Creative Principles

“I want to pursue the industry. I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t have connections. But I knew I was interested in development,” thought Ashley Jay Sandberg while pursuing journalism. “I tell people to follow what you’re curious about because you don’t know where that’s going to lead.”

Ashley’s latest film is Twisters, a re-imaginging of the original film, where a retired tornado chaser and meteorologist (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team (Glen Powell) and new technologies. Twisters was also written by Mark L. Smith who was on the show back in Episode 512.

In this interview, Ashley talks about working with Frank Marshall (Gremlins, The Goonies), the difference in docs versus fiction work from a studio perspective, making a movie based on “science theory,” pitching to Steven Spielberg, and unproduced scripts she still thinks about.

As a special note, this was part of our new LIVE interview series in partnership with Buzztown, a community for serious screenwriters, where students also participated in this interview. You can learn more or join the waitlist here:

https://forms.gle/RNaoVrdU9afWpykWA

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

From a young age, Jack Carr had two dreams: serving his country in uniform as a Navy SEAL and becoming an author. Following twenty years in the SEAL Teams, Jack shifted his sights to publishing and fulfilled his literary objective with the release of his debut novel, The Terminal List.

Since then, he has captivated readers worldwide with the gripping tales of James Reece in his New York Times bestselling novels True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand, In the Blood, and Only the Dead.

The Terminal List was adapted into a thrilling #1 Amazon Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt and has been greenlit for a second season based on Jack’s second novel True Believer.

The latest book in the series, Red Sky Mourning, follows Navy SEAL sniper James Reece while he's on a race to dismantle a conspiracy that has forced America to her knees.

In this interview, we talk about what led him to become an author, how he uses social media to connect with readers and add value to their lives, why he sends out special edition bookcases, his experience in Hollywood, and much more.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Johnathon Schaech is an actor, writer, and producer, celebrated for his dynamic presence on both big and small screens. His breakout role came in 1996 when he starred as Jimmy Mattingly in Tom Hanks' directorial debut, "That Thing You Do!".

He has appeared in numerous TV series, some of his credits include 'Ray Donovan' and 'Legends of Tomorrow,' where he portrayed Jonah Hex, a fan-favorite character from DC Comics.

In his new show, Blue Ridge: The Series, he plays the sheriff, ex-Green Beret Justin Wise who fights to protect the town of Blue Ridge from criminals.

In this interview, we talk about why he pursued acting, his dyslexia, how he memorizes his lines, his new show Blue Ridge, how he got involved in Road House 2, plus some advice for young actors.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Award-winning Mad Men writer Victor Levin recently debuted his latest TV series 'Alice & Jack' on PBS. The unconventional six-episode romantic drama stars Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie, Birdman) and Domnhall Gleeson (The Revenant, Black Mirror).

The series explores how love plays out between two very different people over the course of 15 years, and the story inspires questions of whether the bonds between us are stronger than the forces that would tear us apart.

Levin made his name as a showrunner and writer on the iconic comedy 'Mad About You,' writing many of the series' most memorable episodes. Some of his other TV credits include 'The Larry Sanders Show' and 'Dream On.'

In this interview, we talk about writing for TV and matching other writers' voices, how he prepares himself to write for a show, leaving your comfort zone, his show 'Alice & Jack' and why he chose to write every episode himself; his thoughts on pitching shows and much more.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“The idea really came from my own life because I am a person who had a lot of very close male friends in college and remained close to a lot of them,” says Francesca Delbanco, “but a moment happened when people started getting married and coupling up and having children, when I noticed I was getting becoming closer friends with my friend’s wives and Nick was becoming close to my friends and the world was calcifying into men being together and women being together.”

Francesca noticed this in all of her worlds, such as the gym, the children’s school, or even dinner parties. “Men would be talking to men and women would be talking to women. I started wondering why it had to be that way. When I looked around me, it wasn’t just me. It was happening everywhere. If you did a survey in any given room, that’s how it was broken up.”

This all led to the idea for the series Platonic. Rose Byrne stars as Sylvia, a stay-at-home mom of three who is married to Charlie (Luke Macfarlane), a lawyer. She reconnects with her old friend Will, played by Seth Rogen, who is recently divorced and works at a brewery that he also partially owns. They haven’t been close since college.

“Why is it hard to maintain platonic friendships of the opposite gender as life goes along?” asks Francesca. “Is that inevitable or is it something in society or something each person determines for themselves and is there any fighting against it?” Nicholas adds, “And, there’s something special about a male-female platonic friendship, so what do you lose when you don’t have that?”

Listen to my first interview with Nicholas Stoller for Bros back in Episode 367. We also mentioned my conversation with Dan Levy in Episode 506.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“Initially, I never thought film was an option. I grew up in Wisconsin,” says Michael Sarnoski, “and I didn’t have a lot of artistic, creative people around me or outlets to share in. I think storytelling, doodling, writing, and drawing comics — that was my hobby, my secret. It was very gradual.”

Overtime, Sarnoski met other kindred spirits who shared his same passions. “I was never like, I’m going to go write and direct feature films. That seemed very far away from a possibility. Instead, it “snowballed” over a long timeline.

Rather than go to Film School, the writer-director made a series of shorts, such as Love of the Dead, Mirrors, Fight Night Legacy (later a series), and That. “A lot of it was just building confidence,” he says. His debut film, however, really put Sarnoski on the map as a creative voice.

Nicolas Cage stars in Pig. The plot reads, “A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregon wilderness must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped.”

“I was writing a feature with the hope of directing it,” he says of Pig. “Originally, I wrote it as something that could be done with really little money. If no one would pay for it, I was going to find a way to do it run and gun.”

The basic idea was “an old man in the woods with his truffle pig.” Sarnoski says, “But I was like, ‘I shouldn’t write a movie about that — that would be silly.’ But it didn’t leave my head and this happens with me. I need to write it just to get it out of my system even if it’s going to be silly or [I assume] no one is going to buy it or whatever.”

The script poured out of him. “It magically happened. In writing it, I thought ‘Who would get the chance to make a movie like this?’ I think the specificity of Pig was what helped people come behind it and make it. It also allowed me to Direct it.” Producers basically told him, “You know what it’s about so maybe you should direct it.”

“It’s always a messy process for your first film and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to work but it worked and just enough people got behind it that we were able to make it.” Producer Vanessa Block also helped with the script and to push it into production.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I wasn’t looking to be in a business,” jokes Danai Gurira. “I really felt like I wanted to tell stories about things I haven’t seen.” The Zimbabwean-American saw a way to use the craft of writing to inspire others, even though she initially thought she was going to be an academic. 

“The focus is always around African women,” she says. “I was born in the midwest but we moved back shortly after Zimbabwe gained independence. I guess I came to a place of outrage.” She received education from American and British influences. “The African was very rarely heard or seen, or put in an obscure light. It was a one-dimensional, damaging image.”

“I wanted to tell stories that countered that. I’ve said this a billion times, but it’s a burden on my heart and also an outrage that leads me to want to explore a story and give it a dimension, as best as I can.” In one such story, a play called Eclipsed, Gurira writes about five Liberian women and their tale of survival near the end of the Second Liberian Civil War. It was nominated for a Tony Award and was the first play with an all-black and female creative cast and team to premiere on Broadway. 

“Then there are times when I’m just fascinated by something and have to pursue the story. But the burden is that I feel these stories need to be heard and I don’t understand why they’re not.”  As she was working to shatter these ideas about Africans, other creatives were pursuing the same idea. “Black Panther was a real gift in the way that it was doing what I wanted to do all along and trying to do myself as a playwright.”

As an actress, Gurira is best known for playing Michonne on The Walking Dead and Okoye in the Black Panther franchise. “They were bringing forth characters that we had never seen before.” This meant hiring a cultural advisor for Black Panther and working to be as authentic as possible. “The stakes were very high for us to hold nothing back. Thankfully, there was an open forum for that.”

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I was a theater kid, so I started out writing plays,” says David Zabel. “But I started to think, what does a movie script look like or what does a play look like? Once I had access to those things to see how they worked, I started writing screenplays and had ideas for TV pilots. That pilot opened a few doors of me.”

An agent helped him get his first job on the series JAG, which later led to Star Trek: Voyager, Dark Angel, and ER. “It came out of my love for drama and dramatic theory. All of this came for his love to tell stories to live audiences.

“That relationship between being a writer, how it’s performed, and how it’s perceived — where it worked, where it didn’t work — I consider that as one of my stronger points as a writer, which is writing for actors.”

Working with so many live performances, he started to see where actors needed less lines to portray the same emotions on stage and later in film and television. “If they understand what you’re trying to convey, it’s better to do it with the greatest economy of language that you can apply.” The same was true in the editing bay. “It’s humbling,” he jokes.

This economy of language certainly relates to the latest series created by Zabel, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon. The spinoff series stars Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon, where he was arguably the most stoic character on the series.

“It was an interesting challenge,” he jokes about the stoic character who is also now in a land where he doesn’t speak the language. “I felt like that was a classic American character. This laconic hero, the man without a name that you see a lot in Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, or Gary Cooper and people like that.”

“I was excited for that kind of storytelling that wasn’t so expository. Norman, as an actor, relishes the idea of living in a world without speechifying. That’s how he wants to play drama. The challenge is to put people around him who have stories that are compelling, that draw him into their story. He’s not looking to get into other people’s lives and he’s not talking, so people have to be irresistible to him, for him to resonate with them. He’s the reluctant hero but he’s got a heart that makes him hard to walk away.”

As for actors who have been playing characters over a long period of time (about 13 years for Norman Reedus), Zabel says, “You have to lean into the knowledge that they have. It was also true on ER and other shows I’ve done. We learn each other’s rhythms and it becomes symbiotic. That’s one of the joys of television, to dance that dance together.”

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

You know her best as Maggie Greene (later Maggie Rhee) on The Walking Dead, but additional credits include Chuck, The Vampire Diaries, Archer, The Boy, The Mindy Project, Mile 22, and Whiskey Cavalier.

She described the acting bug as follows: “I have this muscle memory of being on stage and losing all sense of space and time. It was like swimming. Once you taste it, it’s so intoxicating to disappear and be present at the same time.”

The original The Walking Dead ended in 2022 and branched out into three different shows and actually the next three episodes we’ll be chatting with different creatives from each, so stay tuned for interviews with David Zabel, creator of Daryl Dixon spinoff, and Danai Gurira (Michonne), co-creator and star of The Ones Who Live, the Rick and Michonne spinoff.

In The Walking Dead - Dead City, we follow Maggie and Negan into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. “The city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world.”

In this interview, she talks about performances feeling “found and private” simultaneously, finding just enough success to keep you going, and how she’s kept high energy in the horror genre for over a decade in the Dead universe.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Rhea Seehorn studied visual arts in college, but when she was asked to take an extracurricular, she took a technique and craft class on acting. “I was completely hooked,” she told me.

You know her best as Kim Wexler on AMC’s Better Call Saul, but maybe you’ve also seen her in Trust Me, Whitney, House of Lies, Franklin & Bash, Veep and Bad Boys - Ride or Die.

In her latest project, Cooper’s Bar, she’s listed as a Co-Creator, Performer, Screenwriter, and Director. The plot follows her character, “Kris Latimer, the biggest jerk in Hollywood, who stumbles into Cooper Marino’s backyard Tiki bar oasis, where Cooper and his down-on-their-luck pals pull themselves together for one last shot at their big break.”

In this interview, she talks about approaching line memorization as a visual learner, writing essays versus writing screenplays, advice from Peter Gould on character (“kicking the tires”), and reveals she’s working with Breaking Bad Creator Vince Gilligan on a new series for Apple.

Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we’re giving away 100,000 copies this year. It’s based on hundreds of interviews here at Creative Principles.

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!