July 3, 2023 • 39 mins
Hugh Howey, creator of the Silo story universe (which encompasses now novels, graphic novels, and the Rebecca Ferguson starring Apple+ TV series Silo), joins the podcast to discuss Season 1 of the show, the generation of the core foundation of the Silo, what a supernova talent Rebecca Ferguson is, how surprising the knockout success of the show has been, what parts of the book and graphic novel you can read without spoiling Season 2, and some teases for what is ahead in Season 2 of the sci-fi streaming series.
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Trying to figure out, "What should I stream tonight?" Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best Film and TV recommendations for what to watch on streaming platforms. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.
Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).
Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm
Thanks for listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started, all right.
(00:24):
Today on the show, I amincredibly honored to welcome in writer Hugh Howie,
who created the world of Silo.His series of books are the basis
of the Apple Plus series that justhad its season finale on Friday. To
thank you so much for joining theshow. Thanks for having me that So
first off, obviously we are goingto talk about season one of Silo.
(00:44):
So if you're listening to this andyou have not yet caught up with the
show, leave come back when you'recaught up. Yeah, there can be
a lot of spoilers, and Ieven have to give you like a spoiler
warning for me because I've only I'veonly seen the first season. I have
not read the books. I've hada discussion with a friend actually this weekend
I was like all right, whichbooks can I read, because I'm definitely
(01:07):
gonna go read them now, andI'm going to ask you later what I
can read without spoiling it for myself. But all I've seen is the season
one of the show, and Iwanted to start with the foundation of the
concept. So I thought that wasso impressive to me and got me in
immediately. Was from a writing perspective, the cleverness of the setup that they
(01:29):
don't know their own history. They'rein this silo underground. They have this
viewing window, so it's like itdoesn't feel like anything's being hidden from them.
Any request to leave is granted,so you're not being kept prisoner.
The cleaning. It's very airtight ina way that I think often high concept
sci fi of this sort is notairtight like that, meaning that often there
(01:49):
would be a contrivance or it's sortof like you gotta take it just because
the story says so that people wouldgo along with this. But I felt
like the design of it I totallybought, Like if I was there,
I'd probably be like, yeah,sure, it makes sense, Like I
totally bought it, And I thinkthat's a real accomplishment and it's sort of
the foundation of the whole thing.Thanks, m Yeah, it's what happens
(02:12):
when you try to base your fictionaland reality. There's enough you know,
dystopian stuff about the way we liveand bizarre, like humans are just strange,
and leaning into that with your fiction, you know, can send you
some really fun, fun directions.I had a few things in mind when
(02:32):
I first came up with the idea. You know, I've always loved that
Plato's allegory of the cave, justthe idea that we don't see the true
shape of things, we see theirshadows and try to infer reality based on
a very limited viewpoint. I thinkthat's becoming more and more true. And
(02:53):
the idea that we get most ofour information about the world through our screens,
you know, like you and Iare doing it right now, and
we get we get all of ournews and our a lot of our more
of our social light through our screens, which is kind of weird, and
I think that has a psychological effecton people. And you know, this
(03:13):
is twelve years ago that I wrotethe original story. But people focus on
the silo a lot as a asa device in the story. But to
me, the silo is just aplace to put people where they only had
this one wall screen, this oneview of the world, And that to
me was like the interesting question,like what is that? What does it
(03:36):
do to our belief and in realitywhen we can't trust the things that we
see and you know, we didn'thave like deep fakes and generative AI and
stuff like that when the story haswritten, so it's really even I think
more Germane now than it was backand it's in its original publishing. There's
(03:58):
some psychological experiment I think it's calledlike the visual cliff or something, where
it's basically an experiment of there's aboundary that is psychologically presented to the subject,
but it's not a real boundary.It's not a physical boundary. It's
purely psychological, but they will treatit as a real boundary essentially that we
can it's like a learned helplessness thing. So there's a lot of this stuff
(04:20):
that is certainly validated by like psychologyof human beings. It was interesting I
was reading up about you and Inoticed that there's some I think it's on
Wikipedia where it talks about you tooka catamaran from Cape Town to Australia.
And then I noticed that, youknow, Silo obviously is about a group
(04:41):
of people that are isolated. Andthen your other property that I think is
also becoming a TV show, Beakingtwenty three, is about a lighthouse in
space. And it's interesting, isthat something that you've consciously registered that you've
written a bunch of stuff about peoplethat are isolated. Yeah, not just
isolation, but a lot of nauticalthemed writing. You know, my first
(05:03):
my first series of books was basicallyas a space oper was based on my
sailing around between islands when I wasin my twenties on a little sailboat.
Every country, all these island countrieswere just like different planets, and that
formed the inspiration for my first seriesof books. And you know, the
(05:28):
Shell Collector kind of is a homageto my love of the sea. So
yeah, my my sailings informed mywriting, and my writing is certainly informed
my sailing as well. Yeah,so it was interesting you read you wrote
a blog post recently talking about youryear and and sort of things, which
was beautifully written by last thing justpeople read it, But in that you
(05:50):
sort of allude to something that youknow, anybody who works in the industry
knows, which is that if youare fortunate enough to have something made,
chances are it's not going to begood. Like the more likely outcome is
that it would be bad. Andit seemed for meeting your blog post that
you were fully aware of that andand sort of you had prepared yourself that
(06:11):
like, this is probably not golike the odds are not in my favor
that it's going to turn out great. Um, So can you talk about
like that process of preparing yourself forthat, you know, it's it's probably
a better way to defend your heart, really and then actually finding out that
it's good, and what a pleasantsurprise. It's just you know, being
realistic. If you open up rottenTomatoes on any given day or I am
(06:35):
to be or wherever you wherever youget your your you know, collated your
average reviews um. More than halfthe things on the page are below average.
Um, it's hard to do somethingthat's even decent um. Good is
(06:55):
really difficult, and great is youknow, unexpected, And you can't tell
when you're making something where what categoryyou're going to end up in, Like
being on set does it clue youin watching dailies doesn't tell you, and
it could even be something that youlike or I'm proud of, but the
critics and the audience will disagree withyou. So you know, every every
(07:18):
year, there's only like two orthree things that really break out and become
get some kind of word of mouthor hype. And I feel like almost
every creator put something out there thinkingthis will be the thing that goes gangbusters,
And that's so wild that we're thatlike misguided on I think you should
(07:40):
have all the love and passion foryour art as you can, but to
expect the world to embrace it madlyis insane. It just ignores, you
know, our own experiences as consumersof art. So I went into you
know, I go into every bitof art creation and thinking about the consumer
(08:01):
side and how unlikely it is todo something that that's a hit. So
when it happened for me, whichis you know what happened with Silo,
like it was the breakout thing ofthe summer, there's nothing else that's really
getting the chatter, and that's justlike you, I'd never allow myself to
even dream of that. Um,it's the top drama Apple has ever had.
(08:24):
All these different places that use onlinemetrics to measure excitement had it as
like the number one show and allthe streaming, and then some companies that
have like fifteen million plus users wherethey could actually like Nielsen track what they're
watching, found it to be thenumber one show and streaming. That was
(08:48):
never part of my fantasy for thisshow. I was just hoping I wouldn't
upset diehard fans. So I'm overthe moon. It's like what we what
we pulled off, is pretty muchimpossible, and we pulled it off anyway.
Yeah, I was reading I thinkit was an interview with Rebecca Ferguson
and she was talking about the staircase, I believe, and I was I
(09:09):
was trying to imagine for you.You know, you have this in your
brain for twelve years. They makethe show, You go to the set
and then there's this giant like howbig is the staircase? Like are you?
Are you walking in that? Andyou feel like you've like stepped into
your own brain, Like what isthat experience like to see that? It's
it's mind blowing. The thing.It dwarfs you. I mean, it's
(09:30):
like you're in a football sized warehousethat's four stories high and the entire building.
It's you know, it's one ofthe biggest buildings you could walk into,
and the entire thing is full ofa single set. And I've been
on other sets since I seemed amazingthings getting built, and I've never seen
(09:52):
anything like this. And most ofthe people working on the show, even
some Game of Thrones civets and peoplewho've been on other massive scale projects,
had never seen anything quite like this. Wow. And then you do a
cameo on the final episode, andI was really curious about this. So
I have been on multiple sets ofstuff that I've written, and as the
(10:15):
writer, you show up and you'relike, oh, cool, they did
the whatever this thing that I wrote. And for the first hour it's really
cool, but after about an hour, you kind of feel like you're you're
like a vestigial presence, like there'sreally nothing for you to do, really,
and you're just kind of sitting aroundand you know, they're like setting
up stuff. And then they doa take and they do like ten takes
(10:37):
of the same bit of dialogue andyou sort of you start to realize,
God, am I bored? Andthat's been That's been my experience, which
is very counterintuitive. I think,I'm so curious if because your your show
is so much more visually spectacular,but was it still a little bit of
that. I've not been bored onset yet, but I've only spent maybe
(11:00):
twelve or fifteen days on the setof Sila. I think it'll take a
lot more. Before I was like, yeah, I'd rather be doing something
else. You know, I've readthe scripts so many times that any any
scene that we shoot, like,I know why that seems important in what
else happening and how it's connected,and I want to see the best version
(11:22):
of it. So even the eighthand ninth take, I'm leaning into the
monitor with everyone else, just tryingto figure out how the framing can be
a little bit better and if wegot everything we needed. Yeah, but
yeah, being an extra of course, that day flew by. I was
that was like a twelve hour dayand it felt like a blink of an
eye because I was just having somuch fun. That's great. Um,
(11:43):
I'm curious. So there was abunch of like a boarded version of this
that almost got made, right,I think it was maybe gonna be a
film at one point. I'm justcurious. Now it seems like obviously worked
out for the best, But Iwas wondering if you could touch on just
briefly, like the Roads Not Taken, Like what what was the alternate versions
of this that could have existed infilm and television? Originally this landed with
(12:07):
um Ridley Scott and Steve's Alien Peopledon't. Steve doesn't have the name recognition
he deserves, but he's probably thetop script doctor screenwriter in Hollywood. He's
just an absolute genius and he anda lot of what Ridley has done in
his career has been because of hispartnership with Steve at times. So it
(12:33):
was the two of them in twentythcentury Fox, which is like, this
is like the sci fi trifecta ifyou can get something made with those three
parties, and so the the alternatereality of this is probably something like The
Martian. You know, if ithad gone well like The Martian did,
it would have been a lot ofpeople would have seen it. If he
(12:56):
said Silo like, hey, yeah, I remember that I was in a
theater. I didn't catch it,but I would have had a bump in
book sales. I don't know,if you know, it would have been
a trilogy. Martian was only onebook, so maybe we would have gotten
three films. So I can imaginewhat that alternate reality is like, But
(13:16):
I don't think it would be nearlyas much fun as what we're getting to
do now, because this is goingto be three or four years of looking
forward to new seasons and you know, something constantly filming, Like, there's
just a lot of activity and alot of entertainment for me personally out of
(13:37):
doing it this way, I wantto share with you sort of my experience,
and maybe this is a standard forthe listeners who've also watched the show.
I was so impressed with how muchis in that first episode. I
think a lot of times shows likethis, where there's a really, you
know, compelling central mystery, they'recontent to just establish it in the first
(13:58):
episode and then kind of coast abit. And I thought that silo the
first episode goes, so there's somuch that happens in that first episode.
It doesn't feel like it's it feelsso packed in. You feel like you've
you've what would be on a lessershow the first four or five episodes.
That amount of plot feels covered inthe first episode. And then I thought,
(14:20):
that's kind of the same thing aboutthe finale, like there was again
a lesser version of this. Youcould have ended it a couple times earlier.
There's a couple big moments in thatfinale where if you wanted to,
you could have strung it out abit more. And so there's just a
very clear sense of there's a lotof runway on the road, that this
is not a situation where there's alimited amount of plot. If anything,
(14:43):
it feels like we have an abundance, that there's so much to get through.
I think that the first and thelast episode I was just incredibly impressed
by, And I don't know,I mean, I guess it's maybe it's
a natural place to transition to thequestion that I have as a fan,
which is what is covered in theshow, Like what can I read that
(15:05):
will not spoil season two for me? So, the original and the novel
Wool is five separate publications that weresandwiched into one book. It was serialized.
The reason there's so much in thatpilot that first episode is that's the
(15:26):
first book. It was about fiftysix pages, and to turn a fifty
six page novel into a fifty sixpage script is a huge task. We
also, you know, Juliet doesn'tappear in the book until like the third
part of the book, so youread, you know, one hundred and
(15:48):
twenty pages or something before you getJuliette in the novel. So that's one
of the reasons that the material isso dense. If you read, you
could read the first like forty ofthe novel and still be in season one,
and it's a very clear stopping point. There's like five parts of the
(16:11):
novel you could still see the DNAlike the original bones of the certilization,
and the first three books basically arewhat we just showed in season one,
and then books four and five,which are longer. Even this only two.
It's about sixty percent of the novelthat will be season two, got
it. It seems like almost halfthe novel. Yeah, it seems like
(16:34):
Apple supported you tremendously. Because I'mjust thinking from a creative executive perspective.
You know, you have Rebecca Ferguson. The Juliet character clearly is driving the
narrative. But the you know,I think that the lazier note might have
been, let's just start with herand simplify it. She's the lead let's
get her in, you know,and instead they're like, no, not
(16:56):
not only are we not going tostart with her, We're gonna get David
Loo, We're gonna get Rashida Jones. We're gonna totally blow out the beginning
of this, which is kind ofa different group of characters. Get people
invested in that, and then switchperspective, which is, you know,
a pretty that could be a scarything when you're putting it together, you
could worry that always. The audiencekind of get invested in these characters and
(17:18):
then they go away. Now I'llget to get invested in a new character.
And it seems like they totally steeredinto that and got, you like,
the best actors and really committed tothat approach. Yeah, I don't
know if we couldn't have locked downDavid or Rashida for you know, multiple
seasons. So having a natural structurethat made these characters temporary actually let us
(17:41):
you know, punch above our weightwhen we went casting for those parts,
and it all, you know,for me, it just ups the stakes.
Like I don't know that people whoaren't familiar with the book must think
Juliet's days are numbered throughout the seasonbecause we put in some tough situations and
we haven't shied away. So Ijust you know, it's George is dead,
(18:03):
um, John's and Marn's book dieLike you know, there's a there's
the body to really pile up inthe show. There's a part when she
jumps off the staircase and it's usedas a as a I think it's either
an act out or an episode out. And to your point, because I
hadn't read the books, I'm like, maybe she does she just die?
(18:26):
Like is that yeah? And doesshe this season two open up with her
dying and we introduce a new star, Like, you know, I don't
want people to feel like her plotarmor is um is you know too thick.
She does exhibit some plot armor inthe season, but like that's um
It's hard to make an action packshow that doesn't have a little bit of
(18:49):
that. Yeah. I want toshare with you a thought that crossed my
mind watching the show, and Ithink it speaks to why the show is
so appealing to people, and particularlythe first sason, which obviously then you
have to find a different angle forthe second season. The first season you're
just wondering, wondering, wondering.You're like, you know that obviously whatever
the people have been told is nottrue, so you're thinking, well,
what could it be? What couldit be? And then at one point
(19:11):
there's mention of a massive door atthe bottom of the silo, and this
thought like raised into my mind.I'm like, what if it's not a
silo, what if it's a skyscraper, and what if the door is at
ground level? And the fact thatI could even think that in the same
theory and be like that could betrue speaks to the fun of it,
because it's like, what could itbe? Like, you're so curious.
(19:33):
It's such a tantalizing mystery, andI think that the fact that you the
way that you landed it is verysatisfying is a very difficult task. I
mean, as any writer would say, like, if you set something up
where the mystery is such a bigpart of it, how you're going to
pay it off so that the audiencefeels satisfied without it being obvious is a
very difficult balancing act. Yeah,I mean, we're lucky that this was
(19:57):
kind of already tested the audiences withthe book. My favorite theory is people
who wondered if maybe they're on aspaceship, Like if you were doing a
colony ship. I think people wouldgo crazy if they knew they're an outer
space. But if they thought theywere on Earth still maybe they would,
(20:18):
you know, maybe go half ascrazy. And I thought that was a
Coult theory. Yeah, it's itgoes back to Plato's allegory of the cave,
like if you have a very limitedkeyhole through which you see the world,
then what's out there? It couldbe a lot, you know,
a lot more, And but youknow what's fun is just everyone assuming.
(20:44):
It's probably like getting in the mindsetof the characters, like maybe it's better
out there than people say, youknow, I don't want to leave,
and then when you finally get tosee out there, you're like, oh,
hold on a second. Maybe youknow, the folks saying you better
stay here are the ones who whohave it right. And I think what's
great is like, even as yougo through the books, you can start
(21:04):
second guessing yourself over and over again. What's great about it as an ending
is it's a subversion of our expectationsextremely cleverly. Because the expectation is they're
line it's beautiful outside they're keeping themin here for reasons unknown, but once
she gets out there, she's gonnasee it's beautiful. This was all a
lie. That would kind of bethe obvious way to go, And obviously
(21:27):
you set it up like that becausewe see images of it being nice outside
and then the turn at the endto see it so dystopian. It makes
you it's like, man, maybeTim Robbins was onto something here, which
I love because again it's such asubversion. You totally expect the whole way
(21:47):
through that he's just, you know, bad guy and that's what it is.
And he even has what I thinkis probably his best scene in the
whole piece in the last episode hestarted Ferguson in the cell and he has
a moment of vulnerability where he's sortof like, do you think I'm like
super jazzed to like be in thisposition and doing this? Like yeah,
(22:08):
I love that he admits, likeI don't enjoy this, like I'd rather
be doing something else. But ifI don't do this, everyone dies,
And I think, you know,you can be you can be right and
still be a bad guy. Likelet's say let's say he's right that if
he didn't do this, everyone woulddie. I think Juliet's question question would
(22:30):
be, but is there a betterway to do it? Like, is
there a way to do it wherethere's less suffering and where people know the
truth? Yeah, I like youhave that little faith in humanity that we
can't all be in on it anddecide to make the rational choice like,
and I think that is a that'sa much better dynamic than like, I'm
going to do bad things to you, because I get enjoyment out of it.
(22:55):
You could decide who to pull for, you know. I Yeah,
I love going to Constant and seeingthe fandoms that's spread across the universe,
and that what I mean by thatis people dressed up like Stormtroopers and Darth
Vader because they're like I think,you know, these rebels are like causing
trouble that people need order. Orthere's people dressed up like cleanons and there
(23:21):
they value their like warrior ethic andthey think that the humans are like kind
of you know, meddling and messingthings up all the time, and it's
rare to get that. You know, if you just have much stess twirling
bad guys, then you don't havepeople who are who empathize with and have
(23:42):
these characters resonate with them the sortof like mad genius cleverness of it is,
and correct me if I have allthe straight, because it's entirely possible
I'd misunderstance thing. But so basically, the idea is that someone is sent
out to clean. The image thatis shown to them looks beautifull. Therefore
they are motivated to do the cleaningto show the people what it is.
(24:06):
But the people don't see what theysee and then and then their suit is
such that it's not like basically theyI guess there's a hole in the suit
or something, and that's why theydie. And in Juliette's case, it's
been patched with the right patch andthat's why she's able to survive. Is
that do I have all that straight? Yeah? Exactly. And you know
(24:26):
the people who go out to clean, if they're of the mindset like I'm
keeping all this to myself, screwthese people. Then they'll also clean because
they want to act subserve it.They're like, Okay, just do what
you're told. Let them think theybeat you. And meanwhile, like,
screw those guys, Like I'm gonnago over the hill and find all the
(24:47):
other people and we're we're in onit, and these people aren't like,
see you losers. And if youhave a more magnanimous mindset, you're going
to go out there and say,I know they won't see it as beautifully
as I'm seeing it, but man, I want to give them the best
view of this possible. So whereveryou are on that spectrum, and then
(25:07):
in the middle of that spectrum isa kind of like numb apathy where you
just go along and you have television, you're like you realize you're about to
die, or you're so in aweof what you're seeing that you just go
into cruise control. What nobody doesin that situation, and that this is
what the world. This is kindof the whole plots predicated on this.
(25:32):
No one goes out there sees thatin the mindset of I've been sent out
to die or find out if myfantasy is accurate, and then I'm gonna
just not do it, and thatJuliet not cleaning is unprecedented, and that's
what freaks out Bernard and makes themrun off. It's it's such an interesting
like psychological mousetrap that you've built,and it really does make you think and
(25:57):
you kind of have to like keeppuzzling over it, which is something that
I always love. Um this deviceof at the end where there's a there's
a great movie called The Invitation.I don't know if you've ever seen it.
Um, I'm going to spoil itfor your feet, don't mind,
Yeah, please relevant here. Soin The Invitation, we were in la
and we go to this house.It's like a dinner party, and over
(26:19):
the course of the dinner party,you realize that it's they're trying to ingratiate
people into a death cult. That'sthe purpose of the dinner party. They've
got these new people that they're tryingto compel to join this death cult.
And it's very freaky, like asuicide it's like a suicide cult basically.
Yeah, And so it's you think, wow, this is a very strange
(26:40):
situation. And it all takes placein the house and then at the end
they go to like the balcony andthey light like a red light or something,
and then you sort of pan outto like the hills and you see
like dozens of red lights and you'relike, holy shit, like you know,
and so I think that as adevice, as a narrative device,
this notion of we're going to spendso much time in this confined such scenario
(27:04):
and then we're going to pull outand show you that this is a tiny
speck of a much bigger thing.I feel like that always works. I
can't think of a time where thathas been done where I've not been like
super satisfied by it. And Ithink the end of season one and this
shows another great example that it's it'sso good because you know, I won't
spoil you with how many there are, but you can see that there's like,
you know, more than a dozenor so right there. Everything that
(27:27):
just happened in season one is justa small subset of what's happening in that
silo. There's so many lives beinglived there, but people that are people
being stopped to clean their people injudicial and it who are killing people and
manipulating people and drugging people. There'sall the drama that Alison and Holstein went
(27:48):
through with having kids, and weknow that's all bunch of nonsense as well.
And in each one of those otherlittle indentions in the earth, like
similar stories were happening, And Ithink that's what's so heartbreaking about it is
you're like, Okay, if there'sthere's conflicts happening, if these people can
just resolve that, maybe things willbe okay, and then you zoom out
and you're like, oh god,there's conflict everywhere. There's people suffering.
(28:12):
There's so many people trapped, youknow, like and who who Like who
do this to these people? Andthen you're like, who do this to
all these people? Yes? Andthen you realize the scale whoever's behind this
you never built this thing. Thescale of what they did is way more
absurd than what you thought. Whenyou're just in that one side would all
(28:33):
that. I think it's subconsciously allthat hits you when when you pan out
right, it just hits you.In that three second image, you're thinking
all that stuff that you just said. So it's like your brain sort of
breaks. I'm curious about as yougo into season two, because it does.
You would think in theory, it'salmost like you have to change not
the genre, but kind of thegenre because it's no longer like the big
(28:56):
mystery of what is you know what'sout there? Now we know what's out
there So is it more of likenow the mystery is what's in the other
ones, so it's still a mysteryshow or does it kind of change a
bit and it's not really a mysteryshow anymore. It's sort of about different
things. The mechanics of it area bit different. What's what's amazing is
(29:17):
that the level of mystery just goesway up after this and the people asking
the questions, what the questions areasking, and the people who are asking
it are way more interesting, andso the stakes are so much higher.
Like I don't know if you couldtell when Bernard hurt about the door at
(29:41):
the bottom of Silo, he hadnever heard of this before. You know,
I think he conveys it really wellin his face and he's like,
what are you talking about? Sothere are things that he doesn't know and
that you know, that's where weget to start playing in season two of
like Who's the Puppet? The guyplaying with the puppet also has strings on
(30:06):
and Bernard is starting to notice thosestrings. Oh my god, what's what's
really going on here? So yeah, it's still a mystery show, but
also the action is so much moreintense, the stakes are higher. Things
really get out of control, allbecause of what Juliet did, which goes
back to what Alison did, whichyou know it feeds into George and Holston
(30:30):
and so many other people that wethink aren't around long, but the influence
that they had and the ripple effectof their decisions are here for quite a
while. Rebecca Ferguson was very supportiveof you in an interview, and essentially
what she said, if I remembercorrectly, was she read the source material,
(30:51):
then she read the scripts, andshe passed and she said, I
don't want to do it because Idon't think essentially, I don't think it's
as good as the book. Andthen they took her notes, rewrote it.
She couldn't let go of it.She was still thinking about it.
So she was like, did theycast anybody yet? And I'm like no,
She's like, all right, wellfine. And then even in the
(31:11):
same interview she was very candid.She was just like, season two is
like way even though this is reallygood, season two is like way better,
Like she was. She clearly expresseda lot of excitement for where she
was going in season two. SoI have noticed that, and I've talked
to other writers and creators about thisbefore. If the lead person is like
really defensive of the source material,whether that's an original spec script, whether
(31:36):
it's a book, whatever it mightbe, that seems like a really good
sign for the show to be successfulor movie. I interviewed actually the guys
who wrote Sharper, which is anApple Plus film, which is an incredibly
dense narrative and very complex and hasa lot of interesting things that it does,
and they were like, the reasonthis movie is good is because Julianne
Moore backed us from minute one.She was like, I like their script,
(31:57):
We're doing their script. Same thing. I interviewed Trunk, who wrote
The Equalizer with Denzel, and hewas like, the reason that it's good,
it's because Denzel every time they wantedto change something, he was like,
wait, wait, why do wechange it from Richard's original script?
So how much how meaningful was ither support and what ended up you know,
becoming the product at the end,it was huge UM and Graham was
the same way. Graham fell inlove with the source material. He's he's
(32:22):
been interested in this even before Applegot it back when Sony was you know,
competing with UM with Ridley for thisUM. So he was attached to
the source material. Jamie Rlick thatat Apple is a huge like he's obsessed
with the books and that's why it'sat you know, landed at Apple because
(32:44):
of his um, his efforts umso and and then Morton became obsessed with
the shi with the world, anda lot of the detail and the quality
comes from Morton um saying like,no compromise, We're doing it this way
and fighting for things like um likethe guys we got for sound and things
(33:07):
like that that you know, Applewas like we can't, can't do it
has to be the UK and waslike, nope, my guys on Iceland,
We're going to do it this way. And I all these people were
fighting all in the same direction.They weren't fighting each other, They're all
fighting the friction that it takes tomake great content. The other thing Rebecca
(33:28):
did is she brought a level ofprofessionalism and just niceness onto set that trickled
down everywhere. Like when you're numberone on the call sheet, is the
nicest person in the room. Noone can be a baby, No one
can you know, treat others withdisrespect. She knew, you know,
(33:51):
the crew, she chatted up everybodyin between takes. She was, you
know, the first one to throwher arms around you when the day started,
like she said, an example thateveryone had to live up to.
And you know, it's a hugegift to us to get her when we
(34:13):
did, because we probably can't gether now, like her star was just
on the rise when we landed her. But I also appreciate just because of
the relationship that we formed that likewe gave her a gift as well,
Like there are very few roles likethis for female actors. She's a star,
but she's always a co star.She doesn't get to like, you
(34:37):
know, headlines something, be anexecutive producer, have creative input. So
it's one of those things where likewe gave each other a gift, which
is this show where she's giving usyears of her peak and we're giving her
a huge vehicle for her to showoff her chops. And boy, there's
(35:00):
nothing better than like everyone winning.And that's how it's felt with this show,
Like everyone's winning. The fans ofthe books are winning, fans of
good TV, Apple, the publisherswho believed in the you know, the
silver forty publishers around the world whohave been waiting for some adaptation and price
that into their initial offers. Soit's just like there's no there's no bad
(35:23):
version of this right now. It'sjust all good from everybody's perspective. It's
interesting that Ridley Scott twenty Century FoxLegacy because when when Juliette is first introduced
the way that Rebecca appears, soshe comes out of the furnace or whatever,
you know, the reactor thing,she's totally like she's Sigourney Weaver,
an alien, like she's she's Ripleyfor sure. She just has this And
(35:46):
it was the same you know whenshe first shows up and I think it's
Mission possible, rog nation. Iwant to say, um, she was
noticeable, Like you know, there'sbeen a lot of great actors in those
films, but she was the firstperson honestly, like you, Philip semore
often as the bad guy, butlike where you're like, this person has
the charisma everything. Like if shewas the lead, if Tom Cruise ever
(36:07):
decides to like maybe take a break, like and she wants to lead one
of these movies, she could totallydo it. She's really like a very
rare that level of charisma as aperformer is very rare, and I think
she would have been a star atany other age. She could have been
in Casablanca episode every Bogart like.She just has a timeless star quality to
her that you know is unusual.Yeah, it's very unusual. And also
(36:29):
to have the physicality and also theemotional nuance. I wish, I wish
we could talk about season two stuff, and I hope that they release some
behind the scenes. What she's pullingoff physically in season two is way more
impressive than Tom driving a motorcycle offa cliff, like a stunt that you
(36:52):
and I could prep for in aweekend and pull off. It's basically parachuting.
Um, I don't know how she'sdoing what she's doing in season two,
and you'll you'll you'll get it whenyou see it and you realize this
is all practical and it's not specialeffects, and it is her. But
(37:12):
she's gonna get a war nominations forif she doesn't get it for this season,
she'll get it for next season.To deserve every bit of it.
It's insane. She's she's a superrare talent. We're very lucky to have
her. My last question before wewrap up. Can I read the graphic
novel without spoiling season two for myself? Half of it? Okay? I
(37:38):
don't, And I don't think youknow. I'm dying to see season two
and I know the story intimately,so I don't think you can spoil.
There's a lot of people reading thenovels right now, and I think they're
going to enjoy it, just likefans of the books have enjoyed the first
season. And it's similar to me, Like I'm the kind of person that
(38:00):
can rewatch a movie because I justwant to spend time in that world with
those people, Like I can watchBack to the Future right now and love
every scene, and knowing what happensdoes it detract from that for some for
some reason. So I don't thinkyou can. I don't think you can
ruin season two by reading reading ahead. And when is season two projected to
(38:20):
start release? I haven't heard arelease date, but just looking at you
know they're not going to want todelay it. Like you really have to
be careful with your launch window ona first season because you don't want to
you know, you want as muchempty space as possible. But now,
whenever you release the second season,you're gonna have a lot of hype.
It's gonna it markets itself. Now. We wrapped season one in June of
(38:45):
last year, and here we are, you know, in July, and
the season's over some I'm hoping lessthan a year from now, Like it'd
be great if they released it aroundthe same time. I love that kind
of consistency. Yeah cool man,Well that is uh yeah, I don't
want to take more of your time. I so appreciate you coming on.
It's been such a pleasure to watchthe show, and I'm very excited to
(39:07):
now go read the books for me, honestly, Like that's I think it's
what's cool about it is it's likeyou get just enough from the show where
you're like, I would love toyou know, I want to read five
pages about like the guy whose shopis down there on the corner of the
street, Like I want to reallyget into the world. So I'm really
excited to dig into the books.And I thank you very much for coming
on. Thanks man. It's funto talk to someone who has such a
(39:28):
high level of knowledge of the craft, so you get to have different a
different conversation. So this is ablastroom. I really appreciate it. Man,
thank you so much for listening.Also to the audience. If you
enjoy the show, please leave usa five star review on Apple Podcasts and
subscribe future episodes. That is ashow for today until next time. Bye bye,
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started, all right.
(00:24):
Today on the show, I amincredibly honored to welcome in writer Hugh Howie,
who created the world of Silo.His series of books are the basis
of the Apple Plus series that justhad its season finale on Friday. To
thank you so much for joining theshow. Thanks for having me that So
first off, obviously we are goingto talk about season one of Silo.
(00:44):
So if you're listening to this andyou have not yet caught up with the
show, leave come back when you'recaught up. Yeah, there can be
a lot of spoilers, and Ieven have to give you like a spoiler
warning for me because I've only I'veonly seen the first season. I have
not read the books. I've hada discussion with a friend actually this weekend
I was like all right, whichbooks can I read, because I'm definitely
(01:07):
gonna go read them now, andI'm going to ask you later what I
can read without spoiling it for myself. But all I've seen is the season
one of the show, and Iwanted to start with the foundation of the
concept. So I thought that wasso impressive to me and got me in
immediately. Was from a writing perspective, the cleverness of the setup that they
(01:29):
don't know their own history. They'rein this silo underground. They have this
viewing window, so it's like itdoesn't feel like anything's being hidden from them.
Any request to leave is granted,so you're not being kept prisoner.
The cleaning. It's very airtight ina way that I think often high concept
sci fi of this sort is notairtight like that, meaning that often there
(01:49):
would be a contrivance or it's sortof like you gotta take it just because
the story says so that people wouldgo along with this. But I felt
like the design of it I totallybought, Like if I was there,
I'd probably be like, yeah,sure, it makes sense, Like I
totally bought it, And I thinkthat's a real accomplishment and it's sort of
the foundation of the whole thing.Thanks, m Yeah, it's what happens
(02:12):
when you try to base your fictionaland reality. There's enough you know,
dystopian stuff about the way we liveand bizarre, like humans are just strange,
and leaning into that with your fiction, you know, can send you
some really fun, fun directions.I had a few things in mind when
(02:32):
I first came up with the idea. You know, I've always loved that
Plato's allegory of the cave, justthe idea that we don't see the true
shape of things, we see theirshadows and try to infer reality based on
a very limited viewpoint. I thinkthat's becoming more and more true. And
(02:53):
the idea that we get most ofour information about the world through our screens,
you know, like you and Iare doing it right now, and
we get we get all of ournews and our a lot of our more
of our social light through our screens, which is kind of weird, and
I think that has a psychological effecton people. And you know, this
(03:13):
is twelve years ago that I wrotethe original story. But people focus on
the silo a lot as a asa device in the story. But to
me, the silo is just aplace to put people where they only had
this one wall screen, this oneview of the world, And that to
me was like the interesting question,like what is that? What does it
(03:36):
do to our belief and in realitywhen we can't trust the things that we
see and you know, we didn'thave like deep fakes and generative AI and
stuff like that when the story haswritten, so it's really even I think
more Germane now than it was backand it's in its original publishing. There's
(03:58):
some psychological experiment I think it's calledlike the visual cliff or something, where
it's basically an experiment of there's aboundary that is psychologically presented to the subject,
but it's not a real boundary.It's not a physical boundary. It's
purely psychological, but they will treatit as a real boundary essentially that we
can it's like a learned helplessness thing. So there's a lot of this stuff
(04:20):
that is certainly validated by like psychologyof human beings. It was interesting I
was reading up about you and Inoticed that there's some I think it's on
Wikipedia where it talks about you tooka catamaran from Cape Town to Australia.
And then I noticed that, youknow, Silo obviously is about a group
(04:41):
of people that are isolated. Andthen your other property that I think is
also becoming a TV show, Beakingtwenty three, is about a lighthouse in
space. And it's interesting, isthat something that you've consciously registered that you've
written a bunch of stuff about peoplethat are isolated. Yeah, not just
isolation, but a lot of nauticalthemed writing. You know, my first
(05:03):
my first series of books was basicallyas a space oper was based on my
sailing around between islands when I wasin my twenties on a little sailboat.
Every country, all these island countrieswere just like different planets, and that
formed the inspiration for my first seriesof books. And you know, the
(05:28):
Shell Collector kind of is a homageto my love of the sea. So
yeah, my my sailings informed mywriting, and my writing is certainly informed
my sailing as well. Yeah,so it was interesting you read you wrote
a blog post recently talking about youryear and and sort of things, which
was beautifully written by last thing justpeople read it, But in that you
(05:50):
sort of allude to something that youknow, anybody who works in the industry
knows, which is that if youare fortunate enough to have something made,
chances are it's not going to begood. Like the more likely outcome is
that it would be bad. Andit seemed for meeting your blog post that
you were fully aware of that andand sort of you had prepared yourself that
(06:11):
like, this is probably not golike the odds are not in my favor
that it's going to turn out great. Um, So can you talk about
like that process of preparing yourself forthat, you know, it's it's probably
a better way to defend your heart, really and then actually finding out that
it's good, and what a pleasantsurprise. It's just you know, being
realistic. If you open up rottenTomatoes on any given day or I am
(06:35):
to be or wherever you wherever youget your your you know, collated your
average reviews um. More than halfthe things on the page are below average.
Um, it's hard to do somethingthat's even decent um. Good is
(06:55):
really difficult, and great is youknow, unexpected, And you can't tell
when you're making something where what categoryyou're going to end up in, Like
being on set does it clue youin watching dailies doesn't tell you, and
it could even be something that youlike or I'm proud of, but the
critics and the audience will disagree withyou. So you know, every every
(07:18):
year, there's only like two orthree things that really break out and become
get some kind of word of mouthor hype. And I feel like almost
every creator put something out there thinkingthis will be the thing that goes gangbusters,
And that's so wild that we're thatlike misguided on I think you should
(07:40):
have all the love and passion foryour art as you can, but to
expect the world to embrace it madlyis insane. It just ignores, you
know, our own experiences as consumersof art. So I went into you
know, I go into every bitof art creation and thinking about the consumer
(08:01):
side and how unlikely it is todo something that that's a hit. So
when it happened for me, whichis you know what happened with Silo,
like it was the breakout thing ofthe summer, there's nothing else that's really
getting the chatter, and that's justlike you, I'd never allow myself to
even dream of that. Um,it's the top drama Apple has ever had.
(08:24):
All these different places that use onlinemetrics to measure excitement had it as
like the number one show and allthe streaming, and then some companies that
have like fifteen million plus users wherethey could actually like Nielsen track what they're
watching, found it to be thenumber one show and streaming. That was
(08:48):
never part of my fantasy for thisshow. I was just hoping I wouldn't
upset diehard fans. So I'm overthe moon. It's like what we what
we pulled off, is pretty muchimpossible, and we pulled it off anyway.
Yeah, I was reading I thinkit was an interview with Rebecca Ferguson
and she was talking about the staircase, I believe, and I was I
(09:09):
was trying to imagine for you.You know, you have this in your
brain for twelve years. They makethe show, You go to the set
and then there's this giant like howbig is the staircase? Like are you?
Are you walking in that? Andyou feel like you've like stepped into
your own brain, Like what isthat experience like to see that? It's
it's mind blowing. The thing.It dwarfs you. I mean, it's
(09:30):
like you're in a football sized warehousethat's four stories high and the entire building.
It's you know, it's one ofthe biggest buildings you could walk into,
and the entire thing is full ofa single set. And I've been
on other sets since I seemed amazingthings getting built, and I've never seen
(09:52):
anything like this. And most ofthe people working on the show, even
some Game of Thrones civets and peoplewho've been on other massive scale projects,
had never seen anything quite like this. Wow. And then you do a
cameo on the final episode, andI was really curious about this. So
I have been on multiple sets ofstuff that I've written, and as the
(10:15):
writer, you show up and you'relike, oh, cool, they did
the whatever this thing that I wrote. And for the first hour it's really
cool, but after about an hour, you kind of feel like you're you're
like a vestigial presence, like there'sreally nothing for you to do, really,
and you're just kind of sitting aroundand you know, they're like setting
up stuff. And then they doa take and they do like ten takes
(10:37):
of the same bit of dialogue andyou sort of you start to realize,
God, am I bored? Andthat's been That's been my experience, which
is very counterintuitive. I think,I'm so curious if because your your show
is so much more visually spectacular,but was it still a little bit of
that. I've not been bored onset yet, but I've only spent maybe
(11:00):
twelve or fifteen days on the setof Sila. I think it'll take a
lot more. Before I was like, yeah, I'd rather be doing something
else. You know, I've readthe scripts so many times that any any
scene that we shoot, like,I know why that seems important in what
else happening and how it's connected,and I want to see the best version
(11:22):
of it. So even the eighthand ninth take, I'm leaning into the
monitor with everyone else, just tryingto figure out how the framing can be
a little bit better and if wegot everything we needed. Yeah, but
yeah, being an extra of course, that day flew by. I was
that was like a twelve hour dayand it felt like a blink of an
eye because I was just having somuch fun. That's great. Um,
(11:43):
I'm curious. So there was abunch of like a boarded version of this
that almost got made, right,I think it was maybe gonna be a
film at one point. I'm justcurious. Now it seems like obviously worked
out for the best, But Iwas wondering if you could touch on just
briefly, like the Roads Not Taken, Like what what was the alternate versions
of this that could have existed infilm and television? Originally this landed with
(12:07):
um Ridley Scott and Steve's Alien Peopledon't. Steve doesn't have the name recognition
he deserves, but he's probably thetop script doctor screenwriter in Hollywood. He's
just an absolute genius and he anda lot of what Ridley has done in
his career has been because of hispartnership with Steve at times. So it
(12:33):
was the two of them in twentythcentury Fox, which is like, this
is like the sci fi trifecta ifyou can get something made with those three
parties, and so the the alternatereality of this is probably something like The
Martian. You know, if ithad gone well like The Martian did,
it would have been a lot ofpeople would have seen it. If he
(12:56):
said Silo like, hey, yeah, I remember that I was in a
theater. I didn't catch it,but I would have had a bump in
book sales. I don't know,if you know, it would have been
a trilogy. Martian was only onebook, so maybe we would have gotten
three films. So I can imaginewhat that alternate reality is like, But
(13:16):
I don't think it would be nearlyas much fun as what we're getting to
do now, because this is goingto be three or four years of looking
forward to new seasons and you know, something constantly filming, Like, there's
just a lot of activity and alot of entertainment for me personally out of
(13:37):
doing it this way, I wantto share with you sort of my experience,
and maybe this is a standard forthe listeners who've also watched the show.
I was so impressed with how muchis in that first episode. I
think a lot of times shows likethis, where there's a really, you
know, compelling central mystery, they'recontent to just establish it in the first
(13:58):
episode and then kind of coast abit. And I thought that silo the
first episode goes, so there's somuch that happens in that first episode.
It doesn't feel like it's it feelsso packed in. You feel like you've
you've what would be on a lessershow the first four or five episodes.
That amount of plot feels covered inthe first episode. And then I thought,
(14:20):
that's kind of the same thing aboutthe finale, like there was again
a lesser version of this. Youcould have ended it a couple times earlier.
There's a couple big moments in thatfinale where if you wanted to,
you could have strung it out abit more. And so there's just a
very clear sense of there's a lotof runway on the road, that this
is not a situation where there's alimited amount of plot. If anything,
(14:43):
it feels like we have an abundance, that there's so much to get through.
I think that the first and thelast episode I was just incredibly impressed
by, And I don't know,I mean, I guess it's maybe it's
a natural place to transition to thequestion that I have as a fan,
which is what is covered in theshow, Like what can I read that
(15:05):
will not spoil season two for me? So, the original and the novel
Wool is five separate publications that weresandwiched into one book. It was serialized.
The reason there's so much in thatpilot that first episode is that's the
(15:26):
first book. It was about fiftysix pages, and to turn a fifty
six page novel into a fifty sixpage script is a huge task. We
also, you know, Juliet doesn'tappear in the book until like the third
part of the book, so youread, you know, one hundred and
(15:48):
twenty pages or something before you getJuliette in the novel. So that's one
of the reasons that the material isso dense. If you read, you
could read the first like forty ofthe novel and still be in season one,
and it's a very clear stopping point. There's like five parts of the
(16:11):
novel you could still see the DNAlike the original bones of the certilization,
and the first three books basically arewhat we just showed in season one,
and then books four and five,which are longer. Even this only two.
It's about sixty percent of the novelthat will be season two, got
it. It seems like almost halfthe novel. Yeah, it seems like
(16:34):
Apple supported you tremendously. Because I'mjust thinking from a creative executive perspective.
You know, you have Rebecca Ferguson. The Juliet character clearly is driving the
narrative. But the you know,I think that the lazier note might have
been, let's just start with herand simplify it. She's the lead let's
get her in, you know,and instead they're like, no, not
(16:56):
not only are we not going tostart with her, We're gonna get David
Loo, We're gonna get Rashida Jones. We're gonna totally blow out the beginning
of this, which is kind ofa different group of characters. Get people
invested in that, and then switchperspective, which is, you know,
a pretty that could be a scarything when you're putting it together, you
could worry that always. The audiencekind of get invested in these characters and
(17:18):
then they go away. Now I'llget to get invested in a new character.
And it seems like they totally steeredinto that and got, you like,
the best actors and really committed tothat approach. Yeah, I don't
know if we couldn't have locked downDavid or Rashida for you know, multiple
seasons. So having a natural structurethat made these characters temporary actually let us
(17:41):
you know, punch above our weightwhen we went casting for those parts,
and it all, you know,for me, it just ups the stakes.
Like I don't know that people whoaren't familiar with the book must think
Juliet's days are numbered throughout the seasonbecause we put in some tough situations and
we haven't shied away. So Ijust you know, it's George is dead,
(18:03):
um, John's and Marn's book dieLike you know, there's a there's
the body to really pile up inthe show. There's a part when she
jumps off the staircase and it's usedas a as a I think it's either
an act out or an episode out. And to your point, because I
hadn't read the books, I'm like, maybe she does she just die?
(18:26):
Like is that yeah? And doesshe this season two open up with her
dying and we introduce a new star, Like, you know, I don't
want people to feel like her plotarmor is um is you know too thick.
She does exhibit some plot armor inthe season, but like that's um
It's hard to make an action packshow that doesn't have a little bit of
(18:49):
that. Yeah. I want toshare with you a thought that crossed my
mind watching the show, and Ithink it speaks to why the show is
so appealing to people, and particularlythe first sason, which obviously then you
have to find a different angle forthe second season. The first season you're
just wondering, wondering, wondering.You're like, you know that obviously whatever
the people have been told is nottrue, so you're thinking, well,
what could it be? What couldit be? And then at one point
(19:11):
there's mention of a massive door atthe bottom of the silo, and this
thought like raised into my mind.I'm like, what if it's not a
silo, what if it's a skyscraper, and what if the door is at
ground level? And the fact thatI could even think that in the same
theory and be like that could betrue speaks to the fun of it,
because it's like, what could itbe? Like, you're so curious.
(19:33):
It's such a tantalizing mystery, andI think that the fact that you the
way that you landed it is verysatisfying is a very difficult task. I
mean, as any writer would say, like, if you set something up
where the mystery is such a bigpart of it, how you're going to
pay it off so that the audiencefeels satisfied without it being obvious is a
very difficult balancing act. Yeah,I mean, we're lucky that this was
(19:57):
kind of already tested the audiences withthe book. My favorite theory is people
who wondered if maybe they're on aspaceship, Like if you were doing a
colony ship. I think people wouldgo crazy if they knew they're an outer
space. But if they thought theywere on Earth still maybe they would,
(20:18):
you know, maybe go half ascrazy. And I thought that was a
Coult theory. Yeah, it's itgoes back to Plato's allegory of the cave,
like if you have a very limitedkeyhole through which you see the world,
then what's out there? It couldbe a lot, you know,
a lot more, And but youknow what's fun is just everyone assuming.
(20:44):
It's probably like getting in the mindsetof the characters, like maybe it's better
out there than people say, youknow, I don't want to leave,
and then when you finally get tosee out there, you're like, oh,
hold on a second. Maybe youknow, the folks saying you better
stay here are the ones who whohave it right. And I think what's
great is like, even as yougo through the books, you can start
(21:04):
second guessing yourself over and over again. What's great about it as an ending
is it's a subversion of our expectationsextremely cleverly. Because the expectation is they're
line it's beautiful outside they're keeping themin here for reasons unknown, but once
she gets out there, she's gonnasee it's beautiful. This was all a
lie. That would kind of bethe obvious way to go, And obviously
(21:27):
you set it up like that becausewe see images of it being nice outside
and then the turn at the endto see it so dystopian. It makes
you it's like, man, maybeTim Robbins was onto something here, which
I love because again it's such asubversion. You totally expect the whole way
(21:47):
through that he's just, you know, bad guy and that's what it is.
And he even has what I thinkis probably his best scene in the
whole piece in the last episode hestarted Ferguson in the cell and he has
a moment of vulnerability where he's sortof like, do you think I'm like
super jazzed to like be in thisposition and doing this? Like yeah,
(22:08):
I love that he admits, likeI don't enjoy this, like I'd rather
be doing something else. But ifI don't do this, everyone dies,
And I think, you know,you can be you can be right and
still be a bad guy. Likelet's say let's say he's right that if
he didn't do this, everyone woulddie. I think Juliet's question question would
(22:30):
be, but is there a betterway to do it? Like, is
there a way to do it wherethere's less suffering and where people know the
truth? Yeah, I like youhave that little faith in humanity that we
can't all be in on it anddecide to make the rational choice like,
and I think that is a that'sa much better dynamic than like, I'm
going to do bad things to you, because I get enjoyment out of it.
(22:55):
You could decide who to pull for, you know. I Yeah,
I love going to Constant and seeingthe fandoms that's spread across the universe,
and that what I mean by thatis people dressed up like Stormtroopers and Darth
Vader because they're like I think,you know, these rebels are like causing
trouble that people need order. Orthere's people dressed up like cleanons and there
(23:21):
they value their like warrior ethic andthey think that the humans are like kind
of you know, meddling and messingthings up all the time, and it's
rare to get that. You know, if you just have much stess twirling
bad guys, then you don't havepeople who are who empathize with and have
(23:42):
these characters resonate with them the sortof like mad genius cleverness of it is,
and correct me if I have allthe straight, because it's entirely possible
I'd misunderstance thing. But so basically, the idea is that someone is sent
out to clean. The image thatis shown to them looks beautifull. Therefore
they are motivated to do the cleaningto show the people what it is.
(24:06):
But the people don't see what theysee and then and then their suit is
such that it's not like basically theyI guess there's a hole in the suit
or something, and that's why theydie. And in Juliette's case, it's
been patched with the right patch andthat's why she's able to survive. Is
that do I have all that straight? Yeah? Exactly. And you know
(24:26):
the people who go out to clean, if they're of the mindset like I'm
keeping all this to myself, screwthese people. Then they'll also clean because
they want to act subserve it.They're like, Okay, just do what
you're told. Let them think theybeat you. And meanwhile, like,
screw those guys, Like I'm gonnago over the hill and find all the
(24:47):
other people and we're we're in onit, and these people aren't like,
see you losers. And if youhave a more magnanimous mindset, you're going
to go out there and say,I know they won't see it as beautifully
as I'm seeing it, but man, I want to give them the best
view of this possible. So whereveryou are on that spectrum, and then
(25:07):
in the middle of that spectrum isa kind of like numb apathy where you
just go along and you have television, you're like you realize you're about to
die, or you're so in aweof what you're seeing that you just go
into cruise control. What nobody doesin that situation, and that this is
what the world. This is kindof the whole plots predicated on this.
(25:32):
No one goes out there sees thatin the mindset of I've been sent out
to die or find out if myfantasy is accurate, and then I'm gonna
just not do it, and thatJuliet not cleaning is unprecedented, and that's
what freaks out Bernard and makes themrun off. It's it's such an interesting
like psychological mousetrap that you've built,and it really does make you think and
(25:57):
you kind of have to like keeppuzzling over it, which is something that
I always love. Um this deviceof at the end where there's a there's
a great movie called The Invitation.I don't know if you've ever seen it.
Um, I'm going to spoil itfor your feet, don't mind,
Yeah, please relevant here. Soin The Invitation, we were in la
and we go to this house.It's like a dinner party, and over
(26:19):
the course of the dinner party,you realize that it's they're trying to ingratiate
people into a death cult. That'sthe purpose of the dinner party. They've
got these new people that they're tryingto compel to join this death cult.
And it's very freaky, like asuicide it's like a suicide cult basically.
Yeah, And so it's you think, wow, this is a very strange
(26:40):
situation. And it all takes placein the house and then at the end
they go to like the balcony andthey light like a red light or something,
and then you sort of pan outto like the hills and you see
like dozens of red lights and you'relike, holy shit, like you know,
and so I think that as adevice, as a narrative device,
this notion of we're going to spendso much time in this confined such scenario
(27:04):
and then we're going to pull outand show you that this is a tiny
speck of a much bigger thing.I feel like that always works. I
can't think of a time where thathas been done where I've not been like
super satisfied by it. And Ithink the end of season one and this
shows another great example that it's it'sso good because you know, I won't
spoil you with how many there are, but you can see that there's like,
you know, more than a dozenor so right there. Everything that
(27:27):
just happened in season one is justa small subset of what's happening in that
silo. There's so many lives beinglived there, but people that are people
being stopped to clean their people injudicial and it who are killing people and
manipulating people and drugging people. There'sall the drama that Alison and Holstein went
(27:48):
through with having kids, and weknow that's all bunch of nonsense as well.
And in each one of those otherlittle indentions in the earth, like
similar stories were happening, And Ithink that's what's so heartbreaking about it is
you're like, Okay, if there'sthere's conflicts happening, if these people can
just resolve that, maybe things willbe okay, and then you zoom out
and you're like, oh god,there's conflict everywhere. There's people suffering.
(28:12):
There's so many people trapped, youknow, like and who who Like who
do this to these people? Andthen you're like, who do this to
all these people? Yes? Andthen you realize the scale whoever's behind this
you never built this thing. Thescale of what they did is way more
absurd than what you thought. Whenyou're just in that one side would all
(28:33):
that. I think it's subconsciously allthat hits you when when you pan out
right, it just hits you.In that three second image, you're thinking
all that stuff that you just said. So it's like your brain sort of
breaks. I'm curious about as yougo into season two, because it does.
You would think in theory, it'salmost like you have to change not
the genre, but kind of thegenre because it's no longer like the big
(28:56):
mystery of what is you know what'sout there? Now we know what's out
there So is it more of likenow the mystery is what's in the other
ones, so it's still a mysteryshow or does it kind of change a
bit and it's not really a mysteryshow anymore. It's sort of about different
things. The mechanics of it area bit different. What's what's amazing is
(29:17):
that the level of mystery just goesway up after this and the people asking
the questions, what the questions areasking, and the people who are asking
it are way more interesting, andso the stakes are so much higher.
Like I don't know if you couldtell when Bernard hurt about the door at
(29:41):
the bottom of Silo, he hadnever heard of this before. You know,
I think he conveys it really wellin his face and he's like,
what are you talking about? Sothere are things that he doesn't know and
that you know, that's where weget to start playing in season two of
like Who's the Puppet? The guyplaying with the puppet also has strings on
(30:06):
and Bernard is starting to notice thosestrings. Oh my god, what's what's
really going on here? So yeah, it's still a mystery show, but
also the action is so much moreintense, the stakes are higher. Things
really get out of control, allbecause of what Juliet did, which goes
back to what Alison did, whichyou know it feeds into George and Holston
(30:30):
and so many other people that wethink aren't around long, but the influence
that they had and the ripple effectof their decisions are here for quite a
while. Rebecca Ferguson was very supportiveof you in an interview, and essentially
what she said, if I remembercorrectly, was she read the source material,
(30:51):
then she read the scripts, andshe passed and she said, I
don't want to do it because Idon't think essentially, I don't think it's
as good as the book. Andthen they took her notes, rewrote it.
She couldn't let go of it.She was still thinking about it.
So she was like, did theycast anybody yet? And I'm like no,
She's like, all right, wellfine. And then even in the
(31:11):
same interview she was very candid.She was just like, season two is
like way even though this is reallygood, season two is like way better,
Like she was. She clearly expresseda lot of excitement for where she
was going in season two. SoI have noticed that, and I've talked
to other writers and creators about thisbefore. If the lead person is like
really defensive of the source material,whether that's an original spec script, whether
(31:36):
it's a book, whatever it mightbe, that seems like a really good
sign for the show to be successfulor movie. I interviewed actually the guys
who wrote Sharper, which is anApple Plus film, which is an incredibly
dense narrative and very complex and hasa lot of interesting things that it does,
and they were like, the reasonthis movie is good is because Julianne
Moore backed us from minute one.She was like, I like their script,
(31:57):
We're doing their script. Same thing. I interviewed Trunk, who wrote
The Equalizer with Denzel, and hewas like, the reason that it's good,
it's because Denzel every time they wantedto change something, he was like,
wait, wait, why do wechange it from Richard's original script?
So how much how meaningful was ither support and what ended up you know,
becoming the product at the end,it was huge UM and Graham was
the same way. Graham fell inlove with the source material. He's he's
(32:22):
been interested in this even before Applegot it back when Sony was you know,
competing with UM with Ridley for thisUM. So he was attached to
the source material. Jamie Rlick thatat Apple is a huge like he's obsessed
with the books and that's why it'sat you know, landed at Apple because
(32:44):
of his um, his efforts umso and and then Morton became obsessed with
the shi with the world, anda lot of the detail and the quality
comes from Morton um saying like,no compromise, We're doing it this way
and fighting for things like um likethe guys we got for sound and things
(33:07):
like that that you know, Applewas like we can't, can't do it
has to be the UK and waslike, nope, my guys on Iceland,
We're going to do it this way. And I all these people were
fighting all in the same direction.They weren't fighting each other, They're all
fighting the friction that it takes tomake great content. The other thing Rebecca
(33:28):
did is she brought a level ofprofessionalism and just niceness onto set that trickled
down everywhere. Like when you're numberone on the call sheet, is the
nicest person in the room. Noone can be a baby, No one
can you know, treat others withdisrespect. She knew, you know,
(33:51):
the crew, she chatted up everybodyin between takes. She was, you
know, the first one to throwher arms around you when the day started,
like she said, an example thateveryone had to live up to.
And you know, it's a hugegift to us to get her when we
(34:13):
did, because we probably can't gether now, like her star was just
on the rise when we landed her. But I also appreciate just because of
the relationship that we formed that likewe gave her a gift as well,
Like there are very few roles likethis for female actors. She's a star,
but she's always a co star.She doesn't get to like, you
(34:37):
know, headlines something, be anexecutive producer, have creative input. So
it's one of those things where likewe gave each other a gift, which
is this show where she's giving usyears of her peak and we're giving her
a huge vehicle for her to showoff her chops. And boy, there's
(35:00):
nothing better than like everyone winning.And that's how it's felt with this show,
Like everyone's winning. The fans ofthe books are winning, fans of
good TV, Apple, the publisherswho believed in the you know, the
silver forty publishers around the world whohave been waiting for some adaptation and price
that into their initial offers. Soit's just like there's no there's no bad
(35:23):
version of this right now. It'sjust all good from everybody's perspective. It's
interesting that Ridley Scott twenty Century FoxLegacy because when when Juliette is first introduced
the way that Rebecca appears, soshe comes out of the furnace or whatever,
you know, the reactor thing,she's totally like she's Sigourney Weaver,
an alien, like she's she's Ripleyfor sure. She just has this And
(35:46):
it was the same you know whenshe first shows up and I think it's
Mission possible, rog nation. Iwant to say, um, she was
noticeable, Like you know, there'sbeen a lot of great actors in those
films, but she was the firstperson honestly, like you, Philip semore
often as the bad guy, butlike where you're like, this person has
the charisma everything. Like if shewas the lead, if Tom Cruise ever
(36:07):
decides to like maybe take a break, like and she wants to lead one
of these movies, she could totallydo it. She's really like a very
rare that level of charisma as aperformer is very rare, and I think
she would have been a star atany other age. She could have been
in Casablanca episode every Bogart like.She just has a timeless star quality to
her that you know is unusual.Yeah, it's very unusual. And also
(36:29):
to have the physicality and also theemotional nuance. I wish, I wish
we could talk about season two stuff, and I hope that they release some
behind the scenes. What she's pullingoff physically in season two is way more
impressive than Tom driving a motorcycle offa cliff, like a stunt that you
(36:52):
and I could prep for in aweekend and pull off. It's basically parachuting.
Um, I don't know how she'sdoing what she's doing in season two,
and you'll you'll you'll get it whenyou see it and you realize this
is all practical and it's not specialeffects, and it is her. But
(37:12):
she's gonna get a war nominations forif she doesn't get it for this season,
she'll get it for next season.To deserve every bit of it.
It's insane. She's she's a superrare talent. We're very lucky to have
her. My last question before wewrap up. Can I read the graphic
novel without spoiling season two for myself? Half of it? Okay? I
(37:38):
don't, And I don't think youknow. I'm dying to see season two
and I know the story intimately,so I don't think you can spoil.
There's a lot of people reading thenovels right now, and I think they're
going to enjoy it, just likefans of the books have enjoyed the first
season. And it's similar to me, Like I'm the kind of person that
(38:00):
can rewatch a movie because I justwant to spend time in that world with
those people, Like I can watchBack to the Future right now and love
every scene, and knowing what happensdoes it detract from that for some for
some reason. So I don't thinkyou can. I don't think you can
ruin season two by reading reading ahead. And when is season two projected to
(38:20):
start release? I haven't heard arelease date, but just looking at you
know they're not going to want todelay it. Like you really have to
be careful with your launch window ona first season because you don't want to
you know, you want as muchempty space as possible. But now,
whenever you release the second season,you're gonna have a lot of hype.
It's gonna it markets itself. Now. We wrapped season one in June of
(38:45):
last year, and here we are, you know, in July, and
the season's over some I'm hoping lessthan a year from now, Like it'd
be great if they released it aroundthe same time. I love that kind
of consistency. Yeah cool man,Well that is uh yeah, I don't
want to take more of your time. I so appreciate you coming on.
It's been such a pleasure to watchthe show, and I'm very excited to
(39:07):
now go read the books for me, honestly, Like that's I think it's
what's cool about it is it's likeyou get just enough from the show where
you're like, I would love toyou know, I want to read five
pages about like the guy whose shopis down there on the corner of the
street, Like I want to reallyget into the world. So I'm really
excited to dig into the books.And I thank you very much for coming
on. Thanks man. It's funto talk to someone who has such a
(39:28):
high level of knowledge of the craft, so you get to have different a
different conversation. So this is ablastroom. I really appreciate it. Man,
thank you so much for listening.Also to the audience. If you
enjoy the show, please leave usa five star review on Apple Podcasts and
subscribe future episodes. That is ashow for today until next time. Bye bye,
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