We’re living in a time of endless content. If you finish one movie or television show, there’s another right around the corner waiting to occupy more of your waking hours. But it’s also be a terrific time for creatives to get their voices heard and see their visions realized. With television taking the kind of risks that major studios are more reluctant to try, it means some tremendous talent is going to the small screen.
One only has to look at the star power around the table for THR’s drama showrunner roundtable talk. Lisa Joy (“Westworld”), Ava DuVernay (“Queen Sugar”), Noah Hawley (“Legion”), Ryan Murphy (“American Crime Story,“ ”Feud”), Jenji Kohan (“Orange Is The New Black,” “I Love Dick”) and David E. Kelley (“Big Little Lies”) come together to share their insights into making TV, and as always, it’s fascinating.
Murphy is clearly the most prolific of the bunch, however, he attributes his handful of shows and busy schedule from just learning to say yes when opportunity knocks.
“Once you get an opportunity to get a yes, you lean into the yes because you’re used to years and years of no. If you are so lucky to have something that works, that’s a dream come to life — and if you get another dream, your impulse is to move toward it. What I’ve learned to do is to have a group of three or four really strong collaborators who can help me, who also have the same dream,” he explained.
Audiences have passion too, to the point where someone like Kohan, who is brewing show a controversial series with Netflix, had to have terrorism insurance taken out to protect the production.
“….we’re developing a teen Jesus project that got some people nervous. It’s like ‘The Wonder Years‘ but with Jesus, and there are all sorts of things where we cross lines — and there are crazies out there. I remember Shonda [Rhimes] telling a story of people camping out outside her house when she killed McDreamy [on ‘Grey’s Anatomy‘]. People get crazy because they bathe in these characters, and they take it personally,” she shared.
Still, for the array of talent each name provides, these creators are still sometimes pigeonholed by their success.
“I get the first black everything. First black firefighter in Tacoma, Washington. First black ballerina to dance in Kansas City. I mean, it’s getting so specific that it’s like, every first black [thing] doesn’t need a movie,” DuVernay lamented.
Check out the full conversation and let us know your thoughts in the comments.