749 - Famous People with Taffy Brodesser-Akner

19:22I don't even know if it happens on a conscious level, that they can let you know what it is that's been bothering them. They begin to talk and the way they tell their story is sort of designed so that you get this one point out of it, the thing that is bothering them. Everybody in a story has a goal, which is why, you know, I wrote this profile of Gwyneth Paltrow. And people thought, oh my God, she must have hated that. She really liked it. And it was because in that profile, her goal was not for me to not make fun of wellness. Her goal was to be taken seriously as the CEO of a company as opposed to like an actress dilettante who's the face of a business.

20:11And I did do that. I did take her seriously. And that was all she cared about. They can't really see the other stuff, I don't think. And the reaction to the story, I try to use my access to get that thing, which they can't give another way. You can't give it on the couch of a late night show because you're telling like an adorable story.

20:35John August:It has to be enjoyable and digestible. And this is like, we are in it for two hours. The thing you don't know is I'm going to get another two hours. And they always come in and they say something like, I'm not going to talk about my personal life. And I always say the same thing back. I say, let me quote my favorite movie, Indecent Proposal. Nothing will happen that you didn't want to happen. And I just listen. And then people can't help but tell you their story. And you know everything about them. And it's not even manipulative. It's just, you know, there are things on the cutting room floor that didn't apply to the story.

21:15But everyone who's famous enough feels defensive. They've seen talk of themselves on the Internet. They've seen stories that completely misunderstood them. They've seen journalists trying to make a name for themselves by taking shots at them. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Can I tell you the weirdest thing about interviewing famous people that never gets old? The people I interview are so famous. You have so much interaction by the time you interview them. And I wonder if this is true for you when you meet someone very famous for the first time, if there's still any left for you to meet. That you're sitting across from Tom Hanks and he's talking and you forget that you're supposed to respond because you are so used to Tom Hanks being on a screen and him not being an interactive character.

22:06Isn't that crazy? It is wild. I never get over it.

22:08John August:Yeah. I've gotten better at it over time, of course. I mean, I'm a professional. I don't just sit there. But it's also different. Like, so you're going in there, if you're going in there to interview somebody, like there's an agenda there and there's some rules, spoken or unspoken sort of around this situation. A lot of times if I'm meeting a person or if any writer is meeting a famous person, a big director, an actor, you're feeling each other out to see whether this collaboration is going to work. Right. And so you're trying to sort of show your cards to some degree and really hear what they're trying to do next, what they need to know and fill it out.

22:41John August:Most of the reason certain screenwriters get paid good money for weekly work is because we can like stand to be in that room and make people feel comfortable. It's like, hopefully we're good writers because mostly we can just withstand, you know, this kind of pressure, this kind of situation. I do get, it's not even starstruck, but it's star aware. It's recognizing that this person got to this place because of their talent on screen, but also probably talent off screen that gets them there. I was in a meeting with an actor, producer about a project and I watched and marveled as she was able to take this recalcitrant director on this journey to get to all the points that she wanted to cover.

23:22John August:And it was just masterful. And I was just, I was, and I emailed her afterwards, like I've never seen anyone be able to do that. And just in terms of - Was she able to do that? or did the director just know that they needed the star? Like, whatever you want. It is so hard to get anything made and you're allowed to call the shots when you have that kind of power. Well, I think what you're gesturing at is that everyone was sort of putting on a performance. Everyone sort of was aware of what everybody else in that room needed and everyone was doing the thing to sort of perform the ritual for us to do the thing to get to the next step.

23:57John August:And it's fascinating to see when that happens. is generally when it's not clear where the power lies. In the room, generally, I always advise a writer is that in any room, there's going to be one person who's actually the decision maker. And so most of your attention should be focused on that person. Right. But you do also have to spread it around because there's other people who can veto or do other nasty things if you're not giving them enough love and attention. And so it's like this, but celebrity and fame are one aspect of their power. And the smart people know how to use that. They do. Yeah.

24:30John August:they do let's talk about how fame is a distortion field because yeah i think a lot of these people are sometimes you meet with actors or directors and they are perfectly sane but the situation around them is so crazy they're not being told the truth they're being managed constantly right that's a cliche we sort of get to a little too often i think in depictions of celebrity but they have opinions that are not sort of being heard clearly and and a lot of conversations to be had about them rather than to them, with them. And you feel that that is, they feel distorted, that they feel like there is no, I agree with that.

25:08I guess, I think that I've seen it happen that you yes people and that you, but then again, you also, they're complicit in that. They have stopped asking questions. I mean, I think that the weirdest thing that seems to happen from where I'm sitting is that agents, their representatives, stop telling them the truth.

25:31John August:Yeah. Either because they're afraid of being fired or because they're afraid of giving them bad news or they're afraid of saying like, watch out for this person. They're not, there's something strange there that I feel like I have more honesty from my representatives than some people that I've seen interact with theirs. Yeah. And that when you're in a deal with someone who is far more famous than you, meaning a deal is being made for a project, It's harder to have an honest conversation because everyone's being honest. I want to one day maybe be like, I don't chase fame, but maybe one day I could be famous enough for people to stop telling me the truth about what people are saying behind my back, that you're just not like, you know, you're just not that good or whatever it is they're saying.

26:16That would be nice. I wonder sometimes with publicists, whether they are trying to protect their clients from the world

26:24John August:or trying to protect the world from their clients. Publicists to me, especially actor publicists, they have like a general bad reputation, but I couldn't do my job without them, without their honesty, without like the good ones know how to interact with somebody like me. Yeah. And maybe they're playing me too, but sometimes I, something happens or something happens where I say I didn't get enough time and he was weird. And I think you would prefer that we had a second meeting. Yeah. Or maybe give him something else that I wrote so that he could see that I'm not a mom. And the publicist is usually helpful with that.

27:02John August:Why does anyone agree to talk to Isaac Chotner? I mean, Isaac is like, I don't know why anybody agrees to talk to anyone who asks direct questions. Though I think podcasting is like the real threat to that form of, also Isaac is very fair. Like he, Kendall Roy, about to go on ZIWA, right? Yeah. Everybody thinks that they are the hero of the story and that if only everybody understood them. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the, but I think Isaac is a great interviewer and very fair. I think that any of the people I know who ask direct questions are the bravest and most courageous people. And mostly you have to do that if you're doing a Q &A or if you're doing a podcast.

27:53But I do think that podcasts are this existential threat to sort of real celebrity journalism because they are safe places to go. They're longer form. And you're not edited and you are speaking on your terms and the questions are very friendly. And the threat is not you'll choose that instead of this. the threat is that you got as much publicity for it and that the clip went around more than maybe a magazine clip would go around.

28:25John August:Whereas classically, a star would agree to sit down with a big interview with you or with GQ or whatever as publicity for a thing where it makes more sense. They feel like they have a little more control if they're just in a podcast situation. I spent three days on a tour bus through Alabama with Billy Bob Thornton once. I cannot imagine even suggesting that right now. Yeah. It's really, things change. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's try to get some practical advice for writers who are meeting with a famous director, meeting with a famous actor. This is bringing to mind, I was working on Charlie's Angels and Steven Spielberg had read Big Fish and wanted to talk to me about directing Big Fish.

29:07John August:And I was so excited, but I had to like, it's Steven Spielberg. Like I have to sit down across from Steven Spielberg and like take his notes on a thing. And it's, there's some danger things to avoid. I was able to avoid those, but there's being like falsely deferential, which is just like where you're just like bowing at their feet. Right. They don't want that. They don't want that. They don't want that at all. But you also can't pretend that you don't kind of know that they're, that they're Steven Spielberg or they know they're famous because that's, that's a false too. So it's everything is performance, but just trying not to go too far in any direction.

29:39But what if it isn't performance? What if you saying like, listen, one of us is Steven Spielberg. Like I find that actually weirdly, this is not a move, but saying the name of the person, presenting it to their own name to them is your acknowledgement that that is who, right? That like we understand what's going on here. I'm a professional.

30:03John August:Acknowledging realities is probably the crucial first step, which is that I, I guess I honestly, I'm so excited and so thrilled and kind of a little dumbfounded that this is happening. And I'm so excited to be working on this. I'm not going to be incoherent going forward. I can actually listen to what you want to tell me. Are you someone who goes in and says one sentence on what this person meant to you? Generally, no. Although if there's a recent thing they've done that I saw that I really liked, I will absolutely say that. Or a performance I loved in something. Yeah, I don't do that either. And you know what else I don't do?

30:41I don't say big fan.

30:44John August:Yeah. Because it seems like everyone says big fan. And big fan also, I know now from experience that someone through the agency will say, oh, he's a big fan of yours. And then I'll be like, oh, why hasn't he read this short document where the words don't even reach the margins? Like, why hasn't he read that of mine? He's such a fan. I think people just say big fan as in Hollywood. It is the way of saying hello. Shalom. Shalom. Big fan. Yeah. Fame and power are related. Fame and wealth are related, but they're not quite the same things. They're people who are powerful, people who are wealthy, who are decision makers.

31:21John August:You absolutely need to be mindful of it and try to impress. But they're not famous. and you have to understand that somebody's fame does change the picture around things a little bit. Like certain aspects of their life are more difficult. Certain aspects are easier. They can get into any restaurant they want to without a reservation. Right. But they can't just walk down the street easily. Certain things are harder for them. Like, can you give me? I'm trying to give examples. Like they can go see a show in a theater, but it's a bit more of a hassle and they have to wait to the last minute to do a thing.

31:54John August:Right, right. They're often not seeing movies in theaters when they can release. We had David E. Kelly on the show recently, and I think I meant it. I was going to mention to him, and I didn't mention to him, was that I sat next to him and Michelle Pfeiffer for screening of The Madness of King George when I was in the Stark program a zillion years ago in San Diego. And of course, I remember that because she's Michelle Pfeiffer. Right, right, right. It's an asymmetry to things, and recognizing that your experience of daily life is just a little bit different because things get warped by. Lots of fame.

32:26I think the exact right level of fame is that you could get into Odeon on a Saturday night when you thought of it Saturday afternoon. But no one will know you're there once you're there. Because again, from making Fleischman, from retaining those friendships, from going to Joe Allen on a Saturday night, it doesn't look good and it doesn't look fun.

32:47John August:You mentioned Joe Allen. And so for listeners who don't know, Joe Allen is a famous bar and restaurant, I guess. It's a restaurant. Restaurant. 60 years. 60 years in the theater district. And so it's hard to get a reservation, but you go there and famous people are there and famous people are. And people come after the theater and the people who are on stage are there after the theater. So it feels like a commissary for sort of famous New York folks. And people just in from Duluth. And so I've had some like lovely drinks and meals with like famous folks there. But weirdly, like they were friends of friends.

33:19John August:And so if I were to bump into them now, like, I'm not sure I would even mention that we'd sort of hung out because, again, there's that asymmetry. Like, I remember that I had, you know, french fries with that actress, but she probably doesn't remember who I am. And that's also the reality of things. It is the reality of things. It's a little hard to be friends with famous people. Very famous people are protective of their image. I think that a lot of people who, some people who do celebrity profiling, the truth is you're so dazzled by these people that they're overtures for friendship, which are constant and which are there because they are trying to survive this.

33:59They were like, if we have a future friendship, will you be nice to me during this? Like I always say that writing a celebrity profile, there should be like those gun laws where you have to wait three days before you actually write it so you could remember who you actually work for. Because it is so dazzling. Yeah, absolutely. But it's never even.

34:18John August:Well, it's a false intimacy because they're revealing so much about it. And also, of course you want to be friends with me. I showed up wherever you told me to. I knew everything about you. and I just let you talk. I always say that if my friends and family could see me during an interview, they would never speak to me again. If they saw how thoughtful and quiet I could be, they would never speak to me again. But I think that in terms of like real friendships, I believe I have real friendships with the Fleischmann cast. And you have to make sure you're fine with where you're bringing them, that they're not a sitting duck for being interrupted all the time.

34:59It's hard. And it is hard because you'll always remember the thing more than that. And also, I don't know if this happens to you, but based on, you know, texts and emails, because everything is read by everything, my algorithms, my TV thinks Jesse Eisenberg is the only movie star in the whole world. In the whole world. and it's really interesting to me it's interesting to me what it's like for them in the world but I think I'm sort of prepared for it because of this other work that I do.

35:34John August:Jesse Eisenberg came on Script Notes and he was delightful he and I just had a really lovely conversation and so he mailed back and forth as he sent through his files but it was a question of like is he a friend not a friend but like would I invite him to a thing, would I invite him to would I invite him to the big fish reading And so I consider like, should I invite him to the Big Fish reading? And those are the decisions you still, you're still constantly sort of making. You never really play no with a person sort of what to do next. And it's also, that's true for normal friendships as well, but for in the lens of people trying to make things, is this a potential collaborator or just a guy I had a podcast with?

36:15John August:The experience of making a series, making a movie, is that it's incredibly intense for a short period of time and then everyone moves on to the next thing. And so you still have this bright image of what this is. And they've made 10 other things. I think it was the last thing I made. And I remember on the last day of shooting, I can't remember which of them it was. Maybe it was Claire Danes who said to me, I'm not sure you understand what's going to happen next. Which is that this is going to just disappear. It's not going to like slowly go away. It's going to fully disappear. Yeah. And I, you know.

36:52John August:Let's talk about portrayals of famous people in movies and television, because it's surprising to me how wrong we tend to get it. And the shorthand we have, but it's not actually true. It's as unrealistic as the writer pulling the paper out of the typewriter and crumbling and throwing it in the trash can. That doesn't actually happen. Right. I would never. You would never. A sentence I wrote? Never. Precious. I would put it on the side and say, you're for later. I will use you sometime. Stock scenes that we're used to with the celebrities. The lonely star in the hotel room. Right. Are there lonely stars in hotel rooms?

37:23John August:Sure, but I don't think I need to see that scene again. I wonder if they're so happy to be alone for a minute. Yeah. That I don't think I need to see it again. No. I also don't know that it's an accurate, it's an accurate thing. It is absolutely true that like professional athletes, actors are often, they're away from home and they're often in temporary sort of third spaces. That's a true thing. But I just feel like I've seen that scene too many times. I've seen that scene too many times. What I haven't seen enough is the scene where the actor and the actor's assistant, like, I'm so interested in that.

38:00This dynamic where you're together so often that you're friends and you don't really, like, how often is it occurring to the star in the scene? He's playing the star. That one person has to be cheerful and say yes and the other does not. It's a good one.

38:16John August:Another stock scene, the meltdown in the trailer. the throwing of stuff, the complete crisis in the trailer. Has it happened? Oh yeah, it's happened. But I also feel like it's, I don't know, it feels a little familiar to me. It feels familiar and it doesn't feel like it happens that often. I think actors love to be working. And so I don't know where the meltdown comes from. I think the meltdown very often is something else is going on, but not the stock scene is the director coming to the trailer door and trying to get them to come out. Yeah. And while that is true, and while there's generally some person on set, often a producer whose function is the whisperer who can sort of mend those kind of things and does this as a social glue, it's just not that interesting to me.

39:06John August:Right. I think we can sort of do better than that. I get tired also seeing the scene where the famous person goes on the talk show and has the revelation. Because while I think it's true that sometimes people don't know what they're going to say when they start saying it or it comes out, I think it's more likely to happen sitting down and talking to Tavi Burress or Ackner than it is on Jimmy Kimmel or something else. I think it happens not anytime that is cinematically appropriate to capture. Because remember also, and I'm obsessed with this on talk shows, that nobody ever zones out. revelation is a moment of zoning out you would zone out if you had a revelation that's true examples of movies of famous people in them are movies about famous people Notting Hill Julia Roberts is an actress she's not Julia Roberts she's sort of it J.

40:02John August:Kelly, George Clooney and he's in clips of George Clooney his movies it didn't work for me partly because of that It was, I wasn't clear what the rules of the world of his celebrity were. And there were familiar tropes in terms of like the manager who is trying to overprotect him and is infantilizing his client. But it wasn't clear what, like when the people recognize him on the train, didn't connect with me. And it was surprising because George Clooney knows what it's like being George Clooney and yet the movie didn't seem to know what being George Clooney would feel like. It's always one of those tough things when you have, you're just trying to establish how famous a person is within the world or sort of what their career was before they got here.

40:44John August:Like, what does the character think their situation is and what does the rest of the world think their situation is? A movie that I liked more in terms of how it was doing was Marriage Story because Scarlett Johansson's character is like, she's becoming a star over the course of it because she's not really quite there and most of her celebrity isn't driving it. It's really about competing ambitions and two people who are both having career moments and it's ripping them in different ways. But an example of an actor playing an actor that was brilliant was Elle Fanning and Sentimental Value. It was so good.

41:14John August:So good. Because she was exactly that actor who was that actor. Yeah, and so it was cast exactly right, but just you could see the intelligence of that actress in that role who's trying to win over this director and trying to get the performance that he needs, but that she actually, that won't embarrass her, that will actually make sense. and she's recognizing that he's making the wrong choices. Right. The fact that she's famous is important for how it's established, but it's really about the work when she's in Norway sort of shooting her scenes. Right. Yeah. So good. I love this game. Wait, why am I only blanking?

41:52You've prepared.

41:53John August:I've prepared. Why am I blanking on... I mean, I also love the category of famous people playing themselves. Yeah. Though, for some reason, I'm right now thinking of Nicolas Cage, not in where he plays himself, but in adaptation. Oh, yeah. Where it's a sort of own on every screenwriter that he's ever. Well, I mean, Valerie Cherish as a character who's struggling with, she both wants to be seen and wants to be invisible. She wants to be liked desperately. She wants to do work and she does actually value the work, but she also values the fame. And what makes it so uncomfortable to watch just how desperate she is to be seen the way she wants to be seen and the comedies that she cannot be.

42:37And also that like, especially what the last season distills is that she just wants to work. And it asks a subterranean question that I don't know that it gets enough credit for of how do I have to be outside of my work in order to keep getting work? Like, is it hurting me to do an endorsement? Is it hurting me to not be at this protest against AI? Is it hurt? Like, what is, like, I have a lot of compassion for the person who has to also be on when they're at home.

43:12John August:What I think I admire most about the show is that it's completely sympathetic to her. It's recognizing her flaws and it still embraces her despite her neediness, her narcissism. Especially that last season. Yeah, yeah. The first was very brutal on her. But also what I admire about that show, it didn't stop being what it was, but it adjusted for our cultural tastes that we can no longer handle that kind of brutality because we just see it in the world too much. Like we don't want to see cruelty anymore. Yeah, you don't want to see it was punching down. It felt like, you know, while she was down.

43:50John August:Some other takeaways from this conversation. So access is not intimacy. And so you're getting all this information. You're getting this chance to sit across from this person. But don't mistake that for something that it's not. Don't mistake it for something that it's not. And also, do not think that just because they agreed to be there, that you have the right to ask the thing that you know, both of you, like the game of chicken of like, are you going to ask about my recent breakup? Are you going to ask about this time I was arrested? I think the rules of polite, I think the interview goes best when the rules of polite conversation are in place.

44:32That you agree that you're on this field together where you're allowed to ask questions, but not ones that are indecent. I think I started out that way because I was a coward. But I think I ended up there. I'm now much braver. I'm older. I'm not afraid of anybody. I know the rewards of a story that everyone reads and likes. But I think the two things I would say is you have to be decent because it'll get you a better interview. And also, now that everything lives forever online, you have to be okay with publishing something that if you're going to be mean, you will exist forever as mean. whereas you will try to move on with your life.

45:21You might grow and change. You don't want, I don't know, I don't want to look back and say I was brutal.

45:28John August:Yeah. One other thing I would say is be aware of the infrastructure around the famous person. And so their assistant, their publicist, their team, those people are there for a reason. There's sort of a Chesterton's fence thing. Like you might wonder like, oh, I ignore that. There's no purpose for that. There is a purpose for it. What's a Chesterton's? Chesterton's fence is this idea that if you find a fence out in the woods, and it's like, oh, we should take down this fence. Well, that fence was there for some reason. And so you need to actually understand why that fence is there. Now that I've said it, you'll find that it's something useful.

46:00John August:Who's Chesterton? I'm not sure. We can look up on Wikipedia who Chesterton was. But it's a useful framework for like, just assume, here's a great example. Doge goes through and cuts all the funding for the screw worm thing. It's like, well, we don't need that. There are no screw worms. so we should just take it down. Yeah. Well, the reason they're in a scorecard is because we've been spending tens of millions of dollars each year just to stop them. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's basically, never assume you can just take everything away. There's a reason why it's there. So the corollary is the reason they need a publicist, the reason they need the assistant, the agent.

46:33John August:Yeah. Their life is structured in a way for a reason, and they're probably not a captive to it. It's probably allowing them to be who they are. Right. Yeah. Let's try to answer a listener question here. We have a question about approaching somebody who you have an email address for. Meredith, help us out. Andrew writes, there is an indie production company I'm a big fan of. I've seen probably 90 % of what they've produced, and they've had TV shows and movies aired on American TV networks and streaming services. I think they would be great for something I've written. On their website, the head of production's email address is available.

47:11It appears to be one of the only ways to contact them. My understanding is that the head of production would be a major decision maker in what they produce. Does it make sense to approach the head of production? How would you suggest approaching them compared to other decision makers you've talked about in the past?

47:28John August:All right. So Andrew has one way into this place and he sees an email address. Can you email that person? The email address is public. I thought this question was going to be like... So let's discuss this public thing and then also talk about it. Yeah, so I think that you can because people want to be contacted if you put their email, right? I think that everybody is in the business of trying to find good stuff. And it's a mistake young people make to think that the best people to work with aren't always looking. Yeah. So let's do a couple different scenarios here. So let's say Andrew's at a party and he meets an executive there socially and they don't talk work at all.

48:12John August:But now he knows maybe from the invite list he has the email address. Right. Ethical, smart choice. Is it demonstrating agency or is he being an idiot to reach out to him? That I think won't yield a good result. And with every email like that you send, you have to prepare for the spiral of shame that would come with it. I think there's always a way to, Hollywood is like a crazy place. You could always get to people through their representatives. Though, I don't know. I think the bigger you are, the more a representative doesn't dare get something to you that might upset. What's your answer to this?

48:54John August:I get a bit of the ick to reach out to somebody who had a context that was not related to the thing. And yet, I think back to some of the Script Notes guests. We had the women who wrote K-pop Demon Hunters on. And they emailed like 30 people a day for weeks in order to get somebody to read their thing. And it worked. And they understood that it would have like a 5 % hit rate. And they were fine with that. And they didn't feel the shame spiral. And I just aspire to that. I think the shame comes from having the social interaction first. All right. And then leveraging it. I don't have shame in emailing people whose email is addressed.

49:33Yeah. Like, what are you going to do?

49:35John August:Yeah. If you have no connections, if you have no... Well, let's talk about the shame spiral. Because when you were promoting Long Island Compromise, you sent out an email, which I ended up cribbing from, which is saying, like, dear friends, colleagues, and people that I daringly BCC. Yes. talking about the compromise and the tour and the things that were going to be happening I loved it and so prescription as I drafted a version of that sure I thought I received it but that also it felt good and felt right but tell me about your thinking about it I'm not asking anybody to show up for me individually I am letting them know about my book I am doing a sort of hustle that an artist has to do but am I asking them to appear on stage with me to promote one of those?

50:23That is a territory that I am afraid of overstepping. And that also you have been the recipient of these questions, right? How do you feel when you get them?

50:35John August:When it's handled gracefully, like your email was, I'm just delighted for it. And if it's not coming routinely, then I'm great with it. And so there are times where things will come into Drew. He's like, I'm gonna forward this to you, but I don't know if you're gonna like it. then it's like, oh, I would totally do that. Or that's fine. That's five minutes by day. I'm glad to know about this. It's the people who do it constantly that becomes sort of the worry and the fear. And when they're doing it constantly, is it because they have a project? Like, you can only write so many. Like, if I did it constantly to you when I wrote books, that would still be three emails a decade.

51:09Yes. Right?

51:10John August:Indeed. So it's different. If you were pestering about each episode of Pleistron and Trouble as it came out, That would feel like too much. Oh my gosh. But yeah, it's this weird balance. And I think so often we're inclined to under communicate because we're afraid of the shame as people won't post on Instagram or stories for what the thing is. But then in real life, like I see people posting these things over and over again. Like, I don't care. I'm happy for them. I see what they're doing. They're pushing their stuff and there's nothing wrong with that. I just think people in general could afford to be a little less concerned about how they think someone's going to react to what they say.

51:48I'm not worried about people reacting to my posting or anything like that. Like sometimes you just write, the next month is going to be book promotion. Mute me now if you're not interested. It is more that I don't like to say, I have met this person who has a power differential, which is why I'm asking them a favor. And I don't want to know that they received it. And what I placed in their lap is something that made them feel so awkward they couldn't even answer. And then I worry, am I going to see them again? But I am an incredibly awkward, like I am so afraid of social interaction in that way.

52:29That I am so afraid of overstaying a welcome, of inviting myself. That is sort of one of my weird wounds. I don't know why.

52:37John August:For the Writers Guild negotiating committee, I was co-chairing this last time. I had to cold email and sort of reach out to people who I sort of knew and sort of do very specific things. And it was awkward for a time, but also I felt like... It's righteous work. It's righteous work. So I felt like I need to do this thing and this thing has to happen. Was it writers? It was writers, yeah. Yeah, you're like, you're welcome for negotiating your health care for you, right? Like, I don't know, that seems fair to me. it's more like I have a cabaret and it's in the middle of the night on the 35th of November and I know that's a holiday weekend you know like I feel like yeah but if I can imagine the person would actually enjoy the thing or that is the thing they would actually dig I feel better about it like in case of long uncompromised they're going to enjoy the book there are people who are in your orbit they're probably going to like the book also so it feels like if we got But the script notes book - Hear that listener?

53:33John August:Hear that listener. Now in paperback. Now in paperback. And with the script notes book, you know, we could reach out to the folks who were featured in it and stuff like that. It felt natural to do that. But at times, I don't know, that's going to be a bit of an ick. I think what you're hitting on though is the power differential is the thing that makes it feel weird at times. Do you know any influencers, people who are professional influencers? I know a guy who has a big TikTok, Instagram thing who does basically videos that is just that and will do paid promotions for that stuff. Those people have such a good language for commerce.

54:12Their showing up is their gift or their price or their whatever. And it feels like the thing you and I are talking about is so generational. I remember I interviewed Jonathan Franzen once. Yeah. And I was saying, I really like Twitter. And he couldn't really understand. He said, I hope one day you have enough. You don't need that. That's what he was saying. Meaning, implying that it was about promotion. And I said, no, no, I enjoy. I have two children at home. And my social media Twitter at its height was the funnest place to be.

54:55John August:Yeah, it was fun for a while. But then I understood that he was not allowed to participate in it. because he was, by the time the internet came along, he was too powerful for it. Yeah. He was too powerful to hang. Yeah, absolutely. And you feel like that's, in some ways that's Elon Musk. It's like he wanted to be able to hang and no one wanted to hang with him, so he had to buy the whole thing. I know, I know. It's quite a thing. Yeah. It's quite a thing. Do you have a list of like, you would love to interview your white whales? The same way we always want to have like certain writers on the podcast.

55:26John August:Who would you love to? I would have loved to have done. I interviewed her once briefly for a story about Weight Watchers, but I feel like if I die without interviewing Oprah Winfrey, like what? Will it have been for nothing? Honestly, it's a loss for both of you because she needs a happy interview. Let me see. That, Oprah, and who else would I have loved to interview? I, you know, I had been pursuing Doug Emhoff for an interview about his work on anti-Semitism. And then when Kamala was made the candidate, they said yes. And he never gave me the interview. But they said yes. And I traveled with him.

56:15I didn't interact with him. It was the strangest thing that I've ever done. but I don't know if he was what I would call a white whale. Gwyneth Paltrow was my white whale. He was so long that afterward, I was like, I don't know what, I'm in the wilderness now. Like there are no gold, are there any famous people left?

56:36John August:You wept because there were no animals left to conquer. There were no animals left to conquer. But if you have any ideas, Oprah's a pretty, Oprah's a good one. It's a good one. All right. It's time for our One Cool Things. So I warned you in advance, my One Cool Thing is embarrassing for New Yorkers. But my one cool thing is Central Park. There's so many things I love about New York City. I think I still love Central Park the most, which is crazy, but it's just amazing. And like whatever season you go, you just wander through it and it's giant. It just keeps going on forever. There's the sequence you can learn about how every lamppost actually shows like what cross street you're at and stuff like that.

57:12John August:But it's just this remarkable free thing in the middle of the city. And I know people will come to New York City and like go to Times Square and all these gross places, go to Central Park. So a couple of different things I'd recommend. One day, walk the perimeter of Central Park and you just realize like, oh my God, this just goes on forever. And just like how much the neighborhoods change street by street is great. It's not a killer walk. Run in Central Park if you're at all inclined to run. And if someone's chasing it. And if someone's chasing it, for sure. Go visit the little small things that no one sees.

57:45John August:Just wander in any direction. It's great. And because you have a map on your phone, you won't get lost. any excuse we have to sort of take a route that goes through Central Park versus going on streets, we will absolutely do. I think it's great. Other cities, of course, have amazing parks. Paris has great parks. LA has much, Griffith Park is much bigger, but it's not usable in the same way that Central Park is. It's not right there. You generally have to get in your car and go to Griffith Park to do a thing. And it's not a thing you traverse through to get to somewhere else. No. Or Central Park.

58:14I want to push back on your strange shame about loving Central Park. And I want to say that actually, you know, I've lived here most of my life. As time goes on, I cannot believe someone hasn't built. It's amazing anew that nobody has built on Central Park. Central Park is just for everybody. The way everyone is dressed is everything. Just everything about it is perfect. And you could get lost Like in the Rambly, you're like in a fairy tale. There is a castle there. There is a Shakespeare. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to see Romeo and Juliet in Central Park, which is something that in L.A. you don't have because people don't become feral when the weather is nice the way they appreciate it here.

59:05John August:But even in the middle of winter, there are times when we're doing Big Fish and I would have Sundays off and I would just like get a muffin and wander through Central Park, listening to a podcast or listening to some music, it's just great. And it's just right there. And so I'm saying like, it may just be obvious to New Yorkers that like, well, of course there's Central Park. But I can't imagine if I ever were to live in New York City, I'd want to live closer to the park if I could just wander there easily because it's just great. I mean, a lot of us choose to live. I mean, whereas so many people move to Brooklyn.

59:38Yeah, exactly. Like a lot of us still, there's nothing. I like Prospect Park, but I'm, I mean, I'm from Brooklyn,

59:44John August:I like Coastal Park too, but Central Park is huge. It is not magnificent. It's great and Central Park is magnificent and where it's situated and the fact that it remains. And don't forget the reservoir underground in Marathon Man. Don't forget the tunnels in the movie whose name I'm forgetting about the kidnapping in the 70s. Like Central Park is a story that I love. This is great. This is great. Mine is New York related too. Please. If we were to pretend that there wasn't a Knicks parade going on right now. There's a Knicks parade happening, yeah. The New York Knicks. Yeah. First of all, I will caveat this by saying it is really interesting that New York, which calls itself the greatest city in the world.

1:00:29Also, everyone is an underdog all the time. But the New York Knicks really were our underdog. Yeah. And to watch as this team came together a few years ago and to watch them have this goal and to watch how much it meant to the city, to watch how much the city needed this huge win that would become sort of symbolic of things are miserable, but there is joy. On my 21st birthday, I was at NYU and the Yankees won the World Series for the first time in a bunch of years. And I went out into the street because I was going to my 21st birthday party and it was like being in a Broadway musical. People would pick you up and dance you around and sing to you and it was amazing.

1:01:21And that's what it was like this past Saturday night. I can't believe how lucky I was. I can't believe how in love with these men I am. I can't believe how much I know about them. And I cannot believe how much I think about what their interactions, like, do they hang out? Do they, PlayStation, do they, like, what are they doing? What are they thinking right now? And the sort of media tour that happened afterward, the ski goggles for the champagne, like, the father, it had everything. Yeah. That's my one cool thing. It's everyone's cool thing this week.

1:01:58John August:I love these moments of joy. I speak for everyone. Absolutely. Yeah. And it feels like it's something we could grasp. Like, what if we could change the national mood with these things that we didn't see coming? Like, we think it's going to come from infrastructure. We think it's going to come from government. But what if mood isn't a thing that can be litigated by that sort of action, but by this? Yeah. Anyway. That is our show for this week. Script Notes is produced by Meredith Stedman and edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our intern is Lauren Loesberg. Outro this week is by Timothy Lenko. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at journalnotes.com.

1:02:38John August:That's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts at journalnotes.com along with sign up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books. You can find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at Screaminants Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware you'll find as a cotton bureau. You'll find the show notes with links to things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber.

1:03:05John August:Thank you to all our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. We have a new gear. We have two premium subscribers right here as they speak. You can sign up to become one at Screaminants.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on Tilly Norwood and other AI actors and such. Taffy, where should people look for you? Obviously, the New York Times, any place else they should look for you. I am not. I no longer can figure out how to interact with social media. But if you need me, my New York Times email is on that website.

1:03:38John August:Wow, okay. Yeah. So they can sort of reach out to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you actually read those emails or does? I read every single, because in case you got something wrong. Yeah. Like you have an obligation to make sure if there's a correction, inane or otherwise. You have to make sure your editor's done. Tabby, I think you got everything right. Thank you. Can you tattoo it across my chest, please? Tabby, program's rock. Thank you again for coming on Script Nance. It's so great to be here.

1:04:25Thank you.