Whether it’s waiting on a renewal for another season or tackling how to extend a character’s storyline, TV drama creators are almost always dealing with perpetual stress. Katori Hall, the creator, executive producer and showrunner of “P-Valley,” decided to unwind between seasons this year by getting her pilot’s license.
“Only a showrunner would relax by getting their pilot’s license,” Elizabeth Meriwether, the executive producer and creator of “Furious,” quipped at Variety’s annual Night in the Writers’ Room: Awards Season Edition.
While this achievement was unique to Hall, the other six panelists all rejoiced over the feeling of having that one actor that they wrote a role for and took forever to sign on. For Meriwether and Hall, this is a result of their backgrounds in theater, where they instantly “fall in love with actors.”
“Am I an actor whore?” Hall joked. “I guess I am. Just beautiful performers that you want to be a part of your tribe, and you want to grow with them and give them an opportunity to grow and give them really amazing work.”
The actress in question, for both Hall and “The Drop: A Snowfall Saga” creator, executive producer and writer Malcolm Spellman, was Gail Bean.
“She is so good at embodying that same spirit that she sort of just saved the country,” Spellman said. “She really brings that indomitableness to it.”
For Meriwether, it was Steve Way. “Steve was on a panel [about caretaking in television] and his whole bit was that he didn’t have work and he couldn’t pay for his wheelchair, and I was in the writers’ room for ‘Furious,’ like, ‘I can give him work,’” Meriwether said. Once she gave him the job, he slowly unveiled hidden details about his life in his wheelchair, and she was able to incorporate his experiences into the role of Alden.
Brad Caleb Kane, the creator, writer, showrunner and executive producer of “Crystal Lake,” knew he needed Linda Cardellini among his cast. “They sent me lists of people, and I said, ‘The only one I want for this is Linda Cardellini because as we write these scripts, I see her. I want her and I want to write to her strengths going forward,’” Kane said. Luckily for him, Cardellini agreed after a lengthy five-and a-half hour discussion about the character.
With “Lanterns,” creator, writer and executive producer Chris Mundy bends both his characters and his writers’ room according to those around him to maximize the number of perspectives told in his story. “We’d be doing a really bad job if we weren’t taking the things they’re bringing and incorporating them and growing,” Mundy said.
These creators wouldn’t have the authority to command talent without having worked their way up to the showrunner position. While they are willing to compromise and hear the ideas of their fellow staffers, they have final say.
“It’s a very sobering experience when you realize you’re number one,” said Ben Watkins, creator, writer, director and executive producer of “The Greatest.” “The amount of pressure that you feel from deadlines or budgets or just being in that seat and having everybody saying, ‘Where are we going?’ There is some pressure, and it will change you and I think it’s really important to acknowledge that.”
Kane echoed Watkins’ sentiment but acknowledged the importance of collaboration.
“Good leadership is obviously you’re the captain of the ship, and people are looking at you to steer the story to its ultimate destination, but if you’re smart enough to hire people who have really good ideas and they almost inevitably are going to have some ideas that are better than yours, that’s what makes it a collective and a room. Part of the skill set is learning to put your ego aside and and and be able to hear better ideas that serve the story,” Kane said.
This collaborative spirit was not the circumstance for Hall when she was finding her footing as a staff writer. Similar to Kane, she knew when she became the leader, her writers’ room would be different.
“As I moved up and grew into my showrunnern-ess, I always felt that everyone’s voice was equal. I wanted the staff writer on my show to feel as if they could speak, not as much as me, but maybe as much as the co-EP,” Hall said.
Meriwether uniquely did not start as a staff writer but jumped right into the seat of showrunner at 29-years-old. She found her voice — figuratively — working long hours through the grind that is network television.
“I lost my voice, and they and I went to the doctor and the doctor was like, ‘Have you been drinking a lot of coffee and or trying to sound authoritative?’ I was like, ‘Yes, both of those’ and then I twinkled that experience into ‘The Dropout,’” Meriwether said.
Coincidentally, Watkins and Spellman got their early starts in Hollywood alongside each other and found themselves reunited at the panel, celebrating their growth in the industry 40 years later.
“Our journey is so intertwined,” Spellman said. “We’ve handed our pilots back and forth to each other, our wives are tight, the struggle was so real for us for so fucking long, so it means a lot.”
