Screenwriter Paul Guyot

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:02):
The reason I am so proud to be a screenwriter and
so blessed is because the entireindustry of Hollywood does not
exist without us.
We are the only entity in theentire industry that creates
from nothing.
Everyone else interprets what wecreate.
The actor, the director, the DP,the costume designers, the

(00:24):
music, the editors, everyoneinterprets what the writer
creates.
They may change it, they mayelevate it, they may ruin it,
but nobody creates from nothingexcept us.

SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
This is the Act One Podcast.
I'm your host, James Duke.
Thanks for listening.
Please don't forget to subscribeto the podcast and leave us a
good review.
My guest today is screenwriterPaul Guill.
Paul has written and producedmore than 200 hours of
television.
His work includes the J.J.
Abrams Creative Felicity, theEmmy winning Judging Amy, and

(01:05):
Leverage for TNT, which wonback-to-back People's Choice
Awards.
Paul served as co-executiveproducer on The Librarians,
including taking over allshowrunning duties for season
two.
After that, he served as theco-executive producer for NCIS
New Orleans, at the time theeighth most watched series in
the world.
I did not know that.
Paul also co-wrote the WarnerBrothers feature film Geostorm,

(01:28):
starring Gerard Butler and AndyGarcia, which grossed more than
a quarter billion dollarsworldwide.
Just wait till you hear him tellthat story.
In May of 2022, Gio launchedScreenwritingTruth.com, a
website dedicated to helpingemerging writers learn the truth
about Hollywood andscreenwriting.
Paul is a good friend, and ifyou are like me, I think you

(01:50):
will find his honesty andthoughtfulness refreshing.
Enjoy.
Paul Gio, welcome to the Act Onepodcast.
I am happy to be here, JamesDuke.
This is fun to uh finally haveyou on the podcast.
You we were just talking.
You uh we originally connectedthrough the podcast, right?

SPEAKER_02 (02:10):
Yeah, that's right.
I had stumbled across thepodcast because I was literally
searching for anything the leastbit Christian that had to do
with the film industry, and Iheard your podcast and it blew
me away.
And so I had to send you like afanboy email.

SPEAKER_00 (02:28):
You you're our you're our one and only fan.
Thank you.
That's right.
My one and only I'm not at-shirt made of.
This is uh Paul Paul listens tomy podcast.
Right.
Um, Paul, it's great to have youuh on.
It's a real honor and privilegeto have you on.
We've since built a a lovelyrelationship.
I I admire your work.
You you've been you've worked inthe industry for um quite a few

(02:51):
years, written for a lot oftelevision as well as then let
written a lot of film.
And that's kind of what I wantedto talk about today.
I just wanted to sp let peoplejust get to know you and just
hear your story, hear yourjourney.
Because I think there's a lot ofuh little gems and kind of gold
nuggets people can pull out tojust kind of learn for their own
process, and which is why, bythe way, um I invited you to

(03:13):
participate in the Act Oneprogram as a mentor and um and
uh and even faculty.
So that's been a lot of funhaving you as well.
The the response having you as amentor uh from our students has
been um has been off the charts.
You they they have reallyenjoyed um you so thank you for
that, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 (03:32):
Oh well, thank you.
It is a pleasure and it's a truehonor.
I I love giving back, andespecially in a in a faith-based
arena like Act One, it's sorewarding.
I I love it.
I hope you'll have me as long asyou'll have me.
I'll I'll always do it.

SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
Well, let's let's jump um, let's go back uh a
little bit.
I'd love for people just to kindof get to know Paul Gio.
Tell us a little bit where whereare you where are you from
originally?
Are you originally uh Californianative?
Arizona, born born and raised inuh like the Phoenix, Scottsdale
area.

(04:09):
And the the journey to becominga professional screenwriter, did
that start early in your life?
Did it did that was that a apassion to write?
Was that something early, or isthat something that kind of
developed over time?

SPEAKER_02 (04:21):
It's an interesting question because it was I
certainly had the thestoryteller in me.
I mean, as early as fifth grade,however old you are then, I was
I was writing stories about myfellow classmates to make them
laugh and and you know, printingup my own little books with you
know construction paper as thecovers.
And but I didn't know, literallydidn't know that you could write

(04:46):
for a living until a guidancecounselor in high school said,
You should probably pursue thiswriting thing.
And I had no idea it was even athing.
And I went to college then, Iwent to University of Arizona as
a creative writing major.
And even though I had I hadalways just loved television and

(05:07):
and movies, that was that was mything.
Um, again, I didn't knowscreenwriting was a thing until
I got into college, and itwasn't even my teachers, uh, it
was a fellow classmate.
And you know, he wanted to actand I wanted to write, and we
both wanted to direct, and wekind of connected and and you

(05:28):
know, after college, headed outto Hollywood with our with our
screenplays that were literallywritten in spiral notebooks.
That's how much we knew.

SPEAKER_00 (05:37):
Nice, nice.
Do you uh remember when youfirst learned how to uh format a
screenplay?
Was that like a in your mindlike a real challenge to write
it?
Or did you, or by the time youwere formatting, were you
writing on a on a computer?

SPEAKER_02 (05:51):
Well, no, what's interesting about that question
is, and this is what I tellpeople like you you don't have
to spend money to learnformatting.
I mean, even though I waswriting in a spiral notebook, my
format was pretty good because Iwas just copying screenplays.
You know, I I went to thelibrary or you know, wherever
the film department and foundscreenplays and copied the

(06:13):
format.
Um, so I was doing it, I wasjust doing it by hand with a
ballpoint pen, uh, which Ididn't know is kind of frowned
upon in the industry.
Um, so yeah, so by the time Igot my first computer, you know,
some Toshiba laptop, whatever itwas, um, then I was using, I
think it was Word Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
That's how long it was WordPerfect, yes.
Shout out to Word Perfect.
Tad, pad, pad, pad, pad.
Exactly.
What uh the uh I know all thesethese kids today, we're gonna
snipe a bunch of old uh the theold Muppets, the old guys on the
Muppets.
These kids today with their withtheir formatting software, they

(06:53):
have no idea, right?
Um the uh I think Tarantinodoesn't Tarantino still claim to
to write things by hand.

SPEAKER_02 (07:01):
Um I think he yeah, I think his process is he writes
everything out by hand, and thennow he has you know people that
will transcribe it or whateverfor him.
But yeah, I think he still usesthe big long legal pads.
Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
I think so.
Um, so uh I'll I'll just pausethere a little bit on on the
reading the scripts and kind oflearning just through going to
the library and getting scripts.
Do you remember some of theearly scripts you read, the ones
that you loved?
Or are there scripts inparticular that you think back?
Man, that was such a greatscript.
Things that got scripts that gotyou excited, scripts that that

(07:35):
really kind of turned you on touh screenwriting?

SPEAKER_02 (07:38):
Yes, actually.
Um, because as I said, when Iwas in college, it was creative
writing and it wasn't the bestexperience for me.
The the professors I had werevery much that sort of
frustrated novelist, and so theclasses were always this is why
Faulkner stinks, you know, andyou know, they have their unsold
manuscript in the drawer.

(07:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Um, so when I got to LA, like Ihad found stuff at my university
library, you know, I had saidsome screenplays, and I honestly
don't remember what they were,but what was a huge epiphenal
moment for me is when we got toLA, and I was, you know, I'm
just a kid at this point.
I'm I'm barely 21 or whatever itwas, and I discovered the WGA

(08:23):
and that you could go into theirlibrary even without being a
member.
Yep.
And I remember reading AlvySargent's Ordinary People and
just thinking, I'll never bethat good.
I remember the the one that mostaffected me, though, is funny
and started me on my journey.
I used to be a very avidcollector of screenplays back

(08:44):
when they were all hard copy andyou know the names were written
on the spine in black sharpie.
Yes, I I collected hundreds ofscreenplays, and the first one I
remember reading that reallyjust I remember thinking, I can
still see myself sitting theregoing, This is what I want to
do.
And it was Shane Black's lethalweapon script.

(09:05):
It's a great script.
Wow, and that's a high bar.
That's a high bar.
Well, that was, and that's thefirst time I think I ever
realized what you know now thatI preach so hard is voice and
originality.
That that screenplay didn't lookor read like anything else I had
seen before, and it was just soevisceral.

(09:26):
Uh I I just I just I stillremember that moment.
And then that led me to likeWilliam Goldman and Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,which is amazing.
And those those scripts werereally the ones that that just
changed something in me.

SPEAKER_00 (09:44):
Why?
Can we let's just talk a littlebit about this?
What what maybe let's focus onthe lethal weapons script?
Because I think there might besome people that listen to this
and go, what lethal weaponsscript?
Oh what was it about that scriptand what what is it about those
types of screenplays that we canlearn from as screenwriters to

(10:08):
when we read them and and in asense study them?

SPEAKER_02 (10:11):
I think uh it's it's what I said when when you talk
about voice, like it's it'sfunny.
I just just put up a postrecently on my website about
this that you know, up untilGoldman, William Goldman hit the
town, voice wasn't a thing.
The screenwriter's voice wasn'ta thing.
You know, Jack Warner calledthem schmucks with underwoods.
And every, you know, the onlyway that their individual voice

(10:35):
ever came out was maybe in thecharacters' dialogue, but that
was it.
And then Goldman showed up,who'd never written a
screenplay, wasn't undercontract with anyone, and just
wrote what he thought he wantedto see.
And it didn't sound likeanything the town had ever read
or looked like anything they hadseen.
And that I believe led to thenext 30, 40 years where the

(11:00):
screenwriter's individual voicebecame everything.
You know, when you have ShaneBlack and Alvin Sargent and Jay
Presson Allen and Joe Estherhausand you know Nora Efron and all
these people coming out thatthat became huge successes
because they wrote in their ownvoice.
And what what that means is likewhen you go back to the Lethal

(11:21):
Weapons script, you know, it'sthe I had seen the movie and I
thought the movie was justfantastic.
You know, I loved every minuteof the movie.
But until you really get intothis, you know, as a kid back
then too, you just think like,wow, that's Mel Gibson, being
Mel Gibson, and you know,Richard Donner's amazing
directing.
And um, and then you see it onthe page.

(11:45):
And and even though, like I hadsaid, I remember reading
ordinary people and beemotionally moved by that
screenplay, Lethal Weapon wasthe first time I I remember
realizing that that the writerthat Shane Black actually
created those characters, andand actually that you know,
Martin Riggs, it wasn't MelGibson, it was Shane Black who

(12:09):
created, you know, and MelGibson then interpreted what
Shane had created.
And and the other thing aboutthat script that I remember is
it was written with so muchconfidence, almost bordering on
arrogance.
Like, you know, if you've readit, he talks to the reader.
You know, there's there's a linehe says he makes there's some
action or description line, andhe says, something, something,

(12:30):
but wait, dear reader, you know,he and and you're just sucked in
almost like it's almost like acomic book.
And that opened my eyes that oh,I don't have to follow these
these rules, I don't have tocolor inside the lines.
I can just put myself on thepage, and and that works, you

(12:52):
know, and that's what really hasstuck with me my whole career,
even though I didn't start doingthat till years later.
You know, you start out, Ithink, at least for me, and I
think a lot of other writers, Istarted my process because I had
never tried writing any sort ofscreenplay or script um until,
like I said, I was planning onmoving to LA.

(13:13):
And my first, you know, coupleof years at least, if not more,
of writing, I was doing bad fanfiction of writers that I
admired.
You know, I was writing badShane Black and bad Scott
Rosenberg and you know, stufflike that, because I didn't know
what my voice was yet.
I had to find it.

SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
Well, how did you find your voice?
Did it just require the work andthe effort of just just writing
and rewriting and rewriting andrewriting?
Uh, I'm curious when you thoughtand realized, oh, this is me on
the page now.
I I've suddenly I'vetransitioned from writing bad

(13:53):
fan fiction in your own words,to now I'm this is this is this
is Paul Gio.
This is this is this is how Iwrite screenplays.

SPEAKER_02 (14:01):
Yeah, it's a great question.
And I think it only comesthrough the experience of
writing and writing and writing,because at first you don't know
you're writing fan fiction, youknow.
You you think you're like, lookhow clever I am.
I sound just like Shane Black.
Well, that that doesn't meanyou're clever, that means
you're, you know, a mimic.

(14:21):
And it's just through eventuallythat and other people giving you
notes, like getting feedback andstuff, and saying, you know,
this sounds like bad Shane Blackor bad Scott Rosenberg, you
know, and then the more youwrite, I I believe you just
start to find yourself becauseevery every time you write
something, and the next thingyou write, you're a better

(14:43):
writer.
And even if you write somethingthat's complete garbage, the
next thing you write will be alittle less garbagey, if to make
up a word.
And I I just think eventually Igained confidence in just
trusting myself.
I knew that I was a fan of theirstyle of writing and the style,

(15:05):
the type of stories they told,and the tone of their stories.
And so once I quit focusing ontrying to be as cool as them and
just write my own story, it wasjust a process of elimination
almost.
You know, one script would havea little less Shane Black in it,
and the next script would have alittle less until eventually it

(15:27):
was my own voice.
And and I can't remember if Itold you this, Jimmy, or not,
but I there was a point um in mycareer, I spent several years
when I first got to Hollywoodworking as a stand-in before I
ever became a paid writer.
And I was trying to write, and Iwas really at the point of
giving up.
I was really ready to think Ijust don't have it, you know.

(15:49):
And I had written one lastthing.
And again, it was this wasduring the 90s now, and
Tarantino had exploded, andeverybody was doing all the
derivative Tarantino stuff.
And I had written this onescreenplay that was kind of, I'd
say, Tarantino-esque in itsstory, but not in its tone or

(16:10):
anything.
And I thought it was prettygood.
I thought this might be the bestthing I've ever written.
And I gave it to somebody whohappened to be an assistant at
the Kennedy Marshall Company,and of course, they didn't do
movies, anything like that.
But she offered to have itcovered because back then, you
know, that was the big thing.
They had the readers, and yougot the official coverage, and
that was like a price thing.

(16:30):
Wow, if you could get realcoverage from a company like
that, you'd you'd collectcoverage, you'd you'd collect
coverage and yeah, and show itto people.
Yeah, yeah.
And so this they covered myscript.
And of course, you know, it wasjust some reader, and who knows?
This could have been some, youknow, buddy working at a coffee
shop or something.
Um, all you have to be a readeris the ability to read.

(16:52):
But so they passed on thescript, obviously.
The the coverage came back andit was a pass, and it was uh,
you know, two pages and a pageand three quarters of everything
that was wrong with the script.
And then the last block, thelast paragraph, the the reader
said is that said, comma, I dobelieve this writer is on to

(17:16):
something.
There's a rawness in here thatlooks like you know, there's
talent on the horizon orsomething if they just keep
working at it.
And that right there was all Ineeded because to me, you know,
it took me years to realize thatwas just some reader, but to me,
it was the Kennedy MarshallCompany telling me I've got

(17:39):
talent, I'm on to something, andthat kept me going.

SPEAKER_00 (17:43):
I love that.
I love that story, and and thethat kind of outside affirmation
that we need to just let us knowthat we're headed in the right
direction.
We're not there yet, but we'reheaded in the right direction.
You know, at Act One, we teachour screenwriting students, I
tell them, I tell them all thetime that every writer has a

(18:06):
thousand bad pages in them.
And the sooner we can get youwriting, the sooner we can get
those pages out of you so we canget to the good pages.
And what I hear you saying is umthe best way to break through
for you, and the best waysomeone else is gonna break
through is to write and to justkeep writing.

(18:28):
And you're going to experiencewhat you said right there.
You're gonna experiencedisappointment, you're gonna
experience frustration becauseno writer sets out to write
something and then writes theend and thinks what they've
written is absolutely abysmal.
They they they have you havethat hope whenever you whenever
you type the end that man, thiscould be the thing that right.
But then over time you learn howmany, how many of us writers

(18:51):
look back and go, oh man, thatstuff I wrote early on.
I would never want to see thelight of day.
But back then you thought it wasthe best you'd ever done.
And but how do you know if youdon't just keep writing?
There really is no um quick fixto this, is there, Paul?
Like you can't short circuitthis process.

(19:14):
Writing takes becoming becominga writer takes time, it takes
the time it takes to write.

SPEAKER_02 (19:20):
Yes, that's that's the thing.
And I I feel like one of theproblems today, and I think it's
societal to a certain extent,because of the immediate
gratification of technology inour lives and and you know, the
dopamine of social media and allthat.
And and I feel like I run intoso many people today that they
they want to sell something asopposed to wanting wanting a

(19:44):
career as a writer.
You know, if you want to be ascreenwriter, if you want to
have the life of a writer,you've you've it's a marathon,
not a sprint, and you've got toput the work in and you've got
to play the long game, you know.
And and so many people I run.
Into and they've they've writtenone thing, or they've written,
you know, six five-minuteepisodes of their web series,

(20:05):
and they they want the keys tothe Malibu Beach House.
And it's like, well, that'sthat's not gonna happen, I don't
think.
You know, everybody has thelottery ticket stories, you
know, every one in 10 milliontimes something crazy happens,
but the odds are against you.
But if you keep your head down,you put the work in, every time

(20:25):
you write, you get better.
The more you read, the betteryou get.
And if if you just commit to thejourney and not the destination,
I think you know, Andre deShields, uh that amazing actor
who won a Tony a few years backat age 78 in his acceptance
speech said, slowly is thefastest way to get where you

(20:48):
want to be.
And and I believe it with all myheart.

SPEAKER_00 (20:52):
That's a great quote.
Oh I the you know the oneexception I've heard of, and I
and I I kind of I kind of don'tbelieve them.
Is Angelo Pizzo, who wroteHoosiers and Rudy, claims that

(21:13):
Hoosiers was his first scriptthat he only did like one draft
on, I think.

SPEAKER_02 (21:17):
I just like I'm like that's just that's a little I
mean, I'm not saying it's not,I'm not calling him a liar, but
I kind of no, I'm just well, youknow what's it's funny though,
because I have a friend namedBrian Coppelman, and he he has a
writing partner, David Levine,and they've written a bunch of
movies, you know, and they'vehad they've did billions on
Showtime, and they've gotanother series on.

(21:39):
And Brian loves to tell people,he was in the music business
before he and David becamewriters, and he loves to tell
people rounders is the firstscript I ever wrote, first
script I ever wrote.
And while technically, yes, it'sthe first script he and David
wrote together.
Both of them had been writingother things separately for
years.

(21:59):
You know, I mean, David Levinehad been writing unpublished
novels and short storycollections, and and Coppelman
had been writing short storyafter short story and essays and
all types of things.
So, yeah, technically, firstscript I ever wrote, but they'd
been honing their craft foryears.

SPEAKER_00 (22:17):
Yeah.
I always say the exceptions onlyprove the rule because it just
that is it's there's alwayslightning in a bottle that can
get caught once in a while, butum that's not the that's not the
goal.
The goal is to become a greatwriter, and you can't short you
can't short circuit that.
Um the uh so let's go get alittle bit back to your to your

(22:38):
story.
So you're here in LA, you ohlet's jump ahead to that.
You you you were writing, youwere getting frustrated, you
were doing um, you were doingextra work, things like that.
Um, what was your first umofficial professional credit?
What was your first paid gig asa writer?

SPEAKER_02 (22:56):
So my very first pay, it's funny, it happened all
within a matter of weeks witheach other.
I I got called in for a showcalled Snoops, which was you
know 13 and out.
It was a David Kelly E peachshow, and I got called in to
pitch ideas for a freelanceepisode.

(23:18):
And I got the gig.
I went in and I pitched someideas and I got hired to do a
freelance.
So that was my first officialyou're going to be paid for your
work.
They they had read an NYPD bluespec that I had written, and
that's how I got the meeting offof that.
And before I had even gone toscript on that, I was in the

(23:41):
outline phase, and I got calledto go meet JJ Abrams and Matt
Reeves for Felicity.
Um, because season two was wasgonna had just been announced
something, and so they werelooking.
So I still hadn't turned in mymy draft of Snoops, and I went

(24:01):
to meet JJ and Matt, and thatwas really crazy because um they
hired me right there in theroom.
I I talked to them for abouthalf an hour, it was very
surreal.
It was at the hotel Mondrian,and JJ goes, Okay, can you uh go
down to Baldwin Hills right now?
Uh the writers are meeting andhelp them break story.

(24:22):
And I and I was like, I don'tknow what break story means, but
uh, but I just go, sure.
And uh so I get in my car and Isaid you said you said where's
Baldwin Hills?
That's what you yeah, oh yeah.
I had you know we didn't wedidn't have Google Maps, and so
I had the Thomas guy out there.
Yeah, you had your Thomas guyout, yeah.
And I'm driving down there and Icall my agent, and he didn't

(24:45):
even know.
And he was more excited than Iwas.
That I had a very junior agentat the time at Gersh.
And so I go down there, andanyways, I I do that job, and
then in the following week, or Ithink over that weekend, like I
just killed myself to turn inthe Snoops freelance.
So technically, Snoops was myfirst paid gig, but then within

(25:09):
that same week, I or two weeksprobably I got the staff gig on
Felicity.
Wow.

SPEAKER_00 (25:16):
And at the time, did you prefer, like, were you
looking at writing television asthat's kind of where I want to
go?
Or was it like, hey man, it's ajob as a writer?
Like, did did you ever have thatweird dichotomy that some
writers have in their mind whereit's like, I want to be a
feature film writer, I don'treally want to be television, or

(25:36):
I want to be television, I don'treally want to do feature film.

SPEAKER_02 (25:39):
Yeah, I had I had come out, I think like most
everybody, or at least mosteverybody back then for sure, I
wanted to write movies.
I wanted to be a feature writer.
And as I said, I spent a lot ofyears when I first got to
Hollywood as a stand-in onfeatures.
And it was through meetingpeople in that world and talking
to them, talking to directorsand writers and actors, and

(26:03):
almost all of them telling me,you want to be a writer, get
into television, you know,because that was back at the in
the day where you know thewriting, the writer of the
feature wasn't even invited tothe premiere.
You know, we had to have thatput into the MBA like in 2007 or
something.
That's that's how recent it wasthat we weren't even invited to

(26:25):
the premiere of the movie wewrote.
And so I started writingtelevision specs um back then
before you know, that was nobodywanted to read original stuff
like they do now.
And it was because the people inthe feature world, the feature
writers that would talk to me,and and I became friends, still
friends to the state of Walterwith Walter Hill, a great

(26:47):
director, feature director, andwriter, and a couple of actors,
and they all said, No, Paul, themoney's in television, the the
writer is king and queen intelevision.
So I was very blessed to learnthat early on, and I started
writing television specs,strictly, you know, Machiavelli.
Like I was like, Well, that'show I can get in and make money.

(27:10):
Okay, I'll I'll go television.
And then once I got in, Irealized I kind of fell in love
with the you know, the world ofTV and and how you can write a
feature and sell it, and itcould be two, three, four years
before it ever comes to fruitionif it does it all.
Whereas, you know, you'reworking on staff of a television
series, you're shooting anepisode every seven, eight days,

(27:33):
and it's on the air four weekslater, you know.

SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
Yeah, that is something that I think is a lot
of that's very gratifying for alot of writers is that sense of
you get to see what you whatyou've written um uh you know on
on the screen so much so muchfaster, and you get to
participate uh more.
The writer gets to participate alot more um in the process than

(27:58):
like you said.
I could do I could do a lot ofpodcasts from writers talking
about the frustrations uh youguys have with how you're
treated oftentimes on film sets.
It's a it's a it's a weird thingin our business, isn't it, Paul?
I don't know what it is.
Yeah, maybe you have a theory onit, I don't know, but there is
this um real lack of value orunderstanding what the writer

(28:22):
does and therefore who they are.
And I don't know if it's aninsecurity or what, but having a
writer on set intimidates a lotof filmmakers, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 (28:34):
It does, it does, and I I think it's born out of
the schmucks with underwoodthing from back in the day where
they were just looked at as youknow, take dictation.
And then I think it was reallythat lie was perpetuated by
Hollywood being such a director,you know, run medium, and people

(28:54):
like you know, I mean, I Iremember hearing Tom Cruise 20
years ago publicly saying stufflike, you know, a screenplay is
just a blueprint, and we're allthe filmmakers, and we're all
the creators and the artists,and and that really stuck with
people, you know, it's it's justif you hear Tom Cruise say it,
it must be true.
And I, you know, what I alwaystry to tell writers that run

(29:17):
into that is the reason I am soproud to be a screenwriter and
so blessed is because the entireindustry of Hollywood does not
exist without us.
We are the only entity in theentire industry, Jimmy, that
creates from nothing.

(29:39):
Everyone else interprets what wecreate: the actor, the director,
the DP, the costume designers,the music, the editors, everyone
interprets what the writercreates.
They may change it, they mayelevate it, they may ruin it,
but nobody creates from nothingexcept us.

(30:00):
And let's see how many movies orTV series are ever made without
scripts.

unknown (30:06):
Yep.

SPEAKER_02 (30:06):
I I just that's why I'm so proud to be a writer and
a and a proud WGA member.
And I think I don't wantscreenwriters to ever feel
anything less than you know,being incredibly proud that that
we are the driving engine ofthis giant behemoth of a
machine.

SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
I think um I'm trying to remember, I think it
was Quentin Peoples.
I did an interview with him awhile back.
I don't know if you heard it,but seeing how you're my one fan
of the podcast, but uh I he saidhe talked to Sir David Lean, he
had the opportunity to meet SirDavid Lean once, and he told the
story that um he got to ask hima question.

(30:47):
He was like, I can't let SirDavid Lean leave without asking
him a question.
And he asked him, you know, whathe would do differently or
something like that.
And Sir David Lean told him thatif he were starting today at
that time, he would he would bea writer, he would he would want
to be a writer because becausethat's where it all begins.

SPEAKER_02 (31:06):
Yeah, and and certain there are certainly
certain actors and directorsthat uh have that respect, and
that you know, I when I was astand-in, Don Johnson was
somebody I stood in for for afew movies, and I was so blessed
to he did a film okay.

SPEAKER_00 (31:22):
I gotta hang on a second.
I gotta that was a little bit ofa humble brag there.
You you weren't standing in forDanny DeVito or that you're
standing in for Don Johnson.
Okay, I just want to point thatout.
All right, yeah, but it's it'sDon Johnson, it's not like it's
George Clooney.
Still, I mean, Don Johnson inthe 1980s, boy, you know.

SPEAKER_02 (31:41):
So, but we but he went to Toronto to do this movie
called Guilty of Sin that wasbeing directed by Sidney
Lamette.
And I got to spend 12, 14 weekswith Sidney Lamette, and
including you got to spend thatmuch time with him.
Wow, I mean, the whole shoot ofthe movie, yeah, but but one of

(32:02):
the great things of that isSydney is so generous, he was so
loving and giving.
And there was a holiday weekendduring filming, and Sydney
invited myself and and hisassistant and his first AD to go
to Niagara Falls and just be thedo the tourist thing, you know?

(32:22):
And that was a master classes,masterclass for me as a young
kid, wanting to be a writer andsucking up everything.
And Sydney, I mean, his makingmovies book is one that I
recommend to every screenwritershould read it.
And that that man, what he knewabout story and character and

(32:45):
specifically how to tell it forthe screen, as opposed to you
know, prose or something, it wasjust amazing.
And that's somebody he came outof the theater, so he had all
this respect and admiration forthe written word and for
writers, you know, and he was awriter himself too.
But he he just hammered into methen it all starts with the

(33:06):
script, you know.
He's like, I can certainly ruina good script.
He goes, but I I can't make agood movie from a bad script.

SPEAKER_00 (33:15):
I love it.
That yeah, making movies andadventures in the screen trade
are the two books that if I if Ihad to force people to read them
uh before working in thisbusiness, it would be those two,
those two books.
They're they're they're thatimportant, they're that
essential.
Um, I think.
So let's uh let's talk a littlebit about some of your writing
career.
You you were you you're on acouple of shows.

(33:37):
You were you were also on umthere was a big hit show on CBS
back then called Judging Amy,yeah.
Um that you were on for for uhquite a bit.
And what was that experiencelike?
You had the legendary TyneDaily, she like won won a bunch
of Emmys for that for that role,and you were working with the
great Barbara Hall and KarenHall, who are who are act um act

(33:57):
one royalty.
Um uh what was that experiencelike on that show?

SPEAKER_02 (34:02):
That was uh fantastic.
That was one of the greatestblessings of my career to do
three seasons on that and learnfrom from Barbara Hall and Hart
Hansen, and of course, our ourdear beloved friend Karen Hall.
Um it was one of the I I'vealways said bar Barbara Hall and

(34:24):
John Rogers are by far the twobest showrunners I've ever
worked with.
And both of them, even thoughthey're completely different
people, they write completelydifferent things, they share
this common thing where both ofthem, especially Barbara, is so
secure in herself that sheencouraged the voice, the

(34:50):
individual voice of the writerto come through on the show.
So, you know, a lot of peoplethink like, well, if you're
writing on a show, it's all thesame voice, you know.
If and and sometimes it's true.
If you're on Matt Weiner, everyepisode's gonna sound like Matt
Weiner wrote it.
You know, every episode of aSorkin Run show is gonna sound
like Aaron Sorkin run it ran it,and so on and so on.

(35:10):
But what Barbara Hall taught methat was so amazing to see how
she did it, is she encouragedour own individual voices to
come through in the episode.
So you could watch Judging Amy,and while every episode was
certainly a judging Amy episodeand sounded like you know, the
show did every week, you couldtell, oh, this is a Barbara Hall

(35:32):
episode, oh, this is uh a HartHansen episode, this is a Paul
Gill episode, oh, this isdefinitely a Karen Hall episode,
you know, because the thewriter's individual voice was
allowed to come through, youknow, whereas some showrunners
are so insecure, they're gonnarewrite everything to make it
sound like them, as opposed tomaking it sound like the show.

(35:55):
And and that to me just comesfrom a place of self-assurance
and security, you know, and JohnRogers did the same thing on
leverage, and um and it wasthose three years on judging Amy
was the was the best thing forever me, ever for me, because I
was the youngest, mostinexperienced writer on staff by

(36:15):
far.
So I not only, you know, theHall Sisters who are amazing,
and you know, how many Emmynominations, Lord knows, Hart
Hansen, who had just come fromCanada, who was a major, major
um force in Canada.
We had Joe Doherty, who was anEmmy winning writer.
We had uh Carol Barbie and LilaOliver, like it was a murderous

(36:37):
row of of a writing staff, andthen there was me.
So I was just sucking upknowledge every single day I
went into that to that job.

SPEAKER_00 (36:48):
Compare it was did JJ run the room for Felicity?
Who ran the room for Felicity?
I'm still wondering.

SPEAKER_02 (36:56):
Um okay, what do you what do you mean by that?
Like, let's what does that mean?
So Felicity was was not thegreatest experience for me.
It was uh it was very, verydysfunctional.
When I got there, the reason JJwas so desperate to get somebody
hired and told me go down, startright away.
There were only three otherwriters on the staff at that
time.

(37:16):
And JJ wasn't around because hehad just signed his first huge
deal with Disney then, and hewas developing alias.
And so the writer's room werethese three people that one was
a supervising producer, and twoothers were co-producers, and
then there was me.

(37:37):
And they had been on the firstseason of judging or excuse me,
of felicity, and none of themknew how to run a room, and for
whatever reason, to this day Idon't know, but they all three
just resented JJ and could notstand him.
And there was so much just vilenegativity thrown around, you

(38:00):
know.
That that when I talk aboutgoing down to Baldwin Hills that
first day, this is what happenedto me.
This is I go down, this is myfirst day on a show that's a big
giant hit.
You know, Carrie Russell hadjust won the Golden Globe.
Everybody was talking aboutFelicity, I put WB on the on the
map.
And I go down there for my firstday on the job, and I walk in,

(38:22):
and these three writers look atme and you know, who are you?
And say, Well, I'm I'm the newwriter, I'm Paul.
What do you mean, the newwriter?
Well, JJ just hired me and toldme to come down here.
Well, they were all planning ongetting their friends into the
staff.
They didn't know that JJ washiring this kid with no
experience whatsoever.

(38:43):
So we go and I spend like fiveor six hours there, and at the
end of the day, the room ends,and two of the writers leave.
And this one writer who was sortof the de facto writer runner of
the room because she was asenior writer.
She's kind of stacking papersand stuff.
And I'm I'm sitting there allwide-eyed.
And, you know, so I stand up andI try to be nice and say
something like, Well, I'm soexcited to be here, you know,

(39:06):
can't wait for Monday orwhatever.
And this person looks across atme and says, Let me just tell
you something.
We don't want you here.
JJ hired you just to get back atus.
I'm sure he doesn't even likeyou.
No one wants you here, no one'sgonna like you.
The best thing you can do isjust stay out of our way.

(39:29):
And she walked out of the room.
And that was my first day on thejob as a whatever, 26-year-old
or something.
Wow, like wow, it was brutal.
And then that season just gotworse from there.

SPEAKER_00 (39:42):
Yeah, I wonder if that's the reason why the show
kind of tanked after that.
Because if you remember, theshow it came out splash, she won
the Golden Globe, like it wasthis big, and then it it just it
just fell off.
And they and it ended up theshow ended up ending kind of
rather quickly after she cut herhair, and that was.
Whole kind of silliness andstuff.
Do you think some of that had todo with like some of the

(40:04):
resentment in the room?

SPEAKER_02 (40:05):
I think so.
I mean, I was there that season,she cut her hair, and it was
just kind of, you know, we wouldwork, and and of course, I
didn't know anything because Iwas brand new.
And these three others, all duerespect, they looking at them
through the lens I have now,they were not very good writers.
And so we didn't know what wewere doing.
And then JJ would come in onceor twice a week and he'd look at

(40:28):
the board and the cards we hadup, and he'd go, No, no, no, no,
no, that's all bad.
And then he'd leave.
And that's why JJ got thisreputation, and and it and it
was accurate of rewriting allthe scripts like overnight.
You know, we'd have a scriptthat was gonna start prep the
next day, and the script washorrible.

(40:49):
And so JJ would just take it andhe'd go that night and
completely rewrite it.
But the more that season wenton, the more you know, alias
started to go.
They cast Jennifer Garner, youknow, he had movies going then.
He was already in negotiationsfor the Mission Impossible
thing, and he just was kind ofchecked out.
And I mean, I say this with allthe love of my heart for JJ.

(41:12):
He he taught me a lot, he'sstill great.
I haven't talked to him in a fewyears, but but we have a
completely fine relationship.
But he just wasn't there, andthe rest of us didn't know what
we were doing, and there was somuch animosity, you know.
And and the thing that wasreally unhealthy is the the

(41:33):
energy these people would expendevery day on how much they hated
him, and then when he would showup, it was JJ, oh my gosh,
you're so amazing.
We love you so much.
You know, it was it was theHollywood smile.
Oh, it was the most bizarrething to experience, and it was
it was real, it was a real testfor me to get through that that

(41:56):
season.
I wanted to quit many times.
I I actually, this is a it's aterrible story, but it's an
epiphanal moment in my careerand and sort of in my maturity
as a man.
At one point, midway through theseason, I walked into Matt
Reeves' office and I started tocry.

(42:16):
And I standing there in front ofhim, and he's looking at me from
behind his desk, and I'm crying,going, I you know, I don't think
I can take it anymore.
And they're just so mean to me,and you know, and I don't know
what to do.
And Matt Reeves is just staringup at me, and he goes, I'm
sorry, I can't help you.

(42:41):
And I just, and it was one ofthose moments, Jimmy, where I
was suddenly outside my bodylooking at myself, and I
realized, oh my gosh, what am Idoing?
He's exactly right.
Oh my gosh, I'm not aneight-year-old child.
And it was a huge moment for me.

(43:02):
And I was like, Oh, yeah, okay,I get it.
And I turned around and walkedout, and it was it was it was
one of the most humiliatingmoments of my life, but also one
of the greatest life lessonsbecause it was like, nobody's
coming to save you.
Get off the floor and saveyourself.
Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 (43:18):
And he probably mustered as much empathy as he
could just to say that.

SPEAKER_02 (43:23):
Yeah, and I'm sure he got into my office.
You I mean, you know, he's theexecutive producer, he's the
in-house director, he's editing,you know, his partners checked
out on another show.
And here comes this staff writergoing, they're being mean to me.
But it was like, if I ever seeMatt Reeves again, I want I'm

(43:43):
gonna thank him because it washe couldn't have said anything
better in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 (43:47):
Just don't get emotional when you see him.
That's awesome.
Uh you know, and to JJ'sdefense, if you around that
time, right?
He was he like he said, aliaswas launching, and then right
after that was lost, and then hewent right into Mission
Impossible three.
So he probably would admitlooking back in that early on in
his career, in terms of howquickly things were moving for
him, in terms of so I don'tthink he would have probably an

(44:09):
issue even with that, andsaying, like, it was probably
difficult for him.
The um, so probably like a showlike judging Amy, part of what
it offered you was that kind oflevel of cool headed, the adults
are in the room, the adults arerunning things, and that kind of
stability that that's reallykind of where you started to

(44:30):
grow and become a writer.

SPEAKER_02 (44:31):
Exactly.
Because that's because, like Isaid, I you know, I had done the
Snoops thing, and they actually,I didn't even tell this part of
the story based on my freelance,which which was received fairly
well, they offered me a staffposition, and I was on Felicity,
but I was hating it, so I wasgonna jump ship and go to
Snoops.
Well, Snoop's got canceled abouttwo days after they offered me

(44:55):
the staff position for the backnine, it didn't even get its
back nine.
Um, so there was that, and thenFelicity, and then I did another
show that was 13 and out, andthen judging Amy just again, the
grace of God, a blessing fromGod.
That, and I do believe when Iinterviewed for that job, uh, I

(45:15):
interviewed with Barbara Halland I told her that story I just
told you about Felicity.
And I believe that's why shehired me out of sheer sympathy,
not even empathy, you know,charity work.
And uh, and it was a blessingbecause then I was I was with
adults and I was with a a showthat was operating at a very
high level, you know, it was atop 20 show then.

(45:38):
And and that was beforestreaming and you know, all
that.
And um it was, it was, it wasjust a fantastic place to end up
after you know the couple ofyears of experience I had.

SPEAKER_00 (45:50):
Did you at one point run a room?
Were you a showrunner at onepoint?

SPEAKER_02 (45:54):
Yes, yeah.
So on I uh I was a supervisingproducer on leverage, that's
where I worked with John Rogers,and I I wasn't the showrunner
ever on leverage, but I Ihandled running the writer's
room whenever we shot up inPortland, and the room was in
LA.
So whenever John was up inPortland for his episodes or he

(46:15):
directed occasionally, then Iwas running the room.
And then we went from leverageto librarians, which John also
created and ran, and I was hisnumber two on that.
And after season one, John got apilot at NBC very unexpectedly.
Um, we were we were actuallyprepping season two when John's

(46:36):
pilot got picked up at the 11thhour.
So he left.
He went to NBC to do his newshow.
Um, or I'm sorry, not a pilotgot picked up, his pilot got
picked up the series.
So he had a series on the air atNBC.
So he left, and it was like, Iremember walking in that morning
and he's like, Gio, you have thecon.

(46:57):
And I was suddenly theshowrunner of the librarians,
and that whole season two, I wasthe show runner.
Um, so I and that was reallythat was a crazy year because
the librarians was at the timethe only independently produced
one hour on television.
It it wasn't, it was electricentertainment, Dean Devlin

(47:18):
Studios who produced it.
And the studio took greatoffense to John leaving to go to
NBC.
And in this really bizarre sortof, I could only equate it with
like cutting yourself.
Like they took it out on theirown show to punish John in some

(47:38):
weird way, and so it was youtalk about being trial by fire,
throwing into the fire.
That that year that I ran thatshow was unbelievable.
But but yeah, so I ran that, andthen after on NCIS New Orleans,
uh I was the number two there.
I didn't show run, but I but Iran the room.

SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
What's the what's the difference that you learned
or some takeaways of um when youwhen you reach a kind of a
leadership level in the writer'sroom?
Um what are what are some thingsthat were challenges, some
things that were uh you reallyenjoyed?

(48:18):
Um what in terms of once you getto that level, because you're
you're um just just so thatpeople understand, and maybe you
can also explain a little bit ofthis is once you reach that
level, you are producing theshow.
You're not just writing it,you're producing it.
You're you're um if you're noton set, one of the writers is on
set, and they're making surethat the director knows you

(48:41):
can't do this, you can't dothat, because that's not
happening until four episodeslater or something like that.
There's a there's a real senseof of um level of of of um
production savvy you have tohave, uh, even then also being
then helping with the editing ofthe sitting in the edit bay uh
as a showrunner, uh as you'recutting the episodes.
So can you just talk a littlebit about that in terms of um

(49:05):
moving from just being a staffwriter to being basically in
charge?

SPEAKER_02 (49:11):
Yeah, it's I I think something that that a lot of
people don't understand about itis when you're you know, the
dream is oh, I want to be theshowrunner, I want to have my
own show.
You do probably less writingthan you know the the mid-level
people on your staff because youhave so many other

(49:32):
responsibilities.
Yes, you're rewriting a lot ofother people's scripts if if
that's the case, but it's whatyou said, you're you have to
produce the episodes, and thatgoes everything.
You're in every meeting, youknow.
You you're in the meetings tolike who what directors are you
gonna hire in the tone meetingswith the directors, in the you

(49:55):
know, the meetings with thecostume designers, in the props
meetings, in the stuntsmeetings, in the production
meetings, you know, you you'reoverseeing the editing of every
single episode.
You as a showrunner, you neverstop moving.
You're you're a shark, and youjust go from putting one fire
out to another to mix mymetaphors.
And it it's amazing how, like,what I learned, something that

(50:19):
you never think of, but iscritically important to getting
that show in on budget and onschedule is like, where are you
gonna park the trucks this week?
Like, no one understands what amajor part of a television
production parking the trucks iswhen you're shooting on
location.
Um, and so everything like that,you know, the costume designer

(50:42):
walks up to you and you know, doyou want her in blue pants or
you know, red pants?
Do you want and then you have toconsult with the DP on that?
And and then it's like, youknow, and the DP's like, Well,
what do you want?
You're in charge.
And it's like, well, okay, Ilike the red.
And then the DP will say, Well,the blue is actually going to
look better in this set becauseof this.
And it's like, okay, then, youknow, it's you have so many

(51:05):
balls in the air at once.
You're you're just trying tostay sane and and remember that
despite all these things you'redealing with um that are all
practical, it's still you've gotto make sure the story works.
You've got to, it always has tocome back to your core as the
writer.

(51:25):
And that's the most difficultthing is to be able to handle
all those different things.
You know, even when the caterershave a problem, they come to
you, you know, the productionmanager generally, but then the
production manager is going togo to the showrunner and say,
hey, you know, the caterers needanother thousand dollars or
whatever.
And but you have to block allthat out to still remember,

(51:46):
okay, this story still has to befirst and foremost, because the
audience isn't gonna care aboutall the location problems you
had, or you know, the actor thatwouldn't come out of their
trailer, or the you know, thelocation you lost because of the
rain or whatever.
You know, they just sit in frontof their screen and want to be
entertained.

(52:06):
And it's it's incredibly complexand difficult.
And I don't, I think I wouldhave completely failed at it had
I not had you know 10, 12 yearsof of watching other showrunners
do it well and do it poorly.
You know, there's so many timesnow these these shows come in

(52:28):
and they just hand a show overto some new writer, you know,
because that's the thing now.
That's the thing the agents gofor is that big deal, it's the
negotiation.
And then, you know, for a whileafter I did that season on
librarians, my agents then forthe next few years started
literally pitching me as oh,he's like the Michael Clayton of

(52:51):
writers, he's the the fixer, youknow.
And so I was being put up forthese shows with all these
either crazy showrunners orinexperienced showrunners to go
in and fix it, you know, to makethe trains run on time.
Yeah, because that's what it'sall about.

SPEAKER_00 (53:06):
The fixer.
I love it.
Uh that's your next show, Paul.
Right?
The show oh that's already beendone a few times, I guess.
Paul, you've also got thisreally cool thing you've started
recently, which is um uh you'vestarted kind of a website uh to
provide resources forscreenwriters.
You want to you want to tellpeople a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 (53:25):
Yeah, thank you.
Um it's called screenwritingtruth.com, screenwriting truth
one word.com.
And I I just, you know, uh youwere somebody that inspired me.
I I talked to you, I think, ayear or so ago, and I'd had the
idea in my head for a couple ofmonths or even years, maybe.
And and I just as a way to giveback, and because there's so
much misinformation out there,and the the internet and social

(53:49):
media is so massive now, and Ijust want to try to give people
the truth.
That's why I named it that.
Um, to just let them knowthere's a place they can go
where they're gonna get the realstory, where they're gonna hear
the truth about this businessand what it takes.
And and there's a lot of freecontent on there.
There's there's a post I put upevery week and a half or so.

(54:11):
There's stuff to read.
Um, you can register and becomepart of the community.
I do a free Zoom A every monthwhere you get on for a couple
hours and I can you can just askme anything on a Zoom and we
talk about whatever.
There's also some stuff ifpeople want to hire me for
services, um, you know, as faras like note services or

(54:32):
whatever, in a way to give back.
And so far it's going, it'sgoing all right.
It's going pretty well.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (54:37):
Uh okay.
So you one of the things that Iwanted to spend some time
talking about is you um there'sthis, there's there's this thing
we call guilty pleasures, and Ium I have a guilty pleasure, and
that is I love disaster films.
You're shaking your head becauseyou know you know what I want to

(54:57):
talk about.
I love disaster films.
Yeah, I love disaster films.
I'll watch any disaster film, Ilove them.
Um, I it's a guilty pleasure ofmine.
So I don't and I've got my evengot my kids into them.
So now my kids are always like,Daddy, is there another end of
the world movie coming out?
I'm like, Yes, let's go see theend of the world movie.

(55:19):
Um, so you, my friend, wrote umone of my guilty pleasures,
which is a film called Geostorm,which was a big um uh disaster
movie studio film with uh withuh Gerard um uh butler.
Sorry, Gerard Butler.
And um and you you sometimes sayto people that you'll happily

(55:46):
refund their money, and I alwaysgive you a hard time about that
because so obviously yousomewhere along the way, you sat
down to write a film thateventually came out on screen.
I don't know if it's the filmyou originally intended to
write.
I'm curious.
Tell us the story or the journeybehind uh writing Geostorm.

(56:08):
Okay, how much time do we have?
Give us the abridged version,all right.

SPEAKER_02 (56:14):
Which I I refer to it these days now as Geostorm.
Um, it was so I co-wrote it.
I my the the writing credit is aco-cred co-writing credit with
Dean Devlin, who is also thecredited director and the
producer of the film.
So my last day, I'll tell thisas quick as I can.

(56:35):
My last day on leverage, JohnRogers and I were sitting in the
office, you know, having a drinkor something, talking about the
season.
And somebody said, Hey, Deanwants to see you up in his
office.
And I had said, you remember, hewas like the head of the studio
that produced the shows.
So I was like, Oh, so I go upthere and he says, Hey, buddy,
uh, I want to pitch you an ideaI have for a movie.

(56:57):
And I said, Oh, great.
And he pitches me satellites cancontrol the weather, and someone
weaponizes them.
He had that's all he had, and hehad the opening scene.
And because he was my boss, Isaid, That's a great idea for a
movie, Dean.
Um, and he's like, Good, becauseI want you to write it with me.

(57:18):
And I said, Okay.
And I go back downstairs, andJohn Rogers goes, What's that
about?
And I go, he wants me to write amovie with him.
And John Rogers goes, Is it thesatellite movie?
And I said, Yes.
And John's like, Yeah, hepitched that to me about three
weeks ago.
So I wasn't even his firstchoice.

(57:40):
Um, but so, anyways, that led tome writing 14 outlines on my
own.
Like, literally, I came up witheverything, and he would say
yes, yes, no, no, and I'd doanother outline.
Finally, got an outline thatDean liked.
So he flew, I was living in St.
Louis at the time.

(58:01):
He flew me out to LA, and socrazy the story.
And he put us up in thistwo-bedroom suite at this
bizarre little boutique hotel inWest Hollywood, and we proceeded
to write the movie together,which what it looked like was I
was in one room, he was at theother in the other room 40 feet

(58:22):
away.
I would write a scene from theoutline and email it to him in
the other room, and then hewould rewrite it to suit him.
And look, Dean's a greatproducer, Dean's an okay TV
director.
Dean Devlin's not a writer, buthe thinks he is, and he was

(58:45):
still basically like I had thatweird thing that he was my boss,
even though we were co-writingthis.
Um, so, anyways, we finally gotthe thing written.
And long story short, Skydance,um, David Ellison's company made
a preemptive bid on it becauseDean had done something very
smart and teased it to Skydanceand Amy Pascal at Sony that it

(59:09):
was going to hit the town andhave this huge bidding war.
So, Skydance made a preemptivebid and paid a fortune for it.
Like it was at the time, it wasthe biggest specs sale in
several years.
And so I thought, great, my shiphas come in.
You know, this is fantastic.
And and also part of the deal hegot with Skydance is he was

(59:33):
locked in as director, he waslocked in as a producer and the
co-writer with me.
Well, Skydance's deal was atParamount.
So Paramount reads the script,you know, and it's not that
great.
Um, because like I said,everything I wrote, Dean would
take and rewrite in the otherroom.
Um, so Paramount had a bunch ofnotes.

(59:55):
We sat down with Brad Gray atthe time, head of the studio.
I'm in there with like All thebig players in Hollywood, and
they're going through sayingeverything that's wrong with the
script, and I'm sitting theresilently agreeing.
And so Dean refuses to do any ofthe notes.
Nope, my script's the way it is.
I'm gonna direct that.
Wow.

(01:00:15):
Well, Paramount says, No, you'renot.
We we're not gonna spend ahundred million dollars on that
screenplay.
And Dean says, Well, that's theonly one I'm directing.
And so they fired us as thewriters, which happens all the
time in features, right?
So my my dream job was suddenly,I was suddenly fired, and they
brought in the Mulronis, who area fantastic husband and wife

(01:00:38):
writing team.
They wrote all the Robert DowneySherlock Holmes movies, really
great writers.
They do a pass on the scriptthat's fantastic.
And to toot my own horn,probably 60% or more of what
they wrote was kind of myoriginal vision that I wrote
before Dean rewrote me.

(01:00:58):
And it's a great script, andeverybody at Paramount's
excited.
And Dean says, No, I'm not goingto shoot it.
I'm shooting my script.
So Paramount put the movie inturnaround.
So we were dead.
So nine weeks after they hadpaid$1.2 something million
dollars for the script, themovie is in turnaround and dead.

(01:01:18):
One week later, Jimmy, and thisright here is how movies get
made in Hollywood.
One week later, Dean is at aschool function for his daughter
at whatever middle school is,you know, that she goes to in
Santa Monica or wherever.
And he's standing next toanother dad.

(01:01:39):
The other dad, and his nameescapes me right now, but at the
time he was the head ofproduction at Warner Brothers.
And they're just talking shop.
You know, what do you got going?
What do you got going?
And Dean says, Oh, I've got thisbig giant disaster epic, you
know, that uh that I that I justgot back from Paramount.
You know, they wanted to ruinit, and I just got it back.
And the guy goes, Is there apart for Gerard Butler?

(01:02:03):
And Dean goes, Why, yes, thereis.
He could be the lead.
And the head of production says,Well, and this is like, I don't
know, it's first of the schoolyear.
It's probably like earlySeptember, right?
At this time.
And he goes, Well, if we don'tput Butler in a movie by the end
of the calendar year, we owe him$30 million.

unknown (01:02:26):
Wow.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:26):
One week later, that movie had a green light.
Long story short, WarnerBrothers spent about$160 million
in order to not pay GerardButler 30 million on his deal.
That's how movies get made.
That's how Wonder.
No wonder it didn't show up atthe Oscars.

(01:02:48):
And then the writing part of itis cut to I ended up going
through arbitration, WJarbitration with that, and
actually had to arbitrateagainst Dean just to end up
sharing credit with him becausehe was arbitrating for sole
writing credit of the movie.
It is just craziness.

(01:03:09):
It was absolute insanity.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:11):
Are you?
I don't know if you're allowedto say, but did you what would
have been his logic behind that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:15):
Of well, I will say this publicly because it's the
truth.
So, you know, there's no slanderor anything because it's the
truth.
What the first two, three weeksof the movie, I was on set and I
was doing rewrites every day.
You know, how you rewrite on setfor Andy Garcia and these other
writers or actors, excuse me.
And what I did not know washappening is every day I was

(01:03:40):
turning in pages, he was havingthe script coordinator generate
a new cover page, title page,that said, you know, Geostorm
written by Dean Devlin and PaulGio, revisions by the Mulronies,
current revisions by DeanDevlin.
So when I saw the arbitration,you know, he had all this

(01:04:04):
evidence in quotes that he haddone all this rewriting and it
had and it was all me.
And I don't know why.
I'm sure he had his reasons forwanting to do that.
But like to this day, I say thegreatest thing I've written in
my career is my letter ofarbitration because I'm one.
It's really pathetic and sadthat that's how it works in

(01:04:26):
Hollywood.
But yeah, I had to arbitrateagainst him just to share credit
with him.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:32):
This is the this is not uncommon.
A lot of people don't realizethis is not uncommon.
How many writers have to fightfor credit?
Um do you uh so okay, but I knowyou're personally disappointed
also with the script and or whatwith excuse me, how the film
turned out.
Why?

(01:04:52):
What what is it?
What is it that what I mean?
I know you said the rewrites andeverything, but um uh just help
people understand because youknow, kind of like what we were
talking a little bit before westarted recording is this idea
that the reason why I wanted youto, and you you're you're so
transparent, and and that's whatI love about you.
You're you're very open andhonest.
I guess you won't be workingwith Dean Devil anymore, but uh

(01:05:14):
you won't be working on the nextStargate.
I didn't get called for theleverage reboot, by the way.
Yeah, but um the uh I think thisis such a good valuable, by the
way.
This is a classic Hollywoodstory, like you said.
Um there's so many lessons to belearned here for young emerging

(01:05:35):
uh writers, because in a sense,right, this is what people see
almost as the as the idealsuccess story, right?
I'm gonna write a big budgetstudio film.
I'm gonna write a big budgetstudio film with a big time
producer, and um, and that's myticket to to to you know to to
glory, right?

(01:05:56):
Like I this is gonna be my bigand it didn't work out for you
in the way that you had thought.
And um lessons learned.
What what what do you lookingback on it now?
What's your best advice?
Um, pro and con, what's yourbest advice to emerging

(01:06:16):
filmmakers having gone throughthis experience?

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:20):
Yeah, it's a great question.
And and there's there's kind oftwo parts to my answer that I
want to really make sure peoplehear.
And the the first thing is theI'll I'll sort of answer the
second part first and then goback.
Is so when that movie was aboutto premiere, you know, it was
there was a lot of hype.
You know, Warner Brothers wasswinging for the fences, they

(01:06:42):
had had so much money in it, youknow, there were ads everywhere.
It was a giant movie coming outin October of that year, 2017,
or whatever it was.
And the week, two weeks beforethat movie came out, my agents
at the time had set up multiplemeetings for me in the feature

(01:07:03):
world.
Like, because I had really noexperience at all writing studio
features before that.
And I was I had meetings.
People wanted to meet with me asa writer to either hear about
the property they had to pitchme or for me to pitch, you know,
movie ideas to write.
The movie came out on a Friday,on a Thursday, I think actually.

(01:07:25):
And by that Monday, my agentscalled and every one of the
meetings had been canceled.
And I was officially in moviejail, which is a real thing.
And and to this day, haven'tbeen released.
I I've had a couple of workfurloughs, but I'm I'm still in
movie jail trying to to getparoled.

(01:07:47):
Um, so that's that's the realityof things like that.
What happened with the movie forme is I was pretty proud of the
outlines I wrote and the the thethat sort of non-existent first
draft that I did write becausemine was all coming from
character.
I felt like mine was a storyabout two brothers that were

(01:08:13):
both trying to earn theirfather, their dead father's
respect and going about it inopposite ways, and only
eventually could come togetherthrough this disaster to realize
that they're better when they'rebrothers, when they're when
there is that family love andthat respect and everything.
And I was really kind of proudof the work I had done that I

(01:08:36):
had managed to create a what Ithought was a real character
piece amidst all this stuff.
And and that's what Dean lovedtoo when we set out to write it.
But what where I think the moviestarted to go off the rails and
then just continued over thecliff is you know, Dean has his

(01:08:56):
own visual effects company atElectric Entertainment and
everything.
Before we had even finishedwriting the screenplay, his
company was creating the visualeffects.
They were Dean's idea of how tomake the movie was it's not a
story about people, it's youhave these six or seven or five

(01:09:21):
or six massive sequences, andyou just fill in the other stuff
with talk.
Hey, some movies have been thatway and been successful and
stuff.
That to me, that's my ownpersonal opinion of why the
movie failed.
And because there's just noauthenticity to the film.

(01:09:41):
There's there's no, I mean, ifyou check out, it can be like a
fun popcorn thing, and and it'skind of you can look at it as
kind of campy and and it workson that level.
But the reason it pained me somuch is because when I sat there
that night in that theater atthe Sherman Oaks Galleria
watching it was because I knewthat we were trying to make a

(01:10:03):
really serious like motionpicture.
Like I was, I wanted desperatelyto be known as like, oh, this is
a guy that brought character toa giant disaster film.
And it was the other way around.
And that's what broke my heartso much.
I remember that night I walkedon Ventura Boulevard for
probably two hours.
Um, but that's that's where Ithink went wrong.

(01:10:24):
And then the whole movie jailthing, you know, that's the
lesson learned.
But if I would never tell uh anup-and-coming writer if they're
in that situation, to say no.
Like if you get thatopportunity, take it and do the
best you can.
You know, there you're obviouslyI wasn't in a position to die on

(01:10:46):
any hills because I would havejust been let go.
I fought my little battles, butin the end, I wasn't in charge.
And yes, it's cost me in thefeature world since then, and
that's been very hard to take,but I I made incredible life
life lessons from it.
I got paid, you know, and eventhough the movie bombed

(01:11:06):
everywhere, God bless thewonderful people of Indonesia
who have terrible taste inmovies because they've they've
allowed residuals to still pourin.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:17):
Um me too.
I bought I bought a ticket.
You got some of my money.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:22):
Thank you.
And so, and that's really thelesson is you know what?
Sometimes you just gotta takeyour lumps.
You know, you you you don't everwant to have that reputation
early on as somebody who'sdifficult to work with, or
somebody that you know isprecious about their words, you
know, that can come later ifonce you achieve success, you

(01:11:44):
can be whatever kind of personyou want.
Hopefully, you won't be likethat.
But early on, you got to, Ithink, go for every opportunity
you can get, and you just do thebest you can and have an
understanding that it'sHollywood, it's not writing
novels for random house.
So a lot of your stuff isn'tgonna turn out the way you want
it.

(01:12:04):
But if you're okay with that,the checks cash.
That's right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:08):
Well, that's that's exactly right.
I think this is a great kind ofplace to wrap up our
conversation because it reallybrings home, I think, a lot of
what we've talked about.
And that is um oftentimes, andit's not just those of us in the
entertainment industry.
Uh you you can see this happenin all different um um uh work

(01:12:32):
environments all over, is is theit's cliche, but it's true.
And the the the it's about thejourney, it's not about the
destination.
As a writer, 100% you can't putthe the the the kind of the the
thing that's going to make youor break you is going to be um

(01:12:55):
that one script or that oneproject.
It really is about doing thebest you can when given the
opportunity over and over again.
It's uh you have to find joy inthe writing, you have to find
joy in the process because, likeyou said, part of the nature of

(01:13:15):
this business is it's gonna robyou of that joy at the end
because at some point you don'tget a say, you just you just
don't.
That's just the way it works.
There, there are unless you'reClint Eastwood or Steven
Spielberg, there like I I I'vesaid this a million times.
Uh there's a reason why you canonly count on one hand the

(01:13:37):
people who have that kind ofpower, because they're the only
ones that have it, they're theonly ones.
The rest of us have to kind ofplay by these um weird arbitrary
rules that sometimes means thatuh what you set out to do
doesn't always show up onscreen.
And you if if that is whereyou're trying to seek

(01:14:00):
satisfaction in your career,it's going to be a very, very
frustrating career.
You have to love the process,you have to love being a writer
in order to um make it in thisbusiness.
Am I am I overstating this toomuch?

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:17):
I don't think it can be overstated.
No, I you know, I I I tellpeople I've had times in my
career, you know, where I waseating at Nobu, and I've had
times where I was eating topramen, and I wouldn't trade
either one of them.
Like it's I I we're allhorrendously overpaid for what

(01:14:38):
we do, and that's just ablessing from the Lord.
But I would do this job forwhatever they paid me, if it was
strictly top ramen all the time,because I'm a writer, you know,
and we live by our wits, youknow, we take the hits and we
walk them off, and then we usethat scar for another story.
And I'm just I I couldn't lovethis job more.

(01:15:02):
And I my success, my reward isin the journey, is in the work,
is in challenging myself everyday.
It's not looking for thevalidation of other people,
looking for box office numbers,looking for Nielsen ratings or
Emmys or Oscars.
That's that's chasing somethingthat's just gonna leave you

(01:15:26):
disappointed.
Even if you win the Oscar, thensuddenly it's like, well, what
are you gonna do next?
You know, and you have to lovewhat you do, and then you will
truly be successful no matterwhere you're at financially.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:41):
I don't know this for sure.
I can't I can't tell you withoutany uncertainty that this is
true, but I think it's about99.9%.
I'm pretty 99% certain this istrue.
The least fulfilling moment inan artist's or filmmaker's
career is when they win theAcademy Award.
It's the least fulfilling, it'sthe least fulfilling moment

(01:16:04):
because of what you just saidright there.
Because this business movesimmediately to what's next.
We're trained what's next.
And it is the least fulfillingthing when you reach that point,
if that is where you have putyour emphasis.
And that is something that forthose of us who are followers of
Jesus, that is something thatshould be different about us,

(01:16:27):
right?
It should we should have adifferent measure for success.
We should, I don't know if wealways do, but we should have a
different measure for success.
We should have a differentmeasure for what where we draw
our contentment from.
And uh, and I think you're justhitting the nail on the head
right here, is that if you makethat thing the thing that's

(01:16:47):
going to satisfy you and and andkind of the purpose of why
you're doing it, then then youwill never truly be satisfied.
You'll never truly feel fullyunderstand your purpose and be
able to live in that purposethat God designed and created
you.
Uh, if you're gonna be a writer,you've got to experience that
pleasure in that moment that Godhas given you that ability, and
you are actually operating inthe talents and abilities that

(01:17:11):
He's given you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:12):
Yeah.
Well, I I I'm so glad you you'reending with this because it's,
you know, I I often and what Ido every day is think about
Colossians, I think it's 323,about you know, whatever you do,
work at it as though you'reworking for the Lord and not for
human masters.
And I my I'm at a point rightnow, career-wise, where I'm

(01:17:34):
probably earning less than I'veearned in a really long time,
but I've never been moresatisfied or or more content in
my career and with myself than Iam right now.
And it's all because of myfaith.
When I I'll tell you, peoplearound me, my girlfriend will
tell you for sure, when I wasmaking the most money I earned

(01:17:56):
in my career, I was theunhappiest.
And that was because I was in aplace during those years where
Christ was second or third orfourth on my list of priorities.
And you know, it's like you youthat that old saying, you know,
you hit rock bottom, Jesus isthe rock at the bottom.

(01:18:17):
And uh it's I couldn't be, Imean, you you know what I've
been going through lately,career-wise, and stuff, and I
could not be more at peace rightnow and and happier.
And I also feel like genuinelyfeel like I'm I'm writing the
best stuff of my career, andbecause it's that journey, man,
it's the journey, you know, thedestination that's gonna come

(01:18:41):
later for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:44):
I love it, I love it, Paul.
Thank you so much.
This has been such a joy to talkwith you, my friend, and I just
love your honesty, yourtransparency.
You know, one of the things Ithink about you, Paul, is you're
almost you one of the things Ilove about you is you love
writers.
I do.
You love right, and it's almostyou're almost pastoral towards

(01:19:04):
them.
I don't know if anyone's evertold you that, but it's almost
like you have a pastor's hearttowards writers.
You love writers, and I lovethat about you.
And thank you for that.
Thank you for the way you carefor other writers and and um
care about the craft.
And um, thank you for yourfriendship.
Thank you for just um all thatyou've done.
And um always love to kind ofclose our podcast by praying for

(01:19:27):
our guests.
Would you would you allow me topray for you to close our
conversation?

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:32):
I I would if you let me say one thing before you do,
and that's part of where I'm atright now in my faith and in my
life.
I I don't want to under, youknow, sell this because is
finding you and and God leadingme to you and to act one and

(01:19:52):
everything.
That was really one of the thejust jump starts to where I'm at
right now.
So I I really owe you atremendous amount of gratitude.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:05):
Oh, you're very kind.
I'll c I'll edit that part out.
Heavenly Father, just um thankyou for Paul.
Thank you for this opportunityto be able to just stop and pray
for him.
And uh what a greatconversation.
What a um just I know God,you're doing so much in his life

(01:20:25):
right now.
You're you're working on hisheart in so many different ways.
And God, I'm just so grateful toyou for uh just who he is as a
friend and as a writer, the wayhe cares for other writers, how
passionate he is about otherwriters.
Uh, just thank you for um justall of that.
And and uh just pray, God, thatyou would um bless Paul, um
bless his career, bless hiswork, um, bless his process,

(01:20:49):
bless his creative process.
God, I pray that that um that hewould be filled with uh your
creativity and your ingenuityand be inspired by uh just um uh
being uh uh living a life that'spleasing and honoring to you,
God, would inspire him um in hiscraft.

(01:21:09):
And um even as he gives back toother writers, just pray a
blessing upon that and uh his uhhis writing website and just
everything he's got going on andbless his family, bless his
relationships.
And God, we just um thank youfor this opportunity.
Pray this in Jesus' name in yourpromise as we stand.
Amen.
Thank you for listening to theAct One podcast, celebrating

(01:21:31):
over 20 years as the premiertraining program for Christians
in Hollywood.
Act One is a Christian communityof entertainment industry
professionals who train andequip storytellers to create
works of truth, goodness, andbeauty.
The Act One program is adivision of Master Media
International.
To financially support themission of Act One or to learn
more about our programs, visitus online at Act OneProgram.com.

(01:21:54):
And to learn more about the workof Master Media, go to
MasterMedia.com.

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