675 - Say Nothing with Joshua Zetumer
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Hey, this is John. A standard warning for people who are in the car with their kids. There's some swearing in this episode. ♪♪

Hello and welcome. My name is Craig Mazin, and this is Script Notes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, I will be solo hosting, but joined by the creator and showrunner of FX's Say Nothing, Joshua Zettemer. We'll talk about that show, which is one of my favorites of 2024, if not my favorite of 2024, as well as answer some listener questions.

And in our bonus segment for premium members, and this is probably going to be a surprise to Joshua, he and I will put on our urban planner and civil engineer hats to answer what I think is a fairly easy question. How would we make Los Angeles function better? Joshua, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I've listened to the show. I love the show. And I'm a big fan of yours as well. So I'm really excited to be here. Oh, go on. Yeah.

No, I mean, I can go on. I can go on. I mean, Chernobyl. Please don't. No, I mean, I'll just say one thing, which was Chernobyl was very much a model in my mind in how to do a limited series right and was a huge influence on Say Nothing. So, you know, be excited to talk to you about that. Well, we will get into that. Whatever influenced you, tip of the hat, because as I said, it was...

One of my favorite shows of 2024. I think it's a fantastic show. And I really want to dig into, you know, from the writing point of view, how you put it together and ask you some interesting questions about both the nature of your process and the show itself, the story. But before we do that,

So interesting little bits of biographic detail on you. First, your parents are both psychiatrists. So I think I'm really, really sorry, but I'm not sure. I think that's better than therapists, probably. I feel like it's worse than therapists. I feel like neo-Freudians at the dinner table is like maybe worse than like a touchy-feely LA therapist because they really, they'll really just put it all on themselves since the, you know, the Freudians blame the parents for everything.

Right, but I'm sure they were blaming their parents at the same time. So poor grandma and grandpa. That's right. That's right. It echoes down the line. Oh, yes. But more interesting than that to me, I guess when you were in high school, you were a jazz drummer.

This is true, yeah. I was a drummer and I was gonna try to be a professional drummer for a long time. And my childhood was very much like shrinks and punk, you know. Nice. In San Diego, which is where I'm from, and which is infinitely uncool to be from San Diego. But I was kind of like the indoor kid, like having an existential crisis while everyone else was like enjoying the beach.

Well, that's what I would have done also, just so you know. Also, love playing the drums, probably not as good as you. And people that say jazz drummer are always very, very good. Or just very pretentious or just like deeply, deeply lame. Fair. You can play poorly and call it polyrhythm. I've seen this happen. What kind of stuff do you play, may I ask?

I was mostly just like good old... I mean, still occasionally I'll play, but just rock, you know, good old standard rock and roll stuff. You know, nothing... I actually never got into like the full punk. And jazz drumming to me is...

Well, first of all, I couldn't, I just couldn't do the traditional grip anyway to start with. And then just the, I was like, I'm decent with rudiments, but not like jazz drummer good. So I always felt like, you know, jazz drummers are like the wizards of drummers and guys like me are just like the warlocks of drummers.

I mean, I definitely, it may be a stretch to call me a jazz drummer. I certainly like studied a lot of jazz in college and I felt like I tried to apply it to other, like other styles. I think for me, those were always my heroes. Like the jazz guys were always my heroes, Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. And because they were so unapproachable in their skill level and they

It was something I really aspired to, but ultimately, I remember there was like a really dark joke that I think someone told me when I was like 20 years old, when I was really studying, which was like, what's the difference? And you've heard it, like, what's the difference between a jazz musician and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four. Oh, wow. But that's facts. Well, yeah, but it's a tough life. You picked, I think...

A similarly tough path. Oh, I think I'll try and do the thing that's even less likely to work out, which is becoming a professional screenwriter. And yet you have, you like me, mostly working, were working in features. You worked on Quantum of Solace. I'm jealous that you got to work on a James Bond movie because I'm a huge Bond nut. You did the Robocop reboot, which I thought was terrific. And you also did Patriot's Day in 2016, which is also an excellent film.

And then you went, nah, I think I'm going to err. And so let's talk about Say Nothing and some facts for our listeners. Say Nothing, the limited series, is based on the book Say Nothing, A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, who's also a lovely man.

It is a nine-episode series that follows the story of two sisters, Dolores and Marion Price. Marion, who joined the IRA as young women in the early 70s, and through that story of idealism, liberation, oppression, terrorism, imprisonment, and murder, we get what I think, this is me editorializing, the best and most complete portrayal of the complicated reality of who the IRA was, and what they achieved, and what they failed to achieve.

This miniseries was not your first attempt to write about the IRA, as I understand. No, that's right. My first job writing in Hollywood was writing a script about the IRA, actually, for Leonardo DiCaprio when I was like 26 years old. And that film never got made, but it got me kind of steeped in the troubles long before taking on Say Nothing.

And so the movie that I wrote for Leonardo DiCaprio was going to be, I didn't want to call him Leo just there. I had a moment of being like, I can't call him Leo. But it was going to be produced by David Benioff, who created Game of Thrones, of course, and then Brad Simpson, who's one of the producers on Say Nothing.

So when the book came out, Brad had a very early option on the book. And I think I was one of the first people he thought of because I, you know, was good friends with him. And, you know, I'm one of his friends who happened to be a writer who, you know, knew the history of Northern Ireland pretty well. And he slipped me the book and, you know, just instantly became my favorite book. I thought it was just an extraordinary piece of writing. And all of a sudden, I was like,

Also, I just thought upon reading it, there's just no way in hell it's ever going to get made just because Hollywood is so fear-based, right? And the idea of doing an ambitious period show set in Northern Ireland, the odds of getting it greenlit seemed like they were maybe like 5%, no matter how good the book was.

The show is also kind of like unpitchable. It's a very awkward pitch. If you pitch it, you're like, it's about two Catholic sisters in Belfast who join the IRA and then you follow them on a 30-year journey from idealism to disillusionment. That pitch does not make studio executives see dollar signs. And so now when I look at it on the platform, it's on Hulu,

I just like, I can't believe that it got made. It feels like I got away with robbing a bank, honestly. I mean, especially it's on Disney Plus outside the US. And so I see the show about Irish paramilitaries like up there next to Buzz Lightyear. And I just sort of like cackle at the very idea that somebody was like ballsy enough to make it. And I spent five years doing the show that I actually got it done. And it is like a testament to everybody involved here.

that it got made. Not only my producers who are Brad Simpson, Anita Jacobson at Color Force, they're super pugnacious. Like they really fight for the projects. And then also John Langrath and Gina at FX. And I don't want to like shill for FX, but truly like they believed in the book. They really believed in the scripts and they believed in the cast and that they were willing to

make a show that was period, that had no stars, that was limited, that was doing everything that you're really told not to do. And I'm just really grateful that they said yes. Well, I know a little something about that process because I went through it with HBO and you're right. You have to find some people who are willing to do a thing that...

probably won't work. So, and by won't work, I mean gathering viewership and capturing people's imaginations. Because these stories, when we tell these stories based on real life events and we spread them out over the time they require, there is a worry, I think, in everyone's mind that it's going to turn into the thing that substitute teachers show when it's, you know, when they come in because they need to do something for the social studies class. And

Our job, I think, is to try and convince people that, in fact, this story isn't going to be homework. It's going to be gripping. And I think what you achieved, we'll go through how, but I want to ask a simple question.

When you set yourself down to lay this thing out, how much were you thinking about the audience and how much were you thinking about how to keep people riveted? Because you kept me riveted through every episode. And because it's over 30 years of time, you are telling stories about barely young adults. You're telling stories about women who are in, you know,

in their fifties and they're the same people living completely different kinds of lives because of the way things stretch out and all the events that occur, all of the people, you know, you had the same problem I hadn't with Chernobyl. Everybody sounded the same and looked the same collection of white people with Russian names. You have a collection of white people with Irish names. How concerned were you about grasping the audience and holding them?

I mean, I love a show that doesn't tell you too much. I love a show that does not spoon feed. I think there's a certain amount of table setting you have to do with Irish history that is mostly just jammed into the pilot that I just had to do. The show had to do two things to me, and this is actually what made the adaptation like such an extremely high degree of difficulty was,

I wanted a show that was like The Wire, you know? Like, I mean, I'm not going to compare it to The Wire because, like, it's not The Wire. Nothing is The Wire. But, like, I wanted a show that was extremely authentic down to all the granular details. And I wanted to capture the spirit of Belfast, which is, like, very contradictory at times. And at the same time, I wanted to make Say Nothing for a global audience, needed to make it for a global audience who had never heard of The Troubles, frankly. And so I think Belfast

That was the tightrope of doing the show. And when it came to exposition and telling the audience things, you sort of have your narrators, which Dulles Price and Brendan Hughes are sort of looking back on their youth. And the world can be very forbidding at times. And so you kind of need a guide if you're unfamiliar with The Troubles. And that device, though a little shopworn, I think...

is very organic to the story. And so it was very useful. But then beyond that initial table setting, I really want the audience to play catch up. I love getting invested in a world. And I love when I don't know everything and I'm not spoon fed. And I think that was actually, honestly, a big creative, not argument, but like discussion because as

as a writer, I'm like really, really allergic to exposition. I love, I love the like paranoid thrillers of the early seventies where you're just like dropped into a situation with like Harry in the conversation. And you're just like wondering who this guy is and what he does. And you're not like spoon fed any information. And it sounds like there was a little bit of give and take on that because I have the same thing on my end of things. You know, there's

always a request for clarity, I guess. You'll say spoon-fed and the people on the other side of the argument will say clarity. Yes. How do you navigate for writers who are moving through the system maybe for the first time? That can be quite a shock. How do you navigate those conversations individually

and get what you want. You underline things in the script. You just go back. In your second draft, and you underline, and you underline multiple times. That works? No, it doesn't work. No, I have done that. I've definitely, not on Say Nothing, but on another project, I definitely did get some notes, and I felt they had already been addressed. And so in the next draft, I just, I went back and underlined, and the executive said,

probably got what I was doing and was like, I'm going to leave him alone. But no, I think there are the compromises you can make that will destroy your work, right? And there are the compromises you can make that will actually be really useful. And you like have to know the difference, I think, because you can't be like a horrible person

dick the whole time, you can be like really close to a horrible dick the whole time, but you can't like cross that line and you just have to know where that line is. I think there's that book, Difficult Men, about all the showrunners and like running a show, you realize like how they became so difficult because there's such a degree of control that you have to maintain. And really it's just about

How do you maintain the level of control to get what you want without turning into a monster? That's sort of the... Well, let's dig into that because like you, I came from features where we don't have the authority. And in fact, we are often in this un-MD-able position of being the person who knows the most and yet has the least amount of decision-making to do because...

They put the director in charge. Now, over here in television, you are put in charge. This may have been your first major dose of authority, but not only just over the creative aspects of the show, but also other people working on the show.

Did you have other writers on the show or were you a soloist? I had a brilliant writer's room, honestly. Fantastic. Yeah, and I would love to, if I had time, I would love to just tell you everyone who wrote on the show. Run through it and talk to me a little bit about how you went from a guy alone in his room writing stuff and being told by directors or producers, to a guy who is in charge of a show and also now in charge of writers.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're only as good as your writers, I think, especially in a show like this. I was an outsider telling this story, which meant that like, you know, I'm an American telling a story whose characters have a life that is as far from my life as you could possibly imagine. And so that meant that I had to treat it with like a fundamental respect. I

I think it meant an insane, like a crazy research process for me, which was years long. Honestly, I think I probably spent nine months just writing the pilot because of the language, frankly, and trying to teach myself to write in a Belfast accent without speaking in a Belfast accent myself, which was just like a whole exhaustive process. This is not your question though. But so I...

Wanted to make sure when I had my first writer's room that we had a ton of different perspectives. We had a multitude of different perspectives. The writers who also worked on the show with me, we had Joe Murdaugh, who created Woman in the Wall and is a showrunner in his own right.

And Joe is a writer who is of Irish descent, was raised in London, and writes amazing action. And his dialogue is hysterically funny. And we had Claire Barron, who is a formidable New York playwright, who's been nominated for a Pulitzer and had brilliant insight, particularly into The Sisters. Claire wrote episode six, which is the Hunger Strike episode, which is one of my just absolute favorites. Yeah, remarkable. When the cast read that episode, they were crying.

You know, it's just a very powerful episode. And then we add Kirsten Sheridan, who's the daughter of director Jim Sheridan, who's... Oh, wow. Yeah, she's been nominated for an Oscar for co-writing in America. Sure, sure. And her writing is like super earthy and humane, and she's also great with subtext. And I was...

you know, running it. And we have these four different writers, myself included, whose writing was all just wildly different, like as different as could be. And for whatever reason, the alchemy in the room was just great. It was the writer's room that you dream of having, where there were no toxic personalities. Everybody was friends. And it was just a

ended up being a wonderful experience. You know, I don't want to speak for the other writers because who knows what they secretly think. Well, they probably will say that you were almost a complete dick, but not... I actually think they would say that. I actually think they would because I definitely... He was almost a complete dick. I work, you know, I work really hard and I try to get the people around me to work really hard and do their best work. And so...

You know, and it also should be said, we also had Patrick as an executive producer who was sort of dropping in and out, talking about the history. You know, we have this like murderer's row of talented people all trying to wrangle this massive book. The whole thing, by the way, took place over Zoom during the pandemic, during like peak COVID. Oh boy. Me and Kirsten were in LA, Claire was in New York, and Joe was in Madrid. So it was...

It was crazy. It was a very, it wasn't a unique writer's room because a lot of people were doing that, but it was certainly the thing that, you know, got us through COVID for, I think, for a couple of us. So that is a fairly impressive room. You're gathering up all this great work from all these people. Of course, you're generating your own work as you go. But the thing that impressed me so much, one of the many things that impressed me so much about

say nothing is the tone. Because the tone, there's probably a million ways to go wrong and one way to go right. I think I've seen a lot of things go wrong with stories like this, but the tone here was so gorgeously grounded. It felt so authentic and

It wasn't trying too hard. I also loved how the show found beauty in the plain, the mundane, the faces, you know, wonderful faces. No one was too gorgeous. Do you know? Like it was... I think Anthony Boyle would totally take offense at that, but we'll move on. He's very handsome. He's a handsome man. He's very handsome. But you didn't have like a model suddenly in the middle of it, you know? And...

Everything felt deeply detailed and deeply real. How do you keep that tone consistent when you are pulling in so much work from other people whose minds work slightly, everybody's mind works differently? Yeah, I mean, I love that you asked that question because the tone was the thing that I felt most protective of throughout the process and really throughout the shoot.

into post specifically, I felt like my job was really to just protect the tone and to make sure that that really delicate balance between like comedy and tragedy was maintained. I think that's a facet of a lot of Irish storytelling, obviously. And so that you can kind of laugh in the darkest of times. And that idea had to be shot through the whole thing. Otherwise, it wasn't going to work.

because the subject matter is so grim. You have prison, you have a hunger strike, you have like orphaned children, you have people who have done terrible things in the name of their country and then like realized it was all for nothing. So it's just like, it's literally could be as bleak as a show gets. And so the idea that it had to like have humor and heart, that was always at the center of it. And I think,

to your point about intimacy, I think, when you have a historical show, my least favorite thing in a historical show, the characters are talking about history sort of with the knowledge that they're living in history and you're like making a show about punk and the character's like, this is what punk is or whatever when like nobody was saying that. And so for me, I think

I was just trying to create like intimate scenes between people and then let the scope of the canvas kind of like deal with the historical details. And so it was really about just being very aware of what was happening historically, but then like throwing everything out. And fortunately, the conceit of the show, at least for the first half, is that these are kids, right? These are kids who are...

suddenly given power over life and death, who are suddenly like thrust into the center of history and have to figure out what to do. But they're still making decisions with brains that are like, you could argue, like not even fully formed.

You stop like developing as a person when you're like 25. And these were kids who were like 22 and even teenagers. And so for me, it was trying to capture the experience of, okay, what would it feel like to be 19 when the world around you has suddenly turned upside down and the civilization that you're living in has suddenly adopted violence? And what would it be like if you

really wanted social change and thought violence was the only way to get it. But you were like a teenager. That's at the heart of the show. And that also poses an interesting challenge. Because, as I've said many times on the show, my least favorite note is the character isn't likable enough. Because I think that's a compliment. Yeah, I agree. However, people need to relate to characters. So for instance...

You have an incredible character, a British military man named Frank Kitson, played by Rory Kinnear, who is in a number of ways a villain. He certainly represents the oppression of the British Empire. And...

Yet he's also fascinating and you kind of admire him. He's possibly autistic, it's hard to get a read on him, but he's so gorgeously smart that you find yourself leaning towards him. And similarly, at the heart of the story, the two main characters, Dolores and Marion, are doing terrible things.

And so at some point, how do you manage those slippery slopes of both humanizing people, regardless of what they did, without drifting into, say, apologia? Yeah, I mean, I think in the case of Frank Kitson, I would quibble a tiny bit in that I don't think I'm humanizing him. I don't think he was. He's somebody who, when you do the research, he's virtually impossible to humanize.

But at the same time, he's ruthlessly, brutally effective at sowing distrust amid the IRA. He's really good at what he does despite being undeniably like a dark, dark individual. But brilliant. But brilliant, yes. And so, but I think there's another element of it too, which is you can obviously do the tricks that screenwriters do, which is you make everyone around him dumb, you know, which is like an old screenwriting trick. And I think,

You can either make it so they're kind of keystone cops or you can kind of make them smart and him smarter, right? Which is usually the better thing to do. Right. In the case with this show, I wanted a slightly more comedic tone because I did not want the sort of newsreel version of Frank Kitson that I feel like we've seen before from stuff about the Troubles. I wanted him to be funny. So on the page...

Frank Kitson was very funny. And I think it's one of the reasons they greenlit the show. It was because the stuff with the British, it was really engaging. It did not feel like a dour political drama. I think they greenlit the show because of the tone, to be honest. And then Rory showed up on set and...

And she was so fucking funny and so deft at understanding what the tone of the show was, right? Because that's the thing you have to do. Your actors have to know about the dance you're doing between comedy and tragedy as well. Otherwise, you're dead. You get an actor who doesn't understand the tone, especially in a part like that.

and the show completely falls apart. Everybody needs to know the show that they're making. And Rory really understood the tone. There was one moment when he showed up. I'm kind of embarrassed to say this. I probably shouldn't say this. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow night and tell you to cut it. Let's find out. Let's find out.

So he shows up on set and he, first of all, he's like already Frank Kitson when he gets there. We have one conversation in the makeup chair and then he's like in character and the director, Mike Lennox and I are both sort of intimidated by him and going like, is he, is he Kitson right now? Like we can't, we can't tell. Or is this just his vibe? Then he does a scene, you know, his first scene was when he is with the two lieutenants who are around him and the guys playing the lieutenants are also like incredibly funny.

And they're doing it and they're saying the lines are in the script, but it's just so funny that I actually went to Mike Lennox. I like, you know, tapped him on the shoulder and I was like, is it, is it too funny? Like what, you know, and I just had a moment of going like, because.

because you're making the show that is incredibly politically sensitive and you're finding out the tone while you're shooting, when you're actually reading out the lines. You have the tone on the page, but you don't know what it's going to look like. And so I'm like, should we get one that's a little more serious just to have it like in our back pocket in case this is like too far? And so Mike goes over and Mike directed all of Dairy Girls. So he knows his way around a comedy and he goes over to the actors and like talks to them for five minutes and then comes back

Sort of like, you know, hang dog. And he looks at me and he just goes like, I don't know how to make them any less funny. And I'm like, I guess this is the tone, you know? Well, it absolutely, I mean, it starts when he lands. He gets out of a helicopter and his lieutenants say, how's...

the trip over and he looks at them with dead eyes and goes 45 minutes which is awesome maybe it was 48 i don't know yeah that's right he'll do everything in an instant i love how compact and efficient that was let's talk a little bit about the big argument at the heart of this you kind of touched on it but if you could i i have my answer i i know what i think this show is about um

And I'm right, of course. So I'll give you a chance to see if you're correct about your own show. And this is, I think, of value to anybody that's trying to write something that is a sprawling historical epic that covers many, many years. You and I have both done this. And I think what we both know is the events themselves aren't enough. There is some glue that makes a cohesive point between

even if that point is debatable, and hopefully it is. What was there for you in the very center of this? I mean, the challenge, of course, is that with something like this, there's not one thing. There's actually like three or four. I'm really curious which one is the right one, according to you. Yeah, I'll tell you. Don't worry. I'll tell you. Yeah, I'll let you know. No, I think for me, there's so much there. And I would actually make two kind of thematic points about it. I think the big one is that it's about balance.

both the romance of radical politics and also the cost of those politics, that you can have acts of violence that have a terrible cost to them for both the victims, right, and for the perpetrators as well. And that you can get swept up in something when you're young and then have

have to live with those decisions for the rest of your life. And this idea that like, you

there would be an emotional cost, not only for the individual, but also for like the entire society. I think that was something I was really interested in. That was sort of point one. And then there's another thing. I don't know if that's right. You tell me if that's right, if that feels right. You're almost right. Well, let's hear what number two is. I think number two was just about this idea of silence and this idea that like the price of peace is silence. That like it's,

if you are going to have a country go from violence to peace, I think for a lot of people in Northern Ireland, people who've committed acts of violence and had acts of violence done to them, that the cost of that is that you don't talk about it, that you don't talk about the past and you kind of bury it. And so I think

The reason that I wanted to do the show in the beginning, I mean, this is actually deeply embarrassing, but, you know, I was raised by therapists, as we said. And for me, it was kind of like all emotions are on the table, right? Like I was in a house where you were sort of expected to talk about your feelings, right? And that can be good and it can also be bad.

But the alternative is having all this trauma, right? We all have trauma. Having all this trauma and not talking about it. And so for me, it was about the idea of the destructive power of silence and what it can do to a person to have this thing inside you and not be able to get it out. So this idea of like unprocessed trauma, both for the victims and the perpetrators, I think that was something that was at the heart of it for me. Yeah.

Those are pretty good answers. And I'm going to sort of combine them a little bit in my answer, which is the correct answer. But I will say to people, if you have not yet seen Say Nothing, you will experience a series of shocking events and startling events that you can imagine having to hold inside as a secret would be very difficult. And I assure you, as you're going through that process, you still have yet to see the thing that is the most upsetting.

And the one that really feels like, how can you hold this inside? I'll tell you for me, and I'm joking, I don't really know, but as a viewer, what struck me about the show was that it articulated something that I think we all struggle with when we have hopes and desires to make the world a better place. And that is that it may be impossible to

to experience an ideological war and still remain idealistic when it's over. That it might actually be impossible because the people who inspire everybody through ideas aren't necessarily throwing a lot of those people onto a fire. Whether they are murdered or killed or injured themselves or spiritually they die because of things they do to other people, they become...

pawns in a larger movement that ultimately becomes political. And I found that tragedy to be beautiful and moving. The story of people who cared so much because they were inspired to care so much and were possibly necessarily abandoned.

and betrayed, which, by the way, and I don't know, does that sound it at all? No, I love it. I love it. I think you should just, I'm going to, you send me the recording and I can just play it back. I can transcribe it. I can start using it in interviews. I think it's really good. You just Venmo me and you can have whatever you want. And that leads us to, I guess, my final question that revolves around the narrative of the show. And that is Jerry fucking Adams. So Jerry Adams is,

Here's what I knew going into things. I was not a student of the IRA. What I knew was there was an ongoing battle between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants slash the British government in Northern Ireland, which was owned, possessed by the UK.

And that battle was between the IRA and the British primarily, and I guess the Northern Irish police. And it involved bombings and it also involved terrorism perpetrated by the IRA and oppressive acts perpetrated by the government. I know Sunday, bloody Sunday, we all do because we love you too.

And I knew that Jerry Adams was, and this is what I thought as an American. I thought, oh, and then there's this guy, Jerry Adams, who kind of helped make peace. Yeah. He's good. He's the head of Sinn Fein, which is the political party in Northern Ireland that is part of the British Parliament that figured out how to get to the Good Friday Accords, I believe it's called. Good Friday Agreement? Good Friday Agreement, yeah. Good Friday Agreement, which...

ended the troubles. And here's what your show taught me. Jerry fucking Adams, as they refer to him over and over, Jerry fucking Adams, said,

was the head of the IRA. He was in charge of the IRA. He was the person who was ordering the terroristic attacks and perhaps more distressingly, or at least equally distressingly, he was also the person who was ordering the internal purges of people. Irish Catholics who were believed to be touts, informants to the British, whether they were or not, and the show in fact is framed...

around the story of a mother of seven children or nine? Ten, actually. Yeah, you only see, I think, you know, in the apartment, you only see, I believe, eight. Yeah, I was trying to count. There's a lot of kids. A single mother of 10 children who was murdered by the IRA because she was suspected to be an informant. And yet, Jerry fucking Adams,

who by becoming this political leader and essentially denying that he ever was part of the IRA, he becomes kind of the interesting villain of the story. It's his betrayal of everybody around him that's so shocking. And what you do, and this is fascinating to me,

You are telling this story and he's still here. Jerry Adams is still alive. Jerry Adams was a member of the UK Parliament as leader of the Sinn Féin party for 35 years. He only stepped down six years ago, in part because of some of the revelations about what happened back then, but he still denies that he was even a member of the IRA, much less the leader. And you found what I think is the most brilliant way

to tell the story exactly the way you wanted without getting sued. And it made it better. Talk to me about the amazing disclaimers that you ran at the end of every episode. The disclaimers are a way for us, really, this is not an answer that's going to be

be satisfying for you. But like the disclaimers are actually a way to give Jerry his due in a way. And I think it would have been morally wrong to not include them. I think on the one hand, we needed people to know that Jerry has always denied being a member of the IRA. And I think that

When to do it and how to do it was obviously a conversation between me, the producers, and the legal department. And the answer that we came up with was we're going to do it after every episode.

And that kind of repetition, I think, for people creates its own feeling, which is, you know, purely unintentional on my part. And I would give a disclaimer to the disclaimer, and I would say that any feelings you may have about Jerry Adams are not the intention of the artist creating the show and are purely up to the viewer and their own emotional state. Well, this viewer over here

Every time that disclaimer came up, I went...

Wow. So it's an incredible story. So beautifully told, gorgeously cast. I looked up, I was like, who cast this? Oh, Nina Gold, of course. There you go. So Nina Gold who cast Chernobyl. I read an interview with her about the casting process on Chernobyl and that was one of the reasons why it had to be her. You chose wisely. I would love to talk about Nina, but can I just go back and say one thing about Jerry Adams just before we move on, just beyond the disclaimer. I think...

One thing I would say...

His role within the IRA, whether he's running the IRA or not running the IRA, is fundamentally very murky. The IRA had an army council who you sort of see the old guard, right, in episode three of other men who are the leadership. And his relationship with them has always been very murky, right? Either way, you know, the show depicts him as having, you know, as being very high up the chain of command in the IRA. And I think there is something about... The big guy. He's called the big guy. The big lad. The big lad, yeah. And so...

One of the things I just wanted people to take away was this sort of fundamental contradiction about Jerry Adams, which is that on the one hand, he has a major hand in the peace process,

And on the other, his role in the IRA undoubtedly led to the deaths of many, many people. And so I think that fundamental discomfort, right, that you should feel towards the character, I think that was something I was trying to achieve, was that I wanted him as a character to make us uncomfortable. We shouldn't know how we feel about him.

in the end of the show. And I think that's something that I really wanted, honestly, for all the characters, with the exception of the victims, of course, who are in many ways, no, and in many ways, the heroes of the story. Laura Donnelly playing Helen McConville is like unambiguously the hero of the story and one who is left at the end of the film. The last, I was very adamant that the last shot would be her. She's left holding the bag. And so everybody else, you're supposed to be kind of kept off balance. Yeah.

about them, where they have Duller's, of course, has her sensitivity, her humanity, and also her willingness to kill and die for her beliefs, all of which should throw you off. And so that was really the goal, I think, with everyone. But anyway, I just wanted to- Well, you got there. I mean, it was perfectly done in that by the time it concluded-

I was uncomfortable with all of them. And I wouldn't know, because I ask a simple question when I'm watching these things. Well, okay, what would happen if I were to walk in a room and meet that person? If I were to meet them, if they were alive...

Dollars is not. But if they were, how would that go? And how would I feel? And the answer is, I don't know. And what's so beautiful about your show is that it depicts this very complicated thing, which is violence in service of idea that is almost always depicted stupidly. And you depict it with such intelligence and grace. So congratulations on the show,

Would you be interested, because you're so smart, in helping me answer some listener questions? Oh, God. I love the little bit of flattery that's really supposed to make me say yes. Oh, you are the child of psychiatrists. None of my tricks are working. Well, how about this? I'm going to order you to answer some listener questions. I'm good. I'm good. Unless you want to talk about Nina Gold. I'm good to answer questions. Oh, well, I think Nina would be blushing right now, and I can hear her saying,

Oh, God, no. Just, she's... She's a wizard. She's a wizard and she's a wonderful, wonderful person who consistently casts things brilliantly. She casts Game of Thrones. She casts Chernobyl. She casts Say Nothing. She's...

And a million other things. So a wonderful person. So well done again, Nina Gold. You've done it again. So Drew, would you be so kind as to give us a listener question that we could theoretically answer? Yeah. This question comes from Riley. Riley writes, I finally got an agent at one of the big three agencies to read one of my scripts. And just before the holidays, he told me we would talk after the holidays, which would be January 6th.

I messaged him the morning of the 7th, and he replied that he was currently evacuating his home in the Palisades. So on January 10th, I send him a message saying basically, I'm so sorry for what he's going through. I hope he and his family are safe. And of course, no need to respond. And I didn't mention the meeting or the script.

I haven't heard from him since, which I totally understand. I honestly can't imagine what all he's having to deal with right now. And first and foremost, I want to be respectful and compassionate about his situation. I also know the industry is taking an overall hit right now, and I imagine that alongside his personal issues, his current clients are probably reaching out to find out what's going on with their careers and projects. So, do you think there's even any time, energy, or bandwidth for him taking on a new writer right at this time?

and how long should I wait to follow up? I don't want to reach out too soon and have him say, never mind, the timing isn't right, best of luck, but I also don't want to fall through the cracks or jeopardize this potential opportunity, but I also don't feel comfortable sending the script elsewhere before talking to him first.

Well, we're going to have to workshop this one because there is not an easy answer for this one. No. What do you think? Well, I mean, everything's upside down right now. And I think it's been upside down for the last couple of weeks. And I do think that probably Riley is correct in that the agent is probably concerned about their current clients and not thinking immediately about signing new talent. But I also know that...

You know, it can make you incredibly itchy when you've turned something in and you're waiting for a response. I don't think that Riley should wait for the agent and should try to use any other... I think they should...

try to use any leverage they have to kind of make other inroads. But as far as the timing, the timing is the big question for me. I mean, you can wait for months to get an answer from a single person. It's why Hollywood takes so long to do anything. And so I think if they have other relationships, they should...

use them, but everything is still underwater here. I would at least give it another week for things to get back to relative normal would be my guess. Yeah, I think you're right there. Riley, the issue is you aren't a client there. And my guess is this agent is probably not doing a great job of calling back his actual clients because his house may have burned down. And

And if not, evacuation is a brutal thing to go through. So I'm going to say I agree with Joshua. You don't want to stand on ceremony here. He got the script. He has it. He didn't write back.

If you have three other agents that are excited to read this thing, yeah, send it. You don't belong to anybody just yet. And Noah's like to remind people that agents work for us. We don't work for them. I think probably you don't need to text him again. You just wait now. And like Joshua says, if you have other opportunities, go for them. There is no hard rule here. He certainly would not be able to say later, how could you do this to me? He's had the script. Let's go with...

Mauro, or perhaps Mauro, in Canada. Drew, what does Mauro wonder about? What do you guys recommend to study or watch or practice in order to keep the audience's emotions in mind when writing? What I mean is taking the reader and hopefully viewer on an emotional journey in an effective way on every page. Questions like this always blow my mind. No, but I actually, I mean, God. If you have an answer, that would be great. No, like, I have like sort of an answer, but it's like an annoying answer. Yeah.

which is read the basics, learn the basics, like go read the screenplay to Rocky or whatever like movie, older movie kind of gets you excited. Find an artist you like and read all their work and then really try hard not to imitate them. But I think the bigger thing for me is actually that like,

writers need to go out and live and like you have to like have life experience truly in order to write something great so that you're which is like a corny thing to say but like I really believe it when you're writing we have a culture that recycles everything right now right a lot of it

For a long time, we've sort of been in a sort of backwards-facing culture where we want to make movies that are like the movies we grew up on because that's the easier thing to do. It's very easy to go out and say, I want to make a movie like Fargo, so I'm going to go write a movie that is like Fargo. And then what you have is a movie that's like Fargo, but not as good as Fargo. And so I think the thing that...

I would really try to do, really recommend is like using your personal relationships and saying, what would it be like if I was writing about my mom, but doing it on a bigger canvas? What would it be if I was, I wrote television and wanted to write television because of The Sopranos. And that was David Chase writing about his mom.

on like a bigger canvas, right? Ultimately, I mean, he's very open about his relationship with his mother being like the seed of the Sopranos, right? That I think is what artists should be doing. So I think you should like quietly observe your parents and like let your friends and just think about writing from the inside out

as they say, after learning the fundamentals. That would be really my recommendation. That is probably a more useful answer than the one I'll give, Mauro, which is to say, I don't recommend that you study or watch or practice this at all, because if you're studying it or practicing it, it's not going to be right. What you're really getting at, Mauro, is something that is innate to writing, and it has to be developed over time, and I think is probably the function of experience.

It is the fragmentation of your own brain so that not only are you yourself taking care of all the things that the script needs to be, but you're also all the individual characters and you're also the character that's listening and not talking. And so you are also the audience watching all of it.

And I return to my audience section of my mind all the time. And as an audience member, I'm like, do I care? I'm like, how does that make me feel? So just as you need to quadricate yourself into four characters in a scene, you also need to be the audience. And that is a developed skill. It is, and you have to start with some kind of innate skill.

understanding of humans and humanity. So I completely agree with Joshua that part of this is just going out there and living, but a big part of it is writing stuff down, shooting it, even if you have to shoot it on your camera, watching people watch it, you'll probably want to throw up and you'll learn. Oh my God. I remember the very first time I sat in the theater and watched something that I had written on screen. And it was like, I was seeing it for the first time.

because I was fully the audience. And my level of judgment and scrutiny skyrocketed because now I'm a customer. I don't give a shit what's happening in the kitchen. I don't care if the fish delivery was late or the gas stove wasn't working. I want an awesome plate of food. I don't care about anything else. And that was a painful wake-up call

And I would urge you, Mauro, to go through as many painful wake-up calls as possible because it'll speed the process along. That's a really interesting answer. You asked this question to me earlier about the viewer and your relationship to the audience. And so I just agree with you so much that the experience of watching your own stuff is really, it's just so, so important. And so the idea of going out and shooting something, just like, yeah, please, please,

everyone should be doing that. Everybody should know, even if you don't shoot it, even if you just like give it to some friends to like act, even if they're terrible, like just doing that feels so important. But then there's this thing that happens for me where like you ultimately like stop paying attention to the audience when you write, like because, and you tell me if you disagree, but like,

I feel like the artist or the writer or whatever has to be fundamentally very selfish. Like, you have to just care about yourself and the kind of things that you would want to see. Otherwise, like, you're fucked.

But that's you as the audience, right? Yeah, it is. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same. Yeah. You're saying, I want to see this. I'm saying, don't think about people who are like different from you and what they might like. Right. Don't do that. That's when you're dead, right? That's calculating and chasing and that's horrible. Yeah. And so I really think like, I just have a feeling like Chris Nolan likes Chris Nolan movies and Michael Bay likes Michael Bay movies. Yes. And ultimately like these, our biggest directors are...

trying to like on some level make themselves happy. That's a great point. So to amend, Mauro, when you are being the audience in your mind, you're being you as an audience member, not imagining a demographic or a room full of people, just you. Like what is this working on you? And I'll tell you the first time you write something,

and then start tearing up as you're writing it, that's when you know that you've gotten there, unless you're writing a colony. That never happens. I think we have time for one more question. Victor writes in with a question about citing sources, which is something that I think Joshua and I know a little bit about. Drew, what does Victor ask?

I'm working on a historical drama screenplay based on real events and attempting to stay as accurate as possible. This includes taking notes and at times quoting directly from a few books that have accounts of events within the period, as well as biographies and published collections of letters from people involved to use their own words where possible. If this were to be produced, would I need to cite all of these somehow or only the book that is most directly concerned with the timeframe and events that I'm writing about?

Did you have to go through this rigorous process that I had to go through on Chernobyl? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There was a cite your source process with the legal department for virtually everything. Everything. Yeah. And you go first. What was it like for you on Chernobyl? Which, by the way, I just have not gotten the chance to wax.

Oh, geez. Poetic. No, I won't. It's just, it's such an amazing piece of work. And the balance between genre and drama, whatever you would call it, the balance between genre filmmaking and genre writing and non-genre writing was just really at the heart of... Well, thank you. At the top of mind. You not only made this incredible piece of entertainment, but then it also...

it felt like it was capturing a fundamental truth that I think, and I think that's what we're all trying to search for. And you stated so overtly with the cost of the lie right at the beginning. And then you're like, this is the thesis, and now I'm going to like decimate you with like how I illustrate that thesis. And so I just thought beautifully done. Well, thank you. I'm very happy that decimation occurred. As I was going on the journey towards decimation, I

I had lots of books I was drawing from, some documentaries.

I wish I had known ahead of time that I was going to have to go back and provide the sources specifically for all that stuff for HBO. They have a very rigorous guy who is going to stress test everything. And so it was really just an inefficient process on my end because I had to go back and go, okay, well, at least I have a pretty good memory. This was from this book. This was from this book. And so I can hand all those books over, hand over all those sources, hand over the documentaries, and

And say, okay, all of this worked out. And there were some interesting questions and challenges, but overall, I think maybe I had to like slightly change one thing for legal purposes. I think it was somebody's name.

How did it go for you? Similarly, just extremely rigorous with the legal team. I think there was, you're sort of citing your sources for everything you want to do. They know that you're not making a documentary, which is, I think, they know that a certain amount of artistic license has to be taken in any show. But beyond that, they're pretty strict. And so all that stuff is very carefully vetted and reviewed.

It's a challenging but worthwhile process to sort of stress test the thing that you're making. I would also say, though, I would want to add one thing, which is probably not the question. And tell me if you experienced this, that the research can become a crutch at times. Oh, of course. You can have this...

which probably you and I both had along with the listener to make it absolutely as accurate as possible. But ultimately, I think in my case and certainly Craig in your case as well, like you can't know what was said in every room because in the case of Say Nothing, it's about the IRA. It's a culture of secrecy. Say Nothing. Yeah, exactly. And yours deals with like state secrets and things like that. And so ultimately, you have to do the research

and do as much of it as you can. It's like a musician practicing scales. Like you practice your scales and you practice your scales and you do your rudiments or whatever kind of over and over. And then at some point you have to trust that you've built enough of a solid foundation that you can go and you can actually just play. And so ultimately like do your homework, do a ton of homework, do more than you think you need. But then at some point you kind of got to let it go and go and write. And then if it's lucky enough to be made,

which is like, of course, like a very high bar. Only then will you really have to deal with the scrutiny of a legal department. But I think you should probably write the best story that you can first and then hope it survives that process second. Fantastic answer. I think we covered all those bases really well for our listeners. So congratulations to you and me for doing so great, Drew. I think we deserve a gold star.

It's time for our one cool thing. It can be anything at all, small or large. I'll start with mine because it's so wonderfully stupid today. My one cool thing is eating ice cream as an adult. I love it. I love this one cool thing, by the way. Yeah. Despite being lactose intolerant. Same. Ice cream in my mind for so long has been associated with like

sin, like a weakness, bad health. It's also like food for children. Every kid has probably gone a little crazy on ice cream, but a little bit of ice cream every now and then, I have to say as an adult, is a lovely thing. It's just a reminder of something that is elegantly delicious, that has been there our whole lives. It is the ultimate comfort food.

My method is to put some ice cream in a tiny bowl. This way you won't like go crazy. Because as we get older, it's a little harder. Do not, do not eat out of a carton. Folks, stop eating out of the carton. Only bad things will happen from that. And also, you have permission. I grant you permission from one adult to another to

to just eat regular ice cream if you want. You're not obligated to chase the adult flavors. If you want like whatever rosemary chive and black pepper ice cream, fine, that's fine, do it. But if you like, you know, vanilla, that's awesome. So one cool thing, if you're an adult, give it a try, just a little bit of ice cream.

I love that. My postscript ritual, whenever any draft goes in, is McDonald's ice cream and bourbon, which is like embarrassing to admit as an adult man. But it should be like cigarettes and I don't know, something more grown up, but it's not. I mean, that's awesome.

What is your one cool thing this week? Mine is like less fun and whimsical. Mine is a book that you have maybe read, which is a book about the origins of punk rock called Please Kill Me. Are you familiar with this book? I have not, no. Oh my God, it's so good. It's an oral history of the early days of punk in New York and then in London from the late 60s to I think the 80s. It's an incredible oral history that,

that really captures a scene and a particular moment in time and makes you envious to not be living in like the center of culture during like the peak of culture. And even more than that, I think I've said this a few times, but there are moments in the book that you really can't get out of your mind that go beyond just like rock and roll excess. Like,

I think I may be getting this wrong, but like Iggy Pop is up there doing his very particular thing, kind of like birthing a new genre of music, kind of inventing punk. In the process, people are pissed off and they throw bottles and he like proceeds to like roll around in the broken glass as like a power move to be like the ultimate fuck you to the audience and sort of like...

and appall people and continue the show while he's all cut up and things like that. And I think the thing about it that is so incredible to me is it was this time when like art was really dangerous. It was this time when you could go to a performance and anything could happen. And I feel like that is the thing that like we're missing in the age of corporate consolidation, that we're missing this element of danger and we're missing this element of like, I

I feel like this is like extremely lofty. So forgive me if this is like really, really pretentious, but like, I feel like

on some level, the question that artists need to ask themselves is like, what am I risking by saying the thing I'm going to say? And in the case of Iggy, it's like great bodily harm and death, right? Right, right. And so I feel like that idea that the artist is supposed to be a risk taker, which is like so hard right now with like gotcha culture and cancel culture and like all these things. I feel like

that is an important thing to remember that somehow there should be this element of danger. And so that book captures that spirit in incredibly vivid ways. All right, so that's Please Kill Me, which is what I say every morning when I wake up, just to myself, just to myself, please.

Please kill me. Well, that is our show. Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt. It is edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is by Nick Moore. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. That's also a place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today so adroitly. You'll find transcripts at johnaugust.com along with the sign up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. I love drinkware. It's my new favorite word. You'll find them at Cotton Bureau. You can find show notes with the links for all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. And thank you to all of our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this every week.

And finally, you can sign up to become a premium subscriber at scriptnotes.net, where you can get all of the back episodes and bonus segments, like the one we're about to record now, on how to make Los Angeles function better. Joshua, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.