has to fit into a larger canon.
LeFranc: I knew where Oz ended in “The Batman.” I knew my job was to arc him to rise to power and achieve a certain level of power by the end. Outside of that, I was given carte blanche and I could just play. And that’s the most exciting thing to me. We both were in agreement that this should be a character study of this man. I love digging into the psychology of characters.
So many people were like, “Do you feel pressure? What’s this like for you?” And I was like, “Am I numb as a human?” I don’t feel that kind of pressure. I feel pressure to tell a great story and to write interesting, engaging characters that are surprising and to kind of surprise myself. I’m not the first type of person you would think who would get an opportunity to write a guy like Oz, necessarily, and to write into this type of world. I think there’s been a lot of crime dramas and a lot of genre shows or features that don’t have the lens that I have on a man like that. So I took that seriously. And I also really wanted to pepper the world with really interesting, complicated women as well. I felt like, in some of these genres, sometimes those characters weren’t as fully formed.
Craig Mazin of “The Last of Us.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Craig, you know what it’s like working with source material, and we knew the fate of fan-favorite character Joel, who dies in Part 2 of the video game. Tell me about your experience of the death of Joel in the video game — playing it — and how that informed what you wanted to see out of Season 2 and where exactly it would fall.
Mazin: I was upset when it happened, but I wasn’t upset at the game. It was, narratively, the right thing to do. If you make a story that is about moral outcomes and the consequences of our behavior, and somebody goes through a hospital and murders a whole lot of people, and kind of dooms the world to be stuck in this terrible place, and takes away the one hope they have of getting out of it, yeah, there should be a consequence. If there’s no consequence or even a mild consequence, then it’s a bit neutered, isn’t it? It made sense to me and it made sense that if we were going to tell the story, that was the story we were going to tell. Sometimes people do ask me, “Was there any part of you that was like, ‘Hey, let’s not have Joel die?’” No. That would be the craziest thing of all time.
How quick were you watching the real-time reaction from fans?
Mazin: I don’t do that.
Rogen: But how do you get validation? How do you know to feel good?
Statsky: Can you teach me not to look?
Mazin: I think I’m looking for validation. Really what I’m looking for is to repeat abusive behavior toward me — that’s what my therapist says. For all of our shows, millions and millions and millions of people are watching these around the world. And if 10,000 people on Twitter come at you for something, that is a negligible number relative to the size of the audience, but it sure doesn’t feel [like it]. So I made a choice. The downside is I do miss the applause. Who among us doesn’t love applause? I’ve just had to give that feeling up to not feel the bad feelings.
Seth Rogen of “The Studio.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
With a show like “The Studio” or “Hacks,” does it feel cathartic to lampoon the industry or show the ridiculous nature of the business and the decision–makers sometimes?
Rogen: What’s funny is, as we were writing the show, we never used the word “satire.” To us, the goal was not to make fun of any element of the industry — honestly, it’s mostly based on myself and my own fears, as someone who’s in charge of things, that I’m making the wrong choices, and that I’m prioritizing the wrong things, and that I’m convincing my idols to work with me and then I’m letting them down, and I’m championing the wrong ideas. That I’m making things worse and that I’m giving notes to people that are detrimental rather than exciting, and that I’m mitigating my own risks rather than trying to bolster creative swings. That was the startling moment where I realized I personally relate in my darkest moments to a studio executive more than I do a creative person in the industry in many ways. And that was kind of the moment where I was like, “Oh, that’s a funny thing to explore.”
Jen Statsky of “Hacks.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Statsky: But it’s interesting when you put it like that, because of the part of showrunning where you become management and you’re much more on that business side [of] running a show. We’re executives in many ways too.
Mazin: I have a question for you. How do you deal with the fact that — as we kind of move through things as writers, we are always comrades, we are colleagues of people. When you become a showrunner, you don’t notice it at first, but there is this barrier between you and everybody, and one day you wake up and realize, “Oh, it’s because they look at me and see someone who can fire them, who can elevate them, who can change their lives for better or worse.” And you start to feel very, very lonely all of a sudden.
Statsky: Oh, there’s a group text you’re not on.
Mazin: And it’s about you.
Statsky: It’s about you. It’s such a hard part of this job that I struggle with very much because as writers, we are empathetic to others, and we are observing the world, and we are trying to commune with people as best as possible. But then you do this thing and you’re like, “I like writing, I like writing, I like writing.” And they’re like, “Great. Now here’s a 350-person company to manage and you become a boss.” I struggle with it a lot, the thinking of people’s feelings, thinking of people’s emotions, wanting to be in touch with them, but then also, at the end of the day, having to sometimes make really difficult management-type decisions that affect people’s livelihood. I find it very challenging. I need your therapist for that as well.
Debora Cahn of “The Diplomat.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Debora, you have a character, a female vice president, who’s been doing the bidding of an older president whose capabilities have been called into question, and spoiler alert, she becomes president. The season launched a week or so before the 2024 presidential election. What was that like? And how is it writing a political drama now versus when you were working on “The West Wing”?
Cahn: Back in “The West Wing” days, we would have people come in, people who worked in the field, and we would say, “What are you worried about that we don’t know to worry about yet?” And that was a pretty good barometer for getting an interesting story that was likely to still be topical in a year. That’s all you want, really, is to not be completely lapped by the news when you’re trying to tell a story that’s not going to go to air for a year. Now, we’re released from any boundaries of any kind. There’s nothing that we can do that’s more absurd than what’s happening. Suddenly, we’re doing a documentary, or we’re doing a balm for what you wish government was like or what you vaguely remember it was like. But we’re trying to stay in the headspace of, “What is the foreign policy community going to be thinking about in the next two years?” and trying to find something that will continue to feel relevant. But more and more it’s like, “What are the conflicts that sane people have with each other in this field? What happens when you can look at two people and you feel like they both have good values and they are kind to children? What do they fight about?”
R. Scott Gemmill of “The Pitt.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Let’s talk about release strategies. There’s the traditional, week-to-week model and the more modern, all-at-once model. There’s a mix of both in the marketplace. Scott, with “The Pitt,” you could just see the way people rallied around every week to see what happened next. What do you like about the weekly release?
Gemmill: I’ve only ever done that. This is my first streaming show, and we are doing it in a traditional drop a week. So I’ve never had a show that was bingeable. I don’t know any other way. At one point, they were going to release three episodes at once, but they only released two [at the start]. I don’t have a dog in that fight. I think my show, just because of the nature of it, would be very hard to binge.
Rogen: As someone who’s been bingeing it, I can attest to that. [To Cahn] Yours comes out all at once.
Cahn: It does. I don’t love that. It’s not what I would choose. I think Netflix offers a lot of other pluses. [It’s] got a big audience all over the world and that’s really nice. But I came up in broadcast television, and the idea that you’ve created this thing and it’s a story that you’ve experienced over time, and then people are like two days and done, it just —
Mazin: It’s weird.
Cahn: And it changes the way that you write.
Mazin: Over the last few years, what’s happening is, for shows that are coming out week by week, people will now save up three at a time. So they don’t want to watch week after week. There’s this weird accordion thing going on, and I don’t know where this is going. I don’t think any of us do. I’m a little nervous about the week by week. I am just hoping that it remains.
I thought for sure one day Netflix would go, “Why are we doing this?” Because I really didn’t understand. I still don’t understand.
Cahn: I have this question every three months.
Rogen: They don’t have an answer.
Cahn: It works for them.
Gemmill: Wonder why they complain about grind. Because it’s not there. Well, it’s because you put it all out at once.
Mazin: But then what I’m worried about is that they’re right. I’m just wondering if people are starting to lose their patience.
Statsky: Attention span. I think they are. I’ve even noticed, because we used to drop two a week. In this season for “Hacks,” we’ve done one a week. I saw a couple tweets where people were like, “Why are the episodes shorter this year?” I was like, “Well, they’re not. You used to watch two.” But I do think the one-a-week model, because now people are so trained [to binge] — like you’re saying, the attention span, it’s scary. I don’t think people want to watch like that anymore.
Nothing I will ever make is as good as ‘The Valley.’
— ‘The Studio’ co-creator Seth Rogen, on Bravo’s buzzy reality series
Rogen: I produced “The Boys,” and we actually went from them all coming out at once to weekly. And it did not affect the viewership in any way, shape or form was what we were told. What it did affect, that we could just see, was it sustained cultural impact. People talked about it for three months instead of three weeks of incredibly intense chatter. It just occupied more space in people’s heads, which I think was beneficial to the show.
Cahn: When they’re coming out one a week, you can repeat things that you can’t when they’re coming out all together. You have to look at them in terms of, did they each have the same rhythm? Are they each really featuring the same characters and storylines? You have to think about it in terms of, “If people do three at a time, what’s their experience going to be?” It’s terrible.
The talk of the town is runaway production and how to stop it. Scott, “The Pitt” is set in Pittsburgh and you did film exteriors there, but principal production happened on the Warner Bros. lot. Talk about why that was important for you.
Gemmill: The show could have been shot in Moose Jaw. But it was important to bring the work here, so we fought really hard to get the California tax credit. The most important part of my job besides writing producible scripts that are on time is to keep my show on the air as long as possible, to keep everyone employed as long as possible. And that’s the thing I like the best about it. This is the first show that Noah [Wyle]’s done since he left “ER” that’s shot in Los Angeles. It’s a shame. There’s more production now, but when we first were at Warner Bros. for this, it was a ghost town. It’s so sad because I’ve been in the business for 40 years and still get excited when I go on a lot. And to see them become unused just because it’s cheaper to shoot somewhere else … and there’s so many talented people here, and it’s hard on their families if you have to go to Albuquerque for six months. I don’t ever want to leave the stage again.
Mazin: We did our postproduction on the Warner Bros. lot, but we shoot in Canada. And I love Canada. But yeah, of course, I’d love to be home. I like doing postproduction here. I’ll take what I get. The financial realities are pretty stark, that’s the problem. If you are making a smaller show, the gap is not massive. If you’re making a larger show, every percentage becomes a bigger amount of money and also represents a larger amount of people to employ. But what’s good is it seems like they’re starting to get their act together in Sacramento. I do worry sometimes it’s a little bit too late, because the rest of the world seems to be in an arms race to see how many incentives they can give to get production to go there.
I’m hoping that at least we can start to move the needle a bit because, listen, that Warner Bros. lot, when I was a kid starting out, I would go on that lot, I would see the little “ER” backlot with the diner and all of it. And I was like, “That’s on TV. It’s here.” And now I walk around the Warner Bros. lot and it’s just a single tram full of tourists and no one else. And it’s so, so sad.
Lauren LeFranc of “The Penguin.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
LeFranc: It’s really heartbreaking. You used to be able to write what you’re doing, produce, do post all on the same lot. You had a family that you were able to form, and you could mentor writers. I would not be able to be a showrunner if not for all the people who came before me who mentored me, and I could walk to set, produce my own episode, and then I can walk to post. It’s so hard now where you’re asking writers, especially if networks aren’t paying for writers to go to set, “Can you pay for yourself to fly to New York?” It just makes it so hard to be able to educate people in the way that I feel like I was privileged enough to be educated. What are we going to do about that?
Gemmill: Mistakes get made. The best part about the whole business is it’s collaborative. But when you’re separated by thousands of miles, sometimes there’s a disconnect.
Before we wrap, please tell me what you’re watching. Jen, we were talking about “The Valley” earlier.
Rogen: Oh, I watch “The Valley” too. It’s amazing. Do you watch “The Valley” aftershow? It’s almost as good as “The Valley.”
Statsky: I’m really worried about Jax.
Rogen: We watch reality television. I see the blank looks on everybody’s face.
Statsky: We’re in comedy.
Mazin: I can’t believe how scared I was when you were talking, and then how good I felt when you’re like, “It’s a reality show.”
Statsky: So, you know “Vanderpump Rules”?
Mazin: Ish.
Statsky: It’s an offshoot.
Rogen: Which is an offshoot of —
Statsky: “Real Housewives.”
Mazin: This is an echo of an echo. Go on.
Statsky: Yes, it’s an echo of an echo of garbage.
Rogen: But it’s so good.
Statsky: But it is the worst indictment of heterosexual marriage I’ve ever seen.
Rogen: Yes, it really is.
Mazin: Oh, so incidentally, the San Fernando Valley is what it’s [about]? It’s about Valley Village.
Statsky: Valley Village. It’s the couples that have moved to the Valley and are having children and —
Rogen: And they are all in very bad places in their lives. It’s amazing.
Statsky: You think [in] reality shows most people are in bad places. That’s sadly what people want to watch. These people are in particularly bad places.
Rogen: And the show seems to be compounding it, I think.
Statsky: Yeah, weirdly, being on a reality show is not helping their problem.
Rogen: I find that I watch reality TV because when I watch all of your shows, I find them intellectually challenging. They make me self-conscious, or they make me inspired or something, which is not how I want to feel necessarily after a long day at work just watching something. And so reality TV makes me feel none of those things. It in no way reminds me of what I’ve done all day.
Mazin: If you make me dissociate, I’m watching.
Statsky: You’re going to love it. But once you start watching, Jax owns a bar in Studio City. We can all go. We can reunite.
Mazin: I’ve gone to that bar.
Rogen: You been to Jax’s?
Mazin: Yes, I’ve been to that bar.
Statsky: Wait, hold on. But everyone else in that bar was there because they watched the reality show. Why were you there?
LeFranc: Out of context, I’m so invested in all this.
Rogen: You’ve got to watch it. … Nothing I will ever make is as good as “The Valley.”
