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Tony Schwartz and The Wire
64 Plays1 month ago
Joe and Mark invite Tony Schwartz, a veteran freelance first assistant director and line producer for film and television, to make the case for why everyone should watch The Wire.
Tony worked on two of Joe and Mark's favorite shows: Freaks and Geeks and the cult favorite, Firefly, and talks about the heartbreak of working on such fabulous shows only to have them succumb to the whims of how the industry sometimes works.
Tony goes on to make a compelling case for watching his favourite show The Wire, which first aired in 2002.
"It has often been described as the greatest show that nobody saw," he says.
Tony makes his case so well that Mark wound up buying the complete DVD collection while they were still recording this episode!
For more information, check out the show notes for this episode.
Re-Creative is produced by Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.
Contact us at [email protected]
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Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
Mr. Rayner.
Introduction and Initial Banter
00:00:10
Speaker
Joe, you magnificent bastard. Are you prepared? Well, I was a Boy Scout. Well, okay, then you're probably gonna step up. Okay, so are you prepared for me not to ask you a question? What? You asked me a question for a change. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, I do i do have a question. Think back to prestige television.
00:00:30
Speaker
So remember, you know, like there was this ah era of television, you know, where it
Discussing Prestige Television
00:00:35
Speaker
all seemed to be a cut above. What was your favorite prestige television? Ooh, that's a tough one. Um, that's good. That's your, you're keeping up the tradition of asking son of a bitch questions. Uh, I think it's gotta be breaking bad. I think that was, um, because I cut the cable really early. I was, I think 2000.
00:00:57
Speaker
eight or two thousand and nine when i cut the cable so i didn't have cable for a long time before while that but stuff was going on but i remember holding on until i could finish watching Breaking Bad i think so whenever that last episode was that was the day after that i cut the cable Yeah. And it was a great show. Yeah. So my daughter insisted that I watch Breaking Bad. So I did. And then I watched it all. And then I immediately watched Better Call Saul. And then I watched the movie with Jesse. Oh, yeah. I enjoyed that. And it was all fantastic. But we could talk about that all day.
Tony Schwartz Joins: Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul
00:01:36
Speaker
But we're not going to because we have a very special guest today, Tony Schwartz.
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast and and we can pose the same question to you and I think I know what you're going to say. Thanks very much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be here. Well, we're excited to have you here.
00:01:53
Speaker
yeah so and um I love the question. I love Breaking Bad. I love Better Call Saul just a little bit more. Better Call Saul, it just had a little bit more I thought the characters were just a little more rich. And also, it just had a really great female character, um a really, really interesting female character that I think, as as interesting as Skylar was in Breaking Bad, I don't think she could hold a candle to Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul. I think Kim Wexler is one of the greatest female characters of of television. I really do.
00:02:32
Speaker
I want to ask you more about that. And of course, we've got tons that we want to ask, yeah but I think you're something that we need to introduce properly early on in the podcast. So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about
Tony's Career Transition to Teaching
00:02:46
Speaker
who you are. And and of course, part of the reason that you're on the podcast is because you met my my sister, Susan, who was also on this podcast at one time.
00:02:54
Speaker
And she said, I met this really cool cool guy, Tony, and and I think he would be fantastic for the for the podcast. You really should have him on. And so that's a part of the reason why you're here. But yeah, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, um just to start with. So yeah, so you know you're lucky if you have one career that you really love. And I have been fortunate that I've actually had two. I'm actually in the in the in the middle of my second career that I really do love. I spent 25 years working in the film and television industry, working in production, primarily as a assistant director and a line producer. um So not on the creative side, but kind of creative adjacent, working with
00:03:44
Speaker
directors, producers, showrunners on a number of shows, films. You know, we were talking a little bit before this ah podcast. I had worked on, you know, some really iconic shows. I worked on a show called Firefly with Joss Whedon. I worked I think I heard it. I worked on I worked on Freaks and Geeks, which was, you know, just an amazing show with some really talented people right at the beginning of their careers. So many people on that show who were just at the beginning, including, you know, Judd Apatow, the showrunner, Paul Feig, who was the creator of the show and a number of the Seth Rogen actors, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Ritalini, John Daly. The list goes on. Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
you know, really, really talented people. You know, I often wonder if if those two shows had, you know, not happened when they happened, but had happened during the age of streaming if their plight would have been different because they, you know, they came during, you know, network television at a time when, you know, at just at a different time.
00:04:52
Speaker
before social media really was a thing. And I just feel like, you know especially freaks and geeks, I just think freaks and geeks would have probably had a much longer existence.
The Heartbreak of Canceled Shows
00:05:04
Speaker
you know Firefly was the same thing. I mean, both of those shows ended up not even lasting a full season. They got canceled before the end of the of the first season. so You know, pretty sad, pretty heartbreaking. But anyways, so I worked for, you know, 25 years in film and television production. Towards the end of my time in production, I was, let's say, getting maybe a little less tolerant of the bullshit that goes on in in network television and goes on in the in the industry. But I think especially in network television, I was kind of not keeping my mouth shut very very well. And so on the last three productions that I worked on,
00:05:53
Speaker
up to so the writer strike happened at the end of 2007. I was on a show called CSI New York, and we had a particular actor on that show who was causing a lot of problems. I will not name names, but um I kind of called this actor out on what was going on. And everybody knew like the the showrunner knew what was going on. The line producer knew what was going on. It was no secret to what was going on.
00:06:20
Speaker
I naively thought, OK, you know, they're going to have my back. Nobody's saying anything. So I'm going to say something. And nobody had my back. And I got unceremoniously let go um at the end of the first season, which was OK. You know, I got onto to another show and was on a show for a couple of seasons. And on the second season, started to have some tension between my immediate boss. But again, I had Very good relationship with the showrunner. a Very good relationship with the executive producers. Very good relationship with the cast and crew. And I thought I was very much protected. Again, naively thinking that I could directly challenge my immediate boss and there would be no repercussions.
Challenges in Network TV
00:07:05
Speaker
And I was wrong. And so I why was i was let go after the second session.
00:07:10
Speaker
you know um and And then I got another show. This was right before the writer strike. This one was probably the worst show that I was on. And and again, I'm not gonna name names. This was probably the most toxic environment that I'd ever been involved in. Oh, no. Been a part of. It was an ensemble a show, an ensemble cast, but one of the cast was sort of the lead of the ensemble. And ah this actor really did not like the co-stars who were part of the ensemble and so tried to turn the rest of the cast and the crew against the co-stars and this dynamic had started actually on the pilot and the producers who were on the pilot knew what was going on and they didn't do anything about it and then subsequently when the show got picked up and went to series this just kept going and it kept getting worse and worse and I
00:08:06
Speaker
went to the producers and lots of times to say, you guys got to do something about this. This is really becoming a problem. It's creating a really negative environment on set and nobody did anything. And it just kept getting worse. And I just kept going to the producers. And finally, I just was going to the producers and telling them,
00:08:24
Speaker
in pretty direct terms, you guys are doing a shitty job. And this means a thing. And they didn't want to hear that anymore. And so after my fourth episode on the show, they took me outside at the end, we had wrapped the episode and they said, hey, can you come outside for a sec? We want to talk to you. And they took me around the corner and the three producers were standing there and I knew, ah, okay, this is it. I was absolutely furious with them for firing me from this show. And I went home- For doing your job. Yeah, so I went home and I was just apoplectic and I was talking to my wife and I just was so angry. And I went to bed that night and then I woke up the next morning and for the first time in three months, I did not have a knot in my stomach when I
Creative Freedom During the Writers' Strike
00:09:18
Speaker
woke up. And I thought, ah,
00:09:20
Speaker
This was actually a good thing. And then a couple of weeks later, the writers went on strike. And so everything shut down for six months. And at that point, I thought, well, there's no work. ah you know i'm gonna just I'm going to work on some stuff. So my my friend of mine and I started getting together one day a week. And that turned into two days a week and then three days a week. And we started working on some stuff.
00:09:44
Speaker
stuff, like just ideas that we had. And it was exciting. This was the first time, you know, like I was really sort of stretching my creative legs in a long time. And so we, we optioned some material. We went out and optioned this book. This was end of 2008, beginning of 2009. This is something we're still actually trying to get made. So you moved into producing basically? um Yeah, this is this is ah this is a biopic about a guy named Marty Delaney, who was an AIDS activist in San Francisco ah during the first years of the AIDS crisis. And we we still want to tell this story. It's a great story. you know marty was a Marty was a hero. Marty took on the FDA
00:10:27
Speaker
And along with ah his friend, they ran a guerrilla drug trial out of the Beverly Garland Hotel in Burbank. And over the course of about six years, forced the FDA into making huge changes in the way they make drugs available to dying patients during an epidemic. And these rules are still in effect today.
00:10:52
Speaker
So anyway, so so, you know, the the strike happened and then the strike ended and I wasn't ready to go back into production. I i was really kind
Teaching Film and TV Production
00:11:02
Speaker
of enjoying stretching my creative legs. And and so I was turning down calls to go back and and work in production. I think those last experiences were telling me something.
00:11:14
Speaker
Can I ask you something about that? Yeah, because I'm not sure everyone who's listening to this really understands like what a second unit director is versus a line producer. and Yeah, I mean, so so what I was doing, I was an assistant director, not a second unit director. Okay. An assistant director kind of runs the set. They they work very closely with the director. A very good friend of mine describes it like this. The director is in charge of everything.
00:11:38
Speaker
from action until cut, and the first assistant director is responsible for everything before action and everything after cut. So you're the stage manager. I'm from a theater background, so you're basically the stage manager. Yeah, yeah you do schedule everything, you organize everything. you You really do run the set and make sure that everything that the director needs on a given day and for a given scene, everything is is there.
00:12:01
Speaker
very logistical, and that's why I like to say it's it's creative adjacent. You are right there for all, you are you know there so that the director can execute his or her creative vision.
00:12:13
Speaker
Yeah, and it helps that you probably understand their vision. So that's creative in itself, but it's not, it's their vision you're serving, not yours. Exactly. Yeah. You have to be inside your director's head. Uh, absolutely. Line producer is really, you know, you're managing the logistics of the entire production, right? So you're dealing with manpower, you're dealing with equipment, you're dealing with the.
00:12:34
Speaker
you you know, the the location, all the logistics, but from ah sort of from a higher vantage point. You're not on the set. You're not right at the camera. To me, the the camera is sort of the nucleus of the production. You know, everything sort of flows out from that nucleus.
00:12:50
Speaker
But anyway, so, you know, those those last few productions were sort of telling me, you know, maybe it was time for me to look for something else. um And so, you know, we were we were developing this feature, this feature about Marty Delaney, and we were talking to a ah to a marketing guy who happened to be teaching at this school, New York Film Academy, where I teach. And he said, you know, would you be interested in in teaching? And I said,
00:13:19
Speaker
i you know I don't know. I mean, I've never done it before. I mean, i as ah as an AD, you know, we have in the Director's Guild of America, we have a training program. So I have mentored a lot of assistant directors who have come up, you know, in the program, but I've never taught in a classroom. And I thought, well, you know, I could use some income.
00:13:38
Speaker
because when you're in development, you're not taking money. You're just you're spending money, right? So I went and I taught a mock class. I didn't think it went very well, but apparently it went well enough because they hired me. um And I started teaching um almost 13 years ago, very part-time at the beginning. I was teaching a couple of classes and then they just kept giving me more classes and became full-time about 11 and a half years ago.
00:14:04
Speaker
And it is first AD that you're teaching or related? So I teach ah creative producing. I teach line producing. I teach story development um you know for both TV and film because they're both they're different. You know, TV development is different. It's very different from from film development. There are some similarities, obviously, but there's some very unique differences between the two.
00:14:28
Speaker
So you've had two amazing careers. You've worked on incredible shows like Firefly and and Freaks and Geeks and and even ah Terminator 3. And yet, I can't help but notice that there doesn't seem to be a shred of ego about you. You just seem like a very down-to-earth guy. How do you wangle that? ah Well, I mean, I think...
00:14:50
Speaker
To say that I don't have an ego, I don't know that that's entirely true. I think you know you have to have some ego to work in film and television and to be you know to be in the position that I was in. I came up the ranks. you know I started as a production assistant and then I worked my way up.
00:15:09
Speaker
the ranks of assistant directing and then was a line producer. But I always ended up gravitating back to ADing because I love being on set. I didn't like being in an office. ADing to me you know was just, you know, I don't, you know, I always tell people, you know, I don't skydive, I don't ski, I don't surf. I don't do any of those things that people do, you know, to get their adrenaline rush. To me, ADing was my adrenaline rush.
00:15:37
Speaker
When you're on set and you are under the gun and it's there's a time crunch and there's pressure and you've got 80 people who were looking to you to lead them through a challenging day or a challenging week or a challenging production, that was my adrenaline rush.
00:15:55
Speaker
So I loved it. I didn't love it all the time. I loved it 80% of the time, 20% of the time you know it was you know sometimes awful. But you know I don't think anybody loves anything they do 100% of the time. But you know to lead a crew, you have to have a certain amount of ego. I mean, look, I know who I am. i mean I'm just a regular guy. you know I have no illusions. you know Actually, you know it's funny. we were just talking about I was just talking about this with um with one of my students. We were talking about actors and you know how there are actors that you work with who, no matter how famous they get or how much power they seem to to have,
00:16:39
Speaker
They don't use it or they don't feel like they have to use it. They still show up on set and they do their job and they they're just a joy to be around. And then there are those actors who use their power to to to you know for for for not good reasons. you know the The example, you know where I was just reading an article about Vin Diesel who would routinely show up late every day on productions because he could, because he's Vin Diesel. You're not going to fire Vin Diesel from Fast and Furious because he's the face of the franchise. And so he can show up an hour late. Nobody's going to do anything about it. Just not professional. It's expensive too. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That's an hour of time that's been wasted. Yeah.
00:17:26
Speaker
so So there is a certain property that that you have chosen that you're going to talk about and and we will get to that. But I wonder if
Network Struggles of Freaks and Geeks
00:17:35
Speaker
ah first, um because Mark and I are huge ah science fiction fans. Nerds? Yeah. What are you looking for as nerds? I wonder if you would if you could just talk a little bit about the experience of working on shows like like Firefly and yeah and Freaks and Geeks. Nerd related.
00:17:55
Speaker
Well, OK, so yeah, I'll start with Freaks and Geeks just because that that was first in the, you know, that came first in my in the timeline. You know, Freaks Freaks and Geeks was ah just heartbreaking to me. It was, you know, first of all, Paul Feig, who created the show, one of the nicest kindest, sweetest guys that I have ever met in in my time in the in the film industry. Great to hear. Just such a nice guy. And ah you just when you meet somebody like that, you just want them to get whatever they want. right And so as sad as you know I was you know when that show got canceled and as bad as I felt you know for for me, right you just feel bad for him because you know he or he didn't deserve that.
00:18:47
Speaker
You know, the story of Freaks and Geeks, I think, is is really about the business of television. So NBC was the network. It had been in development there for for a while. So I don't know if you know how how the the way shows get on the air in network television. So there is a long period of pitching and development, and then you're working with development execs, and then they if they really like it enough, then they will order the show to go to pilot. Right. So they give you the money to make the pilot. Right. And so you produce the pilot and then it goes through the the process of testing and they bring audiences in and they watch it internally. And if they get enough positive feedback and they like it, then the show gets ordered. It gets picked up to go to series.
00:19:45
Speaker
So that's what happened with Freaks and Geeks. The problem was that in between the time that it got ordered to go from pilot to series, there was a kind of a regime change oh no among the development executives at NBC. And so the new regime at NBC didn't really like the show. They weren't really behind the show.
00:20:13
Speaker
in the way that the previous regime was. So when the show had already been ordered to go to series and we had gotten an order for, so normally you get like the the pilot plus 12, right? You get the the first 13 episodes and then if there's enough positive ah feedback and the rate and the ratings are good, the Nielsen's are good, then they'll order the back nine, right? So you get a full season of 22 episodes. So the the first clue that things were probably not going to go as well was they stuck us on Saturday nights.
00:20:49
Speaker
which is the worst night to be on television. It's just the worst night because people are not home watching television. They're all out having fun. Yeah, that was our first clue that they really didn't kind of like the show. They really are going to be behind it. And then ah we kept getting preempted. they were It was on maybe three three episodes and then it would be off.
00:21:14
Speaker
Oh, no. And then it would be on again, and then it would be off. Wow. And then the holidays, and then it was off, and then it was you know on, and then it was off. So no chance to build up momentum. No, none, none. Which is required for this yeah process, right? You need to build up momentum.
00:21:33
Speaker
Exactly. And then it came back after the holidays and they put us on, then they put us on a different night. They put us on, it I think we were on Tuesdays at that point, which was a better night. But again, you know, how does the audience know where we are? They couldn't find us. our Our ratings were never very good. They weren't really promoting us. And the writing was really on the wall at that point. And then the network was doing this thing where this happened with Firefly 2. They wouldn't order the back nine all at once.
00:22:02
Speaker
So they would say, all right, well, we're going to order two episodes. so just about the keyfield leading yeah It's like they're just dangling episodes. You know, here you go. Here's an episode. You know, and it was just it was really frustrating. You know, I i remember, you know, being in the production office and hearing, you know, jud Judd's office was upstairs from the main production office and hearing him screaming.
00:22:33
Speaker
on on the phone at the network. You know, he's not the most politically, you know, savvy guy. this He was pretty young at the time, just very angry, very unhappy at the way they were being treated. And I don't blame him. OK, so tell us some of the um some of the fun moments. Yeah, I mean, you know, it was just I mean, again, you know, I think the thing that was so great about that show was the the right from the beginning,
00:22:59
Speaker
you knew the kind of show that it was going to be because they really went out of their way to cast as authentically as they could. You know, they cast, they cast, you know, these people who, you know, in a lot of cases weren't really professional actors.
00:23:18
Speaker
They hadn't done a lot. You know, Seth was very inexperienced. Martin Starr, you know, Martin Starr was 14 when he got cast. He was so funny though. Because of some true awkwardness. in Oh, he is every bit that character. yeah um He has a pain in the ass.
00:23:37
Speaker
i yeah Yeah. But it's so great to see like what he has become. I mean, ah you know, I just recently rewatched it. My daughter wanted to to watch it last summer. And so we we and hadn't watched it since it it went it initially was on. yeah um And I you know, it was just I was and you know, every episode makes me cry a little bit. but yeah So I mean, it's so real. And that's just a testament to those those those actors and those characters. and the writing of Paul Fieggen. Yeah, it's so wellriless so well written and and so well acted. And then of course, Paul Fieggen went on to write and direct ah Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids, yeah, which is which is terrific. they came and did He came and did a screening um at school um and ah and a Q and&A after and I got to oh wow got to go up and and and have a really nice chat with him afterwards, which was great.
00:24:32
Speaker
But yeah, it was just, I mean, those those days on set, I mean, you know, there was a lot of improv too. That was, you know, sometimes improv, I mean, it's great. It's really fun. It's kind of, it can be frustrating as an AD because, you know, as an AD, you want structure and you want to know exactly like, what are we doing? What's happening? what What are we doing now? What are we doing next? And, you know, Judd especially, Judd really liked to let the camera roll and just sort of,
00:24:59
Speaker
let things happen. And that's great. But you know I got background that I'm trying to coordinate and your camera roll and I there's no background going now. So like, what ah gotta help me out here. You have a schedule you have to keep. Yeah. Well, that explains to me what happened to that show because I watched it again back to the start of the show. I read this episode is like,
00:25:21
Speaker
I dropped cable and one of the first things I watched, I think on Netflix was freaks and geeks. And I, I love that show. I just was, I've been, I think I binged it before anyone had the understanding of what binging was, was so early. And I just watched the whole thing back to back. And it's like, why did they not make any more of those?
00:25:42
Speaker
I don't understand it's like every
Unity on Firefly's Set
00:25:45
Speaker
show and it gets better and better and better the situation keeps repeating itself like i remember a carnival they canceled that before it was supposed to end and kind of wreck the second season and then of course uh firefly which you also worked on um same thing kind of happened to that And you had told me in a conversation before we started recording that um that set was unique, that the cast and the crew were kind of inseparable. Can you yeah tell us so i mean more about that? so Yeah, so Firefly was, I think, the kind of the pinnacle of
00:26:24
Speaker
Like if i if I think about like the most fun I've ever had on set, that's the one. That's the one that I always go back to. You know, yeah, there was no, you know, normally on a show, I mean you do, you know, on a show there is always, you know,
00:26:44
Speaker
ah ah you know, because you spend so many so many days together, especially on a series. Yeah, you do. You talk to the cast a lot. There's not, you know, it's not like cast talks to cast, crew talks to crew. There is some of that, you know, you do mingle, right? But on Firefly,
00:27:01
Speaker
It was just like there was no there was no blur. like It was just all mix. And I think I'd said to you, Joe, like when we were when we would go into a ah lighting mode you know when we weren't shooting, you couldn't get the actors to leave the set.
00:27:19
Speaker
They just wouldn't leave the set. We had stand-ins. For those of you who don't know how it works, you know when you when you aren't shooting, you send the actors away and you have people come in and stand in so that you can do the lighting. These actors wouldn't leave the set. They would just go to their marks and they would sit there or stand there because they didn't want to leave. They were having just as much fun as we all were. And sometimes it would get noisy. I would you know look i'd say you know Nathan, because Nathan really was kind of the ringleader.
00:27:49
Speaker
you know, I love you, but you know, you you're making too much noise. you got to get up the But I mean, it was such a great atmosphere because of that. And you know, he was number one on the call sheet, and he set the tone, you know, so nobody was going to misbehave.
00:28:06
Speaker
No one. yeah Yeah. Everybody was on their best behavior. Everybody was an absolute, just an absolute joy to work with on that set. It was such, it was so much fun. And, you know, similar to what was going on on Freaks and Geeks, we were same thing. Same thing was happening on Firefly. Only it was worse because on Firefly, so, you know, Fox was So anxious and excited to be in business with Joss, right? This was his first show for Fox and they had just signed basically an overall deal with him and they were so happy. And the first thing out of the gate in that overall deal was Firefly. And Firefly at the time was the most expensive pilot ever produced. It was over 10 million dollars, which at the time was huge.
00:28:59
Speaker
um This was 2002 when the pilot was was produced. that That was unheard of. you know Now, you read about $20 million dollars pilots being being produced, right? um Not back then. So I had mentioned to to you, Joe, I was not on the pilot. I was finishing up Terminator 3, so I didn't come on to Firefly until the middle of the fifth episode.
00:29:22
Speaker
So but before before we had premiered, so but I had already been hearing from people the the issues that were going on. The network was freaking out. The network was absolutely freaking out about what the hell is this show? This is like sci-fi. It's an outer space, but it's Cowboys. It's Western. They didn't know what to make of the show at all. And so I don't know if you guys are aware of this.
00:29:51
Speaker
The pilot episode didn't air until I think the seventh or eighth episode. Oh, really? No, I did not know that. No. The pilot episode is a is a big two hour episode. Yeah. Setting everything up. That's up the whole series. Yeah. And they did not air it until I think episode seven or eight. If I'm if I'm not mistaken. and Yeah. is Who is running these networks? Yeah. Well, youd you you'd have to you'd have to go ask them. ae So, yeah, it just
00:30:22
Speaker
They just, they were, they were really freaking out about this, about this show. And so, again, you know, they, I think, were looking for any reason to cancel Firefly. So they put us on, again, they put us on Friday nights, again, second worst night, second only to Saturday. And you know again, writing was on the wall. It weren't promoting us. um And same thing happened. you know We were getting you know doled out. you know Here, you can do one episode. here We're going to pick up one more episode. We're going to pick up one more episode. And then and and you know we were all kind of joking about it, you know, sort of gallows humor on set until until the the night we actually found out that we were canceled. Somebody came down from from the office and made the announcement. And we were in the middle of we were it was like seven o'clock at night, but we were still filming. And somebody came down and said, we just heard from the network. I think it was Tim Minear said, yeah, we're
00:31:24
Speaker
We just got canceled. And we all just said, all right, does anybody feel like working tonight or do we want to just go home and come back tomorrow? And nobody wanted to keep working. So we just wrapped that night. We came back the next day. Wow. That's sorry that's i that's such a frustrating experience. Yeah. And then there's ah the ah kicker was Fox didn't even want to pay for a wrap party.
00:31:44
Speaker
ah
Firefly Wrap Party and Production Anecdotes
00:31:46
Speaker
And so Alan Tudyk said, all right, well, we're having the wrap party at my house. And so we had the wrap party at Alan Tudyk's house and we all had a blast. and Okay. Is he as cool a guy as he seems? Oh, everybody was. Like I said, just everybody was so, so, so great and nice and just, just wonderful to work with. Yeah. Can't say enough about those guys. Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
So you also worked on Terminator 3 with one of the biggest names in show business, Arnold Schwarzenegger. I heard a story about Schwarzenegger ah from, it was an interview with ah John McTernan, the director of one of his movies.
00:32:29
Speaker
who said that Schwarzenegger was, um he had ah a huge ego, but it was a healthy ego. So you could say anything you wanted to him and it wouldn't matter. It would just bounce right off because he had a healthy ego. So that was John McTurnid's take. What is your take on Schwarzenegger having worked on Terminator 3?
00:32:50
Speaker
so So on that film, i was I was one of the assistant production managers, so one of the one of the line producers on that. So I was not on the set ah ah very much at all. So I had very little dealing with him. um But from what i from what I hear, he's he's a pretty down-to-earth guy. I mean, I think he's very professional.
00:33:13
Speaker
um But I can't speak to i can't speak to you know any personal ah interactions with him on that because I had very little very little interaction with him. now But my dealings with him were all very you know very professional. um No, I was dealing with second unit mostly and rigging.
00:33:29
Speaker
I actually like that movie. I know a lot of people aren't keen on Terminator 3, but I always refer to it as the first of the bad Terminator movies.
00:33:41
Speaker
I'll be honest, I don't remember Terminator 3 at what happened. I don't remember what happened to that one. Terminator 3 is the female Terminator, and then it's the one with the big crane chase. Oh, okay. no Yeah, that's all I need. I'll tell you one one quick story about that. So that crane sequence took a lot of time to film, but it took a lot of rehearsal time leading up to being able to film that. And Gary Powell, who was the the stunt driver who drove that crane, rehearsed driving that crane for
00:34:15
Speaker
about six or seven weeks. And in this in this big, giant, empty parking lot ah in Downey, which is a city south of L.A., and I was sitting in the office one day and I got a call from the production supervisor who tells me that there's been an accident with the crane. u Oh, he's with the crane.
00:34:42
Speaker
Oh, he he didn't he didn't just flip the crane. He rolled it like seven times. This crane, I saw the footage, they because they had it they filmed all the rehearsals. ah This crane rolled like seven times. And he had to do that. He had to push the crane to see what he could do. that Yeah, sure. He knew what he couldn't do, right? It was insane. This guy was an ex rugby player, an English guy. Crazy. But man, that was insane. So watching that footage was absolutely insane. Okay, so we've ah taken our sweet time getting to it, but finally we're at the point where we can talk about your creative pick. And your creative
The Wire: Storytelling and World-Building
00:35:27
Speaker
pick was The Wire, the television show. So tell us why ah you wanted to talk about and promote the television show The Wire.
00:35:35
Speaker
So, well, so, you know, you were talking about prestige TV at the beginning of the show. You know, there there are so many great series that have come in the last 20 or so years. Sopranos, Breaking Bad, um you know, you and I were talking about Orphan Black.
00:35:54
Speaker
Oh, I love that show. and great That's an amazing show. You know, so many great shows. And to me, you know, The Wire has always stood out for a number of reasons. um You know, first and foremost, you know, it is I've never seen a show with the richness of characters that The Wire has. The Wire has, I've never counted just how many characters there are that I think are are like just some of the greatest characters that I've ever seen in books, movies, television, you know any medium. It's incredible writing.
00:36:34
Speaker
You know, one of the things that you know people always talk about the wire for, first of all, you know, it's it's always been sort of described as the greatest show no one ever saw. Yeah. You know, it was pretty much overlooked by the television academy. It was only ever nominated for two Emmys ever.
00:36:56
Speaker
but really yeah Which to me is is just absolutely ridiculous. i can't even like I just can't even believe that. It kind of gives the lie to the significance of these awards, doesn't it? like What do these awards even mean if they're not awarded to the shows that deserve them? Yeah. I mean, i you know there are a lot of people who have sort of you know positive reasoning why they you know why they were overlooked. you know it's a you know It's at times a pretty depressing show. you know It's a very gritty show. It's largely African-American cast. you know There are a lot of reasons why people think that it may have been overlooked at times. Do they really think that that's a factor? Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
There are people that that it comes down to racism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Remind people when the show was on because I think that no it started in the first season was in 2002. Yeah. So it's a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. 2002. And then it ended I believe the last season was 2008. Five seasons.
00:37:58
Speaker
So it was created by um David Simon and Ed Burns. David Simon was a reporter. He's a writer and a reporter um from Baltimore. And Ed Burns was a homicide detective and then retired from that and became a ah school teacher. So the two of them, they're both from Baltimore, and the two of them had had worked together on a show at for HBO called um The Corner.
00:38:23
Speaker
which was kind of a very, like a limited series, like maybe five or six episodes. And then the two of them started working on this show called The Wire. And what I love about The Wire, it is it's it's the most novelistic show I think I've ever seen. it is It's so dense.
00:38:41
Speaker
It was interesting. So my you know my sister bought me the first season on DVD. And so I started watching it. And I watched the first three episodes. And I almost stopped watching it after the third episode because it's so so dense. There's so many characters.
00:39:01
Speaker
And i was i was almost like I was almost lost in the storytelling. I was trying to figure out, wait, who's that guy? Have I seen them before? i and I was kind of lost and trying to follow everybody and trying to follow the story. And so I kind of but they almost stopped and I said to myself, or I'm going to give it one more episode. And I watched the fourth episode and it all just sort of coalesced. And I how was just hooked.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah. It's like how I read crime and punishment. I was like, I don't know what's going on. Wait a minute. This is the guy that did. Yeah. Okay. I know what's going on now. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly the the field that that's how I describe it. I mean, it's, it's like reading a novel and it just sometimes takes a little while to really get into a book, but then you get into it enough and it just like, Oh my God. And you just like, maybe you just can't stop reading, right? I do talk about the wire a lot in my teaching.
00:39:59
Speaker
And I talk about it for a lot of for a number of reasons, right? Mark, you teach, right? Yeah, I'm a teacher, too. yeah Right. So so yeah because my my students are are often coming into their developing films and their developing TV series. And the first thing that I often notice is they are they're working on stories where the world of their stories is either not very well developed or not developed much at all. And it's usually because they either, they don't know the world or they just don't have enough experience, either life experience or enough experience in that world. And so I bring them to a show like The Wire
00:40:47
Speaker
because world building and the wire, that's where the heart of the story is. It's these two men who created the wire. They lived that life, you know, um before David Simon made The Wire, you know, there was a show called Homicide Life on the Street. Well, he wrote a book called Homicide, a year on the killing streets, you know, in Baltimore, right? Where he met Ed Burns. He was in the Homicide Squad where David Simon basically shadowed for a year to write this book. So they knew what they were talking about. They knew what they were writing about.
00:41:23
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah. So but this is a world that they know. And these are the characters these characters, a lot of these characters in The Wire are composites of people, or in some cases, real people that they've either changed the names of, or um you know they're piecing together you you know these people that they have encountered. you know that's I think it starts there. I think you have to know the world.
00:41:50
Speaker
in which you are creating your story. You have to know that. That's where your characters are going to come from. The other thing that I think is is so incredible about The Wire is it's a police procedural, right? on On its surface, you know, if you just look at The Wire and you go, it's cops going after drug dealers, right?
00:42:11
Speaker
and And that's the show. It's a procedure, right? And we've all watched a number of police procedurals over the years, right? Going back to the, you know, 70s or even the 60s, right? And procedurals have changed over the years, right? It's not exactly item 12, is it?
00:42:27
Speaker
No, but, but, you know, you go from Adam To street blues to and NYPD blue to, you know, to the wire, right? I mean, the evolution of the procedural is is pretty interesting to me. But if you just look at the wire and you say it's a police procedural, I think you are really you're you're oversimplifying it because, if again, you haven't seen the whole series. It is really a metaphor for, and at least the way I look at it, the death of the American city. Yeah, that's fascinating. Or the decay of the American city because it looks at you know every institution that The Wire deals with. um Season one focuses on the the drug problem, right?
00:43:16
Speaker
Season two deals with the union, the longshoremen and the death of the union and the death of the middle class. Season three get into politics and the corruption in politics and the the war on drugs and the different policies and trying to sort of combat the drug problem. Season four is all about the public schools.
00:43:42
Speaker
Uh, which is always talked about as the the best season. I would agree. Uh, it is the best season of the wire. And then season five deals with kind of the, the death of newspapers. Oh my God, that sounds great. But all through every season, you are, you are following these characters from the, from the first season.
00:44:03
Speaker
reason two you you're you're you leave a lot of the characters that you were with in season one which my first go through the series season two was my least favorite season because you've gotten used to the characters and yeah Yeah, we're all characters that I that I just ah season with. And now I've got all these new characters. And, you know, like, I don't like these guys. and But now, you know, now that I've watched the series three times, season two is actually I think maybe my second favorite season. I love season two. So you haven't seen it, Mark.
00:44:38
Speaker
Uh, no, this is, uh, you know, one of the casualties of my, my various habits. Uh, this was an HBO show, so I didn't have, you know, the scratch to pay for HBO. so yeah yeah So I heard all kinds of buzz about it. I was like, Oh, I, I will definitely watch that when I get HBO. And I, of course I never did. Cause I live in Canada. Yeah. And it just fell off my radar. And you're really exciting me about this, Tony, because I love the idea of talking about.
00:45:05
Speaker
the decline of the North American city, because I think it's something we're experiencing in Canada, maybe to a lesser extent than the US, but I think we're experiencing that as well.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I really do think, I mean, it could have been any city. It really could. It could have been Philadelphia. It could have been LA. It could have been San Francisco. It could have been Chicago. It's Baltimore because that's where David Simon and Ed Burns are from. And that's what they know. Do you know what Baltimore itself thought of the series? They actually really embraced this show.
00:45:39
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. Even though at times the depiction of the of the city is not the most flattering depiction. you know It was, I think, shedding light on the problems that exist.
Baltimore's Embrace of The Wire
00:45:54
Speaker
So they looked at it with a healthy point of view, like, let's take this as constructive criticism. Yeah. I have a question. I think I know the answer to it.
00:46:02
Speaker
Would it be possible to jump in on that fourth season? If it's the best season, you need to watch the first three seasons. oh no no I would never, I would not, I would not ever want you to do that. ah nice with is You have to see these characters because the other thing that is what, what I love about the wire is, and you know, you guys are writers is the character arcs. Oh yeah. Yeah. of a number of these characters. It's they're remarkable characters. ah There's a character played by Idris Elba named Stringer Bell, who if you went to season four, you would miss this entire arc of of Stringer Bell. That is absolutely incredible. And this was the character in the show that launched his career, wasn't it? A hundred percent. Yeah. Dominic West um really got his start. You know, Dominic West, who
00:46:56
Speaker
you know, Prince or now King Charles, right? Prince Charles in in the crown. This that's what put him on the map. Lance Reddick got his pretty much got his start. Really? and Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Because this was before. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Now, would you like to have been first AD on this show? You know, this would have been a really challenging show because it was all shot on location. I actually worked with the production designer ah from The Wire on a show when I was working. I was working on a show called The Chicago Code in Chicago. And um and I met this production designer, a guy named Vince Peranio, who was great. She's a great production designer.
00:47:36
Speaker
But he was the production designer on the wire. And he would tell he would tell stories all the time about working on the wire. And he always had this funny expression. We'd be driving around sometimes in you know pretty nasty parts of Chicago in ah in a scout van. And he'd point out the window. He'd be like, Tony, look at all that patina. Look at all that patina. He would call you know the graffiti or the line on the walls or on the side. He'd call that patina.
00:48:04
Speaker
So is it fair to say is it fair to say that Baltimore is one of the characters of the show? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They cast a lot of locals in Baltimore ah to play characters. One of the characters that we meet briefly, I think, in season three, but who really becomes a character in season four, this character named Snoop,
00:48:29
Speaker
Michael K. Williams, who plays probably that my favorite character in The Wire, character called Omar ummar Little, who was actually Obama's favorite character. Michael K. Williams, one day, is I think he went to a bar and met this young woman whose name was actually I think her name is Snoop Pearson and her character in the show is is Snoop and she's amazing like she's this incredible character and yeah he met her and went to show runner and said you should meet this person
00:49:06
Speaker
She'd be great for the show. That's so amazing. Okay, so let me ask you this. So you're holding this show, The Wire, up as an example to your students of this is the kind of effort you need to put into your work yeah in order to wind up with a quality product. And you and a lot of other people agree that all of the research and effort and thought that has gone into The Wire has resulted in a quality show, but has it actually resulted in a successful show, given its reception? So, well, that's I mean, that's an interesting question, because, you know, first, I would not ever argue or or
00:49:50
Speaker
try to say to a student, you know, your your job is to create a successful show. I want my students to create a good quality show with believable characters, with rich characters, with believable worlds, with authentic storytelling, whether or not that's going to sell. Now, you can talk about marketability. Is this the kind of show that you should be developing right now? Is this the kind of movie or or show that the audience right now today would would gravitate toward? That's a conversation I think you want to have. But for me,
00:50:35
Speaker
I just want them to tell a good story. Again, I just always want them to go back and and look at their characters and I want them to think about the world because the world to me is, I mean, it's so important, even if it's just present day. like If it's science fiction or fantasy, obviously there's a whole bunch of world building that has to go into you know coming up with the rules and and all the and everything. right But even if it's just a normal world, there's still a lot of thought that has to go into what kind of home life do they have? What kind of work life do they have? What's the world of their friends and their and their circle of friends? and and Because it all serves it all serves character.
00:51:19
Speaker
right? It all helps to define who they are, and how they interact and what are the dynamics within the story. In context, I think context is the most important thing really, in some ways, because it's about you can spend a lot of time building a world. But if you don't have characters that can inhabit that world that it makes sense. Their lives don't, you know, they their lives have to make sense within that world. That's exactly what you're saying, right, Tony? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if, again, if you watch The Wire, you you'll see what I'm talking about because there are, there are these characters that, you know, you've seen the first episode, um, Joe, you know, you've met, you know, I think
00:52:03
Speaker
You've met Bubbles, the the junkie, and mcnet obviously McNulty and Bunk, the cops. I mean, you know, you haven't met a lot of these characters yet. You know, as the as the first season goes on, um you're introduced to, you know, the you know, Presboulouski and all these characters, they're all very unique and they just there's a richness to this world that I think makes, again, it just makes The Wire so, you know, usually ah a series has, you know, on average, you know, eight series regulars and then some recurring characters that come and go. I think The Wire has, made in in season one alone, you know, maybe 16 series regulars and then probably another 16 that are recurring that kind of come and go.
00:52:57
Speaker
I mean, that's just that's so it's just an enormous cast. Given your experience on Freaks and Geeks and Firefly being cut short, yeah is it amazing to you? How do you account for The Wire lasting five seasons? It almost didn't. I mean, they had to fight to keep to keep going. I mean, between seasons, there was discussion of whether or not to keep going. And it would have been heartbreaking had that show not actually been able to sort of finish their run. Because as I said, as a five-season show, um you really do get the whole but whole picture, right? Had you not had
00:53:43
Speaker
the fifth season or, you know, heaven them forbid, the fourth season. but The fourth season, you have to at least get to season four. Season four is it's absolutely heartbreaking. Wow. You are with these kids for for for the for the entire season. These these five kids, ah middle school kids.
00:54:05
Speaker
And it's just it's just a remarkable season where they are at the beginning of the season and where they are at the end. And it's really surprising. Like you really you really aren't prepared for where they're going to be from the beginning to the end. As writers, we're always working towards coming up with ah endings that are surprising yet inevitable. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the sweet spot. ah Yeah, if they hadn't finished it off, I mean, it really I mean, I it it would just wouldn't be the show that it is. I mean, it would still be a great show, you know, had they gone three seasons, because there was there was an arc. I mean, had they finished after season three, season three had a pretty pretty good ending, but it wasn't complete by any stretch. You know, Richard Price and Dennis Lehane actually were were writers on the show. David Simon brought them in to be writers on the show, and you really can kind of feel their presence in in the writing, for sure.
00:55:05
Speaker
Wow, I super look forward to watching the rest of The Wire. What you've done, Tony, for me is you've taken it from my list of things that I quote should watch to something that I absolutely need to watch.
00:55:17
Speaker
I cannot wait to hear what you guys think. um i you know i am I am super passionate about this show for so many reasons and you know I could keep talking about it. it's um it's a beautiful It's a beautiful show. It's a gritty show. It's heartbreaking. it's there are that's At moments, it's uplifting. It's real. it's Is there anything out there today you think that is being made that is comparable to The Wire?
00:55:47
Speaker
I mean, again, there are some really great, great shows that ah that are that are out right now. and I think um Succession was terrific.
Current TV Gems and The Wire's Impact
00:55:58
Speaker
um I loved Succession. you know We mentioned a Better Call Saul. I thought that was really terrific. I loved The Last of Us. um yeah i'm looking forward I'm really looking forward to the next season. Yeah, that was great. I loved The Bear.
00:56:15
Speaker
um i thought that's I think that's ah just a really wonderful show. Well, that's the thing. There are so many of these gems out there that somebody really needs to get to work in the science of senescence so that we actually have time to watch all these great shows. I mean, I love my job because part of my part of my job is watching stuff and i it's great. I mean, it's like my homework, so I don't feel guilty at all.
00:56:42
Speaker
Okay, so you're another one of these guys that we could talk to forever. So we may have to have you back. And we will. You're not leaving. I had a great time. This was a lot of fun.
00:56:52
Speaker
Anything else you want to say about The Wire before we part ways today? Everybody needs to see it. yeah that's That's really all. it's It's the best show that I've ever seen. Wow. Mark? Yeah, it's no longer on my list. It's at the very top of my list. I'm getting the DVDs sometime this month.
00:57:12
Speaker
All right, well, I'm happy about that. All right. Tony Schwartz, thank you very much for being on our podcast, Recreative. Great talking to you. Thank you, Tony. This was fun, man. I really enjoyed this. Thank you guys for having me. It was a delight.
00:57:49
Speaker
You've been listening to Recreative, a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it. Recreative is produced by Mark Rainer and Joe Mahoney for Donovan Street Press, Inc., in association with Monkey Joy Press. Technical production of music by Joe Mahoney, web design by Mark Rainer.
00:58:08
Speaker
You can support this podcast by checking out our guests' work, listening to their music, purchasing their books, watching their shows, and so on. You can find out more about each guest in all of our past episodes by visiting recreative dot.ca. That's re-creative.ca. You can contact us by emailing joe mohoney at donovanstreetpress.com. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.