January 23, 2022 • 37 mins
Guest and Emmy-Award winner David Fury gave us yet another chance to geek out - not only about our favorite show, but also about his roles with Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and graduating from Lost after its groundbreaking first year to join the 24 team.
David talks about collaborating with Howard Gordon and how that led him to 24, the value that he brought as a comedy writer and an actor, and shares the story behind my favorite Buffy episode!
All in all, a fantastic conversation about the importance of the writer in driving the pulse of a story.
Find out more:
https://24.fandom.com/wiki/David_Fury
https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/David_Fury
And the truth about Dark Lillow:
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/chosen-one-of-the-day-dark-lily-from-how-i-met-your-mother
David talks about collaborating with Howard Gordon and how that led him to 24, the value that he brought as a comedy writer and an actor, and shares the story behind my favorite Buffy episode!
All in all, a fantastic conversation about the importance of the writer in driving the pulse of a story.
Find out more:
https://24.fandom.com/wiki/David_Fury
https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/David_Fury
And the truth about Dark Lillow:
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/chosen-one-of-the-day-dark-lily-from-how-i-met-your-mother
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:34):
Celebrating twenty years of twenty four andwe are honored and thrilled to have as
our guest today David Fury. Heis such a huge part of five through
eight and beyond, seasons of twentyfour and so many other things that I
like to geek out about. Sowelcome David to the podcast today. Welcome,
thank you, thank you. It'sgreat to be here. So,
(00:56):
David, how'd you get involved intwenty four as a as a writer in
season five? Well, I metHoward Gordon while he was working on the
show Angel, spinoff from Buffy theVampire Player. I was on Buffy at
the time and he had he hadmovedne to and I was a contributing writer
to Angel. Even though I wastechnically on Buffy's staff, I was.
(01:19):
I was freelancing on an Angel,and through that Howard and I became friends
and we kept touch even after heleft the show to go do twenty four,
I think, and occasionally he wouldhave breakfast and he'd always keep talking
to me about the show and wonderingwhat I was up to. And you
know, I was with Angel alittle bit several years past past his experience,
(01:44):
and then went on to do acouple of things, including Lost and
then One Breakfast. Howard just said, would you like to come to twenty
four? And I yes, Isaid, I'd love to come to twenty
four. It's a pleasure working withHoward. And it's funny because I was
(02:05):
on Buffy. Twenty four premiered whileI was doing Buffy, and Drew Goddard
and I, who worked together inBuffy, would take a break from our
writing if we were working later tothe night to stop what we were doing
and go watch twenty four, likelet's go, Yeah, we go watch
twenty four, take a break,and then go back to our writing after
twenty four was over. Yeah,that was our you know. So it's
(02:27):
it felt very fitting to wind upthere, And Buffy was in its last
seasons at that point. By thetime twenty four was kind of gat up
and running. Yes, yeah itwas. It was in its last season.
Then there was another season of Angeland and by that time twenty four
was in its third or fourth season. Sure, Now, I I envied
Justin because Justin had the ability inlater years to binge the whole thing.
(02:49):
But I was watching I remember twothousand and one watching Buffy and watching twenty
four at the same time. Notthe same time, but you know,
in the same time frame. Sure, And yeah, I remember how to
wait several weeks sometimes between episodes forboth especially well back then, the way
to Binger was you wait till theseason's over by the DVDs. And I
(03:09):
hear from so many people who didnot watch the series, but who bought
the DVDs when they heard about itand binge right through them, and that
is the best way to watch.So you're absolutely right. But yes,
what was your what was your favoriteexperiences and highlights working on twenty four from
five to eight and and you wereinvolved with Living Another Day as a writer
(03:30):
in legacy, so what was yourYeah, well, do you have any
favorite moments to highlights that you shared? Well, I mean, the first
really favorite moment was when I leftLoss to go do twenty four. It
was it was a tough decision.It was a tough thing and because we
had just won the we'd had agreat first year, right, yeah,
(03:53):
when we won the Emmy, andgoing to twenty four is definitely a switch
for me. I came out ofcomedy believe it or not sitcoms originally,
so so through Buffy, I wasable to do a lot of comedy.
It was I was hired as acomedy writer for Buffy, and then when
it got to Angel, which isdarker and then lost, the comedy kept
(04:15):
getting smaller and smaller. When Igot to twenty four, it was no
comedy, right. Every comedy triedto inject a little comedy in it,
a little funny, a little banter. No, we don't do that here,
right. So while I'm trying tofind my footing, the glory of
it was that by the end ofthe season we were nominated for again twenty
(04:35):
four been nominee before, but thistime it seemed like I was going to
win back to back Emmys, whichin fact is what happened. Amazing.
Congratual. I mean, we're alittle late, but congratulations, Yes,
congratulations. I wish somebody had saidsomething to me at the time. It
got lost in the mail. Iknow it got lost in the mail.
We apologized, but congratulations. That'sthat was. That was a big thrill
(04:57):
with the guys I was working withwho had now they hadn't experienced it before.
I had just experienced the year earlier. So I was a veteran and
I went, oh, yeah,that's no big deal with it. But
you know, after a five yearstretch, for a show that's been on
for five years to be acknowledged forthe first time of an Emmy, that's
extraordinarily rare. Yeah, there's alot of shows that start strong and fade
(05:20):
away, or shows that are alwaysconsistently good, but they don't often win
their first Emmy five years down theroad. But you're right, that really
is the contrast. Because that firstyear Lost, all people talked about was
Lost for the solid you know,after about four or five episodes, it
became the show you know, certainlyfor that year and continued on. But
(05:41):
twenty four was when I was watchingit was like I was I have an
extra dB set that I use asmy twenty four lending library because I needed
more people around me to know twentyfour. So I would say, look,
first, one's free. Take seasonone if you If you don't come
back for season two, I don'teven know who you are. I don't
want to talk to you. Andby then like, actually your drug dealer
(06:02):
basically pretty much, yes, likepretty much for one. After that you
come to me exactly, I'm yoursource. I'm your source. But I
purposely had an extra set of theseries because I got people hooked on the
show, because I need more peopleto talk, you know, at long,
at length about it. But thatwas one of those shows that,
like you said, it was soaddictive that nobody ever didn't take me off
(06:26):
on the offer. Everybody came backwanting more. It was like that,
Yeah, go ahead, Justice.And to add to Ryan's point, I
mean, speaking of addictive, Imean even today, in today's twenty years
later, the show is still addictive. Our fan base is growing and it's
still popular and people are still talkingand loving it. So yeah, yeah,
(06:46):
So one of the few benefits ofbeing Canadian is that it's on Disney
Plus now and so I'm at threein the morning watching episodes like I've never
seen them before, even though Ican go upstairs and watch them up upstairs.
I own them and I'm still streamingthem. Yeah. And that's a
testament to the writing of you andand Howard and Bob and Joel and and
Manny and Evan and all that.Well, I think very much. It's
(07:09):
a testament to the construct of theshow that the production, the production value,
but also the fact that the showis like a runaway train. You
know. It was every everything isevery moment. It's a cliff banger.
Everything is is just this this crazymomentum that you just don't get on other
shows. I mean, most showswrap up their stories in every episode,
(07:30):
and even the ones that continue,you know, do so at a sort
of leisurely, more character based place. This was just a wall to wall
bang just momentum. It was justmomentum. And that's that was something that
TV wasn't doing much of it atall. Now, what was the challenge
of you jumping off lost into andthe last had its elements of humor certainly
(07:53):
sawyer, you know, and andthat they are certain sides of it that
certainly gave a certainly buy early Igot to have some fun with Yeah,
yeah, yeah. What were thechallenges coming to twenty Well, it was
it was It was challenging because againI come from a I come from part
of my strength as a writer isin dialogue and being able to turn a
(08:13):
turn a fun phrase or or oryou know, do a little callback from
here, you know, saying somethingthat somebody said earlier, for for for
your most humorous intent, and thosewere things they just did not want to
do. So I had to.I had to kind of reinvent the way
I wrote. I had to,and I started to call it meat and
potatoes writing because there's no flourish.There's really no flourishes to it. There's
(08:39):
no there's no poetry to the writing. At twenty four. It is just
down and dirty and get to itand be powerful and be you know,
and and be earnest, you know, and don't be flippant and don't be
glib. You know. Everything ishigh stakes. So it just I had
to stretch a muscle I hadn't stretchedbefore. Yeah, I mean, and
(09:00):
I would say that the humor thatI find in twenty four is usually Chloe's
face. Yeah, she she could. She communicate so much without saying a
word. Yeah, And I wasI was a fan of hers from Mister
Show, like back in the day. Yeah, sure, and I loved
her on Larry Sanders, Oh LarrySanders absolutely yeah. Yeah. But also
I was able to, uh,I was able to do some stuff with
(09:22):
Edgar if you remember Edgar. Yes, yes, we had Lewis last night.
Oh that's really okay, I lovethat's fun. Yeah. So so
those kinds of things you would sneakthings in, but generally speaking, I
had to sort of become a differentwriter, and uh, it took me.
I'll say it took me all ofseason five to get to the place
where suddenly it clicked in and itbecame second and it became totally second nature
(09:46):
to me to be able to youknow, if I was doing a story
and had to write a script,I could bang it out. But it
took me. You know, therewas a learning curve for that first season,
and you stayed on for the restof the ride too. I did.
I went through, went through thattransition and stayed and helped steer the
ship for further seasons. To behonest with you, when I went to
the show, I said to myagent, I said, so this is
(10:07):
only going to go like another year, right, I said, the possibly
can't keep this one day thing going? Right? Because I watched I watched
it as a as a writer,kind of loving the experiment of trying to
tell an entire day in twenty fourepisodes real time, and that was that
experiment fascinated everybody. I mean,certainly the writer, other writers are fascinating,
(10:30):
But I thought it was a Ididn't think it was a gimmick that
was going to sustain itself, andI was wrong because you know, they
more and more and more they wantedwe could have kept going after season eight,
but the show was becoming prohibitively expensive, so you know, in the
studio just and I think they regrettedtheir decision. I think they would have
still wanted to bring it back,but I mean, I think they decided
(10:54):
that later, but at the timethey just thought it's too expensive. Now,
speaking of that, so you youwere involved with twenty four Live Another
Day in twenty fourteen as a writerand some episodes of twenty four Legacy.
We talked to Howard and Howard saidthey've been talking about a potential revival of
(11:16):
twenty four with Keifer with and he'sapparently he's working with Todd Arthin who runs
the resident So we'd like to knowyou know, you were involved as a
writer on twenty four heavily. Sowhat are your thoughts on the future of
the twenty four franchise, considering Keeferis open to returning and Jack Bower's character
(11:37):
was left open and unresolved at theend of Living Another Day. Well,
I think it would be great.I have to say that there's always talk
about twenty four returning there always is. There never I mean after season eight
there was still talk of it.After we did the movie, you know,
(12:00):
of another day, there was talkabout bringing the series back, and
a lot of it had to dowith and Keefer wanted to do it.
But again that the problem is inthe business model of television the way it
used to be. It's not anymoreof it, right to me, the
the budgets would keep it exponentially increasingwith each year, and now you know,
(12:20):
they've got the general business model withall the streaming services is they've condensed
series into ten episodes, you know, into eleven episodes, and they don't
have any promise for more. Theykind of treat it all as like sort
of the British model of let's belimited, like a limited series, limited
series. Yeah, so I'm Andthen again there's always it's the same thing
(12:46):
with Buffy. Actually, there's alwaystalk every year about how do we bring
back Buffy, how do we dowe reboot it? Do we do this?
You know, is it a newBuffy? Is it that the old
Buffy? The thing is, therights are tied up with a lot of
things that don't exist anymore like twentiethcentury Fox Television. I know, I
know Disney has taken it over,but suddenly you're going to see all these
(13:07):
other people in the mix who feelthey own the rights to these characters,
the rights to the you know,So if they can manage to do it,
I think I think at the veryleast a movie a limited series.
I would call a limited series basicallya long movie that wraps up that kind
(13:28):
of finalizes the whole thing. Idon't see it continuing indefinitely, but that's
that's my own, that's my onlyI mean, they tried to do a
movie script, there were scripts written. I'm sure they've talked about this.
Oh yeah, yeah, the deathof Jack Bauer and uh, and we
also talked when we did Live AnotherLive Another Day, we talked about it
(13:52):
as being the final de new momfor Jack Power. Yeah. We could
never no one could ever pull thetrigger. No one could ever like,
yeah, let's end it. Let'sjust give it a prop because no one
was satisfied no matter what ending wegive it, no one was so uh,
you know, it's always like,let's get Jack a happy, a
reasonably happy ending, because he's orchardsfor all these years. Yeah, like
(14:16):
that's not Jack that way. Youcannot ever have it happy ending. Yeah,
and ugly and horrible. And hehas to die. But if you
have, but nobody wants to killhim. Nobody wants to kill him.
Yeah, and we don't want tosee him killed. Yeah, I mean,
I I understand that. I mean, I understand that. I mean,
you don't you don't want to seeyour here. You don't want to
see James bond dye you know itis you know, Yeah, we don't
(14:37):
want to see that. But bythe same tub. And that's the proper
end for Jack Bauer. So ifthere's no proper end, then it's always
going to be strung along as Hey, maybe we'll do some more. Hey
maybe, Hey, if Keeper's upfor it, if Keeper still has his
tea, yeah, and doesn't mindgetting out of his walk you know,
his wheel gear. Keeper said hewants to do it before you have to
use a cane. Yes, thatwas what he said to us. Yeah,
(15:01):
well that you know, who knowswhen that I mean he takes a
lot of damage then uh huh yeah. Yeah, And that's and that's certainly
and I mean certainly in the group, it always comes up like if twenty
four Universe is a really unique thing, because we'll say here's what David's doing,
and somebody will post a link tothe show you're working on, or
I'll say here's Roger cross is doingthis or whatever, and it's it's one
of those very supportive pages. Butevery couple of days it comes up more
(15:26):
so in the other groups. Butthe idea of Okay, when's Jack coming
back? When's Jack coming back?I'm a couple of years younger than Kiefer,
and I can't do I just movedmy daughter last week, and I
was really good at moving twenty yearsago, but not anymore. So I
understand where he's coming from. Yeah, sure, sure than you guys,
So I mean I believe it.It's a physical job. Yeah. And
(15:48):
another limited series like The Living ofthe Day would be would be a cool
uh, a cool idea to wrapup twenty four like like a like perhaps
a rescue offer from Tony and madeit in Kate Morgan and Chloe to get
Jack out of Russia. Why isn'tTony al madea in prison somewhere bouncing back
(16:11):
that that is crazy because he's persuasiveaccording to him. Yeah, I mean,
look, you know, I fantasizeabout it too. I go,
maybe I should just write I mean, I don't know what those guys are
doing. Maybe I'll write a littlespeck thing where Jack, you know.
And obviously the thing they're going totry to do, the thing we've tried
to do in the past, ispartner him with someone so to let that
(16:33):
person take the mantle, right,but never sticks. It just never sticks.
Yeah. We had Avon Strahowski,yes, in the Live Another Day,
who we thought, hey, whynot continue the twenty four you know
format her character, but it nevernever quite gets, you know, partly
(16:53):
because everyone's insecure about letting Jack Bauernot front it. They tried it with
Legacy, which obviously was not gonnafly because people missed twenty four without Jack.
Yeah, whoever whoever was going totake that role was going to get
a hard time. Well, Andthey tried develop and Howard tried developing a
prequel or a legal thriller into twentyfour format, And they also tried developing
(17:18):
a prequel a yellow young Jack power. Yeah, yeah, Jack power,
but who's going to play him?Ultimately, Fox didn't go for those ideas.
For some reason. And that wasa question I had for you.
With yvon Strahowski, I always thoughtshe was if if there was going to
be a natural mantle past. Whenshe choked out the guy hanging, you
(17:40):
know, suspended from the you know, in the middle of the room,
I went, that was a Jackmove. And that whole season was filled
with Jack moves and Jack instincts thatnobody else had, and I thought that
would be a natural a natural fit. Yeah, that's what we really,
that's what we really leaned into witha characters trying to trying to get there.
(18:00):
But it worked. I mean,it worked as far as convincing us.
I mean I I would be onboard. And I think because if
that character has a legitimate connection toJack, you know, I thought that
that will help smooth, grease,grease the wheels to a to a new
twenty four generation by having it.You know. The problem, the problem
(18:22):
we had with the or they hadI wasn't on the show. I just
wrote a couple of scripts for rightright was you know, he had No,
he wasn't. He was not apart of Jack's world. He was
his own. And that should havebeen a show. But it shouldn't have
been a twenty four show, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I always and again, for whatit's worth, I always thought the
way Star Wars has done the StarWars story, so it's not part of
(18:45):
the nine it almost twenty four storylegacy. I think, yes, I
think it would have there been lessflack from whoever whoever had an opinion about
it. I thought it was welldone. But again, was Living as
a Loved open because you guys wantedto pursue another key for season down the
(19:07):
road? Or is that no?Actually? Well, actually, even during
production of Live Another Day, beforewe had written the ends, we were
still debating how to end it.That's that's one of the debates was,
you know, do we want toend it with Jack in Los Angeles going
to see his daughter, right,a strange daughter, and ended and ended
(19:32):
on kind of this kind of thismoment of a guy who's sort of he's
disenfranchised from his country or had been, and from his daughter and trying to
find some way back. I mean, it would have been very poignant,
but it may not have been twentyfour. You know. So we talked
about that, We talked about killingJack, we talked about uh, you
know, you know before we killedwhat's her name? I forget? Yes,
(19:59):
yeah, you know, it's like, is are we killing her?
We're gonna kill her Jack or whatever? So sorry, as we sorry,
go ahead, I just heard twobuzzes, I thought, okay, So
I I just so we we didnot know when we started. And that's
true of all if they didn't tellyou, I'm telling you now, of
(20:19):
all twenty four seasons, we hadno idea where it was going to go.
Nobody mapped out of season. Nobodyever said and we're gonna start here,
we're gonna end here. We hadgeneral ideas, but they always flew
out the window because you know,the needs change as the story's got eaten
up so quickly. So in thesame thing with the movie, even though
(20:42):
it's instead of twenty four episodes,it was only twelve, we had the
same problem of how are we gonnaend this? And you know, even
as we're talking, it was openended, just because again everyone was afraid
to make anything definited. Yeah,I mean, even as we're talking,
it's dawning on me. The ideais that if Jack had reunited with Kim
and become Grandpa again and life wasback to normal, I don't know if
(21:07):
we'd still be talking about it,you know, from from the end of
If Live Another Day ended that way, I don't know that we would still
be as we did. We justa caveat to that we didn't have to
do something like it seems seemingly Jackhas you know, got his daughter got
this. You cut to outside andthere's a car, and there's somebody in
the car and somebody like Cox Coxyou know, an automatic Yeah, yeah,
(21:32):
yeah, and then you ended onthis and you're going, whoa shit,
he's not out. He thought hewas out, but it's something that
was happening, and you know,you keep them, but at least he
gave him sort of an emotional,cathartic ending, but you recognize he's not
going to be able to rest becausesomething that was like, yeah, that
was the way we're splitting hairs.I mean, I think we'd still be
(21:55):
talking about it, but maybe notwith the same sense of what happened to
him? Where is he why?You know, is it being tortured and
is it being is he in Moscowor is he Yeah, is it being
tortured or you know that kind ofstuff. Yeah, yeah, realize whatever
they give you or or we giveyou. If I turn wind up being
a part of it, it's goingto be just the same. Cliffhangary,
(22:15):
what's going to happen? Where's Jack? Why is a little bit? You're
gonna be just as frustrated by thenext one because it's going to be open
ended, just like this, gosay but we don't know what happened,
Like yes, never will because ifyou tell you what happened, like you're
saying, we won't be having thisconversation unless unless someone pulls the trigger on
(22:36):
Jack nowerth well, justin it haveto you because nobody else is going to
do it. I don't think goingto do it. So I want to
jump off just for a second toBuffy because Buffy, again, they were
concurrent in my in my universe,they were running, you know, at
the same time. Uh it certainlywith the you know, coming close to
the end and kind of ramping upof twenty four. But I watched you
(22:57):
wrote one of my no, itis my favorite episode of Buffy. Grave,
Oh Grave, Yes, that isloaded. Yeah, I watched it
again this afternoon. There was Thatwas the the only finale of Buffy not
written by Joss Wow. Credited toJos okay, but I will say Joss
(23:21):
had a very heavy hand in that. So there's a lot of josson that
I will take. I will takesome credit for that episode or the episode,
but there's a lot of Joss Imean, I mean it comes in
with again. I watched it againfor the first time in a couple of
years. Uh. The comedy writercertainly came showed up with that well,
buckle up, Rupert, because I'veturned pro. Only her voice goes that
(23:42):
deep I've turned pro, which isamazing. But by the end, I
know, I've seen this episode probablya dozen times. I was tearing up
at the end of this episode todaybecause where where it went and how emotional.
Again, this silly show about vampiresand chasing, you know, the
all that kind of stuff. Butthe depths to which that show took was
(24:03):
because of the writing. I mean, you couldn't have had that ending of
that episode without having ramped it upand gotten to a point where we're like,
is she going to kill him?I think she's gonna kill him?
And again, spoilers for anybody thatyou need to go back and watch Buffy,
any all of you, regardless,But that was such a such an
emotionally powerful episode that was earned,right, the whole Zander moment and that
(24:23):
you know, is she going todo it? And there was that was
that was loaded. So there werelots of there were lots of funny in
the middle of the veiny scary Willow. But like I said, the heart
of that show really really came out. That's why it's my favorite episode of
That's the beauty of that show andeverything about it was was rooted toward that
(24:44):
heart. We got with it.Yeah, and my other question to you
on that vein did you see theepisodes of How I Met Your Mother where
Dark Willow showed up? There werethey were at least in the run of
that show, there at least threedifferent episodes where she became Dark Willow.
(25:06):
Oh so you're just say Allison's character'scharacter, right, right, because I
was a match thing you actually had. I was going, what what huh?
No? Sorry, the character Allisonplayed and How I Met Your Mother
had at least three moments through therun because there was it was so it
was so meta and there were somany you know, like you know where
(25:26):
I'm from, right, like thesekind of you know in joke references,
but there was there was one inparticular where she just kind of did this
and she had the look and itall came back and like you know,
and she kind of picked up stuffwith her mind and it was like whoa.
The Buffy fans loved that moment.I missed it. Yeah, yeah,
I was gonna says. As acomedy writer, you probably I missed
those episodes. Yeah, as acomedy writer, you probably really have appreciated
(25:49):
seeing your work again to some degree. I like all the meta stuff.
Yeah, me too, me too. Absolutely. Is there anything you're watching
now that we should be checking out? Yeah, you know, I'm I'm
I've been watching a lot of olderstuff. I've been watching The Wire again.
Oh yeah, yeah, watch howYeah that's a good revisit. Yeah,
(26:12):
and that was all around the sametime as twenty four was around the
same time as it was early twothousands. Yeah, so I was watching
that. I'm watching Let's see,what was the last thing I watched?
Modern? Uh? I enjoy theGood Fight? Yes? Yeah, plus
(26:33):
that was powerful and I'm I'm toldI should watch Invincible, which I haven't
done. Yeah, that's We talkedto Chris Dematopless last night and he was.
He was a big part of that. But yeah, that was I'm
about four episodes in and I'm reallyliking it. Yeah, i am very
much so I haven't checked it outyet, but that's that's my next one.
(26:56):
Yeah, very good, very goodone. Other besides writing, and
you know all the other things youdo, are there other passions that you
that you've pursued. Your passions changeas you're, as you're as you get
older. I mean, my passionhas always been acting. It started out.
My whole writing career came out ofacting, and my biggest passion was
doing theater. Obviously, this hasbeen a bad year for theater. So
(27:19):
yeah, so I've been I've beentrying to throw a little bit of my
you know whatever whatever I've got,money or name, anything to help the
help with most of my friends whoare still who are still actively working in
the New York stage. But uh, I think i'm i'm, I'm.
My biggest passion now is travel,Like i'm i'm I I have the time
(27:45):
now to really go and spend HowardGordon in fact went to Italy for several
months, if not a full yearduring uh while we were doing Live another
day or just after we did liveanother day, and that just sounded glorious
to me. Absolutely, so Ithink that's my next I had I had
(28:07):
booked something in Greece. I hadbooked something on an island in Greece that
I had to cancel because of thepandemic. Right, but I'm going to
get back to it. It's timefor me to get back to I love
history. I love the you know, European history. I love just world
history. You visit, visit theruins and that kind of thing. Yeah,
(28:30):
I haven't actually been to Greece yet, but the Ruins. I've been
to Turkey, you know Italy.I've been to France. What's what's your
favorite place to have visited that youvisited? Got to say Italy. Italy
is the most remarkably beautiful country.And you can't beat Italian food. Sorry,
(28:51):
absolutely, you might like my dad. My dad have some Bermuda,
oh yeah, yeah. And thehistory of Bermuda is that there's forts on
each It's only twenty one miles long, but there's forts on each end of
the island because during the War ofeighteen twelve, that was the stopover point,
that was the refuel that was allthat kind of stuff. So I
will go. I will when Igo, I'll spend most of my trip
(29:14):
going through the ruins that I've beenthrough before, in the forts and all
that kind of stuff. Fascinated Iwas thinking of Bermuda is just simply you
know, a beach resort. Youknow, I'm going to, Yeah,
lay on the beach. I hadno idea there was so many historical things
to see there. That was theplace for the British to kind of it
was a halfway point, but itwas a point just before you got to
the mainland to you know, kindof relax and you know, kind of
(29:34):
get ready for the big fight.I guess. So, yeah, lots
lots of forts and watchtowers and allthat kind of stuff there. So is
there anything else unique you could tellus about yourself these days? And nique
unique me? No, I don'tthink there's anything unique about me. Did
I say anything unique when you saidmany things unique? No, I feel
(30:03):
I guess I guess it's you know, I guess it's unique that I'm I'm
still married to my first flight.That's amazing. Yes, it is amazing
after almost thirty years and you know, we have three kids who are all
grown now and starting their lives.You know, a lot of my peers
they're on their second marriages, they'reon their third, second, third families.
(30:27):
Yeah, a lot of my peerstoo. Yeah, well i'll sell
you. You know, it's probablytrue all over. But I'll tell you
this business is brutal. It's brutalfor for that kind of thing. It's
just the hours you work and allthat. So I feel I feel unique
privilege. You should be congratulated forthat. Congratulations. That's awesome for students
(30:48):
coming out of school who want toget into writing in the TV business or
film or acting or into network television, do you have what would your advice
be to to students one and ticketinto the industry in those three areas.
Sure, well, that's you know, that's one of those things where I
used to give that advice all thetime, which was to get into theaters,
(31:11):
get into local theaters and as writers, as actors, as directors,
whatever. People would come and theywould see your work and they you know,
and that would that would evolve intopeople who work in television whould see
your work and they go, yeah, I love that play. I want
to talk to that playwright. NowI will say that is things have changed.
(31:34):
Things have changed since I started out. You know, now everybody puts
their work online, but everyone hasa YouTube channel, you know, putting
out their work. I think,I think the best advice I can give,
which ties into the theater is produceyour own work. Get your work
out there, get your works asbest as you can, get it out
(31:55):
there on YouTube, on vimeo,whatever it takes. And you know,
if you have a unique voice,if you have a unique sensibility, you're
you know, you're it's going tocome across. And do those as your
calling cards because people unfortunately aren't goingto aren't going to come see your catch
kind of or come see you doyour you know one act, you know,
(32:20):
but they will watch, you know, a fairly well produced It doesn't
have to be huge production value,but a simple, strong, little video
will do more for your acting,writing, directing careers than anything else.
And these days I tell people toget their master's degrees young students because it
(32:43):
seems to be making more of animpact. Now, experience is always the
best teacher. But short of that, you know, if the education to
higher schooling, Okay, twenty fouris a bit of it is. It's
a it's a pedigree for us sothat when I see somebody's name attached to
something, I go, oh,I recognize them from twenty four. I'll
(33:04):
take the time to watch this showor check out this film, or whatever
the case may be. So muchso we're the kind of read credits and
listen to commentary and all that kindof stuff. So when I saw your
name attached to twenty four, youknow, coming into the fifth season,
I went, oh, Buffy,and I knew you know, knew kind
of where you were coming from.What is it that excites you about writing?
Because it seems to me that writingis ninety percent of You can put
(33:28):
the best cast together, but ifthe script isn't good, it's unwatchable.
But what is it about writing thatexcites you at this point? For you,
I think because in my I'm puttingon the production in my mind.
When you're writing, you're actually imagining, and as long as you can,
as long as you can live withthe idea, it'll never be as good
as it was in your mind.Right, you're gonna watch actors not knowing
(33:51):
how to turn that joke the wayyou want, or not not quite landing
that moment the way you saw inyour head. But what's writing is when
you actually when you write it.And since I was an actor and a
director, I was able. I'mable to get excited about the movie that's
going on inside and if I youknow, so when I had opportunities direct
(34:12):
on Buffy or Angel, I wasable to get a little a little bit
more of a sense of that,a little bit more of that sense of
excitement of Wow, this is reallyall me and the mistakes are mine the
stuff, but the good stuff ismine, so I can I can take
credit for that. I think findingnew points of view is really important elements.
(34:35):
And you know, especially since there'sso much identity writing now, where
you know, people are from differentbackgrounds are writing about their experiences much more
personal. So there's a lot ofgreat personal stuff coming out and that's where
you can draw. You can drawwhen you look at your own lives.
No matter where we come from,there there are stories that are particular to
(34:57):
us, that that that move usto make us laugh, and that will
always be valuable. So just keepdoing it and just keep and hanging around
the other talented people. So well, thank you. Wow, that's amazing.
Thank you so much for your timetoday. I want to do one
more thing with one more question.You talked about it, and the only
(35:20):
reason I bring it up is becauseyou brought up a minute ago. What
was one line that was delivered byan actor that they got it right?
Where you wrote a line and whenthey delivered it it landed. Wow,
that's a big question. You've writtena lot of things. Yeah, I'm
going to say what a line becauseI want to pick a line that's pretty
(35:42):
good, not just twenty four wherever? Oh I got you, I got
you? Yeah, Yeah, youknow, I guess. I guess a
lot of it is just people whoknow how to throw away a line,
just like not put too much emphasisin it, just make it. And
there was a line in Buffy wherewhere where somebody thinks Steph Green played as
(36:08):
his name is Oz. Thank you, yes, thanks for lending me your
stereo system and Seth said Micassio isSue Cassio did it perfectly, exactly what
you wanted it amazing, amazing.Well, thank you again for your time,
Thanks for hanging out with us andtalking twenty years and twenty four and
(36:30):
everything else. Typical barrister
Celebrating twenty years of twenty four andwe are honored and thrilled to have as
our guest today David Fury. Heis such a huge part of five through
eight and beyond, seasons of twentyfour and so many other things that I
like to geek out about. Sowelcome David to the podcast today. Welcome,
thank you, thank you. It'sgreat to be here. So,
(00:56):
David, how'd you get involved intwenty four as a as a writer in
season five? Well, I metHoward Gordon while he was working on the
show Angel, spinoff from Buffy theVampire Player. I was on Buffy at
the time and he had he hadmovedne to and I was a contributing writer
to Angel. Even though I wastechnically on Buffy's staff, I was.
(01:19):
I was freelancing on an Angel,and through that Howard and I became friends
and we kept touch even after heleft the show to go do twenty four,
I think, and occasionally he wouldhave breakfast and he'd always keep talking
to me about the show and wonderingwhat I was up to. And you
know, I was with Angel alittle bit several years past past his experience,
(01:44):
and then went on to do acouple of things, including Lost and
then One Breakfast. Howard just said, would you like to come to twenty
four? And I yes, Isaid, I'd love to come to twenty
four. It's a pleasure working withHoward. And it's funny because I was
(02:05):
on Buffy. Twenty four premiered whileI was doing Buffy, and Drew Goddard
and I, who worked together inBuffy, would take a break from our
writing if we were working later tothe night to stop what we were doing
and go watch twenty four, likelet's go, Yeah, we go watch
twenty four, take a break,and then go back to our writing after
twenty four was over. Yeah,that was our you know. So it's
(02:27):
it felt very fitting to wind upthere, And Buffy was in its last
seasons at that point. By thetime twenty four was kind of gat up
and running. Yes, yeah itwas. It was in its last season.
Then there was another season of Angeland and by that time twenty four
was in its third or fourth season. Sure, Now, I I envied
Justin because Justin had the ability inlater years to binge the whole thing.
(02:49):
But I was watching I remember twothousand and one watching Buffy and watching twenty
four at the same time. Notthe same time, but you know,
in the same time frame. Sure, And yeah, I remember how to
wait several weeks sometimes between episodes forboth especially well back then, the way
to Binger was you wait till theseason's over by the DVDs. And I
(03:09):
hear from so many people who didnot watch the series, but who bought
the DVDs when they heard about itand binge right through them, and that
is the best way to watch.So you're absolutely right. But yes,
what was your what was your favoriteexperiences and highlights working on twenty four from
five to eight and and you wereinvolved with Living Another Day as a writer
(03:30):
in legacy, so what was yourYeah, well, do you have any
favorite moments to highlights that you shared? Well, I mean, the first
really favorite moment was when I leftLoss to go do twenty four. It
was it was a tough decision.It was a tough thing and because we
had just won the we'd had agreat first year, right, yeah,
(03:53):
when we won the Emmy, andgoing to twenty four is definitely a switch
for me. I came out ofcomedy believe it or not sitcoms originally,
so so through Buffy, I wasable to do a lot of comedy.
It was I was hired as acomedy writer for Buffy, and then when
it got to Angel, which isdarker and then lost, the comedy kept
(04:15):
getting smaller and smaller. When Igot to twenty four, it was no
comedy, right. Every comedy triedto inject a little comedy in it,
a little funny, a little banter. No, we don't do that here,
right. So while I'm trying tofind my footing, the glory of
it was that by the end ofthe season we were nominated for again twenty
(04:35):
four been nominee before, but thistime it seemed like I was going to
win back to back Emmys, whichin fact is what happened. Amazing.
Congratual. I mean, we're alittle late, but congratulations, Yes,
congratulations. I wish somebody had saidsomething to me at the time. It
got lost in the mail. Iknow it got lost in the mail.
We apologized, but congratulations. That'sthat was. That was a big thrill
(04:57):
with the guys I was working withwho had now they hadn't experienced it before.
I had just experienced the year earlier. So I was a veteran and
I went, oh, yeah,that's no big deal with it. But
you know, after a five yearstretch, for a show that's been on
for five years to be acknowledged forthe first time of an Emmy, that's
extraordinarily rare. Yeah, there's alot of shows that start strong and fade
(05:20):
away, or shows that are alwaysconsistently good, but they don't often win
their first Emmy five years down theroad. But you're right, that really
is the contrast. Because that firstyear Lost, all people talked about was
Lost for the solid you know,after about four or five episodes, it
became the show you know, certainlyfor that year and continued on. But
(05:41):
twenty four was when I was watchingit was like I was I have an
extra dB set that I use asmy twenty four lending library because I needed
more people around me to know twentyfour. So I would say, look,
first, one's free. Take seasonone if you If you don't come
back for season two, I don'teven know who you are. I don't
want to talk to you. Andby then like, actually your drug dealer
(06:02):
basically pretty much, yes, likepretty much for one. After that you
come to me exactly, I'm yoursource. I'm your source. But I
purposely had an extra set of theseries because I got people hooked on the
show, because I need more peopleto talk, you know, at long,
at length about it. But thatwas one of those shows that,
like you said, it was soaddictive that nobody ever didn't take me off
(06:26):
on the offer. Everybody came backwanting more. It was like that,
Yeah, go ahead, Justice.And to add to Ryan's point, I
mean, speaking of addictive, Imean even today, in today's twenty years
later, the show is still addictive. Our fan base is growing and it's
still popular and people are still talkingand loving it. So yeah, yeah,
(06:46):
So one of the few benefits ofbeing Canadian is that it's on Disney
Plus now and so I'm at threein the morning watching episodes like I've never
seen them before, even though Ican go upstairs and watch them up upstairs.
I own them and I'm still streamingthem. Yeah. And that's a
testament to the writing of you andand Howard and Bob and Joel and and
Manny and Evan and all that.Well, I think very much. It's
(07:09):
a testament to the construct of theshow that the production, the production value,
but also the fact that the showis like a runaway train. You
know. It was every everything isevery moment. It's a cliff banger.
Everything is is just this this crazymomentum that you just don't get on other
shows. I mean, most showswrap up their stories in every episode,
(07:30):
and even the ones that continue,you know, do so at a sort
of leisurely, more character based place. This was just a wall to wall
bang just momentum. It was justmomentum. And that's that was something that
TV wasn't doing much of it atall. Now, what was the challenge
of you jumping off lost into andthe last had its elements of humor certainly
(07:53):
sawyer, you know, and andthat they are certain sides of it that
certainly gave a certainly buy early Igot to have some fun with Yeah,
yeah, yeah. What were thechallenges coming to twenty Well, it was
it was It was challenging because againI come from a I come from part
of my strength as a writer isin dialogue and being able to turn a
(08:13):
turn a fun phrase or or oryou know, do a little callback from
here, you know, saying somethingthat somebody said earlier, for for for
your most humorous intent, and thosewere things they just did not want to
do. So I had to.I had to kind of reinvent the way
I wrote. I had to,and I started to call it meat and
potatoes writing because there's no flourish.There's really no flourishes to it. There's
(08:39):
no there's no poetry to the writing. At twenty four. It is just
down and dirty and get to itand be powerful and be you know,
and and be earnest, you know, and don't be flippant and don't be
glib. You know. Everything ishigh stakes. So it just I had
to stretch a muscle I hadn't stretchedbefore. Yeah, I mean, and
(09:00):
I would say that the humor thatI find in twenty four is usually Chloe's
face. Yeah, she she could. She communicate so much without saying a
word. Yeah, And I wasI was a fan of hers from Mister
Show, like back in the day. Yeah, sure, and I loved
her on Larry Sanders, Oh LarrySanders absolutely yeah. Yeah. But also
I was able to, uh,I was able to do some stuff with
(09:22):
Edgar if you remember Edgar. Yes, yes, we had Lewis last night.
Oh that's really okay, I lovethat's fun. Yeah. So so
those kinds of things you would sneakthings in, but generally speaking, I
had to sort of become a differentwriter, and uh, it took me.
I'll say it took me all ofseason five to get to the place
where suddenly it clicked in and itbecame second and it became totally second nature
(09:46):
to me to be able to youknow, if I was doing a story
and had to write a script,I could bang it out. But it
took me. You know, therewas a learning curve for that first season,
and you stayed on for the restof the ride too. I did.
I went through, went through thattransition and stayed and helped steer the
ship for further seasons. To behonest with you, when I went to
the show, I said to myagent, I said, so this is
(10:07):
only going to go like another year, right, I said, the possibly
can't keep this one day thing going? Right? Because I watched I watched
it as a as a writer,kind of loving the experiment of trying to
tell an entire day in twenty fourepisodes real time, and that was that
experiment fascinated everybody. I mean,certainly the writer, other writers are fascinating,
(10:30):
But I thought it was a Ididn't think it was a gimmick that
was going to sustain itself, andI was wrong because you know, they
more and more and more they wantedwe could have kept going after season eight,
but the show was becoming prohibitively expensive, so you know, in the
studio just and I think they regrettedtheir decision. I think they would have
still wanted to bring it back,but I mean, I think they decided
(10:54):
that later, but at the timethey just thought it's too expensive. Now,
speaking of that, so you youwere involved with twenty four Live Another
Day in twenty fourteen as a writerand some episodes of twenty four Legacy.
We talked to Howard and Howard saidthey've been talking about a potential revival of
(11:16):
twenty four with Keifer with and he'sapparently he's working with Todd Arthin who runs
the resident So we'd like to knowyou know, you were involved as a
writer on twenty four heavily. Sowhat are your thoughts on the future of
the twenty four franchise, considering Keeferis open to returning and Jack Bower's character
(11:37):
was left open and unresolved at theend of Living Another Day. Well,
I think it would be great.I have to say that there's always talk
about twenty four returning there always is. There never I mean after season eight
there was still talk of it.After we did the movie, you know,
(12:00):
of another day, there was talkabout bringing the series back, and
a lot of it had to dowith and Keefer wanted to do it.
But again that the problem is inthe business model of television the way it
used to be. It's not anymoreof it, right to me, the
the budgets would keep it exponentially increasingwith each year, and now you know,
(12:20):
they've got the general business model withall the streaming services is they've condensed
series into ten episodes, you know, into eleven episodes, and they don't
have any promise for more. Theykind of treat it all as like sort
of the British model of let's belimited, like a limited series, limited
series. Yeah, so I'm Andthen again there's always it's the same thing
(12:46):
with Buffy. Actually, there's alwaystalk every year about how do we bring
back Buffy, how do we dowe reboot it? Do we do this?
You know, is it a newBuffy? Is it that the old
Buffy? The thing is, therights are tied up with a lot of
things that don't exist anymore like twentiethcentury Fox Television. I know, I
know Disney has taken it over,but suddenly you're going to see all these
(13:07):
other people in the mix who feelthey own the rights to these characters,
the rights to the you know,So if they can manage to do it,
I think I think at the veryleast a movie a limited series.
I would call a limited series basicallya long movie that wraps up that kind
(13:28):
of finalizes the whole thing. Idon't see it continuing indefinitely, but that's
that's my own, that's my onlyI mean, they tried to do a
movie script, there were scripts written. I'm sure they've talked about this.
Oh yeah, yeah, the deathof Jack Bauer and uh, and we
also talked when we did Live AnotherLive Another Day, we talked about it
(13:52):
as being the final de new momfor Jack Power. Yeah. We could
never no one could ever pull thetrigger. No one could ever like,
yeah, let's end it. Let'sjust give it a prop because no one
was satisfied no matter what ending wegive it, no one was so uh,
you know, it's always like,let's get Jack a happy, a
reasonably happy ending, because he's orchardsfor all these years. Yeah, like
(14:16):
that's not Jack that way. Youcannot ever have it happy ending. Yeah,
and ugly and horrible. And hehas to die. But if you
have, but nobody wants to killhim. Nobody wants to kill him.
Yeah, and we don't want tosee him killed. Yeah, I mean,
I I understand that. I mean, I understand that. I mean,
you don't you don't want to seeyour here. You don't want to
see James bond dye you know itis you know, Yeah, we don't
(14:37):
want to see that. But bythe same tub. And that's the proper
end for Jack Bauer. So ifthere's no proper end, then it's always
going to be strung along as Hey, maybe we'll do some more. Hey
maybe, Hey, if Keeper's upfor it, if Keeper still has his
tea, yeah, and doesn't mindgetting out of his walk you know,
his wheel gear. Keeper said hewants to do it before you have to
use a cane. Yes, thatwas what he said to us. Yeah,
(15:01):
well that you know, who knowswhen that I mean he takes a
lot of damage then uh huh yeah. Yeah, And that's and that's certainly
and I mean certainly in the group, it always comes up like if twenty
four Universe is a really unique thing, because we'll say here's what David's doing,
and somebody will post a link tothe show you're working on, or
I'll say here's Roger cross is doingthis or whatever, and it's it's one
of those very supportive pages. Butevery couple of days it comes up more
(15:26):
so in the other groups. Butthe idea of Okay, when's Jack coming
back? When's Jack coming back?I'm a couple of years younger than Kiefer,
and I can't do I just movedmy daughter last week, and I
was really good at moving twenty yearsago, but not anymore. So I
understand where he's coming from. Yeah, sure, sure than you guys,
So I mean I believe it.It's a physical job. Yeah. And
(15:48):
another limited series like The Living ofthe Day would be would be a cool
uh, a cool idea to wrapup twenty four like like a like perhaps
a rescue offer from Tony and madeit in Kate Morgan and Chloe to get
Jack out of Russia. Why isn'tTony al madea in prison somewhere bouncing back
(16:11):
that that is crazy because he's persuasiveaccording to him. Yeah, I mean,
look, you know, I fantasizeabout it too. I go,
maybe I should just write I mean, I don't know what those guys are
doing. Maybe I'll write a littlespeck thing where Jack, you know.
And obviously the thing they're going totry to do, the thing we've tried
to do in the past, ispartner him with someone so to let that
(16:33):
person take the mantle, right,but never sticks. It just never sticks.
Yeah. We had Avon Strahowski,yes, in the Live Another Day,
who we thought, hey, whynot continue the twenty four you know
format her character, but it nevernever quite gets, you know, partly
(16:53):
because everyone's insecure about letting Jack Bauernot front it. They tried it with
Legacy, which obviously was not gonnafly because people missed twenty four without Jack.
Yeah, whoever whoever was going totake that role was going to get
a hard time. Well, Andthey tried develop and Howard tried developing a
prequel or a legal thriller into twentyfour format, And they also tried developing
(17:18):
a prequel a yellow young Jack power. Yeah, yeah, Jack power,
but who's going to play him?Ultimately, Fox didn't go for those ideas.
For some reason. And that wasa question I had for you.
With yvon Strahowski, I always thoughtshe was if if there was going to
be a natural mantle past. Whenshe choked out the guy hanging, you
(17:40):
know, suspended from the you know, in the middle of the room,
I went, that was a Jackmove. And that whole season was filled
with Jack moves and Jack instincts thatnobody else had, and I thought that
would be a natural a natural fit. Yeah, that's what we really,
that's what we really leaned into witha characters trying to trying to get there.
(18:00):
But it worked. I mean,it worked as far as convincing us.
I mean I I would be onboard. And I think because if
that character has a legitimate connection toJack, you know, I thought that
that will help smooth, grease,grease the wheels to a to a new
twenty four generation by having it.You know. The problem, the problem
(18:22):
we had with the or they hadI wasn't on the show. I just
wrote a couple of scripts for rightright was you know, he had No,
he wasn't. He was not apart of Jack's world. He was
his own. And that should havebeen a show. But it shouldn't have
been a twenty four show, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I always and again, for whatit's worth, I always thought the
way Star Wars has done the StarWars story, so it's not part of
(18:45):
the nine it almost twenty four storylegacy. I think, yes, I
think it would have there been lessflack from whoever whoever had an opinion about
it. I thought it was welldone. But again, was Living as
a Loved open because you guys wantedto pursue another key for season down the
(19:07):
road? Or is that no?Actually? Well, actually, even during
production of Live Another Day, beforewe had written the ends, we were
still debating how to end it.That's that's one of the debates was,
you know, do we want toend it with Jack in Los Angeles going
to see his daughter, right,a strange daughter, and ended and ended
(19:32):
on kind of this kind of thismoment of a guy who's sort of he's
disenfranchised from his country or had been, and from his daughter and trying to
find some way back. I mean, it would have been very poignant,
but it may not have been twentyfour. You know. So we talked
about that, We talked about killingJack, we talked about uh, you
know, you know before we killedwhat's her name? I forget? Yes,
(19:59):
yeah, you know, it's like, is are we killing her?
We're gonna kill her Jack or whatever? So sorry, as we sorry,
go ahead, I just heard twobuzzes, I thought, okay, So
I I just so we we didnot know when we started. And that's
true of all if they didn't tellyou, I'm telling you now, of
(20:19):
all twenty four seasons, we hadno idea where it was going to go.
Nobody mapped out of season. Nobodyever said and we're gonna start here,
we're gonna end here. We hadgeneral ideas, but they always flew
out the window because you know,the needs change as the story's got eaten
up so quickly. So in thesame thing with the movie, even though
(20:42):
it's instead of twenty four episodes,it was only twelve, we had the
same problem of how are we gonnaend this? And you know, even
as we're talking, it was openended, just because again everyone was afraid
to make anything definited. Yeah,I mean, even as we're talking,
it's dawning on me. The ideais that if Jack had reunited with Kim
and become Grandpa again and life wasback to normal, I don't know if
(21:07):
we'd still be talking about it,you know, from from the end of
If Live Another Day ended that way, I don't know that we would still
be as we did. We justa caveat to that we didn't have to
do something like it seems seemingly Jackhas you know, got his daughter got
this. You cut to outside andthere's a car, and there's somebody in
the car and somebody like Cox Coxyou know, an automatic Yeah, yeah,
(21:32):
yeah, and then you ended onthis and you're going, whoa shit,
he's not out. He thought hewas out, but it's something that
was happening, and you know,you keep them, but at least he
gave him sort of an emotional,cathartic ending, but you recognize he's not
going to be able to rest becausesomething that was like, yeah, that
was the way we're splitting hairs.I mean, I think we'd still be
(21:55):
talking about it, but maybe notwith the same sense of what happened to
him? Where is he why?You know, is it being tortured and
is it being is he in Moscowor is he Yeah, is it being
tortured or you know that kind ofstuff. Yeah, yeah, realize whatever
they give you or or we giveyou. If I turn wind up being
a part of it, it's goingto be just the same. Cliffhangary,
(22:15):
what's going to happen? Where's Jack? Why is a little bit? You're
gonna be just as frustrated by thenext one because it's going to be open
ended, just like this, gosay but we don't know what happened,
Like yes, never will because ifyou tell you what happened, like you're
saying, we won't be having thisconversation unless unless someone pulls the trigger on
(22:36):
Jack nowerth well, justin it haveto you because nobody else is going to
do it. I don't think goingto do it. So I want to
jump off just for a second toBuffy because Buffy, again, they were
concurrent in my in my universe,they were running, you know, at
the same time. Uh it certainlywith the you know, coming close to
the end and kind of ramping upof twenty four. But I watched you
(22:57):
wrote one of my no, itis my favorite episode of Buffy. Grave,
Oh Grave, Yes, that isloaded. Yeah, I watched it
again this afternoon. There was Thatwas the the only finale of Buffy not
written by Joss Wow. Credited toJos okay, but I will say Joss
(23:21):
had a very heavy hand in that. So there's a lot of josson that
I will take. I will takesome credit for that episode or the episode,
but there's a lot of Joss Imean, I mean it comes in
with again. I watched it againfor the first time in a couple of
years. Uh. The comedy writercertainly came showed up with that well,
buckle up, Rupert, because I'veturned pro. Only her voice goes that
(23:42):
deep I've turned pro, which isamazing. But by the end, I
know, I've seen this episode probablya dozen times. I was tearing up
at the end of this episode todaybecause where where it went and how emotional.
Again, this silly show about vampiresand chasing, you know, the
all that kind of stuff. Butthe depths to which that show took was
(24:03):
because of the writing. I mean, you couldn't have had that ending of
that episode without having ramped it upand gotten to a point where we're like,
is she going to kill him?I think she's gonna kill him?
And again, spoilers for anybody thatyou need to go back and watch Buffy,
any all of you, regardless,But that was such a such an
emotionally powerful episode that was earned,right, the whole Zander moment and that
(24:23):
you know, is she going todo it? And there was that was
that was loaded. So there werelots of there were lots of funny in
the middle of the veiny scary Willow. But like I said, the heart
of that show really really came out. That's why it's my favorite episode of
That's the beauty of that show andeverything about it was was rooted toward that
(24:44):
heart. We got with it.Yeah, and my other question to you
on that vein did you see theepisodes of How I Met Your Mother where
Dark Willow showed up? There werethey were at least in the run of
that show, there at least threedifferent episodes where she became Dark Willow.
(25:06):
Oh so you're just say Allison's character'scharacter, right, right, because I
was a match thing you actually had. I was going, what what huh?
No? Sorry, the character Allisonplayed and How I Met Your Mother
had at least three moments through therun because there was it was so it
was so meta and there were somany you know, like you know where
(25:26):
I'm from, right, like thesekind of you know in joke references,
but there was there was one inparticular where she just kind of did this
and she had the look and itall came back and like you know,
and she kind of picked up stuffwith her mind and it was like whoa.
The Buffy fans loved that moment.I missed it. Yeah, yeah,
I was gonna says. As acomedy writer, you probably I missed
those episodes. Yeah, as acomedy writer, you probably really have appreciated
(25:49):
seeing your work again to some degree. I like all the meta stuff.
Yeah, me too, me too. Absolutely. Is there anything you're watching
now that we should be checking out? Yeah, you know, I'm I'm
I've been watching a lot of olderstuff. I've been watching The Wire again.
Oh yeah, yeah, watch howYeah that's a good revisit. Yeah,
(26:12):
and that was all around the sametime as twenty four was around the
same time as it was early twothousands. Yeah, so I was watching
that. I'm watching Let's see,what was the last thing I watched?
Modern? Uh? I enjoy theGood Fight? Yes? Yeah, plus
(26:33):
that was powerful and I'm I'm toldI should watch Invincible, which I haven't
done. Yeah, that's We talkedto Chris Dematopless last night and he was.
He was a big part of that. But yeah, that was I'm
about four episodes in and I'm reallyliking it. Yeah, i am very
much so I haven't checked it outyet, but that's that's my next one.
(26:56):
Yeah, very good, very goodone. Other besides writing, and
you know all the other things youdo, are there other passions that you
that you've pursued. Your passions changeas you're, as you're as you get
older. I mean, my passionhas always been acting. It started out.
My whole writing career came out ofacting, and my biggest passion was
doing theater. Obviously, this hasbeen a bad year for theater. So
(27:19):
yeah, so I've been I've beentrying to throw a little bit of my
you know whatever whatever I've got,money or name, anything to help the
help with most of my friends whoare still who are still actively working in
the New York stage. But uh, I think i'm i'm, I'm.
My biggest passion now is travel,Like i'm i'm I I have the time
(27:45):
now to really go and spend HowardGordon in fact went to Italy for several
months, if not a full yearduring uh while we were doing Live another
day or just after we did liveanother day, and that just sounded glorious
to me. Absolutely, so Ithink that's my next I had I had
(28:07):
booked something in Greece. I hadbooked something on an island in Greece that
I had to cancel because of thepandemic. Right, but I'm going to
get back to it. It's timefor me to get back to I love
history. I love the you know, European history. I love just world
history. You visit, visit theruins and that kind of thing. Yeah,
(28:30):
I haven't actually been to Greece yet, but the Ruins. I've been
to Turkey, you know Italy.I've been to France. What's what's your
favorite place to have visited that youvisited? Got to say Italy. Italy
is the most remarkably beautiful country.And you can't beat Italian food. Sorry,
(28:51):
absolutely, you might like my dad. My dad have some Bermuda,
oh yeah, yeah. And thehistory of Bermuda is that there's forts on
each It's only twenty one miles long, but there's forts on each end of
the island because during the War ofeighteen twelve, that was the stopover point,
that was the refuel that was allthat kind of stuff. So I
will go. I will when Igo, I'll spend most of my trip
(29:14):
going through the ruins that I've beenthrough before, in the forts and all
that kind of stuff. Fascinated Iwas thinking of Bermuda is just simply you
know, a beach resort. Youknow, I'm going to, Yeah,
lay on the beach. I hadno idea there was so many historical things
to see there. That was theplace for the British to kind of it
was a halfway point, but itwas a point just before you got to
the mainland to you know, kindof relax and you know, kind of
(29:34):
get ready for the big fight.I guess. So, yeah, lots
lots of forts and watchtowers and allthat kind of stuff there. So is
there anything else unique you could tellus about yourself these days? And nique
unique me? No, I don'tthink there's anything unique about me. Did
I say anything unique when you saidmany things unique? No, I feel
(30:03):
I guess I guess it's you know, I guess it's unique that I'm I'm
still married to my first flight.That's amazing. Yes, it is amazing
after almost thirty years and you know, we have three kids who are all
grown now and starting their lives.You know, a lot of my peers
they're on their second marriages, they'reon their third, second, third families.
(30:27):
Yeah, a lot of my peerstoo. Yeah, well i'll sell
you. You know, it's probablytrue all over. But I'll tell you
this business is brutal. It's brutalfor for that kind of thing. It's
just the hours you work and allthat. So I feel I feel unique
privilege. You should be congratulated forthat. Congratulations. That's awesome for students
(30:48):
coming out of school who want toget into writing in the TV business or
film or acting or into network television, do you have what would your advice
be to to students one and ticketinto the industry in those three areas.
Sure, well, that's you know, that's one of those things where I
used to give that advice all thetime, which was to get into theaters,
(31:11):
get into local theaters and as writers, as actors, as directors,
whatever. People would come and theywould see your work and they you know,
and that would that would evolve intopeople who work in television whould see
your work and they go, yeah, I love that play. I want
to talk to that playwright. NowI will say that is things have changed.
(31:34):
Things have changed since I started out. You know, now everybody puts
their work online, but everyone hasa YouTube channel, you know, putting
out their work. I think,I think the best advice I can give,
which ties into the theater is produceyour own work. Get your work
out there, get your works asbest as you can, get it out
(31:55):
there on YouTube, on vimeo,whatever it takes. And you know,
if you have a unique voice,if you have a unique sensibility, you're
you know, you're it's going tocome across. And do those as your
calling cards because people unfortunately aren't goingto aren't going to come see your catch
kind of or come see you doyour you know one act, you know,
(32:20):
but they will watch, you know, a fairly well produced It doesn't
have to be huge production value,but a simple, strong, little video
will do more for your acting,writing, directing careers than anything else.
And these days I tell people toget their master's degrees young students because it
(32:43):
seems to be making more of animpact. Now, experience is always the
best teacher. But short of that, you know, if the education to
higher schooling, Okay, twenty fouris a bit of it is. It's
a it's a pedigree for us sothat when I see somebody's name attached to
something, I go, oh,I recognize them from twenty four. I'll
(33:04):
take the time to watch this showor check out this film, or whatever
the case may be. So muchso we're the kind of read credits and
listen to commentary and all that kindof stuff. So when I saw your
name attached to twenty four, youknow, coming into the fifth season,
I went, oh, Buffy,and I knew you know, knew kind
of where you were coming from.What is it that excites you about writing?
Because it seems to me that writingis ninety percent of You can put
(33:28):
the best cast together, but ifthe script isn't good, it's unwatchable.
But what is it about writing thatexcites you at this point? For you,
I think because in my I'm puttingon the production in my mind.
When you're writing, you're actually imagining, and as long as you can,
as long as you can live withthe idea, it'll never be as good
as it was in your mind.Right, you're gonna watch actors not knowing
(33:51):
how to turn that joke the wayyou want, or not not quite landing
that moment the way you saw inyour head. But what's writing is when
you actually when you write it.And since I was an actor and a
director, I was able. I'mable to get excited about the movie that's
going on inside and if I youknow, so when I had opportunities direct
(34:12):
on Buffy or Angel, I wasable to get a little a little bit
more of a sense of that,a little bit more of that sense of
excitement of Wow, this is reallyall me and the mistakes are mine the
stuff, but the good stuff ismine, so I can I can take
credit for that. I think findingnew points of view is really important elements.
(34:35):
And you know, especially since there'sso much identity writing now, where
you know, people are from differentbackgrounds are writing about their experiences much more
personal. So there's a lot ofgreat personal stuff coming out and that's where
you can draw. You can drawwhen you look at your own lives.
No matter where we come from,there there are stories that are particular to
(34:57):
us, that that that move usto make us laugh, and that will
always be valuable. So just keepdoing it and just keep and hanging around
the other talented people. So well, thank you. Wow, that's amazing.
Thank you so much for your timetoday. I want to do one
more thing with one more question.You talked about it, and the only
(35:20):
reason I bring it up is becauseyou brought up a minute ago. What
was one line that was delivered byan actor that they got it right?
Where you wrote a line and whenthey delivered it it landed. Wow,
that's a big question. You've writtena lot of things. Yeah, I'm
going to say what a line becauseI want to pick a line that's pretty
(35:42):
good, not just twenty four wherever? Oh I got you, I got
you? Yeah, Yeah, youknow, I guess. I guess a
lot of it is just people whoknow how to throw away a line,
just like not put too much emphasisin it, just make it. And
there was a line in Buffy wherewhere where somebody thinks Steph Green played as
(36:08):
his name is Oz. Thank you, yes, thanks for lending me your
stereo system and Seth said Micassio isSue Cassio did it perfectly, exactly what
you wanted it amazing, amazing.Well, thank you again for your time,
Thanks for hanging out with us andtalking twenty years and twenty four and
(36:30):
everything else. Typical barrister
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