June 15, 2019 • 28 mins
Colin talks with Brian Koppelman who not only has written such films as Rounders and Ocean's Thirteen but is also the Creator and Executive Producer of the Showtime series Billions which is Colin's new obsession. They discuss the creation of the series, what it’s like working with such amazing actors and the difficulties of writing season and eventually series finales.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's our Saturday morning podcast where I get to explore
things that don't necessarily find their way into the show.
And there's a show right now called Billions that I
would put in among five or six TV shows of
all time. Uh, you know, from Mary Tyler Moore to
(00:22):
Cheers to Sopranos, uh, Narcos, and I would put Billions
in there. And Brian Koppelman is the co creator, executive
producer of Billions, the writer, the director, the producer. Um,
you know, let me start Brian. First of all, thank
you so much for coming on. I want to start
with this. When you when you start to write a
(00:42):
project like this, I always feel like a writer wants
to say something your big picture is Could I say that?
What you were trying to say in the in the
growth of this was, Hey, corruptions everywhere. Even the good
guys can be bad guys? Is it? Or am I
way off? Well you're not. You're not way off? And uh,
(01:06):
you know, I make the show with my lifelong best
friend and partner, David Levine, And at first, one man,
I'm so psyched to do this. And you're the way
in which you talk about the show all the time
and all different kinds of media has really reached us
and we totally appreciate it. And I want to start
by saying, in fact, it's so great because you know
(01:26):
one of I know, one of your favorite guys, Hank
his area, and you know he's a fanatic for you.
He's brock Meyer. Obviously he's never seen your show. Well,
so Hank and my play poker together and he's constantly
given me a hit about the fact that he hasn't
watched it. And then when day he comes to the
game of the Big Smile in his days and he says, well,
(01:46):
I think KRMA got me because I loved Howard and
he hasn't watched Brockmeyer and all he wants to talk
about his Billy. And by the way, I have I
have watched brock Meyer full of episodes, but I'm addicted
to your show, yes, which drives Hank and save, which
(02:07):
gives me no end of delight. So I just text
the Hank right as you picked up, and I said,
by the way, I'm going on with Colin right now.
By the way, give you a lot of shit. Let's
get let's get a Hank on our podcast next week.
This is a good heads up to our guys, because
I have watched brock Meyer, and I think it's a riot.
But there is something about Billions. I like true crime,
and I like dark and and I find it from
(02:28):
Maggie Siff to Damian Lewis too, you know, the great
Paul Jamani. There's a darkness here that I really crave
and I really like. Well, so let me step back
and answer in all seriousness. But I'm glad you said
you watched brock Meyer because Hank said, if you watch
brock Meyer, he will watch Billions. And now next week
have him on and hold his feet to the fire.
I will here. Here's here's the thing, um, Dave and
(02:51):
I don't speak that off and too like these teams.
What we're happy about is if someone like you picks
up on those teams, or someone like you understands what
we're trying to say about supposed good guys and supposed
bad guys in America right now. And look, we noticed
(03:12):
that there were these people in physicians of power, supposedly
trying to serve the public good who ended up it's
actually just trying to serve their own good. And when
you see that, you kind of can't look away from it,
right right, Look the moment that the blindfold's taken off
and you see the way that the world really is,
(03:32):
you can't tell yourself it's some other way. So whether
it Telliot Spitzer, who was you know, a moral crusader
who had turned out was leading a very different life,
by the way, not a life that necessarily, you know,
guy wants to do. If a man's unhappier, a woman's
unhappy in their relationship, there are lots of ways out
of it. But if you're going to live the life
that you want to lead, then you shouldn't be someone crusading.
(03:56):
That's right, issues of black and white, right or wrong.
That's the US Attorney for the Southern District. And that's
what really lands with me because I've found myself through
the show. Initially liking Bobby Axelrod, knowing he is manipulative
and dark, and Chuck Rhodes bothered me, I kind of turned.
I love Jamadi and everything, But I think the way
(04:18):
it landed for me, just a kid who does sports,
was I was. I was almost like, remember when Oliver
Stone made Wall Street and he was shocked how popular
Gordon Gecko got, And I watched Bobby and I thought, oh, hell,
same thing. I'm falling for the guy who I should hate,
and I hate the guy who I should love. But
here's the thing, one of the one of the things,
(04:40):
I'd say, one thing that's different. I mean, there's certain
similarities about Reagans America and the American now you know,
the America that um that Oliver Stone was writing about it,
and the American New Right. But what Dave and I
started thinking about and what we wanted to see, what
we wanted to sort of put out there for people
to watch and make their own decisions about, was we
(05:02):
noticed that guys like acts in the real world, guys
who had a lot of charisma, a lot of money,
a lot of power, great verbal skills, that those characteristics
started standing in for people for qualities of character like kindness, empathy, charity. Right,
and then as a culture, we started celebrating these people.
(05:26):
So we in the first season, you know, you present
acts in a way he seems cool, it's Damian Lewis.
He moves a certain way, he speaks a certain way,
he's funny in a dark way, but he does terrible
fucking thing. Yeah, and like right by the end of
that first season and this is spoiler and anywhere as
he watched the show, So Hank has Harriet turned off
(05:47):
his for one second and go catch up. But in
the first season of the show, you know, he a
guy who he clearly cares about. He lets that guy
die sooner than he had too, because that's the way
that he could win this engagement against Chuck Road and
keep himself free. And we wanted to see when people
would recognize, you know, this is this guy his actions.
(06:08):
If I remove myself from being charmed by him, if
I stepped back from the way that that how cool
he is. His actions are terrible, and someone in my
real life did these things, I would think they were
a pretty bad guy. And by the same token, right,
Jamadi's character supposedly wears the sheriff's badge, but there's a
(06:32):
moral erosion. Right. There's a lie that people in power
sometimes tell themselves, which is, hey, when I get to
the next spot, I'll be able to do so much
good for the world that it doesn't matter how much
bad I do to get there. Only they never get
to that final place, right, And so you know, yes,
if you took up on the fact that we're showing
you a world that feels dark. I just think it's
(06:55):
a reflection of the world that we've seen. Now. We
want the show to be entertaining, we want the show
to be fun. We want you to be able to laugh.
We want you to be able to enjoy the references
to the movies and music and all that stuff. But
we definitely also want you to think about why you
feel the way you feel about these various characters and
(07:16):
how it reflects on the world in which we live. Yeah. Well, yeah,
it's complex. And the river running beneath the show Sopranos
wasn't just a mob story. It was a guy having
a midlife crisis. That's the running beneath the show, and
so it was very relatable. He's like, his son's driving
him nuts, and his wife's driving him nuts, and he's
going to a therapist. And outside of the affair part,
(07:36):
I could totally relate to all of it and that
and whacking people. But you know, it is funny the
personal experiences, you know. I sometimes I watched the show
and I'm like, somebody that wrote this show got hosed
in an investment. Did you teach like it is funny?
Did you have some personal experiences because there's so much nuance.
The writing is so smart. I have I have a
(07:58):
couple buddies who are in finance and they love the show.
Who have you used and leaned on for the lexicon?
The financial lexicon, the political lexicon? We well, we find
these experts, you know, Dave and I have been doing
this for a long time. Yes, if you even go
back to our first movie Rounders, where we found this
poker scene and then spent a lot of time with
(08:18):
these card players to understand the ways that they thought
and talked and their customs and culture. So it's the
same thing with this. We spent years thinking about it.
We spent years with these people, writing down what they
would say. When I was talking to a guy the
other day who's a really successful guy on Wall Street
and we gave an eye and dinners of them over
(08:40):
the years, and he said, you know, you guys fool me.
You keep me talking. You're talking about me and Dave.
We'll go to dinner and he goes, you're telling the stories.
You're getting me to tell stories. I'm talking, I'm talking,
I'm talking. And then I noticed your partner just quietly
taking out a little piece of paper and writing down
everything that I say right, and that's what we do,
you know, And we tell these guys, look, we're gonna
we're gonna protect your identity. We're not going to sell
(09:00):
you out, but we are gonna use pieces of what
you explain about the world to make the world of
the show more realistic. And they love it, you know.
They I'll get taxed on the Monday morning from five
different hedge fund people saying I noticed that little moment
that I told you a story. You changed it. But
(09:22):
it's kind of like that, and they love it. And
for us, it's it's great access and a great way
to make sure that we're getting it right. And the
same thing on the world of the lawyers and politics,
we do the same run and then we hire consultants
to vet it all with so that we'll hire an
expert like like Downtown Josh Brown on the finance side,
or a lawyer who was us attorney and David Miller
(09:44):
on the legal side. So we'll we'll do that so
that we get the stuff right. And you know, it's
more fun to get it right and then see within
the world as it really is, how to make it
compelling you also introduced a character after a years, Taylor
Mason Asia Kate Dylan plays the character brilliantly. When you
(10:06):
introduce that character, which is a real curveball, it is
this sort of not even a Svengali, a genius enters
the show and it is initially an ally, but I
could sense, okay that she's not going to stay under
anybody too long. How much of her storyline had you
(10:28):
developed pre insertion or have you just gone, you know,
you sit down and you go, okay, let's have her
go here here here. Did you when you introduced Taylor?
Did you know going in she's going to become the
arch nemesis of Acts and choking all that at the end. Well,
first of all, I just want to say not a
(10:49):
Taylor and I binary, and so is l. We knew
that we wanted to introduce a character who would seem
from the outside very different from Ax, whose external characteristics,
who extrinsically seemed different, but who intrinsically had certain similar
(11:10):
qualities that like Acts would recognize in them. And we
hoped that the sparks would fly so that we could
do this kind of story with Taylor. And so that's
what we're you know, you never know. One of the
great things about a long running TV series is you
can try. So you could have this idea. Now, if
(11:31):
Asia came in and couldn't in a thematic didn't happen,
we would have had to have gone a different way.
But what was this our hope. Our hope was that
when we introduced Taylor, Taylor could be the kind of
character who could take up a lot of real estate
on the show and who would be able to interact
with these characters. I mean, as you say, when Asia
is just a knockout performer, Oh steals steals the oxygen
(11:56):
in this scene. She's she's brilliant, she's sinister, she's caring,
she's again, she's wildly A day is wildly complex, Yes, exactly. So, Yeah,
and I think and I think it's an incredible character.
But I'm always I always wonder, you know, when Bill
Belichick's game planning, you know, on Tuesday, he may change
(12:17):
the identity of his offense from Monday and it goes
and then he gets new film. I'm always interested when
you inserta I love that. Yeah, we're always taking new information.
I was talking to the great poker player Eric saideo
once and I was saying, hey, Eric, if you make
a read on the flop, if you you know you
have a read on uh when you just have the
whole cards and then the flop comes out. Are you
(12:39):
one of those poker players and you know acts like
the third winning is player of all time? I said,
are are you one of those those guys who just hey,
I make a read, I stick with it. And Eric said, now,
then you have to always be taking in new information.
So you have your opinion and you hold to that
opinion until new information tells you that you're wrong. And
He's like, you have to be willing to both commit
(13:02):
and then go, wait a second, I now see I
was wrong, and throw the hand away, and so that
it's the same thing, right, It's yes, we have this plan,
but if a better idea shows up, if an actor
shows up, who blows our mind. I mean that happens
all the time, where an actor is so good you
just want to keep writing for them. I will say, though,
that the general notion of where the Tailor character could go,
(13:25):
that that character could eventually could seem like one thing
that could eventually become a rival for acts that was
in our minds at the beginning. But as I say, man,
we could have easily shifted it had to shift it
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slash h e r D. Brian Koppelman joining US co creators,
showrunner executive producer Billions on Showtime with his partner David Levine.
They write this show. It's amazing, it's fascinating. It's one
of the five or six shows of my life. And
(14:52):
I tend to like dark stuff and complex, odd stuff.
It reminds me of living in Connecticut so often, and
it also reminds me that I was next to New
York and the intensity of it. You've worked with Matt Damon, okay, star,
You've worked with uh, you know, Damian Lewis, Paul Jamantium,
(15:14):
multiple people. Is there, Maggie Siff remarkable? Is there a
theme or a talent with actors, whether it's a great
character actor or a star. Where is the opening? Because
I I I the idea. Paul Jamonti's facial expressions are
so good. He can he could. You could turn the
(15:37):
sound down on Paul and I would still have a feeling.
I know what he's saying. Um, he's so he's so animated.
Where's the opening? What if I said, Okay, here's the
foundation of great acting talents? What's the base, where does
it come from? Where's the opening? Say? I love you? People?
(15:59):
To get a Connecticut levine. My partner in the show,
he lives in Grantwich too, which is another way we
got great insight into this world because he's surrounded by
these hedge fund guys. Right um openness, I would say,
the ability to be really present. But these actors have
(16:20):
that is amazing is they can memorize the lines. So
they have the lines memorized so deeply that then they're
free to just react. They're not worried that they won't
say the lines, so they're they're present, they're watching what
the other actor does, and they're not over planning what
they're going to do. There are some actors who plan
(16:41):
it out, who come onto the set and no, I'm
gonna you know, this is what my emotional arc is
going to be for the scene. But there are other actors,
and my favorite actors are the ones, and these are
the ones that Dave and I work with the most.
They're there to see what happens, how they would feel
in that moment, and it's very hard. I don't know
if you've ever tried, you know, if you've done commercials,
(17:01):
and stuff you've done a lot of It's like when
it's I've like I've acted in movies. I'm in Michael Clayton.
I have a really fun little part in Michael Clayton.
And it's a great thing if you're in my job
to act once in a while, because you remember how
hard it is. It is so hard. I was, I was.
I was at dinner with JJ Reddick the other night.
(17:22):
I can just bring sports into this for a second.
And I love JJ. We spend time together. I'm a
huge basketball freak, and I'm a good foul shooter. And
I said, like in high school and my team, you know,
I shot a close to eighty percent. And I said, JJ,
I don't understand why guys miss foul shots all the time,
and and and he looked at me and he was like, well,
first of all, understand you're running the court right so
(17:45):
and obviously JJ is one of the best who ever
lived at it. He was, he said, I have a
lot of sympathy for guys and missed these foul shots.
He's like, you're running the court, You're gassed. You have
fifteen thousand people shouting at you, you have everybody you
know watching at home. Also, you know, most of these
guys their hands are too big for the basketball. And
he's going on and explaining to me why I'm an idiot,
And he's right, why I'm an idiot to sit at
(18:07):
home and be like, well, i'd make that fellow shot.
And when you get on a stage to act, it
is so hard to stay relaxed and calm and cool
and feel present and alert and alive and in the
moment because your self consciousness creeps in. So the greatest
actors don't have that self consciousness. They're other directed. They're
(18:29):
looking at the other actors, they're reacting, and they're living
in the moment. Like the best ball players, the ball
players who remember the moment, who the ball players who
are aware of how big the moment is are the
ball players who often grumble, right Brooks Kepka. The entire
attitude that Kepka takes out onto the course, I think
it's created so that he doesn't get overwhelmed by the
(18:52):
pressure of the moment. Right, He's constantly saying him and
this doesn't matter, it's just golf, right, It's just hitting
the ball. And each time he says he reinforced this
to himself, don't feel pressure, don't think about the stakes,
don't think about history. And I have to think that
that makes it easier for him to succeed. And I
think it's similar with the actors, So that makes sense. Yeah, No,
(19:13):
I Derek Jeter whenever asked about a slump, and he
didn't have many um long slumps, but people would ask
him and he says, listen, hit the ball hard, don't
overthink the room. Just be up to the plate, react
to the pitch, and just hit bat on ball hard.
Like live in the moment, live in the pitch, go
(19:36):
back to fundamentals and react. And it's it's just react
to them. Kobe's the same thing. Kobe had brief slumps.
It's like, man, you just get the ball, you go
to your process. You don't you know, a Rod's an overthinker.
He had longer slumps. Jeter. You know, Jeter said years ago,
this is why Sam Darnold's gonna be good for the Jets.
(19:57):
Sam Darnold, who I'm a Jets fan because I'm a
Sam darnold Ian too. So I saw Donald's first practice
in college and I walked up to Steve Sarkisian and
I said, that's Andrew luck and he said, just more
athletic is that Darnald has enough sort of blue collar
simplicity to his brain. It's a real interesting combination. A
(20:18):
Rod was almost too smart. Michael was smart enough, but
could relax and go right back to what he was
in the moment. I know this is kind of confusing,
but Donald has this that Donald Peyton Manning was a
teeth clencher. He was too smart, he thought too much.
Brady's just smart enough to not overthink. And that's what
(20:40):
Donald has. He's got this kind of sense, a simple sensibility.
He's like a country boy who can memorize a playbook.
And so to your point, the great actors they live
in this moment where they just they're they're confident enough
to go into a scene free of netting. I guess, yeah,
(21:00):
I know that's exactly right, free of three of the
stakes of the thing, outside of the right, free of
all the reasons it matters, outside of what happens during
action and cut, and they prepare. So that's what I
was saying about them having memorized liners. That's what you're
saying about Donald knowing the playbook that they are preparing enough,
they think about it enough, they own the character enough
(21:23):
that they can sort of let all that go. Yes,
when they walk, when they walk onto the floor and
they're going to do a scene, and they're all very smart,
I would say, you can't really be great at at
at acting. I don't think if if you're if you're
not bringing a certain amount of intellect to bear on
the material before you walk on the floor. By the way,
(21:44):
Brian Copelman joining us, your ending did not reach. There
was no reach. It was it was smart, it was thoughtful,
and it left me wanting more. And this is not
a shot at Game of Thrones or Seinfeld or you
know last episodes where it feels like, wow, I'm I'm
that's a little too too many. Well, because we're cool,
but also in fairness, those guys had to end their series.
(22:06):
We're still going. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to
end your series. Well, and I hope we don't end
ours for a few more seasons, but uh, it's easier
to do. Listen. It's it's all hard relatively, you know.
I live a charmed life. I love what I do.
We feel a great obligation to our fans, the people
who love our show of fanatics like you like, they're
(22:27):
so into it. I don't know. We would just feel
terrible to let you down. That said, ending a series,
I think is really difficult to satisfy. Well, I wasn't.
I wasn't bothered by the Sopranos. Brian, I thought it.
I didn't think it gave me a bit. I love it,
I love I love the ambiguity of it. I loved it,
and I love mad Men's ending too. Mad Men is
(22:47):
my favorite show of all time. Mad Men and Sopranos
are my favorite shows of all time. And for me,
both of those endings were exactly what I wanted them
to be. Yeah, like, um little ambiguity, but you know
I I love the characters and what happened after it
went black. I was okay with either way. Me too,
I agree. Brian Koppelman is joining us. You had something
(23:08):
to add here, Well, I was gonna say you were
talking about our ending. I was saying it was easy
to write, easier to do a an ending in the
middle of your run than at the at the end
of your run. And I'm glad to hear that it
left you wanting more. No, that's perfect. Thanks for saying that,
and now do you but do you think about the
ending knowing that you have a year or two left?
(23:29):
Is this something discussed between you and David. Yeah, we
talked about it all the time. We talk all the
time about building it right. So, in other words, if
you're going toward a certain ending, as you get into
your fifth and sixth seasons, like let's say we're gonna
make seven seasons, as you get into your fifth and
(23:49):
sixth seasons, you have to start, even if they're not
putting the blocks in place that the audience is going
to recognize yet, you have to start drawing that out
a little bit, right. You have to start game planning
for the end. Yeah. No, listen, this is the New
England Patriots have never scored a touchdown in eight Super
(24:10):
Bowls in the first quarter. Think about that. The best offense,
the greatest quarterback, never a touchdown. So it's amazing. So
what they're telling you is it's Ali. Ali didn't have
very many first and second round knockouts. I'm gonna feel
you out. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna engulf my
team or I'm not going to unveil my tricks. This
(24:35):
is New England. So I think Belichick's one of the
smartest coaches ever. Every super Bowl they tend to run
more than they passed her In the regular season, They're
significantly worse in the first quarter and significantly better in
the fourth quarter. Everything with him is the long play.
He's the classic four oh one k. He never takes
it out, and and and so, Brian, I think to
(24:57):
a large degree, you you you are moving because I
can kind of see where it's going. But I do
think you do, as a writer, have to think about
the end, even if you're nine episodes twelve episodes from it. Yeah,
you have to. Yeah, you're exactly right. Um, I want
to end on this. When when you do something and
you're in this, I would imagine creatively it can be engulfing.
(25:21):
Can you work on other projects while you're doing this
or do you have to be completely committed to this
when we're making the show? We got to just make
the show's Um, it's similar to coaching quarterback. It's similar
to a head coach in the NFL, and that so
this is the first time right now, as you're talking
(25:42):
to me, is the first sort of time I've had
any time off since we started the show. Oh my god.
We Dave and I each got ourselves like about two
months to just clear our heads. Last season, we had
three days between finishing the post production and starting the
writer in the writer's room in July. So No, I
what I do is I try to do things that
are very different. So in any like, I covered a
(26:05):
couple of golf tournaments for Sports Illustrated where they were like, hey,
just go write whatever you want about them at the Masters,
or go write whatever you want about the PGA. And
that's awesome for me, Like anytime I can do something
like that where I'm able to write because I love
writing and I love thinking about this stuff. But where
it's not about the show, it really helps the show.
(26:27):
It really helps when I go back to the show
to sort of have a clear a clear mind. So
that's where I am. That's where I am right now.
Do you think Tiger's gonna win today? No? I do
think it's a unique US Open because Rory just one
Michelson won at Pebble Beach in February, brooks Kaepka owns
the world. Tiger's healthy. I think it's a very unique
(26:50):
US Open where our big guns are cleanup hitters. They're
all on hot streaks and I think it's gonna and
that course is beautiful, it's tap um. I think it's
gonna be art. That's a painting, and I think this
weekend it's a painting. Not the Last Supper, but it's
it's memorable, iconic figures in this canvas, the most beautiful
(27:14):
canvas in golf in the world. And I think it
has a chance to me an all time us open.
Me too, man, I'm so excited. I'm so excited to watch,
and I think there's a chance Tiger can do it
if he loves the course. He's won a lot on
this course, and I just think that there's a chance
that with the small greens, his ability to hit those
(27:35):
irons is going to intimidate people a little bit. Well,
you know, Tiger is one of the only athletes that
got me to a TV Sunday at four o'clock for
about a decade on Sundays at four Sopranos has done it. Brian,
you have done it. You and David with Billions, your
podcast is the moment with Brian Cooppelman. This past Sunday
(27:56):
was the season four finale. It's just a real honor
to have you on, and thank you so much for
your time. Get by and I'm billed to talk to you.
And hey, Hank is aria. Uh, Colin is watching Brockmyer,
so you have no choice. Now you must watch Billys.
I am thank you man, Thank you, talk to you.
It's our Saturday morning podcast where I get to explore
things that don't necessarily find their way into the show.
And there's a show right now called Billions that I
would put in among five or six TV shows of
all time. Uh, you know, from Mary Tyler Moore to
(00:22):
Cheers to Sopranos, uh, Narcos, and I would put Billions
in there. And Brian Koppelman is the co creator, executive
producer of Billions, the writer, the director, the producer. Um,
you know, let me start Brian. First of all, thank
you so much for coming on. I want to start
with this. When you when you start to write a
(00:42):
project like this, I always feel like a writer wants
to say something your big picture is Could I say that?
What you were trying to say in the in the
growth of this was, Hey, corruptions everywhere. Even the good
guys can be bad guys? Is it? Or am I
way off? Well you're not. You're not way off? And uh,
(01:06):
you know, I make the show with my lifelong best
friend and partner, David Levine, And at first, one man,
I'm so psyched to do this. And you're the way
in which you talk about the show all the time
and all different kinds of media has really reached us
and we totally appreciate it. And I want to start
by saying, in fact, it's so great because you know
(01:26):
one of I know, one of your favorite guys, Hank
his area, and you know he's a fanatic for you.
He's brock Meyer. Obviously he's never seen your show. Well,
so Hank and my play poker together and he's constantly
given me a hit about the fact that he hasn't
watched it. And then when day he comes to the
game of the Big Smile in his days and he says, well,
(01:46):
I think KRMA got me because I loved Howard and
he hasn't watched Brockmeyer and all he wants to talk
about his Billy. And by the way, I have I
have watched brock Meyer full of episodes, but I'm addicted
to your show, yes, which drives Hank and save, which
(02:07):
gives me no end of delight. So I just text
the Hank right as you picked up, and I said,
by the way, I'm going on with Colin right now.
By the way, give you a lot of shit. Let's
get let's get a Hank on our podcast next week.
This is a good heads up to our guys, because
I have watched brock Meyer, and I think it's a riot.
But there is something about Billions. I like true crime,
and I like dark and and I find it from
(02:28):
Maggie Siff to Damian Lewis too, you know, the great
Paul Jamani. There's a darkness here that I really crave
and I really like. Well, so let me step back
and answer in all seriousness. But I'm glad you said
you watched brock Meyer because Hank said, if you watch
brock Meyer, he will watch Billions. And now next week
have him on and hold his feet to the fire.
I will here. Here's here's the thing, um, Dave and
(02:51):
I don't speak that off and too like these teams.
What we're happy about is if someone like you picks
up on those teams, or someone like you understands what
we're trying to say about supposed good guys and supposed
bad guys in America right now. And look, we noticed
(03:12):
that there were these people in physicians of power, supposedly
trying to serve the public good who ended up it's
actually just trying to serve their own good. And when
you see that, you kind of can't look away from it,
right right, Look the moment that the blindfold's taken off
and you see the way that the world really is,
(03:32):
you can't tell yourself it's some other way. So whether
it Telliot Spitzer, who was you know, a moral crusader
who had turned out was leading a very different life,
by the way, not a life that necessarily, you know,
guy wants to do. If a man's unhappier, a woman's
unhappy in their relationship, there are lots of ways out
of it. But if you're going to live the life
that you want to lead, then you shouldn't be someone crusading.
(03:56):
That's right, issues of black and white, right or wrong.
That's the US Attorney for the Southern District. And that's
what really lands with me because I've found myself through
the show. Initially liking Bobby Axelrod, knowing he is manipulative
and dark, and Chuck Rhodes bothered me, I kind of turned.
I love Jamadi and everything, But I think the way
(04:18):
it landed for me, just a kid who does sports,
was I was. I was almost like, remember when Oliver
Stone made Wall Street and he was shocked how popular
Gordon Gecko got, And I watched Bobby and I thought, oh, hell,
same thing. I'm falling for the guy who I should hate,
and I hate the guy who I should love. But
here's the thing, one of the one of the things,
(04:40):
I'd say, one thing that's different. I mean, there's certain
similarities about Reagans America and the American now you know,
the America that um that Oliver Stone was writing about it,
and the American New Right. But what Dave and I
started thinking about and what we wanted to see, what
we wanted to sort of put out there for people
to watch and make their own decisions about, was we
(05:02):
noticed that guys like acts in the real world, guys
who had a lot of charisma, a lot of money,
a lot of power, great verbal skills, that those characteristics
started standing in for people for qualities of character like kindness, empathy, charity. Right,
and then as a culture, we started celebrating these people.
(05:26):
So we in the first season, you know, you present
acts in a way he seems cool, it's Damian Lewis.
He moves a certain way, he speaks a certain way,
he's funny in a dark way, but he does terrible
fucking thing. Yeah, and like right by the end of
that first season and this is spoiler and anywhere as
he watched the show, So Hank has Harriet turned off
(05:47):
his for one second and go catch up. But in
the first season of the show, you know, he a
guy who he clearly cares about. He lets that guy
die sooner than he had too, because that's the way
that he could win this engagement against Chuck Road and
keep himself free. And we wanted to see when people
would recognize, you know, this is this guy his actions.
(06:08):
If I remove myself from being charmed by him, if
I stepped back from the way that that how cool
he is. His actions are terrible, and someone in my
real life did these things, I would think they were
a pretty bad guy. And by the same token, right,
Jamadi's character supposedly wears the sheriff's badge, but there's a
(06:32):
moral erosion. Right. There's a lie that people in power
sometimes tell themselves, which is, hey, when I get to
the next spot, I'll be able to do so much
good for the world that it doesn't matter how much
bad I do to get there. Only they never get
to that final place, right, And so you know, yes,
if you took up on the fact that we're showing
you a world that feels dark. I just think it's
(06:55):
a reflection of the world that we've seen. Now. We
want the show to be entertaining, we want the show
to be fun. We want you to be able to laugh.
We want you to be able to enjoy the references
to the movies and music and all that stuff. But
we definitely also want you to think about why you
feel the way you feel about these various characters and
(07:16):
how it reflects on the world in which we live. Yeah. Well, yeah,
it's complex. And the river running beneath the show Sopranos
wasn't just a mob story. It was a guy having
a midlife crisis. That's the running beneath the show, and
so it was very relatable. He's like, his son's driving
him nuts, and his wife's driving him nuts, and he's
going to a therapist. And outside of the affair part,
(07:36):
I could totally relate to all of it and that
and whacking people. But you know, it is funny the
personal experiences, you know. I sometimes I watched the show
and I'm like, somebody that wrote this show got hosed
in an investment. Did you teach like it is funny?
Did you have some personal experiences because there's so much nuance.
The writing is so smart. I have I have a
(07:58):
couple buddies who are in finance and they love the show.
Who have you used and leaned on for the lexicon?
The financial lexicon, the political lexicon? We well, we find
these experts, you know, Dave and I have been doing
this for a long time. Yes, if you even go
back to our first movie Rounders, where we found this
poker scene and then spent a lot of time with
(08:18):
these card players to understand the ways that they thought
and talked and their customs and culture. So it's the
same thing with this. We spent years thinking about it.
We spent years with these people, writing down what they
would say. When I was talking to a guy the
other day who's a really successful guy on Wall Street
and we gave an eye and dinners of them over
(08:40):
the years, and he said, you know, you guys fool me.
You keep me talking. You're talking about me and Dave.
We'll go to dinner and he goes, you're telling the stories.
You're getting me to tell stories. I'm talking, I'm talking,
I'm talking. And then I noticed your partner just quietly
taking out a little piece of paper and writing down
everything that I say right, and that's what we do,
you know, And we tell these guys, look, we're gonna
we're gonna protect your identity. We're not going to sell
(09:00):
you out, but we are gonna use pieces of what
you explain about the world to make the world of
the show more realistic. And they love it, you know.
They I'll get taxed on the Monday morning from five
different hedge fund people saying I noticed that little moment
that I told you a story. You changed it. But
(09:22):
it's kind of like that, and they love it. And
for us, it's it's great access and a great way
to make sure that we're getting it right. And the
same thing on the world of the lawyers and politics,
we do the same run and then we hire consultants
to vet it all with so that we'll hire an
expert like like Downtown Josh Brown on the finance side,
or a lawyer who was us attorney and David Miller
(09:44):
on the legal side. So we'll we'll do that so
that we get the stuff right. And you know, it's
more fun to get it right and then see within
the world as it really is, how to make it
compelling you also introduced a character after a years, Taylor
Mason Asia Kate Dylan plays the character brilliantly. When you
(10:06):
introduce that character, which is a real curveball, it is
this sort of not even a Svengali, a genius enters
the show and it is initially an ally, but I
could sense, okay that she's not going to stay under
anybody too long. How much of her storyline had you
(10:28):
developed pre insertion or have you just gone, you know,
you sit down and you go, okay, let's have her
go here here here. Did you when you introduced Taylor?
Did you know going in she's going to become the
arch nemesis of Acts and choking all that at the end. Well,
first of all, I just want to say not a
(10:49):
Taylor and I binary, and so is l. We knew
that we wanted to introduce a character who would seem
from the outside very different from Ax, whose external characteristics,
who extrinsically seemed different, but who intrinsically had certain similar
(11:10):
qualities that like Acts would recognize in them. And we
hoped that the sparks would fly so that we could
do this kind of story with Taylor. And so that's
what we're you know, you never know. One of the
great things about a long running TV series is you
can try. So you could have this idea. Now, if
(11:31):
Asia came in and couldn't in a thematic didn't happen,
we would have had to have gone a different way.
But what was this our hope. Our hope was that
when we introduced Taylor, Taylor could be the kind of
character who could take up a lot of real estate
on the show and who would be able to interact
with these characters. I mean, as you say, when Asia
is just a knockout performer, Oh steals steals the oxygen
(11:56):
in this scene. She's she's brilliant, she's sinister, she's caring,
she's again, she's wildly A day is wildly complex, Yes, exactly. So, Yeah,
and I think and I think it's an incredible character.
But I'm always I always wonder, you know, when Bill
Belichick's game planning, you know, on Tuesday, he may change
(12:17):
the identity of his offense from Monday and it goes
and then he gets new film. I'm always interested when
you inserta I love that. Yeah, we're always taking new information.
I was talking to the great poker player Eric saideo
once and I was saying, hey, Eric, if you make
a read on the flop, if you you know you
have a read on uh when you just have the
whole cards and then the flop comes out. Are you
(12:39):
one of those poker players and you know acts like
the third winning is player of all time? I said,
are are you one of those those guys who just hey,
I make a read, I stick with it. And Eric said, now,
then you have to always be taking in new information.
So you have your opinion and you hold to that
opinion until new information tells you that you're wrong. And
He's like, you have to be willing to both commit
(13:02):
and then go, wait a second, I now see I
was wrong, and throw the hand away, and so that
it's the same thing, right, It's yes, we have this plan,
but if a better idea shows up, if an actor
shows up, who blows our mind. I mean that happens
all the time, where an actor is so good you
just want to keep writing for them. I will say, though,
that the general notion of where the Tailor character could go,
(13:25):
that that character could eventually could seem like one thing
that could eventually become a rival for acts that was
in our minds at the beginning. But as I say, man,
we could have easily shifted it had to shift it
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slash h e r D. Brian Koppelman joining US co creators,
showrunner executive producer Billions on Showtime with his partner David Levine.
They write this show. It's amazing, it's fascinating. It's one
of the five or six shows of my life. And
(14:52):
I tend to like dark stuff and complex, odd stuff.
It reminds me of living in Connecticut so often, and
it also reminds me that I was next to New
York and the intensity of it. You've worked with Matt Damon, okay, star,
You've worked with uh, you know, Damian Lewis, Paul Jamantium,
(15:14):
multiple people. Is there, Maggie Siff remarkable? Is there a
theme or a talent with actors, whether it's a great
character actor or a star. Where is the opening? Because
I I I the idea. Paul Jamonti's facial expressions are
so good. He can he could. You could turn the
(15:37):
sound down on Paul and I would still have a feeling.
I know what he's saying. Um, he's so he's so animated.
Where's the opening? What if I said, Okay, here's the
foundation of great acting talents? What's the base, where does
it come from? Where's the opening? Say? I love you? People?
(15:59):
To get a Connecticut levine. My partner in the show,
he lives in Grantwich too, which is another way we
got great insight into this world because he's surrounded by
these hedge fund guys. Right um openness, I would say,
the ability to be really present. But these actors have
(16:20):
that is amazing is they can memorize the lines. So
they have the lines memorized so deeply that then they're
free to just react. They're not worried that they won't
say the lines, so they're they're present, they're watching what
the other actor does, and they're not over planning what
they're going to do. There are some actors who plan
(16:41):
it out, who come onto the set and no, I'm
gonna you know, this is what my emotional arc is
going to be for the scene. But there are other actors,
and my favorite actors are the ones, and these are
the ones that Dave and I work with the most.
They're there to see what happens, how they would feel
in that moment, and it's very hard. I don't know
if you've ever tried, you know, if you've done commercials,
(17:01):
and stuff you've done a lot of It's like when
it's I've like I've acted in movies. I'm in Michael Clayton.
I have a really fun little part in Michael Clayton.
And it's a great thing if you're in my job
to act once in a while, because you remember how
hard it is. It is so hard. I was, I was.
I was at dinner with JJ Reddick the other night.
(17:22):
I can just bring sports into this for a second.
And I love JJ. We spend time together. I'm a
huge basketball freak, and I'm a good foul shooter. And
I said, like in high school and my team, you know,
I shot a close to eighty percent. And I said, JJ,
I don't understand why guys miss foul shots all the time,
and and and he looked at me and he was like, well,
first of all, understand you're running the court right so
(17:45):
and obviously JJ is one of the best who ever
lived at it. He was, he said, I have a
lot of sympathy for guys and missed these foul shots.
He's like, you're running the court, You're gassed. You have
fifteen thousand people shouting at you, you have everybody you
know watching at home. Also, you know, most of these
guys their hands are too big for the basketball. And
he's going on and explaining to me why I'm an idiot,
And he's right, why I'm an idiot to sit at
(18:07):
home and be like, well, i'd make that fellow shot.
And when you get on a stage to act, it
is so hard to stay relaxed and calm and cool
and feel present and alert and alive and in the
moment because your self consciousness creeps in. So the greatest
actors don't have that self consciousness. They're other directed. They're
(18:29):
looking at the other actors, they're reacting, and they're living
in the moment. Like the best ball players, the ball
players who remember the moment, who the ball players who
are aware of how big the moment is are the
ball players who often grumble, right Brooks Kepka. The entire
attitude that Kepka takes out onto the course, I think
it's created so that he doesn't get overwhelmed by the
(18:52):
pressure of the moment. Right, He's constantly saying him and
this doesn't matter, it's just golf, right, It's just hitting
the ball. And each time he says he reinforced this
to himself, don't feel pressure, don't think about the stakes,
don't think about history. And I have to think that
that makes it easier for him to succeed. And I
think it's similar with the actors, So that makes sense. Yeah, No,
(19:13):
I Derek Jeter whenever asked about a slump, and he
didn't have many um long slumps, but people would ask
him and he says, listen, hit the ball hard, don't
overthink the room. Just be up to the plate, react
to the pitch, and just hit bat on ball hard.
Like live in the moment, live in the pitch, go
(19:36):
back to fundamentals and react. And it's it's just react
to them. Kobe's the same thing. Kobe had brief slumps.
It's like, man, you just get the ball, you go
to your process. You don't you know, a Rod's an overthinker.
He had longer slumps. Jeter. You know, Jeter said years ago,
this is why Sam Darnold's gonna be good for the Jets.
(19:57):
Sam Darnold, who I'm a Jets fan because I'm a
Sam darnold Ian too. So I saw Donald's first practice
in college and I walked up to Steve Sarkisian and
I said, that's Andrew luck and he said, just more
athletic is that Darnald has enough sort of blue collar
simplicity to his brain. It's a real interesting combination. A
(20:18):
Rod was almost too smart. Michael was smart enough, but
could relax and go right back to what he was
in the moment. I know this is kind of confusing,
but Donald has this that Donald Peyton Manning was a
teeth clencher. He was too smart, he thought too much.
Brady's just smart enough to not overthink. And that's what
(20:40):
Donald has. He's got this kind of sense, a simple sensibility.
He's like a country boy who can memorize a playbook.
And so to your point, the great actors they live
in this moment where they just they're they're confident enough
to go into a scene free of netting. I guess, yeah,
(21:00):
I know that's exactly right, free of three of the
stakes of the thing, outside of the right, free of
all the reasons it matters, outside of what happens during
action and cut, and they prepare. So that's what I
was saying about them having memorized liners. That's what you're
saying about Donald knowing the playbook that they are preparing enough,
they think about it enough, they own the character enough
(21:23):
that they can sort of let all that go. Yes,
when they walk, when they walk onto the floor and
they're going to do a scene, and they're all very smart,
I would say, you can't really be great at at
at acting. I don't think if if you're if you're
not bringing a certain amount of intellect to bear on
the material before you walk on the floor. By the way,
(21:44):
Brian Copelman joining us, your ending did not reach. There
was no reach. It was it was smart, it was thoughtful,
and it left me wanting more. And this is not
a shot at Game of Thrones or Seinfeld or you
know last episodes where it feels like, wow, I'm I'm
that's a little too too many. Well, because we're cool,
but also in fairness, those guys had to end their series.
(22:06):
We're still going. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to
end your series. Well, and I hope we don't end
ours for a few more seasons, but uh, it's easier
to do. Listen. It's it's all hard relatively, you know.
I live a charmed life. I love what I do.
We feel a great obligation to our fans, the people
who love our show of fanatics like you like, they're
(22:27):
so into it. I don't know. We would just feel
terrible to let you down. That said, ending a series,
I think is really difficult to satisfy. Well, I wasn't.
I wasn't bothered by the Sopranos. Brian, I thought it.
I didn't think it gave me a bit. I love it,
I love I love the ambiguity of it. I loved it,
and I love mad Men's ending too. Mad Men is
(22:47):
my favorite show of all time. Mad Men and Sopranos
are my favorite shows of all time. And for me,
both of those endings were exactly what I wanted them
to be. Yeah, like, um little ambiguity, but you know
I I love the characters and what happened after it
went black. I was okay with either way. Me too,
I agree. Brian Koppelman is joining us. You had something
(23:08):
to add here, Well, I was gonna say you were
talking about our ending. I was saying it was easy
to write, easier to do a an ending in the
middle of your run than at the at the end
of your run. And I'm glad to hear that it
left you wanting more. No, that's perfect. Thanks for saying that,
and now do you but do you think about the
ending knowing that you have a year or two left?
(23:29):
Is this something discussed between you and David. Yeah, we
talked about it all the time. We talk all the
time about building it right. So, in other words, if
you're going toward a certain ending, as you get into
your fifth and sixth seasons, like let's say we're gonna
make seven seasons, as you get into your fifth and
(23:49):
sixth seasons, you have to start, even if they're not
putting the blocks in place that the audience is going
to recognize yet, you have to start drawing that out
a little bit, right. You have to start game planning
for the end. Yeah. No, listen, this is the New
England Patriots have never scored a touchdown in eight Super
(24:10):
Bowls in the first quarter. Think about that. The best offense,
the greatest quarterback, never a touchdown. So it's amazing. So
what they're telling you is it's Ali. Ali didn't have
very many first and second round knockouts. I'm gonna feel
you out. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna engulf my
team or I'm not going to unveil my tricks. This
(24:35):
is New England. So I think Belichick's one of the
smartest coaches ever. Every super Bowl they tend to run
more than they passed her In the regular season, They're
significantly worse in the first quarter and significantly better in
the fourth quarter. Everything with him is the long play.
He's the classic four oh one k. He never takes
it out, and and and so, Brian, I think to
(24:57):
a large degree, you you you are moving because I
can kind of see where it's going. But I do
think you do, as a writer, have to think about
the end, even if you're nine episodes twelve episodes from it. Yeah,
you have to. Yeah, you're exactly right. Um, I want
to end on this. When when you do something and
you're in this, I would imagine creatively it can be engulfing.
(25:21):
Can you work on other projects while you're doing this
or do you have to be completely committed to this
when we're making the show? We got to just make
the show's Um, it's similar to coaching quarterback. It's similar
to a head coach in the NFL, and that so
this is the first time right now, as you're talking
(25:42):
to me, is the first sort of time I've had
any time off since we started the show. Oh my god.
We Dave and I each got ourselves like about two
months to just clear our heads. Last season, we had
three days between finishing the post production and starting the
writer in the writer's room in July. So No, I
what I do is I try to do things that
are very different. So in any like, I covered a
(26:05):
couple of golf tournaments for Sports Illustrated where they were like, hey,
just go write whatever you want about them at the Masters,
or go write whatever you want about the PGA. And
that's awesome for me, Like anytime I can do something
like that where I'm able to write because I love
writing and I love thinking about this stuff. But where
it's not about the show, it really helps the show.
(26:27):
It really helps when I go back to the show
to sort of have a clear a clear mind. So
that's where I am. That's where I am right now.
Do you think Tiger's gonna win today? No? I do
think it's a unique US Open because Rory just one
Michelson won at Pebble Beach in February, brooks Kaepka owns
the world. Tiger's healthy. I think it's a very unique
(26:50):
US Open where our big guns are cleanup hitters. They're
all on hot streaks and I think it's gonna and
that course is beautiful, it's tap um. I think it's
gonna be art. That's a painting, and I think this
weekend it's a painting. Not the Last Supper, but it's
it's memorable, iconic figures in this canvas, the most beautiful
(27:14):
canvas in golf in the world. And I think it
has a chance to me an all time us open.
Me too, man, I'm so excited. I'm so excited to watch,
and I think there's a chance Tiger can do it
if he loves the course. He's won a lot on
this course, and I just think that there's a chance
that with the small greens, his ability to hit those
(27:35):
irons is going to intimidate people a little bit. Well,
you know, Tiger is one of the only athletes that
got me to a TV Sunday at four o'clock for
about a decade on Sundays at four Sopranos has done it. Brian,
you have done it. You and David with Billions, your
podcast is the moment with Brian Cooppelman. This past Sunday
(27:56):
was the season four finale. It's just a real honor
to have you on, and thank you so much for
your time. Get by and I'm billed to talk to you.
And hey, Hank is aria. Uh, Colin is watching Brockmyer,
so you have no choice. Now you must watch Billys.
I am thank you man, Thank you, talk to you.
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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